今天和大家分享一篇《经济学人》文章赏析，主要看点有：
1. 写作中的长短句。长句常用来解释说理，短句常用来过渡、总结、强调，文中精彩的短句会用绿色标记。
2. 学习同义替换，让表达更丰富多彩。比如表示增加，文中出现了 up，rocket，shoot up，rise；表示减少，出现了 down，decline，fall，recede，ebb。比如表示发挥作用，文中出现了xxx can help，play a role，也出现了类似 do a lot 和 do ones bit。
3. 学习立刻就能用在口语和写作中的句子。
比如表示一些女孩婚后遭到丈夫和公婆欺负，就可以直接用 many young Asian women were driven to despair by violent husbands and overbearing in-laws.
4. 积累漂亮的、讲究的表达。
文中出现了许多成双成对的表达，比如 boom/bust，recede/rise，postpone/prevent。表示一个落败的地方，就可以用到漂亮的 xxx was left behind byboomsand crushed bybusts；...a suicide postponed is likely to be a suicide prevented.
这是一篇由现象级英语社群成长群会员众筹的作品，以下内容由其中一个赏析小组完成，参与者：
蓬蓬豆（本组队长）| 暗夜 | tdlorang | 肉丸子 | 荆棘海
欢迎读者朋友参与我们的讨论，提建议，一起从外刊中获取信息，顺便学点儿英语。
大标题指出全文主要描述的内容：全世界自杀率下降的原因以及使之进一步下降的方法；副标题提出了自杀率下降的三个主要原因。
YOU KNOW, says a trader in Margin Call, a film about the crash of 2008, as he stands high on a building above Wall Street, the feeling that people experience when they stand on the edge like this isn’t the fear of falling—it’s the fear that they might jump. Suicide fascinates us. It is at once appalling and yet, in the darkest places in our minds, appealing. It is the most damaging sort of death. A child’s suicide is a parent’s worst nightmare, and a parent’s marks their children for life. It is a manifestation not just of individual anguish but also of a collective failure: if society is too painful to live in, perhaps we are all culpable.
内容总结：
首句用电影《商海通牒》中的情节引出自杀：当人们像这样站在边缘，他们感觉到的并不是害怕会摔下去，而是害怕会主动跳下去。。自杀的想法使人们恐惧，但又吸引着人们。孩子自杀是家长的噩梦，家长自杀会让孩子终生难忘。如果社会痛苦得让人无法无法活下去，或许我们大家都该为此负责。作为全文第一段，用电影情节引出全文主题，更让读者有兴趣阅读，也更好理解作者意图。
语言学习：
1. on the edge: 一语双关，既表示实际生活中处于悬崖或者楼的边缘，又暗示了自杀者处于人生崩溃的边缘。
2. appall: If something appalls you, it disgusts you because it seems so bad or unpleasant.
根据语义，appall 可与 terrify, frighten互换，此处的appalling 与后文的 appealing 形成尾韵，我们把它们用在一起描述一些冒险的事，比如Bungee jumping is appalling but appealing.
3. It is a manifestation not just of individual anguish but also of a collective failure: if society is too painful to live in, perhaps we are all culpable.
这句话可以简单粗暴背下来，因为这句话读起来真的让人感觉义愤填膺，不能独善其身。
说到重庆公交车坠海事件，我们可以说：It is a manifestation not just of individual anguish but also of a collective failure；说到网络舆论的压力，我们可以说： If society is too painful to live in, perhaps we are all culpable.
The suicide rate in America isupby 18% since 2000. This is not merely a tragedy; it matters politically, too. The rise is largely among white, middle-aged, poorly educated men in areasthat were left behind by booms and crushed by busts. Their deaths are a symptom of troubles to which some see President Donald Trump as the answer. Those troubles should not be ignored.
内容总结：
首句表述了美国自杀率现状：从2000年开始上升到18%。第二句表述了这种上升不仅是悲剧更是政治问题。第三句表明了上升的自杀率主要在哪部分人群：在经济还没繁荣起来却遭遇了经济重创的地区的中年低学历白人男性。第四句表明这些人的自杀反映了一系列社会问题，一些人认为特朗普总统是解决问题的答案。第五句再次强调了这种社会问题不应被忽视。
语言学习：
1. up 和 down（下段出现） 表示增长和下降。除了用动词来表示增长和下降外，我们也可以用副词（比如 up 和 down）来表示。
2. left behind by booms and crushed by busts
boom 和 bust 是对常见搭配，我们在阅读时要注意收藏这样的搭配，比如常见的还有：brains/brawn，boon/bane，fight/flight，swim/sink。
关于这句话的意思，群里的小伙伴们说：
Nonetheless, beyond America’s gloomy trend is a more optimistic story: that at a global level, suicide isdownby 29% since 2000. As a result, 2.8m lives have been saved in that time—three times as many as have been killed in battle. There is no one reason. It is happening at different rates among different groups in different places. But the decline is particularly notable among three sets of people.
内容总结：
承接第 2 段内容，尽管自杀率虽然在美国不容乐观，但是在全球范围内看，自杀率呈大幅下降趋势。
One is young women in China and India. In most of the world, older people kill themselves more often than the young, and men more than women. But in China and India, young women have been unusuallyprone to suicide. That is decreasingly the case. Another group is middle-aged men in Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, alcoholism and suiciderocketedamong them. Both have now receded. A third category is old people all around the world. The suicide rate among the elderly remains, on average, higher than among the rest of the population, but has also fallen faster since 2000 than among other groups.
内容总结：
具体介绍上段末句的But the decline is particularly notable among three sets of people，说明有哪三类群体中的自杀案例在减少。
语言学习：
1. young women have been usually prone to suicide
这里的 be prone to do 和下文中的 be likely to 是同义表达。我们也经常用 xx-prone 来表示易于...的，比如一个经常造成交通事故的地段上，很有可能就会立一个accident-prone的标示。
2. 收集标示增长和下降的词汇，这一段出现了：rocket，如火箭一样飙升；recede，如潮水一般退去（后文还出现了 ebb）。
Why are these people now less likely totake their own lives? Urbanisation and greater freedom have helped. Accounts of those who attempt suicide, and of the relatives of those who succeed, suggest thatmany young Asian women were driven to despair by violent husbands and overbearing in-laws.As people move to cities and the grip of tradition loosens, women have more choice about whom they marry or live with, making life more bearable. Leaving the village helps in another way, too. Because farming involves killing things, rural folk are likelier to have the means to kill themselves—guns, pesticides—to hand.
内容总结：自问自答，开始分析自杀率下降的原因。
语言学习：
1. driven to despair byviolenthusbands andoverbearingin-laws
想描述许多女性被家暴和公婆欺负逼上绝路的情况，就可以用到这句话。
在阅读外刊时，我们可以通过阅读同一话题在不同平台的报道，学习多样的表达方式。比如同样一段话在这期《经济学人》International 板块中是这样写的：abusivehusband ortyrannicalmother-in-law。
Social stability is also a factor. In the turbulence that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, many middle-aged people saw their sources of income and status collapse. Unemployed people kill themselves at around two-and-a-half times the rate of those in work. The financial crash of 2007-08 and the resulting recessions are reckoned to have caused an extra 10,000 or so suicides in America and western Europe. As crisesrecedeand employmentrises, so suicide tends toebb. And falling poverty rates among the old, which have declined faster than among other groups globally, are reckoned to have contributed to the drop in the number of elderly suicides.
内容总结：
前文说到为什么自杀的人数减少了，本段举例说明了原因之一：社会稳定。苏联解体，美国的金融危机，都造成自杀率上升，而随着这些社会动荡因素的影响逐渐减弱，自杀率也降低了。
语言学习：
1. As crisesrecedeand employmentrises, so suicide tends toebb.
这里的 As... so... 是个常见句型，它的完整形式是 (just) as... so (too)...
recede 和 ebb 在这里都表示下降。ebb 退潮的意思，反义词涨潮是flow，两个词在一起组成一句习语ebb and flow盛衰，起伏，消长。比如婚姻生活都是有悲有喜就可以说成 Every marriage has itsebb and flow.婚姻生活都是有悲有喜。
But the decline is not just the consequence of big social trends. Policy plays a role, too. When Mikhail Gorbachev restricted the production and distribution of booze in the mid-1980s, both drinking and suicidefell sharply. The collapse of the Soviet Union swept those regulations aside, and both drinking and suicideshot upagain. Restrictions introduced by Vladimir Putin in 2005 are reckoned to have contributed to the recent decline.
内容总结：不仅社会稳定会让自杀人数减少，政府的政策也有一定影响。
语言学习：
1. But the decline is not justthe consequence ofbig social trends. Policyplays a role, too.
我们可以从这句话中提取句式... is not just the consequence of A. B plays a role, too. 表示不仅因为...，...也起了一定作用。
试着造个句子：The extinction of this species is not justthe consequence ofevolution. Human activityplays a role, too. 这一物种的灭绝不仅仅是进化的结果，人类活动也起到了一定作用。
Governments can also help limit the consequences of social and economic turbulence. Active labour-market policies, which help re-train jobless workers and ease them back into work, prevent many suicides. And spending on health services, especially those that most benefit the old and sick, can make a big difference: fear of chronic pain is one of the things that leads people to seek a quick way out. The remarkable recent fall in suicide among elderly Britons may have happened in part because Britain’s palliative-care system is the best in the world.
总结内容：具体说明政策的作用。
语言学习：
1. 总结一下本文出现的表示自杀的花样说法：
① commit suicide
② shoot/kill themselves
③ take their own lives
④ seek a quick way out
⑤ self-slaughter
⑥ self-destruction
2. Briton 和 British 是一回事吗？
查查字典即可解决这个疑问：
Efforts to curb access to the means to kill oneself can help, too. Suicide is surprisingly impulsive. A study of young Chinese women who had tried to kill themselves showed that three-fifths had been contemplating suicide for less than two hours, and one in ten for less than a minute. Of 515 people who had survived the leap from San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge between 1937 and 1971, 94% were still alive in 1978—which suggests thata suicide postponed is likely to be a suicide prevented.
内容总结：阻止人们接触自杀的工具也可以起作用。
语言学习：
1. Efforts to curb access to the means to kill oneself can help.
这句话简洁明了，我们可以提取Efforts to... can help这个句型。比如重庆公交车坠河后，全国各地许多公交车都配备了保安增强乘车安全，我们就可以说： Efforts to employ security guards on buses can help.
句中也用到了我们在每日一词中学到的两个词：access 和 help，都是简单但常被低估的好词。access 不仅可以表示入口，还可以表示享用某物的权利和机会，这里表示接触，使用的机会。help 在这里作不及物动词，就是表达顶事；管用。
2. a suicide postponed is likely to be a suicide prevented.
非常漂亮的句子！这种既能准确达意又能照顾修辞的句子一定要背下来。
Governments can do a lot to put self-slaughter a little further out of reach. The most toxic pesticides account for one-seventh of suicides. When South Korea outlawed paraquat in 2011, it saw a decline in suicides but no drop in agricultural output. Requiring potentially lethal medicines to be sold only in small quantities, as some countries have done with aspirin and paracetamol, has also been shown to help. But the most effective measure of all is limiting access to guns. Half of all Americans who commit suicide shoot themselves, and the overall rate in America is about twice that in Britain, which has strict gun controls. The difference in gun ownership largely accounts for the state-by-state variation in suicide rates.
内容总结：让人们更加不能接触自杀，政府还能做很多。
语言学习：
1. the most effective measure of all is to
写某个问题的解决方案时就可以用到这个句型，比如 The most effective measure of all is to curb access to drugs / put drugs out of reach.（最有效的就是让毒品触不可及。）
The media can also do their bit. Suicide is strangely contagious. When Robin Williams, an actor, killed himself in 2014, his method and motives were reported in great detail. Researchers calculated that there were 1,800 more suicides than wouldotherwisehave been expected in the next four months, often using the same method. Journalists should cover such tragedies in less detail, and with more restraint.
内容总结：
这一段呼吁媒体也可以为降低自杀率做点事。为避免2014年 Robin Williams 结束自己生命后四个月内自杀事件突增的情况再发生，记者应该在报道这类悲剧时更克制和尽量避免描述细节。
语言学习：
1. otherwise
otherwise是个可以化繁为简的好词。本段中，there were 1,800 more suicides than would otherwise have been expected in the next four months 的意思为四个月内，相较于发生这件悲剧之前多了1800多起自杀事件。这里用 otherwise 一个词就替代了如果悲剧没有发生并且被大幅报道这层含义。
再举两个例子体会一下 otherwise 这个释义。想表达若不是因为在机场耽搁了，我们早到这里了，就可以说：We were delayed at the airport. Otherwise we would have been here by lunchtime.
For a few people—those who are terminally ill, in severe pain and determined to die—suicide may be the least terrible option. In such circumstances, and with firm safeguards, doctors should be allowed to assist. But many of the 800,000 people who kill themselves each year act in haste, and more could be saved with better health services, labour-market policies and curbs on booze, guns, pesticide and pills. America, in particular, could spare much pain by learning from the progress elsewhere.
内容总结：
最后一段明确了作者的态度，对于长期被病痛折磨的人应该有在医生协助下结束自己生命的权利。但更多仓促赴死的人应该可以得到帮助，尤其在美国，政府可以通过学习其他国家在这方面的发展为这些人解脱痛苦。
语言学习：
1. 总结一下本文表示对...起到作用 是造成...的原因 用到的表达：
① sth is also a factor
Social stability is also a factor.
② sth helps
Urbanisation and greater freedom have helped.
Leaving the village helps in another way, too.
③ cause
... are reckoned to have caused an extra 10,000 or so suicides in America and western Europe.
④ contribute to
...are reckoned to have contributed to the drop in the number of elderly suicides.
... are reckoned to have contributed to the recent decline.
⑤ play a role
Policy plays a role, too.
⑥ make a big difference
And spending on health services, especially those that most benefit the old and sick, can make a big difference.
⑦ in part because:
The remarkable recent fall in suicide among elderly Britons may have happened in part because Britain’s palliative-care system is the best in the world.
⑧ account for
The most toxic pesticides account for one-seventh of suicides.
The difference in gun ownership largely accounts for the state-by-state variation in suicide rates.
⑨ do their bit
The media can also do their bit.
⑩ the consequence of
But the decline is not just the consequence of big social trends.
2. 这篇里面用到了好几个头韵，我们来总结一下：
The rise is largely among white, middle-aged, poorly educated men in areas that were left behind bybooms（繁荣）and crushed bybusts（破产）.
As crisesrecede（减弱）and employmentrises（上升）...
...a suicidepostponed（延迟）is likely to be a suicideprevented（阻止）.
Eric 点评：
本篇赏析最大的亮点是整理了作者的花样表达，比如如何表示对...发挥作用自杀增加。通过这样的整理，我们可以让自己的表达富于变化，同时也会体会到英文同义词之间的细微差距。
另一个亮点是许多会员已经养成了提取句型立刻造句的好习惯。当我们能够把一个词、一个句型、一种写作逻辑应用到自己的生活中，说明我们真正读懂了，学会了。Keep it up!
赏析笔记的最大问题，在我看来还是两点老问题：1）对文章内容表述不够清楚，缺少自己的解读和看法；2）别把文章当成单词书。同时提出亮点建议：
1. 不要翻译原文，用自己的话清楚直白的说明段落的意思即可，同时注意语句要通顺，说人话。
2. 在学习词汇的时候，不要把词汇单拎出来学习，一定要放在句子中学习、整理，这样可以加深记忆，也便于他人阅读和自己复习。
赏析外刊的时候我们主要赏析什么呢？
首先要读懂。因此我们需要能够用自己的话来总结每一段说了什么主要内容，文章主要讨论了什么内容。
其次是学习文章中的地道、实用、优美的表达，它可以是一个词，也可以是一个词组或者一种句型。
除了弄清楚每句话的内容（也就是第一步读懂），每一段话中可以重点学习 2-4 个表达，利用咱们学习每日一词的方法，分析它们的用法、总结它们好在哪里、拓展我们可以如何使用它们。在这里我们可以问自己我会怎么写？ 《经济学人》是怎么写的？ 这样写好在哪里？来帮助自己赏析语言。
最后，对文章中不好理解的句子单独做分析，弄清楚它们的结构和意思。同时也可以对文章中出现的文化梗（例如标题中的彩蛋）、专有名词（例如一个你不太熟悉的概念）做梳理总结。如果有兴趣的话，还可以对文章中的观点发起讨论。
阅读愉快，咱们下期见。
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