英文短篇故事（纽约）142 Please Fix the TV Captions

 　　Ian turned on the TV. A man was talking. Ian clicked on the mute¹ button. A caption² appeared at the bottom of the screen. But the words in the caption didn't change as the man talked. They stayed the same. Another man started talking. The caption still didn't change. Then the whole caption disappeared. The first man started talking again. A new caption appeared. But it disappeared instantly. Ian didn't have time to read even one word before the caption disappeared. Ian got angry. They can put a man on the moon, he thought, but they can't do captions³ right. He sent an email to the TV station. He wrote, "Your captions haven't worked properly for more than a year now. Are you ever going to fix them? When?" The TV station manager replied, "Please be patient. We are trying to fix the problem. Meanwhile, isn't something better than nothing?"

1 mute   

n.哑子，默音字母，弱音器；adj.哑的，无声的，沉默的；vt.减音，减弱；vi.（鸟）排泄

参考例句：

• He is mute on the subject of social system.他对社会制度的问题保持沉默。
• Her daughter was mute after a serious illness.她的女儿在一场重病之后失去了说话能力。

2 caption   

n.说明，字幕，标题；v.加上标题，加上说明

参考例句：

• I didn't understand the drawing until I read the caption.直到我看到这幅画的说明才弄懂其意思。
• There is a caption under the picture.图片下边附有说明。

3 captions   

n.标题，说明文字，字幕( caption的名词复数 )v.给（图片、照片等）加说明文字( caption的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• I stared, trying to grasp the point of the picture and the captions. 我目不转睛地看着漫画，想弄清楚漫画和解说词的意思。 来自辞典例句
• Indicates whether the user or the system paints the captions. 指示是由用户还是由系统来绘制标题。 来自互联网