The Voices of Time

Lesson 29

                              The Voices of Time

                                      Text A

    Time talks. It speaks more plainly than words. Time communicates in many ways.
    Consider the different parts of the day, for example. The time of the day when something is done can give a special meaning to the event. Factory managers in the United States fully¹ realize the importance of an announcement made during the middle of the morning or afternoon that takes eveiyone away from his work. Whenever they want to make an important announcement, they ask; "When shall we let them know?"

    In the United States, it is not custorriary to telephone someone very early in the morning. If you telephone him early in the day, while he is shaving or having breakfast, the time of the call shows that the matter as very important and requires immediate² attention The same meaning is attached to telephone call after 11. 00 P. M. if someone receives a call during sleeping hours, he assumes it is a matter of life or death. The time chosen for the call communicates its importance.

    In social life, time plays a very irrrportant part. In the United States, guests tend to feel they are not highly regarded if the invitation to a dinner party is extended only three or four days before the party date. But this is not true in all countries. In other areas of the world, it may be considered foolish to make an appointment too far in advance because plans which are made for a date more than a week away tend to be forgotten.

    The meanings of time dif#er .in different parts of the worid. Thus, misunderstandings arise;; .between people from cuitures that treat time differently. Promptness is valued highly in American iife, for example. If people are nvt prompt, they may be regarded as impolite or not fully responsible. In the U. S. , no one would think of kee.ping a business associate waiting for an hour, it wouid be too impolite. When equals meet, a person who is five minutes late will say a #ew words of explanation, though perhaps he may not complete the sentence.

    Americans look ahead and are concerned almost entirely⁴ with the future. The American idea of the future is limited, however. It is the foreseeable future and not the future of the Soath Asian, which may involve centuries. Someone has said of the South Asian idea of time : "Time is like a museum with endless halls and rooms. You, the viewer, are walking through the museum in the dark, holding a light to each scene as you pass it. God is in charge of the museum, and only he knows all that is in it. One lifetime represents one room. "

    Since time has such different meanings in different cultures, communication is ofte.n difficuit. We will understand each other a little better if we can ksep this fact in mind.

                                            Text B

    I am a member of a small, nearly extinct⁵ minority group who insist, even though it seems to be out of date, on the sanctity of being on time.
    Which is to say that we On-timers are compulsively, unfashionably prompt, that there are only handfuls of us left, and, unfortunately, we never seem to have appointments with each other.

    The fact is that being on time has become a social mistake.
    The fact is that generally speaking, the time that the Late-people set as the Moment of Rendezvous⁶ is a code. It is a code meaning at least one half-hour later. The fact is that we Ontimers can't get that into our heads.
    We arrive invariably⁷ at the appointed hour at people's houses, which means that we have occasionally eaten'all the sandwiches before the other guests arrive. Which means that we are rude.

    Let me explain. We are, for example, invited for dinner at eight o'clock at the home of friends who live exactly twenty minutes away. We leave our house at ten to eight so that for once we will be a comfortable ten minutes late. Then even the traffic defeats us. We meet only green lights and arrive at four minutes to eight. We drive about for a while and then enter at one minute past , to the astonishment⁸ of the host and hostess.

    She is at an important stage of preparation with the saucepans. He is thinking about taking a shower.
    We end up helping⁹ with the first course and putting the baby to hed and mixing the drinks and are still left with enough time to analyse what kind of people our hosts are from the magazines on the coffee table.
    As for meeting in restaurants , you can immediately recognise us On-timers. We are the only non-alcoholics standing³ in restaurant doorways¹⁰ in December. If not, we can always be found killing¹¹ time in the cloakroom or trying to look as if we are not alone at the bar.

    Now, we all know that these very same Late-people do not routinely miss planes or the beginnings of films. But, as I told a late-person recently, "If I were a train, I'd be gone. . . "
    With regard to meetings there are two kinds of peoplc. Those who hate to wait and those who hate to make others wait. The sadists and the masochists? I hope not.

    There was a New York magazine piece once about the power struggle involved in business lunches. It intimated that you could always tell the powerless and the powerful. The Indians were waiting, while the Chiefs arrived half an hour or an hour later. If you are an On-timer, you cannot make an entrance.

    The Late-people, of course, are always terribly sorry, "but something important came up" (in contrast to us, for instance). Besides, as they say, their minds are always so full of big questions (like The Bomb) that they never know what time it is. In comparison with the On-timers , 'they suggest , who have their little brains filled with stupid details like the big hand and the little hand on the clock.

    The problem is getting worse. If you adjust to the Late-people and accept the fact that they're half an hour behind the time you arranged to meet , they arrive an hour late.
    Fewer and fewer of us On-timers remain. We are now surprised when anyone else is on time. We have begun to make certain adjustments like setting our clocks and watches back or bringing the novel we're working on to dinner parties.
    How late we are to recognise that being on time is out of date, that in fact, our time has passed.

 

                         Additional Information

                         How Americans See Time

    Americans recognise that there is a past on which the present rests.But they have not developed their sense of the depth of time to the extent that this has been done in the Middle East and South Asia. The Arab,looks back two to six thousand years for his own origins. History is used as the basis for almost any modern action. The chances are that an Arab won'r start a talk or a speech or analyse a problem without first developing the historical aspects of his subject. The American assumes that time has depth, but he takes this for granted.

    The American never questions the fact that time should be planned and future events fitted into a schedule. He thinks that people should look forward to the future and not dwell¹² too much on the past. His future is not very far ahead of him. Results must be obtained in the foreseeable futureone or two years or, at the most, five or ten. Promises to meet deadlines and appointments are taken very seriously.

　

There are real penalties¹³ for being late and for not keeping commitments in time. The American thinks it is natural to quantify¹⁴ time. To fail to do so is unthinkable. The American specifies¹⁵ how much time is required to do everything. "I'll be there in ten minutes. " "It will take six months to finish that job. " "I was in the Army for four and a half years. "

    The Americans, tike so many other people, also use time as a link that chains events together, If one event occurs on the heels of another, we inevitably¹⁶ try to find a causal relationship between them. If.A is seen in the vicinity¹⁷ of B's murder shortly after the crime has been committed we automatically¹⁸ form a connection between A and B. Conversely, events which are separated by too much. time are difficult for us to connect in our minds. This makes it almost impossible for us as a. nation to engage in long-range planning.

 

 

1 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

2 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

3 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

4 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

5 extinct   

adj.灭绝的，不再活跃的，熄灭了的，已废弃的

参考例句：

• All hopes were extinct.所有希望都破灭了。
• Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years.恐龙绝种已有几百万年了。

6 rendezvous   

n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇

参考例句：

• She made the rendezvous with only minutes to spare.她还差几分钟时才来赴约。
• I have a rendezvous with Peter at a restaurant on the harbour.我和彼得在海港的一个餐馆有个约会。

7 invariably   

adv.不变地，始终如一地，总是

参考例句：

• A unity invariably tends to break up into different parts.统一体总要分解为不同部分的。
• We always invariably support him.我们一直始终不变地支持他。

8 astonishment   

n.惊奇，惊异

参考例句：

• They heard him give a loud shout of astonishment.他们听见他惊奇地大叫一声。
• I was filled with astonishment at her strange action.我对她的奇怪举动不胜惊异。

9 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

10 doorways   

n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The houses belched people; the doorways spewed out children. 从各家茅屋里涌出一堆一堆的人群，从门口蹦出一群一群小孩。 来自辞典例句
• He rambled under the walls and doorways. 他就顺着墙根和门楼遛跶。 来自辞典例句

11 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

12 dwell   

vi.老是想着，详细讲述

参考例句：

• Sometimes his mind would dwell on the horrors he had been through.有时他会老是想着他所经历过的种种恐怖。
• A great number of water fowls dwell on the island.许多水鸟在岛上栖息。

13 penalties   

n.惩罚( penalty的名词复数 )；刑罚；害处；足球点球

参考例句：

• There are penalties for non-compliance with the fire regulations. 不遵守消防规章的行为要受到处罚。
• Penalties are laid down in the statute . 法规中有关于惩罚措施的规定。

14 quantify   

v.定量，表示份量，称量，量化

参考例句：

• The cost of the fire damage is impossible to quantify.这次火灾的损失是无法计算的。
• It's difficult to quantify the value of space exploration.把太空探索的价值进行量化是很困难的。

15 specifies   

v.指定( specify的第三人称单数 )；详述；提出…的条件；使具有特性

参考例句：

• The third clause of the contract specifies steel sashes for the windows. 合同的第三款指定使用钢窗。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The contract specifies red tiles, not slates, for the roof. 合同规定屋顶用红瓦，并非石板瓦。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

16 inevitably   

adv.不可避免地；必然发生地

参考例句：

• In the way you go on,you are inevitably coming apart.照你们这样下去，毫无疑问是会散伙的。
• Technological changes will inevitably lead to unemployment.技术变革必然会导致失业。

17 vicinity   

n.邻近，附近地区

参考例句：

• He told us there was no hotel in the vicinity.他告诉我们说附近没有旅馆。
• There's a factory in the vicinity of the school.学校邻近有个工厂。

18 automatically   

adv.不加思索地，无意识地，自动地

参考例句：

• The machine cycles automatically.这台机器自动循环运转。
• She had automatically labelled the boys as troublemakers.她不假思索地认定这些男孩子是捣蛋鬼。