Now, the thing about this charming piece by Kurt Vonnegut is that it wasn't written by Kurt Vonnegut.
现在，再说回关于这篇库尔特·冯内古特精彩演说词的事情，它并不是库尔特·冯内古特写的。
It was written by a newspaper columnist in Chicago, called Mary Schmich.
而是芝加哥一位名叫玛丽·施米奇的报纸专栏作家写的。
Some unknown person had posted it on the Internet saying it was written by Kurt Vonnegut
不知道是谁把它放在网上，说是库尔特·冯内古特写的，
and it spread all around the world in hours with his name attached to it.
于是这篇署了冯内古特名字的文章在几小时内传播至整个世界。
Schmich said, "It went to Italy and France, to Israel and Brazil, to places I didn't know had electricity."
施米奇说：“文章传播到意大利、法国、以色列和巴西，传播到那些我都不知道有电的地方。”

And she said, "Even Mr. Vonnegut's wife, the photographer Jill Krementz, received it,
她还说：“甚至连摄影师吉尔·克里门兹，冯内古特先生的妻子，也收到了这篇文章，
emailed it to several friends and then asked her husband, 'Why didn't you tell me you spoke at MIT?'
她把它发给几个朋友，然后问丈夫，‘你为什么不跟我说你在麻省理工学院演讲了？’
And he said, 'Because I didn't.'"
冯内古特说，‘因为我没去那里演讲。’”
Somebody said it was the most widely distributed piece of email in the history of the Internet.
有人说，这是互联网历史上传播最广的邮件。
But after only a few hours of bouncing around the world, it was identified as a hoax,
但仅在世界上传播几个小时之后，人们就发现它是一个恶作剧，
and in a flash, the Internet was flooded with retractions.
于是在一瞬间，网上开始铺天盖地地撤回这篇文章。
By the end of one extraordinary day, vast numbers of people had accepted and then rejected a worldwide hoax,
这特殊的一天结束时，很多人一开始接受后来又拒绝了这场全球性的恶作剧，
and that's what makes this Internet event a great image for the age we live in now.
这也使得这个互联网事件成为我们这个时代的一个伟大形象。