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）
adversary culture 敌对文化
noun
An intellectual or academic milieu characterized by its tendency to oppose the prevailing cultural, social, or political mainstream. This term, coined by Lionel Trilling in his 1965 book Beyond Culture.
The change is that liberalism itself has become steadily less liberal over the years. The literary critic Lionel Trilling diagnosed the rise of an “adversary culture” in America that reflexively assails it as benighted and retrograde.
Over the decades, the adversary culture has become increasingly adversarial. It isn’t about airing views. It’s about policing them. The protesters say they want free speech. But what the sans-culotte faction at the Times is calling for is the reverse.
be a handful
someone, especially a child, who is a handful is difficult to control; a person who is very difficult to deal with or control.
难于控制或对付的人
“It is so fashionable to blame President Trump for every wrong in America, and he can be a handful, and can he do better? Yes. But the problems we have in America today weren’t caused by Donald Trump.”
lace into
verb (intr, preposition)
to attack violently, either verbally or physically
用语言或身体猛烈地攻击
President Donald Trump on Friday laced into Maine’s Democratic governor for not moving quickly enough to reopen the state’s economy and urged his supporters to help him win the rest of the state in November if they want to see the country rebound from the coronavirus shutdown. (AP)
proximate cause
noun [ C ]INSURANCE, LAW
something that is considered to be the direct cause of damage, loss, or injury
造成损害、损失或伤害的直接原因
It was probably inevitable that, at some point, the New York Times would become engulfed in the national controversy over racism and everything else about America that liberals find dismaying. The proximate cause of the uproar at the Times is an op-ed called “Send In the Troops” by Senator Tom Cotton. ( The National Interest)
neocon
noun [ C ]/ˈniː.oʊ.kɑːn/
abbreviation for neo-conservative: in the US, someone who is a Republican and thinks that the US should use its military power
新保守主义派（一些倡导使用军事力量的美国共和党人，neo-conservative的缩写）(Cambridge)
It’s not exactly news, either, that Cotton, an inveterate neocon, will turn to the military to solve any problem, at home or abroad. Destroying the village to save it is his credo
brouhaha
noun [ U ]
old-fashioned informal /ˈbruː.hɑː.hɑː/
a noisy and overexcited reaction or response to something; a lot of noise or angry complaining about something
Any op-ed page worth its salt seeks to run pieces that will disturb and perturb its readers. As the Times knows full well, it’s also about attracting attention or, to use modern parlance, clicks. In that regard, the brouhaha over publishing the piece—as opposed to debating what’s actually in it—is benefitting all parties, from Cotton to the Times. （The National Interest）
nihilist
noun [ C ] social science specialized /ˈnaɪ.ə.lɪst/
a person who believes that life is meaningless and rejects all religious and moral principles. 虚无主义者
It was probably inevitable that, at some point, the New York Times would become engulfed in the national controversy over racism and everything else about America that liberals find dismaying. The proximate cause of the uproar at the Times is an op-ed called “Send In the Troops” by Senator Tom Cotton. In it Cotton announced—what else?—that it’s time to send in the military to clean out America’s cities of “nihilist protesters.” （ The National Interest）
flap
noun
a lot of public anger, excitement, or discussion
公众的愤怒；大众的激动情绪；民众的意见
She claimed to have had an affair with the candidate, which produced a huge media flap. 她声称与候选人有一段风流韵事，这在媒体上引起了一片哗然。
The truth, of course, is more mundane. As Jack Shafer notes in Slate, when the Times started the op-ed page in the early 1970s, “the section was conceived as a forum for extreme ideas that did not fit elsewhere in the paper.” It’s consistently been trying to cause a flap. It’s the model for much of the industry. (The National Interest)
chokehold
noun [ C ]/ˈtʃoʊk.hoʊld/
a way of holding someone with your arm tightly around their neck so that they cannot breathe easily 扼喉；锁喉；窒息
Minneapolis has agreed to ban the use of police chokeholds and will require nearby officers to act to stop them in the wake of George Floyd’s death, AP reports. （Axios）
