宁波英语培训网

 这是择自我以前在雨巷 http://www.rainlane.com, 天涯 & 旺旺里发表过. 因在中华人民共和国大陆不可链接 Google Picasa, Youtube,...etc. 其中许多图片链接已断掉，这里的是新上传的。

拜托转贴请注明作者及出处 . 谢谢！Yeti http://www.rainlane.com/dispbbs.asp?boardid=27&replyid=94821&id=6499&skin=0&page=1&star=17

#1 A private joke

General, Corporal(下士) and private are all military ranks. (Private is the ordinary soldier: e.g. Saving Private Ryne.)

Corporal also means things that has to do with the body.
corporal punishment  is:  体罚, 肉刑

General knowledge is something that everyone knows: "It's general knowledge that smoking is bad for your health."

A private joke is a joke shared among people who know what it is all about, as the joke involves information that is known only to these people (Yeti: 2007-5-9 23:47:55)

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#2 Time to pay the piper

 From 妙词收集#3. by Yeti http://www.rainlane.com/dispbbs.asp?boardid=11&replyid=17225&id=9224&skin=0&page=1&star=2

Pay the Piper
(Time to ) Pay the Piper

Definition: When a person accepts the unpleasant consequences of his or her actions.
( As defined in many dictionaries and glossaries.)

Origin: (Here is a synopsis of the story. I hope I haven't left out any important details. Yeti, 2004-3-18)
The expression_r_r_r_r came from the story , or rather, legend, of the Piper of Hamelin.
I am sure many of you have heard this story before, in one language or another,
in one version or another.  This is the story of a town infested with rats. All kinds of methods to get rid of the rats were tried but to no avail. Finally , a travelling piper came forward and told the townspeople that he could get rid of the rats for a fair sum of money. The people agreed .
The piper played his pipe and the rats came out and followed the piper into
the river and were all drowned. When the piper went to collect his money, the townspeople reneged on their promised. The piper played his pipe again and the children came out and followed him into the forest , never to return again.


Here is one of many sources on the Web where you can read a complete version of
this story.
http://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/~jonas/pied.piper.of.hamelin.html

Example of use:
(I)The executives of Enron Corp have been cooking the books (1) for years, it is now
time to pay the piper.

(1) Books=accounting ledgers
Cooking the books=making fraudulent entries.

(II) John has been neglecting his homework all year. Final exam is tomorrow, its
time for him to pay the piper.

(III) Use as a heading in a newspaper magazine article:
http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,166482,00.html

Time To Pay the Piper
Exports are sliding — fast. Asia will suffer for not using the past two boom years to clean up the mess left by the crisis. (Some where in that article is this phrase "Now it's wake-up time." You can consider that as similar to "It's time to pay the piper."
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#3 Frog(s) in slowly boiling water.

Quoted from a a newspaper 2000/10/27 :
...... When it comes to taxes, citizens tend to be like the proverbial frog in slowly boiling water. .--

From: 发表在 汉英

冷水煮蛙，水热蛙麻。
作者：民办 - 2000/10/28 08:37:27 ***

简略式是“冷水煮蛙”，可收入中华成语典故。
--
不知危机将至
作者：S.H - 2000/10/28 09:11:25 ***

水慢慢煮沸，青蛙丝毫不觉危机将至，如果快速煮沸的话，它一早就跳出来了。人类也一样，某些潜在危机不易觉察，知道时为时已晚，就像被煮熟的青蛙。