2015考研英语阅读手工劳动_大学英语阅读

2015考研英语阅读手工劳动

　　The lawn is the archetypal enemy. Why do Americans spend such huge amounts of time,money, water, fertiliser and fuel on growing a useless smooth expanse of grass? Much betterto cultivate something useful, like tomatoes. But how to do it? Mr Frauenfelder considersusing herbicide to kill his unwanted lawn, but settles for covering it thickly withnewspaper and weeding any grass that grows through: as with many of his projects, it is funto start with, but becomes laborious.

　　草坪就是个典型的敌人。为什么美国人要把如此大量的时间、金钱、水、化肥和燃料花在一大片平整却毫无用处的草地上呢?还不如栽培些实用的东西，比如西红柿。可是该怎么做呢?弗劳恩菲尔德先生也考虑过用除草剂来消灭那些无用的草坪，但他最终决定用报纸把草坪层层覆盖，然后再除去从中长出的任何一根草：这和他的很多方案一样，开头都很有趣，可随后就变得既耗时又费力。

　　As the editor of Make, a magazine for American hobbyists, the author is well-placed to tap thenation s vein of frustrated creativity and fiddling. Time was, he says nostalgically, whenhousehold equipment came with the expectation that the owner could and would wield thetools required to fix it: a wrench, pliers, screwdriver and hammer were all that was neededto keep an early Ford automobile on the road. That changed, he says, thanks to SigmundFreud s nephew, Edward Louis Bernays, the pioneer of emotional advertising. He solddreams of perfection instead of a partnership between man and machine. Now domesticappliances come with forbidding labels, such as no user-serviceable parts anddisassembly voids warranty.