owlish a.looking like an owl and seeming serious and clever 面孔严肃的。
grotesque a.outlandish or bizarre, as in character or appearance 奇怪的。
plagiarism n.when someone uses another person s words, ideas, or work and pretends they are their own 剽窃。
farce n.a light humorous play full of silly things happening 闹剧,笑剧, 滑稽戏。
kernel n.the most material and central part ; the core 核心。
garner v.to collect or store.
discoloration n.the act of discoloring 变色 caliber n .the level of quality, excellence, or ability of something or someone 能力, 才干,素质。
phonograph n.留声机。
credit n.public approval or praise given to someone because of something they have done 荣誉。
mite n.a very small contribution or amount of something.
unwitting a.not knowing or not intended 不知情的,非故意的。
lumber v.( with ) to cause difficulty to (someone ) especially by giving then unwanted object or responsibility 给??增加负担, 拖累??
palimpsest n.a manuscript , typically of papyrus or parchment , that has been written on more than once, with the earlier writing incompletely erased and often legible 将原有文字刮去后可以重新书写的羊皮纸之类的东西。
turnip n.a widely cultivated Eurasian plant 芜菁。
blaspheme v.to speak of (God or a sacred entity) in an irreverent ,impious manner 亵渎。
ruck n.a multitude; a throng 一大群,大量。
hoary a.gray or white with or as if with age 灰白的,因年老而头发灰白的。
filch v.to take ( something, especially something of little value) in a furtive manner 偷。
Ⅲ.Notes to the Text
1.Helen Keller: the American writer Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia ,Alabama, as the daughter of Captain Arthur Henley Keller, a cotton plantation owner and the editor of a local newspaper.Helen s mother, Kate Adams Keller, was a Memphis belle who was twenty years younger than her husband.Helen lost her hearing and sight at 19 months of age, but she had learned the meaning of the word “water” , and her vision had been excellent .
As she grew up, she managed to learn to do tiny errands, but also realized that she was missing something.Afterward she described herself a“wild,unruly child”. Keller was sent to a state school for the blind, but failed first grade because she could not read Braille (盲人 用 点字 法).At the age of fourteen , she was physically more developed than most of the girls of her age .
From the very beginning of this letter, you can clearly see how lofty and confidential between Mark Twain and Helen Keller .
2.Mark Twain is well-known for his humor and we can find many cases of humor in this letter .
3.Anne Sullivan (1866 1936 ): Originally Joanna Mansfield Sullivan, Anne Sullivan was born in Feeding Hills, MA.She was nearly blind from childhood fever.Sullivan was educated at the Perkins Institution in Waltham, MA.There she taught the seven-year-old Helen Keller, and managed to break through her isolation by spelling out words on her hand .
“The most important day I remember in all my life was the one on which my teacher came to me,” Keller later said.Under her tutelage, Keller discovered that words were related to things.Sullivan also established her own reputation as an author, lecturer, and advocate for the deaf .
The use of parallelism here best illustrates the exclusiveness and irreplaceability of Helen Keller s other half .
4.That is to say, Wellington could not have possibly won the decisive battle of Waterloo on his own .
5.The use of rhetorical question is meant to emphasize the simplicity and clarity of this matter .
6.A humorous reference to the non-creative beings .
7.The use of metaphor scornfully sketches the hypocrisy of these surly eccentric dogmatic pedants .
Ⅳ.Text-Related Practice
Questions for discussion:
1.What is the Mark Twain s attitude to the plagiarism farce ?
2.Who are the donkeys mentioned in the last paragraph ?
3.What is your opinion about plagiarism ?