……
说一下我关于‘男人’这段翻译的看法。当我读到“……出自男人之手”实在觉得别扭。于是找到原文。
原文:
I now know that there is a happy abundance of science writers who pen the most lucid and thrilling prose-Timothy Ferris, Richard Fortey, and Tim Flannery are three that jump out from a single station of the alphabet (and that's not even to mention the late but godlike Richard Feynman)-but sadly none of them wrote any textbook I ever used. All mine were written by men (it was always men) who held the interesting notion that everything became clear when expressed as a formula and the amusingly deluded belief that the children of America would appreciate having chapters end with a section of questions they could mull over in their own time.
注意到‘…godlike Richard Feynman’这里'godlike'基本意为'神一样的'(一个作家——也是科学家,为什么会像神一样呢?),再看后面'All mine were written by men (it was always men) ',显然这里的'men'要与前面的'godlike'形成一种对比。作者这么表述的的意图也就清楚了。Timothy Ferris, Richard Fortey,Richard Feynman一干人等写出的文章无比精彩,通俗的说这几位作家简直“神了”。而对比来看我看过的教材,都出自庸人之手,所以这里men并不指‘男人’,而普遍指‘人’。
我的翻译:……(更不用说“神”一样的Richard Feynman了),可不爽的是,他们没谁写过我用的教材。我的教材都是出自“人类”的手笔(而且总是出自“人类”)……