久久亚洲国产成人影院-久久亚洲国产的中文-久久亚洲国产高清-久久亚洲国产精品-亚洲图片偷拍自拍-亚洲图色视频

 
 
 

A genuine one-off

中國日報網 2015-05-19 11:34

 

A genuine one-off

Reader question:

Plain explain “one-off” in this example: Stephen Gerrard is “a genuine one-off”.


My comments:

In other words, Stephen Gerrard, the captain of Liverpool Football Club, is special and unique.

And now that he’s leaving the club for America to, among other things, ease up a bit in the remaining years of a long and remarkable career, soccer fans worldwide – let alone Liverpudians and the Kop faithful – all recognize this: There is only one Stephen Gerrard.

In other words, Stephen Gerrard will never be replaced.

There will never be another Stephen Gerrard.

That’s how special and unique he is. That’s why, I agree, he truly is a “one-off”.

If he were a concept car, then he would be the only model left, for now and for ever. Why? Because they built just one model and throw all the designs away.

One-off, you see, originates from the British foundry industry. A foundry is factory that produces metal castings. Casting means casting metals into different shapes. That’s a process involving first, melting metal into a liquid, then pouring the metal in a mold and, later, removing the mold or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools.

Using the same mold, you can produce any number of widgets of the exact same shape and size by going through the same process.

So if twenty widgets came off the production line, British workers in the 1950s, according to plausible theories online, would call that batch a twenty-off. If 2,000,000 of them came off the line, that batch would be 2,000,000-off.

Consequently, if only one model came off the line, it would be one, off.

Hence the idea of one-off – One model and the whole thing is called off, so to speak.

Back to Stephen Gearrard, who is truly one of a kind, a class act both on and off the field.

His achievements themselves are unique, having played for Liverpool for 17 years. He’s the only Liverpool player to have scored in the finals of the Champions League, Uefa Cut, FA cup and League Cup.

On a painful note, he never won a league title.

I’ve watched over the years many Liverpool greats play, from Kenny Dalglish, Ian Rush, Peter Beardsley, Michael Owen, Robbie Fowler all the way to Luis Suarez. They were all wonderful, but if you ask me who represents Liverpool best, I’d say Stephen Gerrard, who’s always been there, with Liverpool, through thick and thin.

Yes, it seems Gerrard has always been there with its fans, through thick and thin – latterly very thin.

Next year, without Gerrard, Liverpool will be very different.

For fans, among whom is the mom who is seen weeping on camera like a shameless little child upon hearing the news of her idol leaving, LFC will be different without their longest serving captain patrolling midfield and firing long passes forward.

Watching Liverpool will feel different.

But one thing will stay the same. Fans will love Gerrard, in America or anywhere, as before. And they will sing in chorus for him, just as before:

You will never walk alone….

Sentimentalism aside, let’s read a few media examples of the British idiom one-off:

1. FAMOUS actor Richard Briers and his family put on a one-off show in Pill to raise money for a cancer charity.

The TV veteran, who found fame in shows including The Good Life and Ever Decreasing Circles, performed readings and poetry and talked of his showbiz memories at Penny Brohn Cancer Care, Chapel Pill Lane.

His wife Ann Davies and daughter Lucy Briers performed alongside him around the theme of ‘Love and Friendship’.

It is only the second time the family have performed together and the special show drew 80 fans to the charity event and raised more than £2,000 for the cause.

- TV star gives a one-off performance in Pill, TheWestOnMercury.co.uk, April 17, 2008.

2. On Sunday morning, Janet Napolitano twice suggested that the attempted attack in Times Square was a “one-off” event during an interview with ABC News. ABC’s Jake Tapper had asked Napolitano directly about the possibility of international involvement, given the similarities (superficial, at least) between the crude bomb discovered in the Nissan Pathfinder in New York City and those used in attempted bombings in London and Glasgow in 2007. “Well, right now, we have no evidence that it is anything other than a one-off, but we are alerting state, local officials around the country, letting them know what is going on.”

Calling the attempted attack a “one-off” wasn’t directly responsive to Tapper’s question. But it’s clear that Napolitano, who also described the bomb as “amateurish,” wanted to downplay the seriousness of the attack.

She wasn’t alone. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speculated that the attacker could be a mentally deranged person upset with the Obama administration’s health care policy. New York Senator Chuck Schumer said the “odds are quite high this was a lone wolf.”

- Not A “One-Off” Event, WeeklyStandard.com, May 4, 2010.

3. Most people are in the pursuit of happiness. There are economists who think happiness is the best indicator of the health of a society. We know that money can make you happier, though after your basic needs are met, it doesn’t make you that much happier. But one of the biggest questions is how to allocate our money, which is (for most of us) a limited resource.

There’s a very logical assumption that most people make when spending their money: that because a physical object will last longer, it will make us happier for a longer time than a one-off experience like a concert or vacation. According to recent research, it turns out that assumption is completely wrong.

“One of the enemies of happiness is adaptation,” says Dr. Thomas Gilovich, a psychology professor at Cornell University who has been studying the question of money and happiness for over two decades. “We buy things to make us happy, and we succeed. But only for a while. New things are exciting to us at first, but then we adapt to them.”

- The Science Of Why You Should Spend Your Money On Experiences, Not Things, PsychologicalScience.org, April 2, 2015.

本文僅代表作者本人觀點,與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題,尊重他人,禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。


我要看更多專欄文章


About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.


(作者張欣 中國日報網英語點津 編輯:王偉)

上一篇 : Cattle call?
下一篇 : Not even close!

 
中國日報網英語點津版權說明:凡注明來源為“中國日報網英語點津:XXX(署名)”的原創作品,除與中國日報網簽署英語點津內容授權協議的網站外,其他任何網站或單位未經允許不得非法盜鏈、轉載和使用,違者必究。如需使用,請與010-84883561聯系;凡本網注明“來源:XXX(非英語點津)”的作品,均轉載自其它媒體,目的在于傳播更多信息,其他媒體如需轉載,請與稿件來源方聯系,如產生任何問題與本網無關;本網所發布的歌曲、電影片段,版權歸原作者所有,僅供學習與研究,如果侵權,請提供版權證明,以便盡快刪除。

中國日報網雙語新聞

掃描左側二維碼

添加Chinadaily_Mobile
你想看的我們這兒都有!

中國日報雙語手機報

點擊左側圖標查看訂閱方式

中國首份雙語手機報
學英語看資訊一個都不能少!

關注和訂閱

本文相關閱讀
人氣排行
熱搜詞
 
 
精華欄目
 

閱讀

詞匯

視聽

翻譯

口語

合作

 

關于我們 | 聯系方式 | 招聘信息

Copyright by chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved. None of this material may be used for any commercial or public use. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. 版權聲明:本網站所刊登的中國日報網英語點津內容,版權屬中國日報網所有,未經協議授權,禁止下載使用。 歡迎愿意與本網站合作的單位或個人與我們聯系。

電話:8610-84883645

傳真:8610-84883500

Email: languagetips@chinadaily.com.cn

主站蜘蛛池模板: 性欧美另类老妇高清 | 久草一级片 | 成人中文字幕在线高清 | 亚洲女精品一区二区三区 | 精品久久久久国产 | 国产精品玖玖 | 成人精品一区二区www | 欧美 日韩 国产 在线 | 国产精品99| 性欧美巨大 | 欧美成人xxxx | 国产亚洲精品一品区99热 | 国产成人精品免费午夜 | 长腿美女被啪的欲仙欲死视频 | 一级特黄一欧美俄罗斯毛片 | 男女午夜爽爽 | 久久91亚洲精品中文字幕 | 欧美成人吃奶高清视频 | 久久999精品 | 国产在线一区在线视频 | 夜夜春夜夜夜夜猛噜噜噜噜噜 | 香港日本韩国三级网站 | 久久久久国产午夜 | 韩国精品视频在线观看 | 国产欧美亚洲精品a | 在线欧洲成人免费视频 | 国产三级日本三级在线播放 | 国产精品亚洲综合天堂夜夜 | 免费看操片 | 性色aⅴ在线观看swag | 99久久综合精品免费 | 亚洲欧美日韩一区 | 亚洲精品午夜久久久伊人 | 国产午夜在线观看视频播放 | 久久亚洲精品一区成人 | 亚洲综合色dddd26 | 日韩精品中文字幕在线观看 | 一区二区三区日韩 | 日本一级在线播放线观看免 | 国产一区亚洲二区 | 全免费毛片在线播放 |