大学综合英语第二册基础英语2何兆熊课文及译文10.doc

The Jeaning of America This is the story of a sturdy American symbol which has now spread throughout most of the world. The symbol is not the dollar. It is not even Coca-Cola. It is a simple pair of pants called blue jeans, and what the pants symbolize is what Alexis de Tocqueville called a manly and legitimate passion for equality--- Blue jeans are favored equally by bureaucrats and cowboys; bankers and deadbeats; fashion designers and beer drinkers. They draw no distinctions and recognize no classes; they are merely American. Yet they are sought after almost everywhere in the world -- including Russia, where authorities recently broke up a teen-aged gang that was selling them on the black market for two hundred dollars a pair. They have been around for a long time, and it seems likely that they will outlive even the necktie.本文讲述了美国一个坚实的象征物，如今已经遍及世界大部分地区。这个象征并不是美元。也不是可口可乐。而是一条被称作蓝色牛仔裤的普通裤子。这种裤子所象征的，正如亚克力西德托儿所谓的对“平等的果断的正当的追求”。无论是官员还是牛仔，银行家还是赖账徒，时尚设计师还是酗酒者都同样青睐蓝色牛仔裤。这种裤子不分高低贵贱，只要是美国人都可以穿。可是牛仔裤几乎在世界的任何地方都广受欢迎 -- 包括俄罗斯，其当局最近刚刚粉碎了一个在黑市贩卖牛仔裤的团伙，他们的牛仔裤卖到了200美元一条。牛仔裤已经流行了很长时间了，看起来其生命力已经超过了领带。This ubiquitous American symbol was the invention of a Bavarian-born Jew. His name was Levi Strauss.He was born in Bad Ocheim, Germany, in 1829, and during the European political turmoil of 1848 decided to take his chances in New York, to which his two brothers already had emigrated. Upon arrival, Levi soon found that his two brothers had exaggerated their tales of an easy life in the land of the main chance. They were landowners, they had told him; instead, he found them pushing needles, thread, pots, pans, ribbons, yam, scissors and buttons to housewives. For two years he was a lowly peddler, hauling some 180 pounds of sundries door-to-door to eke out a marginal living. When a married sisterin San Francisco offered to pay his way West in 1850, he jumped at the opportunity, taking with him bolts of canvas he hoped to sell for tenting.这种无处不在的美国象征是一个出生在巴伐利亚的犹太人发明的。 他与1982年出生于德国的巴德奥