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过节更要学英文。圣诞节的夜，我推荐你读一读《经济学人》今年的收官之作：圣诞节双周特刊 (Christmas double issue)。
除了常规板块外，圣诞节特刊多了Christmas specials。相比其它板块的文章，这几篇特别报道篇幅较长、风格更活泼。我从中选了几篇简单和你分享一下，如果你对某一篇感兴趣的话，打开原文链接读完它吧。
1. 电梯改变生活
www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21732705-elevators-may-soon-go-sideways-well-up-new-lift-technology-reshaping-cities
我们可能从来没注意过电梯对我们生活的影响。实际上它和汽车一样重要：“The lift is to the vertical what the car is to the horizontal: the defining means of transport.”
它也改变了我们对“气派“的定义。没有电梯以前住一楼是身份的象征；有了电梯后，顶层的penthouse成了新的身份象征：“In extending the human world upwards, the lift overturned previous notions of prestige.”
未来的电梯会是什么样呢？如何突破时间和空间的限制，改变我们的建筑和生活？
2. 一夫多妻不行吗？
www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21732695-plural-marriage-bred-inequality-begets-violence-link-between-polygamy-and-war
polygamy是“一夫多妻制”的意思，类似的词汇还有“monogamy”（一夫一妻制），“polyandry"（一妻多夫制）。这篇文章的开头段写得很有意思, 巧妙地穿插Jane Austine的两句名言引出话题:
IT IS a truth universally acknowledged, or at least widely accepted in South Sudan, that a man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of many wives. Paul Malong, South Sudan’s former army chief of staff, has more than 100—no one knows the exact number. A news website put it at 112 in February, after one of the youngest of them ran off to marry a teacher. The couple were said to be in hiding. To adapt Jane Austen again, we are all fools in love, but especially so if we cuckold a warlord in one of the world’s most violent countries.
有没有想过，同性恋婚姻可以合法，一夫多妻制是不是也可以合法？一夫多妻制的优点和缺点有哪些呢？
3. 一罐一世界
www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21732694-dinner-tastes-best-pre-digested-fermentation-makes-comeback
William Blake说"从一粒沙子看世界”（To see a world in a grain of salt），而这篇文章讲的是“从咸菜中看宇宙”，我们平时吃的泡菜中原来蕴含着人生呢！文章首段写道：
SANDOR KATZ’S kitchen is an alchemist’s laboratory. Glass jars filled with grains and spices both common and unusual—oat groats and rice, millet and dried tapioca pearls, sugar and liquorice, dulse and mauby bark—line ceiling-high shelves. Beneath them sit carboys filled with homemade meads, fruit wines and perry. In glass jars and ceramic crocks on the broad central table, the alchemist’s assistants—trillions of bacteria—transform red cabbage into crisp sauerkraut with a hint of caraway, deep green summer cucumbers into fizzingly sour olive-coloured pickles, carrots and green cabbage into bracing pao cai (Chinese pickles), and sliced daikon radish into an extraordinary kimchi. Its powerful funk blooms into the room as soon as Mr Katz removes the crock top.
我从来没有想过我会对一篇讲腌制食品的文章感兴趣。这段话中有很多我不认识的词，例如mauby, perry, mead, caraway，不过这并不影响阅读。从类比到五颜六色的形容词，作者把食物写成了艺术品。
4. 单车和自由
www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21732701-two-wheeled-journey-anarchist-provocation-high-stakes-capitalism-how
共享自行车的历史最早可以追溯到1965年7月28日。荷兰的无政府主义者们聚集在阿姆斯特朗的市中心，他们把黑色的自行车漆成白色，不上锁，供大众免费使用。不过这些白色共享自行车全被没收了，因为当时的法律规定自行车必须上锁。共享单车成了追求自由的象征。50年后，追求自由的梦想在中国实现了，虽然自行车还是有锁，虽然不是白色。
文中讨论了自行车偷盗的问题，作者回忆了自己的故事，读起来萌萌哒：
Your correspondent vividly remembers both the thrill of getting a brand new BMX for his 13th birthday and the heartache of having it stolen 11 days later. It was well over a decade before he owned another bike.
5. 百年孤独
www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21732707-one-hundred-years-solitude-and-milking-cows-alternative-college-education
深泉学院(Deep Spring)可能是世界上最与世隔绝、门槛高的大学（the most isolated and most selective small university in the world）。它坐落在沙漠中，每年只招生10多人，申请人的SAT成绩需要在top 2%，录取率是6-8%。他们要在这里过两年，没有外出和探访，除了上课外还要劈柴喂马，施肥种田。
这所大学建立于1917年，今年它100岁了。创始人为什么要建这样一所学校？101岁的它还在坚持初心吗？
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在悉尼机场买了几本这期圣诞双周刊，送出三本给大家。扫描下面的二维码即可参与抽奖，参与人数达到1215人后自动开奖。请中奖的朋友留言告诉我你的地址和联系方式，以便邮寄。