(完整版)Unit10TheJeaningofAmerica課文翻譯綜合教程二

1、Unit 10 The Jeaning of AmericaThis is the story of a sturdy American symbol which has now spread throughout most of the world. The symbol is not the dollar. It is not even Coca-Cola. It is a simple pair of pants called blue jeans, and what the pants symbolize is what Alexis de Tocqueville called &qu

2、ot;a manly and legitimate passion for equality-" Blue jeans are favored equally by bureaucrats and cowboys; bankers and deadbeats; fashion designers and beer drinkers. They draw no distinctions and recognize no classes; they are merely American. Yet they are sought after almost everywhere in th

3、e world - including Russia, where authorities recently broke up a teen-aged gang that was selling them on the black market for two hundred dollars a pair. They have been around for a long time, and it seems likely that they will outlive even the necktie.This ubiquitous American symbol was the invent

4、ion of a Bavarian-born Jew. His name was Levi Strauss. He was born in Bad Ocheim, Germany, in 1829, and during the European political turmoil of 1848 decided to take his chances in New York, to which his two brothers already had emigrated. Upon arrival, Levi soon found that his two brothers had exag

5、gerated their tales of an easy life in the land of the main chance. They were landowners, they had told him; instead, he found them pushing needles, thread, pots, pans, ribbons, yam, scissors and buttons to housewives. For two years he was a lowly peddler, hauling some 180 pounds of sundries door-to

6、-door to eke out a marginal living. When a married sister in San Francisco offered to pay his way West in 1850, he jumped at the opportunity, taking with him bolts of canvas he hoped to sell for tenting.It was the wrong kind of canvas for that purpose, but while talking with a miner down from the mo

7、ther lode, he learned that pants - sturdy pants that would stand up to the rigors of the digging - were almost impossible to find. Opportunity beckoned.On the spot, Strauss measured the man's girth and inseam with a piece of string and, for six dollars in gold dust, had the canvas tailored into

8、a pair of stiff but rugged pants. The miner was delighted with the result, word got around about "those pants of Levi's," and Strauss was in business. The company has been in business ever since.When Strauss ran out of canvas, he wrote his two brothers to send more. He received instead

9、 a tough, brown cotton cloth made in Nimes, France - called serge de Nimes and swiftly shortened to "denim" (the word "jeans" derives from Genes, the French word for Genoa, where a similar cloth was produced). Almost from the first, Strauss had his cloth dyed the distinctive indi

10、go that gave blue jeans their name, but it was not until the 1870s that he added the copper rivets which have long since become a company trademark. The rivets were the idea of a Virginia City, Nevada, tailor, Jacob W. Davis, who added them to pacify a mean-tempered miner called Alkali Ike. Alkali,

11、the story goes, complained that the pockets of his jeans always tore when he stuffed them with ore samples and demanded that Davis do something about it. As a kind of joke, Davis took the pants to a blacksmith and had the pockets riveted; once again, the idea worked so well that word got around; in

12、1873 Strauss appropriated and patented the gimmick - and hired Davis as a regional manager.By this time, Strauss had taken both his brothers and two brothers-in-law into the company and was ready for his third San Francisco store. Over the ensuing years the company prospered locally, and by the time

13、 of his death in 1902, Strauss had become a man of prominence in California. For three decades thereafter the business remained profitable though small, with sales largely confined to the working people of the Westcowboys, lumberjacks, railroad workers, and the like. Levi ' jseans were first int

14、roduced to the East, apparently, during the dude-ranch craze of the 1930s, when vacationing Easterners returned and spread the word about the wonderful pants with rivets. Another boost came in World War II, when blue jeans were declared an essential commodity and were sold only to people engaged in

15、defense work. From a company with fifteen salespeople, two plants, and almost no business east of the Mississippi in 1946, the organization grew in thirty years to include a sales force of more than twenty-two thousand, with fifty plants and offices in thirty five countries. Each year, more than 250

16、,000,000 items of Levi's clothing are sold - including more than 83,000,000 pairs of riveted blue jeans. They have become, through marketing, word of mouth, and demonstrable reliability, the common pants of America. They can be purchased pre-wash-ed, pre-faded, and pre-shrunk for the suitably pr

17、oletarian look. They adapt themselves to any sort of idiosyncratic use; women slit them at the inseams and convert them into long skirts, men chop them off above the knees and turn them into something to be worn while challenging the surf. Decorations and ornamentations abound.The pants have become

18、a tradition, and along the way have acquired a history of their own - so much so that the company has opened a museum in San Francisco. There was, for example, the turn-of-the-century trainman who replaced a faulty coupling with a pair of jeans; the Wyoming man who used his jeans as a towrope to hau

19、l his car out of a ditch; the Californian who found several pairs in an abandoned mine, wore them, then discovered they were sixty-three years old and still as good as new and turned them over to the Smithsonian as a tribute to their toughness. And then there is the particularly terrifying story of

20、the careless construction worker who dangled fifty-two stories above the street until rescued, his sole support the Levi' s belt loop through which his rope washooked.美國的牛仔褲之路本文講述了美國一個堅實的象征物， 如今已經(jīng)遍及世界大部分地區(qū)。 這個象征并不是美 元。也不是可口可樂。而是一條被稱作藍(lán)色牛仔褲的普通褲子。這種褲子所象征的，正如亞 克力西德托兒所謂的對 “平等的果斷的正當(dāng)?shù)淖非?”。無論是官員還是牛仔， 銀行

21、家還是賴賬 徒，時尚設(shè)計師還是酗酒者都同樣青睞藍(lán)色牛仔褲。 這種褲子不分高低貴賤， 只要是美國人 都可以穿?？墒桥Ｗ醒潕缀踉谑澜绲娜魏蔚胤蕉紡V受歡迎 - 包括俄羅斯，其當(dāng)局最近剛剛 粉碎了一個在黑市販賣牛仔褲的團(tuán)伙，他們的牛仔褲賣到了 200 美元一條。牛仔褲已經(jīng)流 行了很長時間了，看起來其生命力已經(jīng)超過了領(lǐng)帶。這種無處不在的美國象征是一個出生在巴伐利亞的猶太人發(fā)明的。 他與 1982 年出生 于德國的巴德奧且姆。 1848 年歐洲政局動蕩期間， 他決定去紐約試試運氣， 他的兩個哥哥 已經(jīng)移民到了那里。 到了紐約， 里維發(fā)現(xiàn)他的兩個哥哥廣域他們在這片充滿機遇的土地上生 活的比較安逸的說法有點言

22、過其實。 他們說他們擁有土地。 可他發(fā)現(xiàn)他們正向家庭主婦推銷 針線、鍋罐、緞帶、見到和紐扣。里維做了兩年寒酸的小販，拉著 180 磅的雜貨挨家挨戶 的叫賣， 勉強維持生計。 他的一個嫁到舊金山的姐姐為他提供西行路費， 他急忙抓住這個機 會，帶著幾個帆布卷，他打算賣給別人做帳篷。豈料這些帆布并不適合做帳篷， 不過里維與自主礦脈的礦工交談后了解到， 人們買不到 耐得起采礦磨損的堅實耐穿的褲子。機會在向他招手。施特勞斯當(dāng)場用一根帶子量了那人的腰圍和褲長，用帆布做成了一條粗硬的耐穿的褲 子，賣了六美元的沙金。 礦工覺得很滿意，于是有關(guān)里維斯的褲子一詞不脛而走。 他的公司 一直在運轉(zhuǎn)。當(dāng)施特萊斯用完了那

23、些帆布料， 他寫信給他的兩個哥哥， 讓他們在送點過來。 沒想到卻 受到了法國尼姆產(chǎn)的一種堅韌的棕色的棉布。 稱作 “尼姆嗶嘰 ”（ serge de Nimes ），很快就簡 稱為 “勞動布 ”（英語詞 jeans 牛仔褲）源自于法語的 Genes ，即英語的 Genoa （熱那亞）此 地盛產(chǎn)一種類似的棉布） 。從一開始，斯特賴斯將他的布料染成了湛藍(lán)色。藍(lán)牛仔褲因此而 得名。不過，知道 19 世紀(jì) 70 年代，他才在牛仔褲上加了銅柳釘。長期以來，這銅柳丁成； 公司的標(biāo)志。 給褲子加上柳丁是內(nèi)華達(dá)州的一名名叫雅各布 W 戴維斯的裁縫所想出的主意。 他這樣做是為了安撫一個名叫叫阿爾克利.艾可的脾氣暴躁的礦工。這名礦工抱怨他往牛仔褲里放礦石標(biāo)本時， 牛仔褲的口袋那里總是被撕破， 他要求戴維斯想想辦法。 戴維斯有點像 開玩笑，把褲子拿到了鐵匠鋪，給口袋打上柳丁。這一招果然奏效，消息不脛而走。 1873 年，施特萊斯采納了這一小發(fā)明，出資為其申請了專利，并雇用了戴維斯去做地區(qū)經(jīng)理。這時候， 斯特賴斯把他的兩位哥哥和兩個姐夫帶進(jìn)了公司， 并準(zhǔn)備在舊金山開辦他第三 家商店。此后的幾十年，公司在當(dāng)?shù)厣?/p>