儒琴英语词汇选自欧美报刊文章以及英语原文小说。坚持学习英语今日词汇，有助于阅读和理解当今欧美主流媒体的新闻时事报道和英语文学作品。
儒琴英语词汇（English Words and Phrases of the Day）
Sovereign citizens 主权公民
Sovereign citizens 中文解释：
主权公民（Sovereign citizens）认为，应该由他们——而不是法官、陪审团、执法人员或民选官员——决定哪些法律应遵守，哪些法律应忽略。大多数主权公民也不认为他们应该纳税。他们凌驾于法律之上，认为自己不受疫情封锁和疫苗通行证等公共卫生措施的限制。
Sovereign citizens 原文举例
When a group in black fatigues called Alpha Men Assemble began practising paramilitary manoeuvres in a park in Staffordshire at the beginning of this year, it looked pretty threatening. These men, we were warned, were about to launch an insurrection against vaccines and in favour of “the sovereign citizen”. Since then, silence. It wouldn’t be surprising if the group had dispersed: a society of self-proclaimed alphas is bound to fall apart. （The Guardian/Feb 16, 2022)
grandiose
adjective disapproving /ˈɡræn.di.oʊs/
grandiose 解释
characterized by affectation of grandeur or splendor or by absurd exaggeration
夸大的，不切实际的；华而不实的
grandiose 原文举例
This was just one example of the incoherent protests now sweeping rich, English-speaking nations. Others include the truck blockade in Ottawa and its duplicates in Australia, New Zealand and the US, and the angry men outside the British parliament, waiting to pounce on passing politicians. By incoherent protest, I mean gatherings whose aims are simultaneously petty and grandiose. Their immediate objectives are small and often risible, attacking such minor inconveniences as face masks. The underlying aims are open-ended, massive and impossible to fulfill. Not just politically impossible, but mathematically impossible. Listening to these men (and most of them are men), it seems that every one of them wants to be king. （The Guardian/Feb 16, 2022)
alpha
noun & adj. [ C or U ] /ˈæl.fə/ (symbol A, α)
alpha 解释
alpha 本意：the first letter of the Greek alphabet （希腊语字母表的第一个字母）。至少从14世纪开始，英语中alpha 隐喻“高上或优越”。到了19世纪70年代，科学家们用“alpha male（雄性领袖）”这个词来指代群体中最具统治力的雄性动物，比如一只alpha wolf”，它通过攻击性行为获得了“老大”的地位。到了20世纪70年代，科学家将alpha扩展到人类行为，描述了那些通过各种形式的社会权力，获得被同龄人看重的财富、声望、性伴侣等资源的男性。在21世纪初，alpha female 作为一个积极的词汇出现了，用来指代有权势、成功的女性，尽管这也吓到了很多男性。
What explains the appeal of this movement? Such claims of individual sovereignty arose in the 1970s with an antisemitic, racist agitation called Posse Comitatus. They appear to surge in hard times. Some people believe they can annul their debts or tax arrears by renouncing their citizenship. But I suspect it’s about more than money. The promise of capitalism is that one day we will all be alphas – just not yet. It is a formula for frustration and humiliation. The less equal the economic system becomes, the wider the gap between the promise and its fulfilment yawns. Humiliation, as Pankaj Mishra argued in his excellent book Age of Anger, is the motor of extremism. Noisy assertions of sovereignty look like an obvious attempt to overcome humiliation.（The Guardian/Feb 16, 2022)
When black and brown people assume positions of power and authority, and appear more alpha than those who expected tribute from them, this is perceived as an intolerable reversal. The current wave of incoherent protest began in the US with the reaction against Barack Obama’s government, and soon evolved, with the encouragement of Donald Trump and others, into undisguised white supremacism. （The Guardian/Feb 16, 2022)
