听播客学英语 268 克莱尔的卧室

 　　Claire Williams is 20 years old. She is a student and lives at home with her parents in a town called Whitehaven. Her bedroom is a mess. Or at least it was a mess. Time and again, her parents asked her please to tidy it, but somehow she never managed to do it. Then her father, Steve Williams, had a bright idea. He took photographs of her messy bedroom and put them on an internet site so that the whole world could see them. The effect was dramatic¹. Claire was so ashamed that she tidied her bedroom. Her younger brother tidied his bedroom too.

　　But Claire wanted revenge². She found some photographs of her Dad dancing round with a handbag at a party. She also photographed his garage, which was at least as messy as her bedroom had been. She put these photographs on the internet so that the world could see.

　　In fact tens of thousands of people have visited the Williams family’s website. Some have posted photographs to shame someone in their own family. However, the number of visitors has been so great that the website hosting company now charge Mr Williams quite a lot to host his site. He is looking for advertisers and a sponsor³. Assuming⁴ that his site is still active, you can view it from the link on the podcast website. The photograph of Claire’s bedroom that started it all has however disappeared.

　　Vocabulary note : messy is a colloquial⁵ word which means untidy or dirty. A messy room means an untidy room. A messy child means a child who looks untidy and dirty and probably has half her breakfast down the front of her clothes. Both my daughters – bless them – were just like that when they were little.

1 dramatic   

adj.引人注目的；戏剧的；演戏的

参考例句：

• She plays a very dramatic woman with flashing eyes.她饰演一位双眼闪光的引人注目的妇人。
• His speech was dramatic.他的演说激动人心。

2 revenge   

v.报...之仇，为...报仇 ；n.报仇，复仇

参考例句：

• She poisoned his mind with ideas of hate and revenge.她用复仇的思想来毒害他的心灵。
• There was anger in his eyes and revenge in his heart.他两眼闪现怒火，一心只想复仇。

3 sponsor   

vt.发起，主办；资助；n.发起者，资助人

参考例句：

• Sponsor stated they have no idea where he is.赞助方表示他们不知道他在哪儿。
• The sponsor has permanent ad on the website commonly.赞助商一般在网站上有永久性广告。

4 assuming   

如果

参考例句：

• You were mistaken in assuming it. 你这样臆断是错了。
• The country's industry is assuming a new aspect. 该国的工业正在呈现新的面貌。

5 colloquial   

adj.口语的，会话的

参考例句：

• It's hard to understand the colloquial idioms of a foreign language.外语里的口头习语很难懂。
• They have little acquaintance with colloquial English. 他们对英语会话几乎一窍不通。