A: This year’s award season is exciting. Did you watch the Grammy Awards?
B: I sure did. Taylor Swift was the biggest winner, making history by ciaiming “Album of the Year” for the fourth time.
A: And “Record of the Year” went to Miley Cyrus.
Photo: Reuters 照片：路透
B: Five K-pop groups submitted their music for consideration, but none of them was nominated.
A: What a pity. It’s so hard for Asian artists to win recognition at the prestigious Grammys.
A: 今年的頒獎季好精彩，你有看葛萊美頒獎典禮嗎？
B: 當然有，歌后泰勒絲是大贏家，4度贏得「年度專輯」創下歷史。
A: 麥莉希拉則摘下「年度唱片」大獎。
B: 這次還有5組韓流團體報名，不過全都未獲提名。
A: 好可惜，看來亞洲藝人想要打入葛萊美殿堂真不容易！
（By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times／台北時報張聖恩）
Undersea cables are conductors wrapped in insulating materials and laid on the seabed. Their main functions are telecommunications or power transmission. The core of the undersea cables used for Internet signals is optical fiber, using light to transmit Internet signals. Taiwan’s communications are currently handled by 10 domestic undersea cables and 14 international undersea cables. About 99 percent of Taiwan’s Internet bandwidth relies on undersea cables, making them Taiwan’s “digital lifeline.” The demands on the cables’ bandwidth are only set to increase with the development of artificial intelligence (AI), which relies on the data fed into it. Today, data is
Recent events in Taiwan have highlighted the contentious nature of “priority seating” on public transportation. Incidents, such as passengers experiencing emotional distress after being compelled to give up their seats and elderly individuals attacking others after being refused a seat, have prompted a national reassessment of this policy. Some voices in Taiwan now advocate for abolishing priority seats to prevent such conflicts. This issue is not unique to Taiwan. In South Korea, where respect for the elderly is deeply ingrained, priority seating has led to similar confrontations. Younger passengers often face accusations of disrespect if they do not yield seats. In
Spoiler alert and shift blame 破梗&甩鍋 在新冠疫情期間，無論是因為封城 (lockdown) 還是居家隔離 (self-isolation at home)，人們關在家中使用網路的時間大增。這也讓一些原本只存在於網路論壇的用語廣為普及。我們來談一下破梗 (spoiler alert) 與甩鍋 (shift blame) 這兩個用語。 有位古典文學教授 Joel Christensen 針對領導統御與疫情控制寫了一篇以古喻今、相當深入的文章：“Plagues follow bad leadership in ancient Greek tales”，文中出現一些講法，可用來翻譯上述的流行語： In the 5th century B.C., the playwright Sophocles begins Oedipus Tyrannos with the title character struggling to identify the cause of a plague striking his city, Thebes. (Spoiler alert: It’s his own bad leadership.) (Joel Christensen, “Plagues follow bad leadership in ancient Greek tales,” The Conversation, March 12, 2020) 作者提到 Oedipus（伊底帕斯）想找出瘟疫何以降臨他的城邦的緣由，加了一句：Spoiler alert: It’s his own bad leadership.（破梗：領導無方）。Spoiler alert 就是「破梗」，如果用在有人洩漏電影劇情的情境中，也可以翻作「小心爆雷」或「劇透警告」。疫情之下，在家看影集、電影成了很多人的娛樂，但要小心劇透 (spoilers)，很多 YouTube 上的影評在開頭也都會說 Spoiler alert!，警告還沒看過電影的觀眾小心爆雷、劇透。 至於「甩鍋」，源自大陸網民用語，通常意指某人犯了錯之後想推卸責任、轉移焦點、甚至讓別人背黑鍋的做法。疫情爆發後，相關網路資訊量爆增，許多中國網民也想找人為這場疫情負責，紛紛呼籲地方政府首長、地方黨書記不要「甩鍋」。 其實，在古代文學《奧德賽》中，就有「將自己的責任怪罪眾神」的說法，試用時下流行的「甩鍋」來重新翻譯： Humans are always blaming the gods for their suffering, but they experience
Continued from yesterday（延續自昨日） https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang/archives/2025/01/18/2003830395 The invention of the incandescent light bulb in 1879 quickly led to the replacement of the arc lamp. It offered a softer, more pleasant light and became the new standard. The evolution of urban lighting didn’t stop there. From the 1960s to the early 21st century, sodium lamps became predominant. More recently, LED street lights, with their superior energy efficiency, have replaced many high-pressure sodium lamps. As technology continues to advance, even more efficient street lights are likely to provide a brighter future for nighttime pedestrians and drivers. 於1879年發明的白熾燈泡很快便取代了弧光燈。它提供了更柔和、更舒適的光線，並成為了新標準。城市照明的演變並未止步於此。從1960 年代到二十一世紀初，鈉燈成為主要照明方式。最近，LED 街燈因其卓越的能源效率而取代了許多高壓鈉燈。隨著技術持續進步，更高效的街燈可能會為夜間行人和駕駛人提供更加明亮的未來。 Word in Use 4. pedestrian n.
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