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）
wonk
noun [ C ] US informal /wɑːŋk/
a person who is obsessively interested in a specified subject; a person who works or studies too much, especially someone who learns and knows all the details about something
对某一特定学科痴迷的人；工作或学习过多的人，尤指对某事物的所有细节都了解和了解的人; 工作狂；疯狂用功的人；（尤指某方面的）专家 (Collins & Cambridge)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren positioned herself in the Democratic presidential race as the policy wonk with a plan for everything. It was working very well until people realized she hadn’t put out a health care plan.
— December 3, 2019 at 2:24 pm EST By Taegan Goddard
But over the weekend, Warren further compromised her status as the wonk candidate when tweeting about her goal to abolish the Electoral College:
My goal is to get elected — but I plan to be the last American president to be elected by the Electoral College. I want my second term to be elected by direct vote.
docket
noun [ C ]/ˈdɒk.ɪt/ (US)
a list of cases to be dealt with in a law court, or an agenda in business
待审案件目录表；商业日程表；议事日程 (Cambridge)
Impeachment, government funding on the docket for Congress in busy December. Saving the bulk of their work until the last moment, members of Congress have several important legislative items to wrap up before leaving the Capitol later this month
— By Grace Segers December 3, 2019 / 4:50 PM / CBS News
herding cats
To be very unwieldy or unmanageable; to be nearly impossible to organize. Usually said of a group of people (freedictionary)
指由于一个或多个变量处于不稳定和不可控制的状态，一项极其困难或不可能完成的任务。
Herding cats is “part of our task” at NATO, Stoltenberg says. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says his job is to make sure the group’s 29 members come together despite their differences.
— CNBC Dec 03, 2019
have legs
1.If a story in the news has legs, it will continue for a long time.
未完待续；对某事的后续报道还将持续较长时间
2.If something has legs, it can continue to exist and be successful.
经久不衰的；持续时间久且成功的
Right after Trump was declared the President-elect the future’s market sold off over 5%. But, those losses were reversed soon after the market opened on Wednesday, and a rally has ensued. Does the market’s honeymoon with Donald Trump have legs? Yes, but not for all sectors.
Even some tangential attacks on Clinton, mainly by Donald Trump, have legs, notably the idea that she may be criminally indicted over her emails and therefore cannot run.
non sequitur
noun [ C ] /ˌnɑːn ˈsek.wɪ.t̬ɚ/
a statement that does not correctly follow from the meaning of the previous statement
前后不连贯的陈述；不合逻辑的推理
Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju what he would say if someone told his wife, Elaine Chao, Trump’s Transportation secretary to “go back” to where she came from, McConnell took refuge in a non sequitur argument about how he was a fan of legal immigration.
Down the Rabbit Hole
go down the rabbit hole. To enter into a situation or begin a process or journey that is particularly strange, problematic, difficult, complex, or chaotic, especially one that becomes increasingly so as it develops or unfolds. (An allusion to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.)
进入捉摸不透陌生复杂混乱的局面或过程
With Donald Trump, down the rabbit hole.
Whatever voters decide in November, it won’t resolve our national nervous breakdown. That breakdown didn’t start with Donald Trump. He’s doing his damnedest to make it worse, though.
Stephen Colbert tried to decipher President Donald Trump’s recent tweets claiming the Obama administration may have placed a spy in his 2016 campaign.
“Follow Trump down the rabbit hole here,” the “Late Show” host said on Wednesday night as he attempted to unpack the conspiracy theory.
The worm has turned
The worm turns
Even a worm will turn
The worm has turned means that someone who has previously been downtrodden has triumphed, someone who has previously been unlucky has become lucky, or someone who has previously been obedient has spoken up.
兔子急了也咬人；人被逼急了也要反抗； 糟糕的情况有好转。
As the worm has turned against Big Tech in the last few years, many experts, especially on the left, have called for a rethinking of antitrust. (Bloomberg News)
It seems that the worm has turned in Oakland County, as the most brisk business I have seen in any provisioning center takes place right across the street from a frozen lake with ice skaters and fishing shanties. (The Detroit Metro Times)
be catnip to sb/sth
to be certain to attract or interest a particular person or type of person.
吸引…，引起…兴趣
Johnson’s pledge to take the UK out of the EU on October 31 “do or die” has excited Brexiteers. His pledge to threaten Brussels with walking away without a deal and withhold the nearly $50 billion the UK owes Europe, unless Europe agrees to renegotiate May’s deal, is catnip to a certain type of Conservative。
