商業英語世界觀-世界公民文化中心

前幾天剛好在英語新聞裡聽到一個詞Off the cuff，某官員談到社會住宅問題時，說到這不是一個Off-the-cuff idea，而是深思熟慮之後的想法。Off-the-cuff是什麼呢？Cuff就是襯衫的袖口。Off the cuff的意思是：不經心地，臨時想起的，或者是很隨便的。當你回答一個問題，而你對你的答案又不太確定時，你就可以用off the cuff這片語。舉一個例子。
 You want to know how many people work for our company? Off the cuff, I'd say about two thousand. But I'll have to look up the exact number and get back to you later. 
你想知道我們這個機構有多少工作人員？我的印象好像是2千人。但是，我得去查一下確切的數字，然後再告訴你。 
或者，還有個例子，某人正在考慮買一棟房子。他正在跟他的房地產經紀商討論借款和利率問題，計算每月要付多少錢。房地產經紀商說： 
If you want to borrow 80% of the total amount, with the interest rate at 3.5%, off the cuff, you probably will have to pay a little over fifteen hundred dollars a month. But I've got to do a detailed calculation before I can give you an exact number. 
要是你想借八成，利率是3.5%，你大概每月要付一千五百多美元。不過我得仔細算了以後才能告訴你確切數字。 

品牌改logo是時勢所趨，但近來美國服裝國民品牌GAP更新商標在Facebook、Twitter等網站引發軒然大波，甚至最後不得不換回原來商標。我們一起看看生動且戲劇化的事件始末。品牌，不是你說了就算！ 
事件：
The US clothing retailer revealed a new logo across its website in the US in October but it was immediately derided as “unsophisticated,” “uncreative” and “devaluing the brand”.
美國服裝零售業者今年十月在網站上發表了一個新logo，很快地就被譏嘲為「不精緻」、「沒創意」、「降低品牌價值」。
For the past 20 years, the letters G-A-P have resided in a dark blue square, but recently the management of the clothing company announced that the letters had escaped and that a smaller blue square would henceforth sit above the P. All hell then broke loose. Thousands of people protested online and, a week later, Gap backed down. The big box was going to stay.
過去二十年來，在服裝公司Gap的logo中，“G-a-p”三個字母一直放在一個深藍色的方塊裡。Gap管理層近來宣佈，三個字母將跳出方塊，改為在字母“p”的上方壓一個小的藍色方塊。此舉掀起了軒然大波，成千上萬人在網上抗議。一周後，Gap打了退堂鼓，還是回到原來的大方塊。
The new Gap logo was not obviously an improvement on the old one. And the sight of management listening to customers and accepting humiliation in order to satisfy them seemed like a good thing. Yet what happened was not really good at all. It isn’t progress when a company panics and surrenders when faced by an armchair army of protesters. It is feeble.
Gap的新logo並不見得比舊的好。這事件表面上是管理層聽取消費者意見、為迎合消費者喜好而妥協讓步，似乎是件好事情。事實上並非如此。面對只知空談的抗議大軍，一家公司驚慌失措地舉手投降，這不是進步，而是軟弱。
反應：
Once Marka Hansen, the company’s president for North America, got wind of the scale of the protest, she wrote a piece on The Huffington Post defending the “contemporary and current” new logo. Gap then attempted to initiate a crowd sourcing project by asking its Facebook fans to “share their designs”.
Gap北美區總裁瑪卡漢森風聞抗議的規模後，很快在The Huffington Post上發表了一篇文章，說新logo“很有現代色彩和潮流感”。但Gap也同時嘗試在Facebook上發起群眾外包，讓粉絲分享自己的設計。
The company put this message on its Facebook page:
"Thanks for everyone’s input on the new logo! We’ve had the same logo for 20+ years, and this is just one of the things we’re changing. We know this logo created a lot of buzz and we’re thrilled to see passionate debates unfolding! So much so we’re asking you to share your designs. We love our version, but we’d like to see other ideas. Stay tuned for details in the next few days on this crowd sourcing project."
Gap 也在Facebook上說：謝謝各位對新logo的意見。二十年來我們logo一直沒變，現在有一些變化。我們知道新logo引發了一些聲音，熱情的辯論讓我們受竉若驚。所以我們希望邀請你分享你的設計，我們喜歡新logo，也樂見其他的想法。請持續關注我們新的群眾外包計劃。
This drew further criticism and Gap has since scrapped the new logo and crowd sourcing project and retained its original 20-year old “blue box” brand logo.
此舉再度引起批評，Gap只好放棄新logo和群眾外包計劃，回到原來的藍底招牌logo。
"There may be a time to evolve our logo, but if and when that time comes, we'll handle it in a different way," Hansen said, adding that the project was not the right one to offer up to "crowd sourcing."  Crowd sourcing the new logo, or allowing fans to help design a new one, was the company's original solution to the issue of quelling consumer confusion. Marketers are increasingly letting fans help or fully make decisions, including PepsiCo Inc.'s Doritos brand having fans create and vote on Super Bowl commercials. But a logo change left up to the crowd is much rarer.
學習重點：
漢森表示，如果將來得改logo，會以不同方式處理。改logo這件事，原來就不適合「群眾外包」。Gap想以群眾外包方式解決消費者的困惑，反而越弄越糟。以往確實有些案例，像百事可樂或是多力多滋都讓粉絲投票他們的超級杯廣告。但讓群眾來改logo卻很罕見。
She should not have capitulated. By letting tweeters see the whites of her eyes, she has done other companies a disservice. Now that the mob has got its way on this, it is going to be harder for other companies to insist on their management’s right to manage.
她不應該舉手投降。她讓網友靠得太近，也造成了其他公司的麻煩。由於網友們在這件事上想怎麼樣就怎麼樣，其它公司要堅持管理層的管理權，就會變得更加困難。
關鍵重點：
armchair: 空談
armchair原意是扶椅，但它有一個有意思的引申，是「沒有經驗的」、「空談的」，可想而知坐在扶椅上很舒適，只動口不動手，armchair strategist，就是空談的策略家。
crowdsourcing: 群眾外包、藉由網路上的群眾幫忙解決問題
同義詞是Wisdom-of-the-crowd，一般公司把內部的工作外包給體制外的人運作，英文叫做outsourcing。把outsourcing的out改成crowd（群眾）這個字，變成crowdsourcing，就有著把工作或者問題發包給網路上的群眾幫忙解決的意思在。
see the whites of her eyes: 讓人看穿
讓人看到你的眼白，這個比喻來自美國十八世紀將軍William Prescott 的名言，"Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes" 。意思是等到敵人很接近的時候再開火。也有深一層隱喻，攻擊之前，請先全盤瞭解你的敵人。
get one's way: 隨心所欲、為所欲為
Get one's way意思是想做什麼就做什麼。也可以用have one's way。
例句:
He gets everything [it all] his own way. 他無論什麼事都是愛怎麼做就怎麼做.
Have it your own way. 你愛怎麼說就怎麼說吧.
本文刊於99/12/18工商時報"世界公民weekly"。每週訊息更新，歡迎訂閱電子報。

感嘆詞是英語的虛字，日常口語中表達情感、情緒很重要的成份，我們平常習慣了「實」的部份，感嘆詞很容易被忽略。以下這些字很簡單，你常常美劇或者電影中聽到見。你不必刻意去想的話也能通過上下文瞭解它們所要傳達的意思或語氣。但在平時的對話中，也許想不到用它?
1. Oops!
表示感嘆，意識到自己犯了錯的情況下，可以化解尷尬的氣氛。
Oops! I forgot to call you yesterday. 昨天忘了給你打電話了。 

2. Boo-hoo!
模仿哭聲的擬聲字，帶有諷刺的意味。
Boo-hoo! He'll be in the show. 他當然會參加表演啊。
以上這句話出自【歌舞青春２】，模仿哭泣的聲音。感在口語中說boo hoo一般帶有諷刺意味，有點像"哭吧，就知道哭！"這種意思，所以吵架的時候會常聽。

3. Blah blah blah...
為省略不必多說的部分；或用於模仿諷刺別人的長篇大論。
My mom said that it would rain and we shouldn't go fishing blah blah blah... You know, as always.我媽說什麼會下雨啦我們不該出來釣魚一大堆話。你知道她就是這樣。

4. Ew
表示噁心。
Can I, as the only normal person in this room, say, "Ew"?
作為這個房間裡惟一一個正常人，能否允許我說一句:"Ew"?
Ew是個徹頭徹尾的美語。用來表示極度厭惡，其詞形可根據厭惡程度而改變，如ewww、ewwww等。像《玩酷世代》(The O.C.)等美國青春劇中時常能聽到女生拖長的ew聲。像《牛津》、《朗文》等只側重收錄英國英語詞彙的學習型詞典，一般都不收錄這個字。

5. Meh
表示"不在乎或不感興趣。
A: What do you want for dinner? 晚餐吃什麼?
B: Meh. 隨便。
這個字怎麼來的不得其考，但它的"發展軌跡"卻是驚人的。在2001年播出的一集《辛普森一家》中，有這樣一個情節：當Homer向孩子們提議去一日遊的時候，兩個孩子（即Bart和Lisa）都用"Meh"作答，然後就繼續看他們的電視。由此，meh一詞便在北美流行開來，如今它已"越洋"成為英國人日常口語中的常用詞。有鑑於此，英國的《柯林斯英語詞典》在2009就收錄了這個可兼作形容詞的感歎詞。

文化創意人才，關鍵在英文！Go

近來校園頻傳霸凌事件，「霸凌」這個字一下竄紅起來，原來「霸凌」取英文字bully 譯音，bully一詞是指「逞威風、欺凌的人」，音與義都說得過去。今天世界公民周報我們就來談談這個有意思的字bully。
Bully最直接的聯想就是bull（公牛），我們說上漲的市場叫bull market，牛頭犬也就叫做bull dog。Bully一定就是負面意思嗎?
霸凌以外的Bully

今天繼續這一週的Debug例句~"這東西擺哪裡?"英文怎麼說才道地?
Where do you put this? (X)      
Where does this go? (O)

Don’t waste your efforts again. (X)
Save your breath. (O)
我們都知道breath的意思是「呼吸」，”save one’s breath”就是省省你的呼吸，說話的進行就是在我們一呼一吸之間，因此要人不要浪費口舌就是省省呼吸。有時也被說成”save one’s energy”，它對應的中文還可以是「白費力氣」。
那麼「白費心思」用英語怎麼說？是bother one’s head for nothing。
講英文時不要被中文困住了！揪出更多bug，你需要加入世界公民一對一！

今天繼續來看第二句Debug，”這是個口誤”怎麼說才道地?
It is an oral mistake! (X)
It is a slip of the tongue! (O)
一提到「誤」，你一定想到mistake，這是中文的直覺。所以「口誤」你會說oral mistake。這麼說，外國人當然也會聽得懂，但是不道地。口誤其實是” slip of the tongue”(舌頭滑了一下)，表示不小心說出來了，說錯了!
更多內容都在世界公民weekly電子報裡。歡迎訂閱！

這裡拜我們來揪英文錯，一天一句，試試自己是不是也有同樣沒查覺到的習慣和問題！
It is time that we stop the machine and find the trouble. (X)
(該停機檢查故障了)這句哪裡錯了呢？答案是：
It is time we stopped the machine and found the trouble. (O)
It is time that…表示「是…的時候了」，其後的從句應採用過去時態，譬如：小孩睡覺的時間到了，就是：It's time that children went to bed.
"debug" 是世界公民文化中心一對一教學方法之一，光是揪出你的錯誤，英文不一定會進步，更重要的是：想辦法讓自己不再犯同樣類型的錯誤，才是英文進步的關鍵。

"這可是件大事啊!" 英文怎麼說?
<X>This is a big thing!
<O>This is important!或This is an important issue.

很多人都喜歡跟商家討價還價。一來一往，經常是雙方各讓一步。生活中，經常要讓步，才不會有太多衝突。今天，來看看英文裡對於"讓步、妥協"的表達：
1. You say 2000 and I say 1000, so let's split the difference and call it 1500.
你出2000而我要1000，這樣吧， 我們各讓一點，1500成交。
2. He forced his opponent to back down.
他迫使對手讓步。
3. I am prepared to make certain concessions on this issue.
我準備在這個問題上做某些讓步。
4. How about meeting each other halfway?
我們雙方都各讓一步，怎麼樣？
5. He refused to give way and admit he was wrong.
他拒不讓步，不肯認錯。
6. No matter how they slander us, we will never give in.
不管他們怎樣誹謗我們，我們決不讓步。
7. We will yield nothing to unreasonable demands.
對於不合理的要求，我們決不讓步。
*熟到老外都覺得你英文好，加入量身訂做的一對一課程*

小編：最近維基爆料案備受國際關注，我們來看這篇文章，觀察各家媒體怎麼說。

The front-page news across much of the world today is the latest "documents dump" from WikiLeaks.org.　The huge cache of confidential American diplomatic cables pulls back the curtain on the sometimes messy business of diplomacy. White House has tried to downplay the cables' value, calling them "field reports". News media reports about the cables and e-mails tell a much different story, though.
維基解密在網站上的爆料近來成了全世界新聞頭條，美國外交電報爆料也揭開時而混亂的外交內幕。美國白宮想要低調處理，於是稱這些是「田野調查」報告。新聞媒體可不這麼想了。
我們來看看媒體怎麼說：
— Politico — "WikiLeaks Target: American Power": "The main effect of the many details of American diplomacy revealed in the thousands of documents obtained and released by WikiLeaks was to deepen the damage to their intended targets: U.S. foreign policy, prestige, and power."
政治：維基解密對準美國強權。
洩露美國外交的許多細節主要用意在傷害它主要攻擊對象美國，包含美國外交政策、威望及權力。
— BBC News — "U.S. Condemns WikiLeaks Diplomatic Cables Release": "The White House said the release was 'reckless' and put the lives of diplomats and others at risk. One Republican congressman called for WikiLeaks to be designated a terrorist organization."
英國BBC：美國讉責維基洩露美國外交電報。
白宮說這些爆料肆無忌憚，置外交人員和其他人於險境。一名共和黨議員認為維基解密應視同恐怖機構。
— The New York Times — "Cables ... Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels": "The disclosure of the cables is sending shudders through the diplomatic establishment, and could strain relations with some countries, influencing international affairs in ways that are impossible to predict."
The news outlets that published the information obtained by WikiLeaks include the Times and The Guardian. And the Guardian is doing live updates of this ongoing story on this blog.
Among the stories to emerge from them so far are the deadly serious — about, for example, corruption in the Afghan government, Saudi donors' support of terrorist groups and efforts to secure Pakistan's nuclear fuel — to the embarrassing but sure-to-be-fodder-for jokes (Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is reportedly called the "Robin to (Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin's Batman."
紐約時報：電報….帶你一窺美國外交秘辛
維基解密爆料外交電報已經讓外交體制惶惶不安，也可能加深各國關係緊張，影響原來就難以預測的國際事務。公布爆料的新聞媒體包括泰晤士報和衛報，衛報還特別在布落格上做即時更新。爆料內容最致命的是像阿富汗政府的腐敗、沙烏地阿拉伯金援恐怖組織並支持巴基斯坦核武，還有讓人尷尬卻不失為笑料的八卦題材，例如美國駐俄國大使館說俄國總理梅德維捷夫對普丁這是從，普丁有如「蝙蝠俠」，梅德維捷夫則扮演他的跟班「羅賓」。
美國國家公共電台(NPR)做了一項調查，問題是：Is what WikiLeaks is doing ...

沒事找事，英文裡有幾個傳神的說法。
英文裡有一句成語，叫做Don't trouble troubles till trouble troubles you. 在麻煩找上你之前，別先自找麻煩。
沒事找事還有一句叫做，Wake a sleeping dog. 弄醒在睡中的狗，就如自找麻煩一樣。通常睡著的狗被吵醒總是凶巴巴，這句英美諺語指人因無聊而惹事生非，自招煩惱。