In the year 1914 a young girl named Monica Baldwin entered a convent, remaining secluded there until 1941 when she was released from her vows and returned to the outer world.

　　1914 年，一个名叫莫妮卡· 鲍德温的年轻姑娘进了一座修道院，过着与世隔绝的隐居生活，直到1941 年她才从许下的愿言中解脱出来，重新回到外界生活之中。

　　In the intervening twenty-eight years wars and revolutions had come and gone in Europe, her uncle, Stanley Baldwin, had guided the destinies of his country for some time, technical developments had altered the conditions of everyday life almost beyond recognition, but all these events had left virtually untouched the small religious community to which she had belonged.

　　在这28年的岁月里，欧洲经历了多次的战争和革命;她的叔父，斯坦利· 鲍德温，曾一度执掌国家的命运;社会生产技术的发展几乎完全改变了人们日常生活的面貌。但是所有这一切简直丝毫没有波及她曾栖身于其中的那一个小小的宗教团体。

　　In 1949 Miss Baldwin published her impressions of those first bewilderingyears of her return to a world in which the motor-car had ousted the horse and carriage, and where respectable women showed their legs and painted their faces. Yet it was not only these odd sights that astounded her, for she was even more puzzled by what she heard.

　　1949 年，鲍德温小姐出版了她重返世俗后最初几年迷惑不解的印象记。在当时社会上汽车已代替了马车，名媛淑女已在画眉涂唇，裸腿而行。令她吃惊的不仅是这些新奇的景象，人们的言谈更使她茫然不知所云。

　　During a railway journey the term‘luggage in advance’meant nothing to her, so in desperation she implored the porter to do as he thought best.

　　在一次火车旅行时，她听不懂“luggage in advance”(行李先行托运)这个说法，于手足无措之中，她只好央求搬运工看着办。

　　Reading the daily newspapers made her feel idiotic in the extreme, because the writers of reviews and leading articles used words and phrases such as Jazz, Gin and It, the Unknown Soldier, Lease-lend, Hollywood, Cocktail, Striptease and Isolationism.

　　读起报纸来，她感到如堕五里雾中，因为写评论和社论的人用了诸如jazz(爵士乐)、gin and it(甜味苦艾酒和杜松子酒的混合饮料)、the Unknown Soldier(无名阵亡战士)、lend-lease(租借法)、Hollywood(好莱坞)、cocktail(鸡尾酒)、striptease(脱衣舞)和isolationism(孤立主义)等词语。

　　These and many others were quite incomprehensible to Miss Baldwin, who was equally bewildered when friends said‘It's your funeral’or‘Believe it or not’. Advertisements on hoardings proclaimed the virtues of mysterious products named Vim, Rinso and Brasso, while in restaurants it was difficult to make any sense of the list of the dishes available.

　　对鲍温德小姐来说，这些以及别的许多词语都是无法理解的。当朋友们说It's your funeral(这是需要你操心的事)或Believe it or not(信不信由你)时，她也同样感到莫名其妙。广告牌上的广告宣传着那些称做Vim(维姆)、Rinso(林索)和Brasso(布拉索)的令人费解的妙处，餐馆里的菜单也叫人弄不懂是什么意思。

　　This is a rare and valuable reminder to the rest of us that the English language does not stand still any more than our other institutions. All languages change over a period of time, for reasons which are imperfectly understood.

　　这些罕见而有价值的例子提醒我们大家，英语像我们生活中别的东西那样并不是一成不变的。所有语言经过一段时间就要变，其变化的原因是无法完全搞清楚的。

　　Or rather, since speech is really a form of human activity, like dancing or playing the piano —and not an entity in itself —it is more exact to say that each successive generation behaves linguistically in a slightly different manner from its predecessors.

　　或者更确切地说，由于言语实际上是人类活动的一种形式，就像跳舞或弹钢琴一样——其本身并非是一个实体——每一代人在语言的运用上总与上一代人略有不同。

　　In his teens the young man is impatient of what he considers to be theunduly stilted vocabulary and pronunciation of his elders and he likes to show how up to date he is by the use of the latest slang, but as the years go by some of his slang becomes standard usage and in any case he slowly grows less receptive to linguistic novelties, so that by the time he reaches his forties he will probably be lamenting the slipshod speech of the younger generation, quite unaware that some of the expressions used in church and law-court were frowned upon by his own parents.

　　在十几岁的年轻人看来，年龄大一点的人讲话用词过于刻板拘谨，发音很不自然。年轻人厌恶这一套，他们喜欢用最新的俚语以示自己时髦。可是，随着岁月的流逝，他们用的俚语中的一部分变成了正式用语，他们本人到头来也渐渐地不再那么容易接受语言中新奇的东西。这样，当他们年过四十以后，听着青年一代马虎随便的言谈也会大摇其头。殊不知，现今在教堂和法庭被人们一本正经地使用着的部分词语和发音也正是当年引得他们的父母皱眉不止的东西。

　　In this respect language is a little like fashions in men's dress. The informal clothes of one generation become the everyday wear of the next, and just as young doctors and bank-clerks nowadays go about their business in sports-jackets, so they allow into their normal vocabulary various expressions which were once confined to slang and familiar conversation.

　　在这方面，语言有点像时装。一代人穿的便服会成为下一代人的日常服装。正如今天的青年医师和银行职员穿着运动衫工作一样，他们在日常用语中也吸收了各种过去一度被认为是俚语俗话的词语。

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