Meet Kathleen the mouse and Mark the elephant. Kathleen is very brave and likes adventures, but Mark is very shy and scared of many things. But friends stay together, so Mark follows Kathleen wherever she goes. Sometimes they get into some very sticky situatuins.
見見老鼠凱薩琳和大象馬克。凱薩琳非常勇敢又喜歡冒險，但馬克的個性十分害羞，對許多事情都感到害怕。不過，朋友都喜歡黏在一起，所以凱薩琳走到哪兒，馬克就會跟到哪兒。有時候，他們也會碰上非常棘手的情況...
All shook up 天搖地動
One morning Kathleen was fast asleep when a book fell off a shelf and hit her on the head.
"Drats!" she yelled. "The whole house is shaking. It must be another earthquake."
Kathleen got under her desk and waited for the earthquake to stop. But it never did.
"What's going on?" she wondered aloud.
Kathleen decided to go ask Mark if he knew what was making the house shake. She went to his room and was surprised to see Mark doing jumping jacks.
"Good morning," Mark said. "I've decided to start doing aerobics every day before work."
"Why do you feel the sudden urge to exercise?" Kathleen asked.
"I read about an elephant named Maggie who has trouble getting up on her own. Sometimes when she falls down, firemen need to come help her stand up. If I don't exercise, I might end up the same way."
"It's good that you're exercising. But I'm worried about the house."
"Don't be a worrywart. A little shaking won't knock down this house."
Mark kept doing aerobics. Kathleen went downstairs and was about to make breakfast when she heard Mark shout out. The ceiling lamp in his room had fallen and hit him on the head … (Michael Kearney, Staff Writer)
某天早上，當凱薩琳正睡得香甜的時候，一本書從書架上掉下來，正好打在她的頭上。
「唉唷喂呀！」她大叫出來：「房子在搖晃，一定又是地震了。」
凱薩琳趕緊躲到她的桌子底下等地震過去，但地震卻一直都沒有停下來。
「到底發生了什麼事啊？」她大聲地問道。
凱薩琳決定去問馬克他有沒有感覺到房子在動。她走到馬克房間時，很驚訝地發現馬克正在玩跳跳樂。
「早安啊，」馬克說：「我決定以後都要在上班前做一些有氧運動。」
「為什麼你會忽然這麼積極地想要開始運動呢？」凱薩琳問。
「我讀了一篇關於大象梅姬的文章，她連自己站起來都有困難耶。有時候她如果跌倒，必須請消防隊員來協助她站起來呢。如果我不多做運動，也許我最後會落得和她一樣的下場。」
「你開始運動當然很好，但是我有點擔心我們的房子。」
「別那麼杞人憂天嘛，一點小小的搖晃不會把房子震垮的。」
說完馬克繼續跳他的有氧運動，凱薩琳下樓要開始準備早餐時，她聽到馬克大叫一聲。馬克房裡天花板吊燈掉下來正好砸在他頭上…
（翻譯：袁星塵）
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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
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