I.核心学习：Business Cards商业英语-名片

Michael: What are you doing, Billy? Your desk looks like a disaster zone.

迈克尔：你在做什么，比利?你的桌子看起来像个灾区。

Billy: I have a spare half-an-hour, so I thought I would organize my business cards.

比利：我有半个小时的空闲时间，所以我想我要整理我的名片。

Michael: I have never really understood what the point of name cards is.

迈克尔：我从来都搞不太懂名片是干什么用的。

Billy: Business cards have a long history and many, many uses.

比利：名片的历史很长，而且用途很多很多。

Michael: They might be good for you, but I am a hermit and never meet new people.

迈克尔：它们对你来说可能是有用，不过我是个隐士，从不见新的人。

Billy: If you worked in sales and marketing like me, you would find that names cards are indispensable.

比利：如果你像我这样做营销工作，你就会发现名片是必不可少的东西。

Michael: Maybe. But I don’t think I need a small piece of paper to help people remember who I am.

迈克尔：也许吧。不过我不认为我需要一张小纸片来帮助人们记住我是谁。

Billy: That’s probably true. I think that most people would try, but not be able to forget you!

比利：那大概是真的。我想大多数人设法，但却没法忘掉你!

　　II.单词解析

1) Disaster zone: a place that has been hit by a bomb or other very large accident

灾区：被炸弹击中或者发生其他大型意外事件的地方

ex: My mother said that my bedroom looked like a disaster zone, so my dad made me clean it up.

例句：我妈妈说我的卧室看起来像是个灾区，所以爸爸让我把它收拾干净。

2) Hermit: a person who lives alone and never talks with people

隐士：独自生活、从不和别人说话的人

ex: Some days I dream of being a hermit and leaving all of the hassles of modern life behind me.

例句：有时候我梦想做个隐士，把现代生活的所有这些烦杂事务抛在身后。

3) Concocted: made or invented

调制，调和，编造：做或者发明

ex: I concocted a new alcoholic drink at the party last night, but I drank too many of them and now my head hurts.

例句：昨晚我在派对上调了一种新酒，不过我喝得太多了，现在我头疼。

4) Aristocrat: a member of the upper class of society

贵族：上层社会的成员

ex: The idea of social classes really makes me sick - I don’t understand why aristocrats treat poor people so badly.

例句：我真的很反感把社会分成三六九等-我不明白为什么贵族对待穷人那么坏。

III.课文篇

The French claim that visiting cards first appeared in their land in the seventeenth century while the Chinese seek to prove that visiting cards were invented by their ancestors shortly after they had concocted explosive powder. However, the first ever known sample of a visiting card, dating back to 1786, was found in Germany. Gradually, with the development of certain rules of use, the cards had become common by the nineteenth century.

法国人认为拜访卡于十七世纪在他们的土地上率先出现，而中国人则设法证明拜访卡是在他们的祖先发明了火药后不久发明的。不管怎样，人们所知道的第一个拜访卡样本-追溯到1786年-出现于德国。慢慢地，随着某些使用规则的出现，到十九世纪时名片变得普遍起来。

Do you know which corner of a visiting card you must fold when leaving it with a footman in order to indicate that you have called on to inquire after the master’s health? No? Neither do I, but only a hundred years ago this knowledge was as vital for an aristocrat as dancing and polite conversation.

你知不知道当你把拜访卡留与仆人时，为了暗示你来拜访过主人给他请安，你必须折叠拜访卡的哪一角?不知道?我也不知道，不过就在一百年以前这点学问对于贵族来说有如跳舞和有教养的交谈那样至关重要。

Visiting cards used to be an indispensable attribute of the etiquette and the rules of their use were as sophisticated as those of cutlery. At that time visiting cards belonged to the notions of such consequence like title, rank, land, horses etc.

过去拜访卡是礼节一个不可缺少的组成部分，而且它们的使用规则像餐具的使用规则那样复杂。在那个时候，拜访卡有如头衔、等级、土地、马匹等一样重要。

First businessmen used their cards as marks of distinction and thus introduced the first modifications in their design. Later, as the growing demand for the cards boosted the development of the printing industry, more and more sophisticated card design patterns appeared.

最早的商人将他们的卡片作为区别于他人的一个标志，因此在他们的设计中首先出现了修改。后来，随着名片需求的增加，推进了印刷工业的发展，出现了越来越多复杂的卡片设计图案。

On the other hand, there appeared an ever-growing social group of private entrepreneurs who had a constant need to exchange their contact information. These pragmatic people started to print out their own cheaper business cards to give them at presentations, exhibitions, conferences etc.

另一方面，私人企业家的社会团体也在日益增长。这些人需要经常交换他们的联系信息。这些注重实效的人开始印出自己便宜的名片，在见面、展览以及开会等场合送出。

In the modern business card design, with its developed professional conventions, one can still detect the two conflicting approaches, the fanciful and the functional one. The purpose of the first approach is to show that there is nothing impossible for the card’s owner. The more striking by its design and materials and the more sophisticated in its manufacturing technology, the card will be the better. What matters is the card’s uniqueness. The content of the card does not matter much either.

在现代名片设计中，随着其职业协定的发展，人们仍然可以察觉到互相矛盾的两个方面：装饰性与功能性。第一个方面的目的是为了炫耀对于名片主人来说没有什么是不可能的。设计与材料越精美，生产技术越复杂，名片就越好。重要的是名片的独特性。名片的内容也不太重要。

The other approach, on the contrary, emphasizes functionality. It is the one that rules in the pragmatic West. And the English name of the item - "business card"- also focuses on its specific functionality. These cards are essential for those company workers that interact with clients. That is why, on the one hand, you can see a small clerk, a service engineer or even a heaver with his own business card and a head of the department without such if he or she does not interact with clients.

另一个方面恰恰相反，强调功能性。注重实效的西方崇尚这一点。此外，名片的英文名-"business card"-也强调了它具体的功能性。这些名片对那些与客户有联系、在公司里工作的职员来说很关键。这就是为什么，一方面，你会看到一个小小的职员、一个维修工程师乃至一个搬运工都有他自己的名片，而另一方面，部门头头如果他/她不和客户打交道的话却没有名片。

Business cards used to be made exclusively of stiff paper (card), but today come in materials from plastics to thin metals and even glass! A name or business card reflects the owner - it should represent visually the company or the person passing it. Take the time to have a closer look at your own cards and decide if they really suit you and your company.

以前名片无一例外都是用硬纸来做成的(卡片)，不过现在用来制作的材料很多，从塑料到薄金属片甚至玻璃!名片反映着主人的风格-在视觉上它应该代表着公司或给名片的人。仔细看你自己的名片，看看它是否真的适合你或者你的公司。