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）
latch onto or latch on
phrasal verb
If someone latches onto a person or an idea or latches on, they become very interested in the person or idea, often finding them so useful that they do not want to leave them.
迷恋一个人或一个想法, 对这个人或想法非常感兴趣，常常发现这些想法非常有用，以至于他们不想离开它们; 对…产生浓厚的兴趣 (Collins)
Sometime soon, Donald Trump, the third president in the history of the United States to be impeached, is expected to face a trial in the Senate, charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Traced back to its roots, this is a crisis entirely of his own creation: He came across a sketchy scrap of information, a debunked piece of Russian propaganda relating to Ukraine, and he saw it as something he could use, to help himself and to hurt an opponent. He latched onto it, pumped it up, and passed it along. — Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
salacious
adjective /səˈleɪ.ʃəs/ us
causing or showing a strong interest in sexual matters
淫秽的；好色的；淫荡的
Anyone wondering how the president could make this kind of mistake has missed something important about Trump’s rise. For as long as he has been in politics — in fact, for longer — he has been a ruthlessly effective practitioner of the art of parroting others’ most provocative, salacious ideas. “There are a lot of people that think …” “That’s what I heard …” “Some people even say …” His gossipy M.O. was a staple of his campaign, propelling his historic victory, but it also has driven the scandal that has consumed his presidency — “I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike,” he said on the now well-known call last July with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
— Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
protégé in American English
(ˈproʊtəˌʒeɪ ; ˌ proʊtəˈʒeɪ )
noun
a person guided and helped, esp. in the furtherance of his or her career, by another, more influential person
指导者，帮助者，尤指为促进其事业而由另一个更有影响力的人指导和帮助的人 (Collins)
In the early to middle part of the previous decade, Trump’s proto-political operation was essentially a two-man team — there was Roger Stone, now a felon, and there was Stone’s protégé, Sam Nunberg. One of Nunberg’s self-appointed tasks was to help Trump understand what the masses on the right really wanted. And one way he did that was by listening to Mark Levin’s increasingly popular radio show. The people who were tuning in most intently to Levin, Nunberg thought, were the people most likely to vote for Trump if he launched an actual bid. “Donald Trump,” Nunberg told me, meaning his candidacy, meaning his victory, “would never have happened without Mark Levin.”
— Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
animate /ˈæn.ə.meɪt/
1. adjective
Something that is animate has life, in contrast to things like stones and machines which do not.
Synonyms: living, live, moving, alive
有生命的东西, 有生命，
2. verb
To animate something means to make it lively or more cheerful.
Synonyms: enliven, encourage, excite, urge More Synonyms of animate
使某物生动活泼, 意味着使它活泼或更令人愉快; 使生气勃勃；使有活力
Nunberg’s frequent emails to Trump, sent via an assistant in Trump’s office and which have not been reported on before, were accounts of the many grievances that animated Levin and his listeners.
— Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
the hoi polloi
noun [ plural ] disapproving or humorous
/ˌhɔɪ pəˈlɔɪ/ us
ordinary people; If someone refers to the hoi polloi, they are referring in a humorous or rather rude way to ordinary people, in contrast to rich, well-educated, or upper-class people.
民众，草民，老百姓; 如果有人提到 he hoi polloi ，他们是以幽默或相当粗鲁的方式提到普通人，而不是富人、受过良好教育的人或上流社会的人。
Employees, executives, aides and others who’ve known Trump well say he’s not a book-reader so much as a room-reader, “sucking in information that he finds valuable,” grabbing “nuggets” that he thinks can help him get what he covets, which is some slurry of wealth, attention, respect and power. “A creature of feel,” the late strategist Pat Caddell described him to me in the summer of 2018, “a visceral stimulus creature” — who could repackage what he took in and sell it back to the hoi polloi.
— Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
lightning rod
in American English
a person or thing that attracts controversy, strong feelings, etc. and diverts them from some other potential object or target
吸引争议、强烈感情等的人或事物，使之偏离其他潜在的对象或目标
In 2010, for example, he recognized a lightning-rod issue torquing emotions and jumped right in, gleaning buzz for himself with his offer to purchase the site of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” — which alerted him to the potential potency of anti-Obama birtherism, which paved the way for his anger-girded, fear-mongering presidential candidacy. Trump is in this way less a thinker and more a megaphone, an amplifier of the ideas of others, the value of those ideas in his mind based not on veracity so much as utility. Which is another way of saying he’s not so much a leader as he is a follower. Perhaps the ultimate follower. Trump is the Follower of the Free World.
– Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
pitchman
noun [ C ] US informal /ˈpɪtʃ.mən/ us
a man whose job is to give sales pitches (= talks to persuade people to buy something); an itinerant pedlar of small merchandise who operates from a stand at a fair, etc; any high-pressure salesman or advertiser
推销(劝说人们买东西)东西的人; 在集市等地经营小商品的流动小贩; 任何采取高压手段的推销员或广告人员。(Collins and Cambridge)
“Donald was never a CEO. He was a brand manager — you know, how do I appeal to the masses?” former Trump publicist Alan Marcus told me recently. “It’s like Elmer Gantry. It’s the carnival barker. It’s what every pitchman has always done. Tell the people what they want to hear.”
– Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
hoover
noun & verb
a type of vacuum cleaner; vacuum-clean (a carpet, furniture, etc)
一种吸尘器; 真空清洁的(地毯、家具等); 吸纳
This, regardless of whatever else it is or means, is a remarkable and undeniable talent: hoovering others’ ideas, making them his, and in doing so growing a following uniquely his own that far exceeds the size of the even considerable original audience. It’s what got him elected. In some ways, too, it’s what got him impeached.
– Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
cherry-pick
verb [ I or T ]
to pick only the best people or things from a group, so that only people or things that are less good remain; If someone cherry-picks people or things, they choose the best ones from a group of them, often in a way that other people consider unfair.
挑选（最佳的一个），挑选（最有利的一个）(Collins)
tidbit
noun [ C ] /ˈtɪd.bɪt/ us
a small piece of interesting information, or a small dish of pleasant-tasting food; a pleasing or choice bit of food, news, gossip, etc.
趣闻；花絮；美味小吃
But effective as cherrypicking and amplifying the most emotionally and politically useful tidbits has been for Trump throughout his life, it has proved an uneasy fit when practiced from the inside of an office that is supposed to represent the accumulated knowledge and official position of the entire U.S. government. In some sense, the entire impeachment process is a collision between Trump’s magnification of random, unverified rumors and an official regime of fact and process. The outcome will determine more than whether Trump is removed from office. It may well establish a new standard for what our government defines as true.
— Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
fight dirty
It means to fight unfairly. yes throwing sand in their eyes is one dirty tactic but there are a great many! it means fighting without any rules – nothing is off limits; use every possible way to beat someone, and especially the most treacherous. 用一切可能的方法去打败一个人；它意味着没有任何规则的战斗——没有什么是禁区;用尽一切可能的方法去打败一个人，
“Donald just absorbs, absorbs, absorbs,” former Trump Organization executive Louise Sunshine said. “He can extract so much information from his awareness of his surroundings and of the world around him.”
Starting in the 1970s, he learned, of course, how to fight dirty and win from his antagonistic attorney and mentor, Roy Cohn.
— Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
theatrics
noun [ plural ]
/θiˈæt.rɪks/
behaviour that is intended to get attention; exaggerated mannerisms or displays of emotions
有意引起注意的行为;夸张的举止或情绪的表现
In the ’80s, he learned from Stone, and from watching George Steinbrenner, Ed Koch and Ronald Reagan, too. Steinbrenner, the bombastic owner of the New York Yankees, led as a loner. His secretary frequently could be heard saying, “Mr. Steinbrenner, Trump on line 2”. Koch won three terms as the mayor of New York in part “by playing the kibitzer,” wrote Martin Shefter, “the brash fellow who has an opinion on everything.” The formula for success, Koch thought, was relatively uncomplicated: Get attention to get votes. “And you can only do that,” he once said, “by being bigger than life. It’s theatrics.” Staging news conference after news conference, Koch packed the way he talked with superlatives, “best this” and “best that.” Reporters joked about having to join gyms just to keep up with him. But he seldom left them wanting for material. He called foes “wackos” and “kooks.” He called the city council “a gaggle of clowns.”
— Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
dissimilar
adjective
different; If one thing is dissimilar to another, or if two things are dissimilar, they are very different from each other.
不同的，有区别的
Reagan, meanwhile, won the Oval Office in one way not dissimilar to Koch’s path to Gracie Mansion — by winning over blue-collar, disaffected Democrats, who sought “safety” in the face of the changing, increasingly diverse society surrounding them. Reagan spent the decade blurring the lines between politics and entertainment, wondering at times how anybody could be an effective president without having been an actor first.
— Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
elastic
adjective
able or likely to be changed
灵活的；易顺应（变化）的 (Cambridge)
embryonic
adjective /ˌem.briˈɒn.ɪk/ us
starting to develop
萌芽期的；刚起步的；未成熟的
For Trump, the “visceral stimulus creature,” Steinbrenner, Koch and Reagan provided daily tutorials of sorts. And while his political affiliations were elastic and his overall ideology embryonic, Trump demonstrated early his acumen for tearing pages from proven playbooks and giving them his own signature twists — with blaring full-page newspaper ads in the late ’80s, criticizing American foreign policy and calling for the death penalty for (the innocent) Central Park Five.
— Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
scattershot
(skætəʳʃɒt )
adjective [usually ADJECTIVE noun]
A scattershot approach or method involves doing something to a lot of things or people in disorganized way, rather than focusing on particular things or people.
无针对性的; 随便的; 任意的; 漫无目的的; 漫无目的的方法是指以无组织的方式对很多人或事做某事，而不是专注于特定的人或事 (Collins)
And Trump in 2011 seized on what people, some people — misguided, bigoted or both — thought about the country’s first black president. The birtherism campaign he began to wage was the distillation of his scattershot but resolute education as the kibitzer, the gossip hound, the insurgent outsider, the nascent politician, the feeder off the fever swamps. The follower.
shill
1.noun [ C ]
someone who helps another person to persuade people to buy something, especially by pretending to be a satisfied customer
（尤指假扮顾客诱使人购物的）骗子，托
2. verb [ I ]
to help another person to persuade people to buy something, especially by pretending to be a satisfied customer
（尤指假扮顾客）诱人购物 (Cambridge)
Armed with this advance work, the memo as well as the emails, Trump fit in well with Levin. In addition to shilling for the upcoming season of “The Celebrity Apprentice” — “Trace Adkins, La Toya Jackson, Dennis Rodman” — Trump delivered to Levin’s listeners what they wanted — which essentially was … Levin’s ideas, studiously collected by Nunberg, consumed by Trump and regurgitated back to the host.
— Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
the hustings
noun [ plural ] /ˈhʌs.tɪŋz/ us
the political activities and speeches that happen before an election and are intended to win votes
竞选演讲拉票活动 (Cambridge)
This ear-to-the-proverbial-ground political ramp-up wasn’t limited to Levin and talk radio. It was around this time as well that Trump began to give more and more talks on the pre-presidential hustings, GOP chicken dinners in places like Iowa and New Hampshire.
— Politico Europe Jan 10, 2020
glom onto sth/sb
— phrasal verb with glom verb
US informal
to become very interested in something such as a new idea or fashion or in someone
对…产生强烈兴趣，对…着迷 (Cambridge)
Twitter, too, increasingly served a similar purpose.
“He glommed onto it like it was an oxygen source,” Caddell explained. “And he would tweet what he believed, and people would retweet or answer or whatever, and it was kind of his ongoing focus group.”
“He loved it,” Nunberg said. “He doesn’t trust the political people who do the focus groups.” Instead: “What are we getting the most retweets on?”
co-opt
verb [ T ] /kəʊˈɒpt/
to use someone else’s ideas
借用别人的想法
If Trump began his political ascent as a follower, cannily co-opting ideas that resonated with a certain segment of the electorate, in doing so he clearly has proceeded to forge a following of his own.
rote
noun [ U ] usually disapproving /rəʊt/ us
learning something in order to be able to repeat it from memory, rather than in order to understand it
死记硬背; 记硬背或死记硬背是通过重复而不是思考或试图理解来学习东西。
And then? The last and most important piece of this by now almost rote process?
“He repeats it,” Bolling said.
And for as long as he’s occupied the Oval Office, Trump’s been thinking about Ukraine. “Ukraine,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said a couple months back, “has always been problematic, from Day One. He’s heard a lot about Ukraine from a lot of people.” He’s heard about it, according to reports, from Rudy Giuliani, from his favored right-wing media outlets, from Vladimir Putin.
He started spreading it almost immediately.
“I heard it’s owned by a very rich Ukrainian,” he said of CrowdStrike, incorrectly, in an interview with The Associated Press in April of 2017. “That’s what I heard.”
