英国卫报：人类的感官重要吗？该如何修复？(6)

　　Asifa Majid, a professor of psychology¹ at the University of York and a leading expert on olfactory² language, has said that smell used to be considered a “mute sense” compared with sight because English speakers have far fewer words for describing smells than they do for colours.

　　阿西法·马吉德是约克大学的心理学教授，也是嗅觉语言领域的知名专家。他说，相比于视觉，气味过去被认为是一种“无声的感觉”，因为英语使用者用于描述气味的词汇远少于用于描述颜色的词汇。

　　But Majid’s field work has shown that for certain hunter-gatherer communities, smells can be named as easily as colours.

　　但马吉德的实地研究表明，对于某些狩猎采集社区，气味可以像颜色一样容易命名。

　　Among the nomadic³ Seri community in Mexico for example, speakers have different words to distinguish between the specific smell of sea lion, the smell of spoiled beans, the smell of burned beans, the smell of cooking immature⁴ green sea turtle and the smell of rancid honey.

　　例如，在墨西哥的族游牧部落塞里，人们用不同的词来区分海狮的特殊气味、变质豆子的气味、烧焦的豆子的气味、烹饪未成熟的绿海龟的气味和腐臭的蜂蜜的气味。

　　For the Seri, this rich smellscape is a crucial part of everyday life.

　　对于塞里来说，这种浓郁的气味是日常生活中至关重要的一部分。

　　By contrast, someone living in London or New York today might smell the burned beans just as potently⁵ as the Seri, but have no word for the particular way it smelled beyond “yuck”.

　　相比之下，今天生活在伦敦或纽约的人可能会像塞里人一样闻到烧焦的豆子的味道，但除了“恶心”之外，没有别的词来形容这种味道。

　　As Majid writes: “In English, a stink⁶ is a stink is a stink.”

　　正如马吉德所写：“在英语中，恶臭就是恶臭。

　　We sometimes make fun of wine writers for describing the perfume of different wines in such pretentious⁷ terms (“a bouquet⁸ of liquorice” or “topnotes of gooseberry”), but similes⁹ are often the only way we can describe smells with any precision in English because our odour vocabulary is so limited.

　　我们有时会取笑葡萄酒作家用如此矫揉造作的术语来描述不同葡萄酒的香气(“一束甘草”或“醋栗的香气”)，但在英语中，比喻往往是我们唯一能精确描述气味的方式，因为我们对气味的词汇非常有限。

　　Long after the decline of hunter-gathering, however, selecting food continued to be deeply sensual.

　　然而，在狩猎采集衰落很久之后，挑选食物仍然是一种深深的感官享受。

　　The historian Madeleine Ferrières has described the order in which a buyer would traditionally use his or her senses when buying food at a medieval food market in France.

　　历史学家Madeleine Ferrières描述了买家在法国中世纪的食品市场购买食物时传统上使用感官的顺序。

　　The first task was to smell, because it was common knowledge that “everything that stinks¹⁰, kills”.

　　第一任务是闻，因为众所周知，“凡是臭气熏天的东西都会致命”。

　　Next came close looking, to confirm that the food really was as fresh as it seemed.

　　然后仔细看，确认食物真的像看起来那样新鲜。

　　The next sense was touch, taking the food in the hand to gauge¹¹ its weight and assess its quality.

　　接下来是触摸，拿着手中的食物来感受它的重量和评估它的质量。

　　Finally, a buyer might taste a little of the food to determine whether the produce really was fit to eat.

　　最后，买家可能会品尝一点食物，以确定产品是否真的适合食用。

　　In the French civil code, consumers had a right to touch and taste a sample of the food before they committed to buying it.

　　在法国民法典中，消费者有权在承诺购买之前触摸和品尝食物的样品。

　　A sensory¹² approach to food shopping continues to be normal to some degree wherever there are open-air food markets.

　　无论在哪里，只要有露天食品市场，在某种程度上，购买食品的感官方式仍然是正常的。

　　Traditionally, to test whether a watermelon was ripe, Chinese consumers would tap on it.

　　传统上，为了测试西瓜是否成熟，中国消费者会轻敲西瓜。

　　Ripe melons make a hollow sound.

　　成熟的瓜发出空洞的声音。

1 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

2 olfactory   

adj.嗅觉的

参考例句：

• He is to develop a sensor to substitute for the olfactory abilities of dogs.克罗克将研制一种传感器用以代替狗的嗅觉功能。
• Based on these findings, Keller suspects that each person has an olfactory blind spot.根据这些发现，凯勒推断，每个人都有一个嗅觉盲区。

3 nomadic   

adj.流浪的；游牧的

参考例句：

• This tribe still live a nomadic life.这个民族仍然过着游牧生活。
• The plowing culture and the nomadic culture are two traditional principal cultures in China.农耕文化与游牧文化是我国传统的两大主体文化。

4 immature   

adj.未成熟的，发育未全的，未充分发展的

参考例句：

• Tony seemed very shallow and immature.托尼看起来好像很肤浅，不夠成熟。
• The birds were in immature plumage.这些鸟儿羽翅未全。

5 potently   

参考例句：

• Various level of SSBB shall to supervise and manage potently for boiler's quality of installation. 各级安全监察机构应加强对锅炉安装质量的监察监督管理。 来自互联网

6 stink   

vi.发出恶臭；糟透，招人厌恶；n.恶臭

参考例句：

• The stink of the rotten fish turned my stomach.腐烂的鱼臭味使我恶心。
• The room has awful stink.那个房间散发着难闻的臭气。

7 pretentious   

adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的

参考例句：

• He is a talented but pretentious writer.他是一个有才华但自命不凡的作家。
• Speaking well of yourself would only make you appear conceited and pretentious.自夸只会使你显得自负和虚伪。

8 bouquet   

n.花束，酒香

参考例句：

• This wine has a rich bouquet.这种葡萄酒有浓郁的香气。
• Her wedding bouquet consisted of roses and ivy.她的婚礼花篮包括玫瑰和长春藤。

9 similes   

（使用like或as等词语的）明喻( simile的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Similes usually start with "like" or "as". 明喻通常以like或as开头。
• All similes and allegories concerning her began and ended with birds. 要比仿她，要模拟她，总得以鸟类始，还得以鸟类终。

10 stinks   

v.散发出恶臭( stink的第三人称单数 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透

参考例句：

• The whole scheme stinks to high heaven—don't get involved in it. 整件事十分卑鄙龌龊——可别陷了进去。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The soup stinks of garlic. 这汤有大蒜气味。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

11 gauge   

v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器

参考例句：

• Can you gauge what her reaction is likely to be?你能揣测她的反应可能是什么吗？
• It's difficult to gauge one's character.要判断一个人的品格是很困难的。

12 sensory   

adj.知觉的，感觉的，知觉器官的

参考例句：

• Human powers of sensory discrimination are limited.人类感官分辨能力有限。
• The sensory system may undergo long-term adaptation in alien environments.感觉系统对陌生的环境可能经过长时期才能适应。