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）
settle a score
(also settle old scores)to punish someone for something wrong that they did to you in the past and that you cannot forgive
算旧账
Police believe the killer was a gang member settling a score with a rival gang. 警方认为，杀人犯是一团伙成员，当时正和敌对团伙算旧账。He is using his wealth and power to settle old scores. 他凭借自己的财富和权力来算旧账。(Cambridge)
ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump’s visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday turned into a scattershot defense of his administration’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, veering into political score-settling, exaggerations and talk harking back to his impeachment. AP March 6, 2020
hark back to sth
— phrasal verb with hark verb [ I ] old use (also hearken)
(REPEAT)
If someone harks back to something in the past, they talk about it again and again, often in a way that annoys other people.
（常指令人厌烦地）反复提起（过去的事），重提（往事）
He’s always harking back to his childhood and saying how things were better then. 他老是提起他的童年，说那时一切都比现在好。(Cambridge)
The progressive strand in the Republican Party that Roosevelt represented remained strong well into the 20th century. It was strongest among westerners who felt most distant from the centres of financial power in the eastern cities; it was a tradition that harked back to the egalitarian world of small-scale capitalism that Lincoln knew.
staff overhaul 人事变动
Trump names Rep. Mark Meadows his new chief of staff
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the midst of one of the most daunting crises of his administration, President Donald Trump announced he had made a major staff overhaul, replacing his acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney with Republican Rep. Mark Meadows.
surprise reshuffle 出人意料的重组
While much of the country was focused on the spreading coronavirus, Trump announced the surprise reshuffle by Friday night tweet, saying Mulvaney would become the U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland.
contingency plans 应急计划
The National Basketball Association advised officials to prepare contingency plans should the coronavirus outbreak continue to spread. The NBA said teams should identify “actions required if it were to become necessary to play a game with only essential staff present” without fans or media, according to a copy of the memo obtained by CNBC.
Neurological Health 神经健康
“The debate reflects the raucous, attack-oriented character of modern political culture. Genuine concerns about the capacities of people who want the world’s most powerful job mingle bizarrely with insults, jokes, and self-confident pronouncements from people with no evident qualifications to be speculating publicly about other people’s neurological health.”
up the ante
If you up the ante, you increase your demands or the risks in a situation in order to achieve a better result.
增加赌注；提高要求；提高风险
The government has upped the ante by refusing to negotiate until a ceasefire has been agreed . 政府增加了砝码，在达成停火协议之前拒绝谈判。（Cambridge）
“Trump himself — seemingly indifferent to the glass-houses maxim — in recent days has upped the ante in what is becoming the senility sweepstakes.”