经典科幻文学:《 再见 多谢你们的鱼》第33章
日期:2015-07-09 06:49
(单词翻译:单击)
Chapter 33
That night they stayed Outside the Asylum and watched TV from inside it.
This is what I wanted you to see, said Wonko the Sane when the news came around again, an old colleague of mine. He’s over in your country running an investigation. Just watch.
It was a press conference.
I’m afraid I can’t comment on the name Rain God at this present time, and we are calling him an example of a Spontaneous ParaCausal Meteorological Phenomenon.
Can you tell us what that means?
I’m not altogether sure. Let’s be straight here. If we find something we can’t understand we like to call it something you can’t understand, or indeed pronounce. I mean if we just let you go around calling him a Rain God, then that suggests that you know something we don’t, and I’m afraid we couldn’t have that.
No, first we have to call it something which says it’s ours, not yours, then we set about finding some way of proving it’s not what you said it is, but something we say it is.
And if it turns out that you’re right, you’ll still be wrong, because we will simply call him a… er “Supernormal…” not paranormal or supernatural because you think you know what those mean now, no, a “Supernormal Incremental Precipitation Inducer”. We’ll probably want to shove a “Quasi” in there somewhere to protect ourselves. Rain God! Huh, never heard such nonsense in my life. Admittedly, you wouldn’t catch me going on holiday with him. Thanks, that’ll be all for now, other than to say “Hi!” to Wonko if he’s watching.
第33章
晚上他们呆在庇护所的外面看庇护所里面的电视。
“这就是我想让你们看的。”又开始放新闻的时候独醒客说，“我的一个老同事。现在在你们的国家做一个研究。看吧。”
那是一个新闻发布会。
“恐怕目前我不能对‘雨神’这个名字发表任何意见，我们称之为‘原发性超因果气候现象’的一个案例。”
“您能告诉我们这是什么意思吗？”
“整体上说我不是特别确定。直说了吧。如果我们发现了我们无法理解的东西，我们喜欢用你们无法理解，或者干脆读不出来的名字来称呼它。我的意思是，如果我们就那么让你们随随便便叫他‘雨神’，那这就表面你们知道我们所不知道的一些东西，而恐怕我们不能接收这一点。
“那样不行，首先我们要给这个东西一个名字表面那是我们的，不是你们的，然后我们去寻找某种方式证明它不是你们所说的那样，而是我们所说的那样。
“如果最后发现你们是对的，你们仍然是错的，因为我们会简单的叫他……呃， ‘超典型……’而不是非典型或者超自然，因为你们现在觉得自己明白那是什么意思，那不行，得是‘超典型落体增益诱导者’。我们可能想在里面什么地方再塞一个‘类’的前缀来包含我们自己。‘雨神’！哈，我这辈子就没听过这么荒唐的词。不过无可否认，你们绝不会看到我跟他一块度假。谢谢，就这些吧。另外我要和独醒客说声‘嗨！’，如果他正在看电视的话。”
That night they stayed Outside the Asylum and watched TV from inside it.
This is what I wanted you to see, said Wonko the Sane when the news came around again, an old colleague of mine. He’s over in your country running an investigation. Just watch.
It was a press conference.
I’m afraid I can’t comment on the name Rain God at this present time, and we are calling him an example of a Spontaneous ParaCausal Meteorological Phenomenon.
Can you tell us what that means?
I’m not altogether sure. Let’s be straight here. If we find something we can’t understand we like to call it something you can’t understand, or indeed pronounce. I mean if we just let you go around calling him a Rain God, then that suggests that you know something we don’t, and I’m afraid we couldn’t have that.
No, first we have to call it something which says it’s ours, not yours, then we set about finding some way of proving it’s not what you said it is, but something we say it is.
And if it turns out that you’re right, you’ll still be wrong, because we will simply call him a… er “Supernormal…” not paranormal or supernatural because you think you know what those mean now, no, a “Supernormal Incremental Precipitation Inducer”. We’ll probably want to shove a “Quasi” in there somewhere to protect ourselves. Rain God! Huh, never heard such nonsense in my life. Admittedly, you wouldn’t catch me going on holiday with him. Thanks, that’ll be all for now, other than to say “Hi!” to Wonko if he’s watching.
第33章
晚上他们呆在庇护所的外面看庇护所里面的电视。
“这就是我想让你们看的。”又开始放新闻的时候独醒客说，“我的一个老同事。现在在你们的国家做一个研究。看吧。”
那是一个新闻发布会。
“恐怕目前我不能对‘雨神’这个名字发表任何意见，我们称之为‘原发性超因果气候现象’的一个案例。”
“您能告诉我们这是什么意思吗？”
“整体上说我不是特别确定。直说了吧。如果我们发现了我们无法理解的东西，我们喜欢用你们无法理解，或者干脆读不出来的名字来称呼它。我的意思是，如果我们就那么让你们随随便便叫他‘雨神’，那这就表面你们知道我们所不知道的一些东西，而恐怕我们不能接收这一点。
“那样不行，首先我们要给这个东西一个名字表面那是我们的，不是你们的，然后我们去寻找某种方式证明它不是你们所说的那样，而是我们所说的那样。
“如果最后发现你们是对的，你们仍然是错的，因为我们会简单的叫他……呃， ‘超典型……’而不是非典型或者超自然，因为你们现在觉得自己明白那是什么意思，那不行，得是‘超典型落体增益诱导者’。我们可能想在里面什么地方再塞一个‘类’的前缀来包含我们自己。‘雨神’！哈，我这辈子就没听过这么荒唐的词。不过无可否认，你们绝不会看到我跟他一块度假。谢谢，就这些吧。另外我要和独醒客说声‘嗨！’，如果他正在看电视的话。”
