SDcamps•演辩营全国英语演讲与辩论赛
Okay, so what this tells us is that, contrary to the old adage, "monkey see, monkey do," 这与我们所知的，“有样学样”（猴子见什么学什么）的谚语完全相反 the surprise really is that all of the other animals really cannot do that — at least not very much. 令人惊讶的事实是，其他的所有动物都无法做到有样学样，至少做到很少 And even this picture has the suspicious tain...
Growing up in Taiwan as the daughter of a calligrapher, 我在台湾长大。作为一位书法家的女儿， one of my most treasured memories was my mother showing me the beauty, the shape and the form of Chinese characters. 我最珍贵的记忆之一是妈妈为我展示了汉字的形意之美。 Ever since then, I was fascinated by this incredible language. 从那时起，我开始着迷于这美妙的语言。 But to an outsid...
Interestingly enough, when you start to crank the data, 有意思的是，当你开始收集数据时， these pockets of futureless language speakers all around the world turn out to be, by and large, some of the world's best savers. 你就会发现这些说没有将来时态的语言的国家，很大程度上，恰恰是最喜欢储蓄的国家。 Just to give you a hint of that, let's look back at that OECD graph tha...
So, as I say before the last piece, feel not as though it is a sphere we live on, 所以，就像我在最后一首歌前说的，不要只觉得地球只是我们生存的地方 rather an infinite plane which has the illusion of leading yourself back to the point of origin. 它其实是一个广袤无垠的平原，有着带领你溯本追源的幻觉 Once we understand that all the spheres in the sky are just large infinite plane...
What happens to American presidents at 0400 on inauguration day? 总统就职那天的凌晨4点美国总统到底怎么了？ What happened to William Jefferson Clinton? We might not ever know. 威廉·杰斐逊·克林顿到底怎么了？我们也许无从知道。 And I noticed, he's not exactly around here today to face any tough questions. 而且我注意到，他今天人没来面对这难以回答的问题。 It could get awkward,...
This is a picture of Maurice Druon, 照片里的人是Maurice Druon the Honorary Perpetual Secretary of L'Academie francaise, the French Academy. L'Academie francaise的荣誉终身秘书长–也就是法兰西学院 He is splendidly attired in his 68,000-dollar uniform, befitting the role of the French Academy 穿着价值六万八千美元的豪华制服，对法兰西学院来说倒很适合 as legislating t...
Five years ago, I experienced a bit of what it must have been like to be Alice in Wonderland. 五年前，我曾有过一个有如漫游爱丽丝仙境的经历。 Penn State asked me, a communications teacher, to teach a communications class for engineering students. 宾夕法尼亚州立大学让我这个教沟通学的老师给工程系的学生上沟通学课。 And I was scared. Really scared. 我被吓到了。我真的被吓坏了。 Sc...
You can't do that while you're texting, and so ways are developing of doing it within this medium. 你没有办法在短信里这么做，所以在这个交流媒介里产生了各种转换话题的方法。 All spoken languages have what a linguist calls a new information marker — or two, or three. 任何口语都有语言学家称作的一个或者两到三个的新信息标记词（话题转换词）。 Texting has developed one...
Now don't get me wrong, writing has certain advantages. 大家不要误会，文字写作确实有它自己的优势。 When you write, because it's a conscious process, because you can look backwards, 当你写字的时候，因为这是一个有意识的过程，因为你可以回顾过去， you can do things with language that are much less likely if you're just talking. 你可以用书面语言来完成一些说话时不会表...
And folks, you can buy a copy of Bill Clinton's "My Life" from the bookstore here at TED. 朋友们，你可以买一本比尔克林顿的《我的人生》，就在这里的TED书店里。 Parse it cover to cover for whatever hidden references you want. 你可以从头到尾地找你想找的暗示， Or you can go to the Random House website where there is this excerpt. 你也可以去兰登书屋网站找到这段节选，...
It works a little something like — this is a recent Google search for four in the morning. 这是结果，请看最近的一个谷歌搜索。搜索：凌晨4点 Results vary, of course. This is pretty typical. 当然搜索的结果不一，这是其中最典型的一个。 The top 10 results yield you four hits for Faron Young's song, "It's Four in the Morning," 最上面的10个结果中，4个是Faron ...
The simplest example of this is in the polite request. 最简单的例子出自于礼貌的要求 If you express your request as a conditional — "if you could open the window, that would be great" 倘若你用一个条件句表达请求：“您要是能开一下窗子就太好了，” even though the content is an imperative, the fact that you're not using the imperative voice 尽管内容是祈使句，仅...
And of course, a few of us are saying: okay, computers! 当然，你们中的有些人会说，计算机！ Computers! What about computers? 计算机！计算机是新东西吧？ The thing about computers is, I love computers. 不要误会，我喜欢计算机， I mean, I'm a huge geek, I love computers. 我超级喜欢计算机， I would go on a hunger strike before I let them take away Google Book Search from me. ...
I want to share a few keys on how you can do that 我想来分享几个有用的方法，告诉你们如何才能保证 to make sure that we can see that your science is sexy and that your engineering is engaging. 让我们也觉得你们的科学"性感"迷人、你们的工程学魅力四射。 First question to answer for us: so what? 第一个要回答我们的问题：高科技又怎样？ Tell us why your science is relevant t...
For one thing, I just do not do uniforms. 首先，我不喜欢制服。 And for another, deciding what words are good and what words are bad is actually not very easy. 而且，决定谁是好词谁是坏词其实一点也不容易， And it's not very fun. And when parts of your job are not easy or fun, 还不好玩。如果你的工作中有这么一部分既不容易又不好玩， you kind of look for an excuse not to do th...
This is a recent comic strip from the Los Angeles Times. The punch line? 这是最近洛杉矶时报的一幅漫画。笑点是？ "On the other hand, I don't have to get up at four every single morning to milk my Labrador." “另一方面，我不用每天凌晨4点起来，给我的拉布拉多猎犬喂奶。” This is a recent cover of New York Magazine. 这是纽约杂志最近的封面。 Best hospitals where doctor...
Each of you possesses the most powerful, dangerous and subversive trait 每一个人都拥有一个最强大，危险并具有颠覆性的特性 that natural selection has ever devised. 这一特性是自然选择前所未有的设计 It's a piece of neural audio technology for rewiring other people's minds. 它是一个神经声频技术，用于与他人交流思想 I'm talking about your language, of course, 我说的当然...
For example, most other Germanic language speakers 例如，说日尔曼语系的人 feel completely comfortable talking about rain tomorrow by saying, "Morgen regnet es," 会很自然的用以下的话表达明天下雨：“Morgen regnet es” quite literally to an English ear, "It rain tomorrow." 说英语的人听了就类似“It rain tomorrow.” This led me, as a behavioral economist, to an in...
And so, for example, there is in texting a convention, which is LOL. 比如说，在短信里有这样一个习惯用语，就是LOL。 Now LOL, we generally think of as meaning "laughing out loud." 我们通常认为LOL的意思是“捧腹大笑”。 And of course, theoretically, it does, 当然，从理论上看，它确实是这个意思， and if you look at older texts, then people used it to actually indicate laug...
So, if you have a ham butt problem, and you're thinking about the ham butt problem, 所以如果你知道火腿屁股这事儿，而你又正在考虑这个问题， the conclusion that it leads you to is inexorable and counterintuitive: paper is the enemy of words. 它引向的结论是决绝又有违直觉的：纸张是文字的敌人。 How can this be? I mean, I love books. I really love books. 怎么可能？我爱书，非常...