Kenneth: When I told you I had a particular building in mind for you. This is the one I was talking about. It's a historical home on one of the best blocks in all of Brooklyn.
Alex: Remember what we talked about.
Nancy: I know,poker face.
Kenneth: Built-ins, built-ins.
Nancy: Oh, the kitchen's a little small.
Kenneth: Well,rip offthis awful room divider, and you've got an eat-in kitchen. And over here you have your library.
Alex: Wow.
Nancy: For your books.
Kenneth: Oh, you like books?
Alex: I have a little collection of first-edition novels.
Nancy: Alex is a writer.
Kenneth: The parlor.
Nancy: Oh, my God.
Alex: So, this staircase. This leads to where?
Kenneth: I thought you realized. This is a duplex.
Nancy: As in two floors for the price of one?
Kenneth: I believe it's right there in the listing sheet.
Alex: So, why was it sealed off? Were there, like,a slew ofmurders up there or something?
Kenneth: No, there's just a sweet, little old lady that lives upstairs.
Nancy: A tenant?
Kenneth: Mm-hmm.
Alex: So, rent control means we can't kick her out, right?
Nancy: Alex!
Kenneth: That's a legitimate question. No, you cannot evict her. She has to decide to leave or, God forbid... Poor thing hasn't been feeling well lately. She's gotta be close to 100 years old.
妙詞佳句,活學(xué)活用
1. poker face
非常好用的一個(gè)短語(yǔ),是指不顯露出任何表情的時(shí)候用的。打個(gè)比方,“在砍價(jià)的時(shí)候,千萬(wàn)不要露出任何喜歡的表情”就可以說(shuō)成:When you are making a bargain, you'd better keep a poker face.
2. rip off
A:rip something off
這個(gè)短語(yǔ)有兩個(gè)含義,第一層含義也就是本文當(dāng)中所提到的“拆掉”。此外,我們說(shuō)“脫衣服”也可以用它:rip off the T-shirt。
B:是最為常用的俚語(yǔ)之一,意思是steal something。比如:“有些人以偷東西為生”就可以說(shuō):Some people rip off the goods from the supermarket to make a living.
3. a slew of
意思是“很多”,用起來(lái)的時(shí)候也很簡(jiǎn)單,比如“今天我有很多課”就可說(shuō):I've got a slew of classes for today.
文化面面觀
Rent control
Rent control has been in force in a number of major American cities for many decades. The best-known example is New York, which still retains rent controls from the temporary price controls imposed during World War II. But this policy, meant to assist poorer residents, harms far more citizens than it helps, benefits the better-off, and limits the freedom of all citizens. In many cities, policymakers understand that controls drive out residents and businesses. Thus many exempt significant portions of housing from controls, creating shadow markets, yet as controls hold down rents for some units, costs for all other rental housing skyrockets. And tenants in rent-controlled units fear moving to more desirable neighborhoods since the only units available for rent are very high-priced. ( With no doubt, rent control is a good thing, at least from someone's point of view, but nowadays some tenants even take advantage of the rent control law by getting the free tenant lawyers to escape from paying the rent. And this does give rise to the dissatisfaction of some landlords who adopt the way of evictions to get rid of the tenants).