学英语美剧入门（5万物简史之一支倒霉的考察队）
学英语美剧入门（5万物简史之一支倒霉的考察队）有一次，这个组织不得不暂停工作8个月，当时康达明骑马去利马解决许可证问题。最后，他和布格不再说话，拒绝合作。At one point the group had to suspend work for eight months while La Condamine rode off to Lima to sort out a problem with their permits. Eventually he and Bouguer stopped speaking and refused to work together.法国考察队的目标是确定地球的周长，方法是测量一度经线的长度（地球周长的360分之一），即从（厄瓜多尔首都）基多附近的Yarouqui到如今的厄瓜多尔城市昆卡之外的一条线的长度，距离约320公里。（译注：有了一度经线的长度，再乘以360就是地球的周长了，所以拿到这个数据就
很多小伙伴都想读英文原著学英语，可每次看两页就放弃，从2020年起晓梅老师就带大家一起读英文原著，看看有意思的故事，学学地道表达，分析长难句。先从A Short History of Nearly Everything《万物简史》开始。这本书从宇宙大爆炸开始讲现代科学史，穿插了很多科学家的生平故事，妙趣横生。本书作者Bill Bryson喜欢用口语化的语言叙述，因而里面的英语要比一般的原著通俗易懂。今天读第4章关于一个倒霉的考察队的片段。
一支倒霉的考察队If you had to select the least convivial scientific field trip of all time you could certainly do worse than the French Royal Academy of Science Peruvian expedition of 1735. Led by a hydrologist named Pierre Bouguer and a soldier mathematician named Charles Marie de La Condamine it was a party of scientists and adventurers who traveled to Peru with the purpose of triangulating distances through the Andes. At the time people had lately become infected with a powerful desire to understand the earth - to determine how old it was and how massive where it hung in space and how it had come to be.
如果非要选择有史以来最糟心的科学考察，非1735年法国皇家科学院秘鲁探险队莫属。这支探险队由水文学者皮埃尔·布格和军人数学家查尔斯·玛丽·德拉·康达明带领，他们是一群科学家和冒险家，从法国前往秘鲁，通过安第斯山脉测量地球。那时，人们对于了解地球产生了强烈的欲望——想要确定它历史有多久、体积有多大、位置在太空哪里，以及它是如何形成的。
The French party's goal was to help settle the question of the circumference of the planet by measuring the length of one degree of meridian (or one-360th of the distane around the planet) along a line reaching from Yarouqui near Quito to just beyond Cuenca in what is now Ecuador a distance of about 320 kilometres.
法国考察队的目标是确定地球的周长，方法是测量一度经线的长度（地球周长的360分之一），即从（厄瓜多尔首都）基多附近的Yarouqui到如今的厄瓜多尔城市昆卡之外的一条线的长度，距离约320公里。（译注：有了一度经线的长度，再乘以360就是地球的周长了，所以拿到这个数据就等于知道了地球的大小）
Almost at once things begin to go wrong sometimes spectacularly so. In Quito the visitors somehow provoked the locals and were chased out of town by a mob armed with stones. Soon after the expedition's doctor was murdered in a misunderstanding over a woman. The botanist became deranged. Others died of fevers and falls. The 3rd most senior member of the party a man named Jean Godin run off with a 13-year-old girl and could not be induced to return.
考察刚开始就状况百出，有时甚至糟得离谱。在基多，考察队员不知怎么激怒了当地人，被一群拿着石头的暴民赶出了城。不久之后，探险队的医生因为关于一个女人的误解而被谋杀。植物学家精神错乱，有些人则死于发烧和怪病。考察队三把手让•戈丁(Jean Godin)和一个13岁女孩私奔，没人能劝他回去。
At one point the group had to suspend work for eight months while La Condamine rode off to Lima to sort out a problem with their permits. Eventually he and Bouguer stopped speaking and refused to work together.
有一次，这个组织不得不暂停工作8个月，当时康达明骑马去利马解决许可证问题。最后，他和布格不再说话，拒绝合作。
Everywhere the dwindling party went it was met with the deepest suspicions from officials who found it difficult to believe that a group of French scientists would travel halfway around the world to measure the world. That made no sense at all. Two and a half centuries later it still seems a reasonable question. Why didn't the French make their measurements in France and save themselves all the bother and discomfort of their Andean adventure?
这支人数越来越少的队伍所到之处，都遭到官员们最严重的怀疑，他们很难相信一群法国科学家会穿过半个地球来测量这个世界。这完全说不通。两个半世纪后，这个问题似乎仍然成立。为什么法国人不在法国测量尺寸，省去他们在安第斯山脉冒险时的麻烦和不适呢？（好奇答案的看这里https://www.zhihu.com/question/37353504/answer/358142055）
词汇与短语1. with the purpose [ˈpɜːpəs] of，带着……目的
He came here with the purpose of carrying out the attack. 他来这里的目的是发动进攻。
2. measuring the length of，测量……的长度
Meters can be used to measure the length of a house or the size of a playground. 米可以用来测量房子的长度，或者操场的大小。
3. fever，[ˈfiːvə(r)]，n. 发烧
I woke up this morning with a fever and an upset stomach. 今天早上我醒来时发烧，胃也不舒服。
4. run off with，私奔
Liz shocked us all by running off with a married man. 莉斯和一个已婚男人私奔，我们都很震惊。
5. make sense 有道理
Why did she do a thing like that? It doesn't seem to make sense. 她为什么要做那样的事?这似乎没有道理。
Everywhere the dwindling party went [状语] it [主句主语] was met [主句谓语] with the deepest suspicions from officials who [who引导的定语从句，修饰officials] found it [定语从句的形式宾语] difficult to believe that [that引导定语从句的宾语从句] a group of French scientists would travel halfway around the world to measure the world. 这支人数越来越少的队伍所到之处，都遭到官员们最严重的怀疑，他们很难相信一群法国科学家会穿过半个地球来测量这个世界。
词汇与短语发音：
