外刊精读 | 为啥女装中没有口袋呢？

前期回顾：

今天是小芳老师陪你精读外刊的第70天

难度指数6级（共8级）

段落梳理

Para. 1：通过一个小故事来引入话题：为什么女装中没有口袋？

Para 2：通过自己的例子说明女装中的口袋一般都是假的。

Para 3：通过具体数据说明，女装口袋比较小，但对手提包市场有益处。

Para 4-5：分析了女装口袋的历史发展，以及时尚行业对女装影响，最终呼吁口袋平等。

第一步：泛读原文（盲听1遍，泛读1遍，对照文本听1遍）

The other day at a business conference, I watched as a hapless man asked one of the most fatuous questions in modern corporate life. He worked for the audio team that had to attach a clunky microphone battery pack to all the speakers going on stage, and each time he approached a female panellist, he said: “Have you got an inside pocket in your jacket?” It wasn’t his fault. Most of the male speakers did have such a pocket, into which the battery pack silkily slipped. But asking a woman if she has an inside jacket pocket is like asking if she has a ticket to the moon.

For reasons that continue to baffle, the fashion industry remains infuriatingly resistant to the internal female coat pocket, and is apt to make clothes without any useful pockets at all. The other day I bought a blazer that seemed to have three outside pockets, only to get home and discover one was in fact a Potemkin pocket, a fake slit sewn shut with nothing behind it. This rubbish is also rife on women’s trousers, where pockets are typically feeble imitations of roomy male versions.

Incredibly, the average front pockets in US women’s blue jeans are 48 per cent shorter and 6.5 per cent narrower than the equivalent in men’s jeans, say journalists at The Pudding publication. After measuring dozens of pockets in 20 of the most popular jeans brands in 2018, they also found less than half of women’s front pockets could fit a thin wallet, let alone a phone and keys. Most would not fit the average woman’s hand beyond the knuckles. This is good news for the $56bn global handbag market. But a lot of women would cheerfully do what men have done for centuries and carry everything we need in pockets.

Actually, women had pockets for ages too, big enough to hold a duck, the Victoria and Albert Museum records. Things seemed to go downhill in the 19th century, when female fashion drifted towards more svelte lines and pockets began their journey to today’s uselessness.

Women clearly face more dire problems than this, but as Phoebe Gormley, the first womenswear-only tailor on Savile Row in 2015, says, it’s also wrong that high street womenswear typically comes in a fraction of the size permutations available in menswear: classic, slim, extra slim; short, long or regular leg, and so on. The result, she says, is that “when men don’t find clothes that fit them, they say, ‘That’s the clothes’ fault’,” and look for a better fit. Women, having far fewer options, blame themselves instead. “It makes women feel like they hate their body,” she says. Ultimately, a more pocket-equal world would suit everyone, including men. Imagine going out without ever again hearing those tedious words, “Have you got room to carry my phone?”.

第二步：精读原文（精读1遍，对照文本听1遍，精读1遍）

读原文（精读1遍，对照文本听1遍）

01

The other day at a business conference, I watched as ahaplessman asked one of the mostfatuousquestions in modern corporate life. He worked for the audio team that had to attach a clunky microphone battery pack to all the speakers going on stage, and each time he approached a female panellist, he said: “Have you got an inside pocket in your jacket?” It wasn’t his fault. Most of the male speakers did have such a pocket, into which the battery pack silkily slipped. But asking a woman if she has an inside jacket pocket is like asking if she has a ticket to the moon.

1. 学一个单词：hapless

Meaning:unlucky倒霉的，不幸的. E.g. The hapless passengers were stranded at the airport for three days. 倒霉的乘客在机场滞留了三天。

同义词：

Unfortunate, unlucky, luckless, out of luck, ill-starred, ill-fated, jinxed, cursed, doomed, star-crossed.

有意思的是：star-crossed 表示时运不济，通常指恋人之间，比如说罗密欧与朱丽叶，他们就是：star-crossed lovers 命运多舛的恋人

2. 再学一个单词：fatuous

Meaning:愚蠢的；愚昧的：e.g. a fatuous comment / grin 愚蠢的话语；龇牙咧嘴的傻笑

表示傻的词语就比较多了：silly, foolish, stupid, inane, brainless, mindless, witless, empty-headed, hare-brained; ridiculous

3. 知识背景：为什么hare-brained 表示没脑子？

我们平时说某人行为做事很愚蠢，可能会用“没脑子”或者说某人的脑子是某种动物的脑子，总之，就不是正常的human brain。在英语里，他们把“愚蠢的”行为称为harebrained（野兔脑子），估计跟咱们说的“猪脑子”意思差不多。至于后来为什么演变成hairbrained，看了下面的解释就明白了。

The first use of harebrained dates to 1548. The spelling hairbrained also has a long history, going back to the 1500s when hair was a variant spelling of hare. The hair variant was preserved in Scotland into the 18th century, and as a result it is impossible to tell exactly when people began writing hairbrained in the belief that the word means "having a hair-sized brain" rather than "with no more sense than a hare."

Harebrained的用法最初见于1548年。而hairbrained这个拼法也有很长的历史，可以追溯到16世纪，那时候hair是hare的另一种拼法。苏格兰一直将hairbrained这个拼法保留到18世纪，因此，人们到底从什么时候开始使用hairbrained，意即“头发丝那么细的脑子”，来取代原本表示“跟野兔一样没脑子”的harebrained也就无从考证了。

4. 学一个引入段的方法：讲故事

本文通过讲述作者遇到的一个趣事，引入到文章的主题，女性的衣服没有口袋的问题。在我们四六级或者托福雅思写作中，也可以尝试用故事引入。以讲故事的形式作为文章的开头，在此基础上展开文章。多用于记叙文，也可用于议论文。

翻译：前几天在一个商业会议上，我看到一个倒霉蛋问了一个当代职场中最愚蠢的问题。他所在的音频团队需要给所有要上台的发言人都装一个笨重的麦克风电池组，每次他走近一位女性成员时，他都会问:“你的上衣内侧有口袋吗?”这并不是他的错。大多数男性发言人的上衣里都有这样的口袋，电池组可以丝滑地装进去。但是问一个女性她的上衣里面有没有口袋就像问她有没有去月球的票一样。

02

For reasons that continue tobaffle, the fashion industry remains infuriatingly resistant to the internal female coat pocket, andis apt tomake clothes without any useful pockets at all. The other day I bought a blazer that seemed to have three outside pockets, only to get home and discover one was in fact a Potemkin pocket, a fake slit sewn shut with nothing behind it. This rubbish is also rife on women’s trousers, where pockets are typically feeble imitations of roomy male versions.

1. 学一个单词：baffle

Meaning:to confuse sb completely; to be too difficult or strange for sb to understand or explain 使困惑；难住，e.g. His behaviour baffles me. 他的行为使我难以琢磨。

The first effect was tobaffleand dismay the financial markets. 第一个影响是使金融市场感到困惑和沮丧。来演：经济学人

同义词比较多：perplex, puzzle, bewilder, mystify, confuse, confound, make someone scratch their head, be all Greek to

2. 学一个俚语：be all Greek to

Greek to me是什么意思呢？“对我来说就是希腊语”；“对我来说都是希腊人”吗？

非也，是“完全无法理解；全然不知”的意思，汉语中常说的，“像听天书一样”；“一窍不通”；“一头雾水”等，都可以用It's all Greek to me来表达~

比如问同学数学问题：就可以说：Would you mind helping me with this math problem? It's all Greek to me. 你可以教我这道数学题吗？我完全搞不懂。

或者平时看说明书看不懂，也可以说：I tried reading the instructions, but it's all Greek to me.我尝试看说明书，但是我完全看不懂。

3. 学一个短语：is apt to

Meaning: 倾向于

The eliteswere more apt tocollaborate earlier in the war. 上层人物更容易在战争前期叛变。

4. 学一个阅读技巧：

The other day I bought a blazer that seemed to have three outside pockets, only to get home and discover one was in facta Potemkin pocket, a fake slit sewn shut with nothing behind it.

当大家读到这句话，相信百分之九十九的同学（包括我自己）不知道Potemkin是什么意思？但是有两个内容可以帮助我们理解，首先这个词是pocket的修饰成分，所以就是**口袋，再结合后面的同位语成分，那就是是一个sewn shut（缝住的密闭口），后面什么都没有，那就可以理解为假口袋啦。

翻译：出于一些令人费解的原因，时尚行业仍然不肯在女式外套里面加口袋，这真让人气愤，并且时尚行业倾向于生产不带任何有用口袋的衣服。有一天，我买了一件外套，外面看似有三个口袋，结果回到家才发现其中一个口袋徒有其表，是一个缝起来的假口袋，里面什么也没有。这种没用的口袋在女式裤子上也很普遍，女式裤子口袋通常都是对宽大的男式裤子口袋的无力模仿。

03

Incredibly, the average front pockets in US women’s blue jeans are 48 per cent shorter and 6.5 per cent narrower than the equivalent in men’s jeans, say journalists at The Pudding publication. After measuring dozens of pockets in 20 of the most popular jeans brands in 2018, they also found less than half of women’s front pockets could fit a thin wallet,let alonea phone and keys. Most would not fit the average woman’s hand beyond the knuckles.This is good news forthe $56bn global handbag market. But a lot of women would cheerfully do what men have done for centuries and carry everything we need in pockets.

1. 学一个写作方法：英文重点在前，中文重点在后。

Incredibly, the average front pockets in US women’s blue jeans are 48 per cent shorter and 6.5 per cent narrower than the equivalent in men’s jeans, say journalists at The Pudding publication.

例句中，重点信息先表述出来。语言的表达排序上。中文修饰在前，重点在后，先整体阐述问题，由大到小。而英文重点在前，修饰在后，先局部后整体，是由小到大!

如：昨天晚上七点，我去看了电影。

I have gone to movieat 7 o’clock last night.

2. 学一个语法：

let alone可以接名词，可以接状语（比如由介词引导），可以接动词，也可以接动名词。

通过语料库网站搜索let alone, 得到：

1）That would be unusual for a regular-season game,let alone the All-Star contest. 可知let alone可以接名词。

2）High tech employees are hard enough to find in the world at large, let alone at Apple. at是介词，你就知道了let alone可以接状语。

3）那let alone接动词还是接动名词(V-ing)呢？I am a UNO student and I don't go when its free, let alone having to pay for it.

3. 学一个短语：good news for

对某人来说是好消息，be good news for sb。反过来，如果是坏消息呢，我们就可以说sth. be bad news for sb。

Sth is good/bad news句型很常见，比如经济学人里面提到苹果手机的时候说bad news for Apple, good news for humanity，苹果的坏消息，人类的好消息。

又比如经济学人中：

This is good news for its people, but means that an ever-higher share of the population is elderly.

这对其国民来说是个好消息，但也意味着老年人在总人口中的比重越来越高。

翻译：《布丁》杂志的记者称，令人难以置信的是，美国女式蓝色牛仔裤的前口袋平均比男式牛仔裤的前口袋浅48%，窄6.5%。在测量了2018年最受欢迎的20个牛仔裤品牌的许多口袋后，他们还发现，只有不到一半的女式牛仔裤前口袋能装下一个薄钱包，更不用说放手机和钥匙了。大多数口袋放不下普通女性的整只手。这对价值560亿美元的全球手提包市场来说是个好消息。但很多女性会乐于做男性几个世纪以来一直在做的事，把需要的东西都放在口袋里。

04

Actually, women had pockets for ages too, big enough to hold a duck, the Victoria and Albert Museum records.Things seemed to go downhillin the 19th century, when female fashion drifted towards moresveltelines and pockets began their journey to today’s uselessness.

Women clearly face moredireproblems than this, but as Phoebe Gormley, the first womenswear-only tailor on Savile Row in 2015, says, it’s also wrong that high street womenswear typically comes in a fraction of the size permutations available in menswear: classic, slim, extra slim; short, long or regular leg, and so on. The result, she says, is that “when men don’t find clothes that fit them, they say, ‘That’s the clothes’ fault’,” and look for a better fit. Women, having far fewer options, blame themselves instead. “It makes women feel like they hate their body,” she says. Ultimately, a more pocket-equal world would suit everyone, including men. Imagine going out without ever again hearing those tedious words, “Have you got room to carry my phone?”

1. 学一个俚语：go downhill = worsen

在英语里，go downhill 这个短语的直接翻译是下山的意思，它也可以用来形容形势越来越糟或者无法控制。

例句:

1) My grandfather's been in hospital for the last month. He wasn't too bad at first, but he's rapidly going downhill.

2) The company is not making profits – business is really going downhill.

请注意，另有一个短语是 an uphill struggle 一场困难的斗争，用来形容某件事情很难办到或者需要付出很多的心血才能完成。

例句：

1）Finishing my degree whilst holding down a full-time job was a real uphill struggle.

2）He has just been made redundant and his wife’s expecting twins – the next couple of months are going to be a real uphill struggle for them.

2. 学一个单词：svelte

Meaning: (of a person, especially a woman 人，尤指女子) thin and attractive苗条的；身材修长的

e.g. She was slim, svelte, and sophisticated. 她身材苗条，优雅而老练。

3. 学一个单词：dire

Dire is used to emphasize how serious or terrible a situation or event is. （来源：柯林斯英汉双解大词典）

[ usually before noun] ( formal ) very serious （来源：Oxford Dictionary）极其严重的；可怕的；危急的;

---living in dire poverty 生活赤贫

---We're in dire need of your help. 我们亟需你的帮助。

---The firm is in dire straits and may go bankrupt. 这家公司已陷入极其严重困境之中，可能会破产。

4. 分析一个句子：Women, having far fewer options, blame themselves instead.

这个句子中，having far fewer options可以改为who have far fewer options，可以理解为定语成分。

再来一个例子：My brother, who owns a lot of property, does not want to find any real work. 可以改为：My brother, owning a lot of property, does not want to find any real work.

翻译：事实上，根据维多利亚和阿尔伯特博物馆的记录，女装上曾经很长时间都有口袋，大到足以装下一只鸭子。到了19世纪，情况似乎开始走下坡路，当时女性时尚转向追求更苗条的线条，口袋开始往今天的无用之物发展。

女性显然面临着比这更严峻的问题，但正如2015年萨维尔街（伦敦售卖高档订制男装的店铺聚集的街道）第一个专做女装的裁缝菲比·戈姆利所说，高街女装的尺码通常只有男装的一小部分：经典款、修身款、超修身款；短款、长款或普通款，等等。她说，结果是，“当男人找不到适合自己的衣服时，他们会说，‘那是衣服的‘错’”，然后去寻找更合身的衣服。女性的选择少得多，反而责怪自己。“这让女性觉得她们讨厌自己的身体，”她说。从根本上说，一个口袋更加平等的世界将满足所有人的需要，包括男性。想象一下，你出门再也不用听到那些啰嗦的话:“你有地方放我的手机吗?”

第三步：阅读双语文章

上下滑动阅读双语全文

The other day at a business conference, I watched as a hapless man asked one of the most fatuous questions in modern corporate life. He worked for the audio team that had to attach a clunky microphone battery pack to all the speakers going on stage, and each time he approached a female panellist, he said: “Have you got an inside pocket in your jacket?” It wasn’t his fault. Most of the male speakers did have such a pocket, into which the battery pack silkily slipped. But asking a woman if she has an inside jacket pocket is like asking if she has a ticket to the moon.

前几天在一个商业会议上，我看到一个倒霉蛋问了一个当代职场中最愚蠢的问题。他所在的音频团队需要给所有要上台的发言人都装一个笨重的麦克风电池组，每次他走近一位女性成员时，他都会问:“你的上衣内侧有口袋吗?”这并不是他的错。大多数男性发言人的上衣里都有这样的口袋，电池组可以丝滑地装进去。但是问一个女性她的上衣里面有没有口袋就像问她有没有去月球的票一样。

For reasons that continue to baffle, the fashion industry remains infuriatingly resistant to the internal female coat pocket, and is apt to make clothes without any useful pockets at all. The other day I bought a blazer that seemed to have three outside pockets, only to get home and discover one was in fact a Potemkin pocket, a fake slit sewn shut with nothing behind it. This rubbish is also rife on women’s trousers, where pockets are typically feeble imitations of roomy male versions.

出于一些令人费解的原因，时尚行业仍然不肯在女式外套里面加口袋，这真让人气愤，并且时尚行业倾向于生产不带任何有用口袋的衣服。有一天，我买了一件外套，外面看似有三个口袋，结果回到家才发现其中一个口袋徒有其表，是一个缝起来的假口袋，里面什么也没有。

这种没用的口袋在女式裤子上也很普遍，女式裤子口袋通常都是对宽大的男式裤子口袋的无力模仿。

Incredibly, the average front pockets in US women’s blue jeans are 48 per cent shorter and 6.5 per cent narrower than the equivalent in men’s jeans, say journalists at The Pudding publication. After measuring dozens of pockets in 20 of the most popular jeans brands in 2018, they also found less than half of women’s front pockets could fit a thin wallet, let alone a phone and keys. Most would not fit the average woman’s hand beyond the knuckles. This is good news for the $56bn global handbag market. But a lot of women would cheerfully do what men have done for centuries and carry everything we need in pockets.

《布丁》杂志的记者称，令人难以置信的是，美国女式蓝色牛仔裤的前口袋平均比男式牛仔裤的前口袋浅48%，窄6.5%。在测量了2018年最受欢迎的20个牛仔裤品牌的许多口袋后，他们还发现，只有不到一半的女式牛仔裤前口袋能装下一个薄钱包，更不用说放手机和钥匙了。大多数口袋放不下普通女性的整只手。这对价值560亿美元的全球手提包市场来说是个好消息。但很多女性会乐于做男性几个世纪以来一直在做的事，把需要的东西都放在口袋里。

Actually, women had pockets for ages too, big enough to hold a duck, the Victoria and Albert Museum records. Things seemed to go downhill in the 19th century, when female fashion drifted towards more svelte lines and pockets began their journey to today’s uselessness.

Women clearly face more dire problems than this, but as Phoebe Gormley, the first womenswear-only tailor on Savile Row in 2015, says, it’s also wrong that high street womenswear typically comes in a fraction of the size permutations available in menswear: classic, slim, extra slim; short, long or regular leg, and so on. The result, she says, is that “when men don’t find clothes that fit them, they say, ‘That’s the clothes’ fault’,” and look for a better fit. Women, having far fewer options, blame themselves instead. “It makes women feel like they hate their body,” she says. Ultimately, a more pocket-equal world would suit everyone, including men. Imagine going out without ever again hearing those tedious words, “Have you got room to carry my phone?”

事实上，根据维多利亚和阿尔伯特博物馆的记录，女装上曾经很长时间都有口袋，大到足以装下一只鸭子。到了19世纪，情况似乎开始走下坡路，当时女性时尚转向追求更苗条的线条，口袋开始往今天的无用之物发展。

女性显然面临着比这更严峻的问题，但正如2015年萨维尔街（伦敦售卖高档订制男装的店铺聚集的街道）第一个专做女装的裁缝菲比·戈姆利所说，高街女装的尺码通常只有男装的一小部分：经典款、修身款、超修身款；短款、长款或普通款，等等。她说，结果是，“当男人找不到适合自己的衣服时，他们会说，‘那是衣服的‘错’”，然后去寻找更合身的衣服。女性的选择少得多，反而责怪自己。“这让女性觉得她们讨厌自己的身体，”她说。从根本上说，一个口袋更加平等的世界将满足所有人的需要，包括男性。想象一下，你出门再也不用听到那些啰嗦的话:“你有地方放我的手机吗?”

第四步：回答问题（评论区回答问题）

请大家阅读全文后，绘制思维导图

方法提示: 思维导图有利于大家掌握文章框架和逻辑，帮助大家理清思路。画思维导图的过程中，可以多次通读，并且尝试找到关键词，慢慢梳理框架。

【特别声明】以上内容由小芳老师原创整理，转载请注明来源，本平台采用的音视频资源均出于传递信息和英语学习之目的，并没有任何商业目的。本公号尊重知识产权，如无意中侵犯了您的权益，请及时联系后台，本公号将及时删除。