《经济学人》赏析：Stay Alive - Falling Su

本文由 现象级英语--经济学人第三期共读 第二小组 完成。标题及1-3段由陈玉梅完成，4-5段由Becky完成，6-7段由路人丁完成，8-9段由Ada完成，10-12段由灿灿完成。

题图源自《The economist》，由Ada修改

这个文章的题目很直白：自杀率下降的原因，以及如何将它降的更低。
副标题则对题目的问题做了高度概括的回答：城市化，更少的强迫性婚姻以及更多的自杀方式的限制是自杀率降低的主要因素。副标题中fewer和more的运用,让本句话更具对比性。
这篇文章从题目和副标题一目了然的知道文章是在讲自杀比率降低原因以及降的更低的方法讨论。

Paragraph 1
①“YOU KNOW,” says a trader in “Margin Call”, a film about the crash of 2008, as he stands high on a building above Wall Street, “the feeling that people experience when they stand on the edge like this isn’t the fear of falling—it’s the fear that they might jump.” ②Suicide fascinates us.③ It is at once appalling and yet, in the darkest places in our minds, appealing. ④It is the most damaging sort of death.⑤ A child’s suicide is a parent’s worst nightmare, and a parent’s marks their children for life.⑥ It is a manifestation not just of individual anguish but also of a collective failure: if society is too painful to live in, perhaps we are all culpable.

段落赏析

本段第①句以描述2008年次贷危机的一部电影《商海通牒》的台词为开端讲述自杀的感受，“有着自杀经验的人站在悬崖边上他们不害怕坠落的过程，而害怕那可能的一跳”。②-③表述自杀对我们有着吸引力，虽骇人听闻但那无边的黑暗也有着致命的吸引力。④-⑤自杀是最具损害性的死亡方式：孩子的自杀是父母最可怕的噩梦，父母的自杀将在孩子的一生留下印记。⑥它不仅是个人痛苦的表现，也是群体失败的表现：如果社会让人活得太痛苦，也许我们都是罪魁祸首。

没有看过《商海通牒》的电影，但因这篇文章的原因去搜索了这部电影的影评，联想到当前经济状况，与2008年那场次贷危机引发的金融海啸何其相像，股市崩盘、房市泡沫、消费降级...，也因此被安利了这部电影。这个周日可以与《商海通牒》约个会。

词句精读

• ③It is at once appalling and yet, in the darkest places in our minds, appealing.
  appalling 和appealing 既押头韵,又押尾韵。

• ⑥It is a manifestation not just of individual anguish but also of a collective failure。
  提炼句型：not just....but also.... 不仅....而且....
  e.g.：One of important thing that we should teach our children is the capacity not just of learning but also of acquisition.

Paragraph 2
①The suicide rate in America is up by 18% since 2000. ②This is not merely a tragedy; it matters politically, too.③ The rise is largely among white, middle-aged, poorly educated men in areas that were left behind by booms and crushed by busts.④ Their deaths are a symptom of troubles to which some see President Donald Trump as the answer. ⑤Those troubles should not be ignored.

段落赏析

本段讲述美国自杀率自2000以来上升了18%。 这不仅是悲剧，更有关于政治。接着阐述了在美国中年、未受过良好教育的白人男士更容易自杀，他们这群人处在被繁荣抛弃，并陷入经济危机的地区。对于那些认为特朗普是答案的人来说，这些人的死亡是麻烦的征兆，这些麻烦是不能被忽视的。

词句精读

• be up by：本段的be up by 18% 与第三段的be down by 29% 是一组对比的数据,美国的自杀率上升18%,全球范围内自杀率下降了29%.
  be up / down by 是经济学人较为常用的描述数据变化的用词,用词简洁，是我们在写作的时候应该学习运用的。
  e.g.：The sales of Dec of this year is up by 10%, compared to Nov, 2018, but is down by 8%, compared to Dec,2017.
  这个月的销量比上个月上升了10%，但比去年同期下降了8%。

Paragraph 3
①Nonetheless, beyond America’s gloomy trend is a more optimistic story: that at a global level, suicide is down by 29% since 2000 (see article). ②As a result, 2.8m lives have been saved in that time—three times as many as have been killed in battle. ③There is no one reason. ④It is happening at different rates among different groups in different places. ⑤But the decline is particularly notable among three sets of people.

段落赏析

第三段说明了全球自杀人数的变化：相较于美国让人沮丧的自杀趋势，新闻报道了一个更为乐观的事情：自2000以来,全球范围的自杀率降低了29%。因此，280万人的生命在这一时期被挽救了---这是三倍于在战争中被杀害的人数。这并没有一个统一的原因。在不同的地区，不同的组别自杀发生的比率是不一样的。但是这个比率的降低主要表现在三类人群中。

词句精读

• ②As a result, 2.8m lives have been saved in that time—three times as many as have been killed in battle.
  X times as many as 几倍多
  e.g.：The exports of our company are five times as many as last year's.
  今年公司的出口量是去年的5倍。

Paragraph 4
①One is young women in China and India. ②In most of the world, older people kill themselves more often than the young, and men more than women. ③But in China and India, young women have been unusually prone to suicide. ④That is decreasingly the case. ⑤Another group is middle-aged men in Russia. ⑥After the collapse of the Soviet Union, alcoholism and suicide rocketed among them. ⑦Both have now receded. ⑧A third category is old people all around the world. ⑨The suicide rate among the elderly remains, on average, higher than among the rest of the population, but has also fallen faster since 2000 than among other groups.

段落赏析

该段承接上文，讲述了自杀率呈明显下降的三类人群：印度和中国的年轻女性、俄罗斯的中年男性以及全球老龄人口。
①-④几乎全球都是老龄人口的自杀比率比年轻人更高、男性自杀率大于女性，而在中国和印度的年轻女性自杀倾向更显著，但这种情况正在逐渐减少。
⑤-⑦苏联解体后，俄罗斯中年男性酗酒及自杀情况激增，现在则都有所减缓。
⑧⑨平均而言，老龄人口的自杀率仍高于其他人群，但从2000年以来，其自杀率的下降速度高于其他人群。

词句精读

• collapse：If something, for example a system or institution, collapses, it fails or comes to an end completely and suddenly.
  CET4级词汇。除了坍塌，collapse还可以如本文用作系统或制度等的崩溃、瓦解。既可作名词，也可作动词。
  e.g. [n.]：Their economy is teetering on the brink of collapse.
  他们的经济岌岌可危，正处在崩溃的边缘。
  e.g. [v.]：The rural people have been impoverished by a collapsing economy.
  经济崩溃使农村地区的人们一贫如洗。

• rocket：If things such as prices or social problems rocket, they increase very quickly and suddenly.
  CET4级词汇。rocket本意是火箭，延伸成动词飞速、疾驰。本文用意自杀和酗酒这类社会问题急剧增多，也可形容价格飙升，是一个非常形象的单词。
  e.g.：The nation has experienced four years of rocketing crime.
  4年来，这个国家的犯罪率急剧上升。

• recede：When something such as a quality, problem, or illness recedes, it becomes weaker, smaller, or less intense.
  CET6级词汇。recede作为一个动词，后退，远离以及本文所用的减弱，好转都是其常用用法。然而很多人并不知道，它还有前额的头发脱落的意思。已经开始担心发量问题的90后们可以get起来啦。
  e.g.：...a youngish man with dark hair just beginning to recede...
  前额黑发刚开始脱落的年轻人

• prone to sth.：These words all describe people or things that are likely to do sth or be affected by sth.
  倾向于…；易于做…；容易被…影响
  e.g.：Working without a break makes you more prone to error.
  不间断的工作让人更容易犯错。

• ④That is decreasingly the case. & ⑦Both have now receded.
  作文趋势替换用句，建议背诵。

• ⑨The suicide rate among the elderly remains, on average, higher than among the rest of the population, but has also fallen faster since 2000 than among other groups.
  提炼句型：X, on average, higher than XX, but has also fallen faster than XX.
  描述统计类写作时可以套用。平均而言，X仍高于XX，但其下降速度高于XX。
  

Paragraph 5
①Why are these people now less likely to take their own lives? ②Urbanisation and greater freedom have helped. ③Accounts of those who attempt suicide, and of the relatives of those who succeed, suggest that many young Asian women were driven to despair by violent husbands and overbearing in-laws. ④As people move to cities and the grip of tradition loosens, women have more choice about whom they marry or live with, making life more bearable. ⑤Leaving the village helps in another way, too. ⑥Because farming involves killing things, rural folk are likelier to have the means to kill themselves—guns, pesticides—to hand.

段落赏析

该段讲述了自杀率下降的原因：城市化和更高的自由度，从两方面说明城市化对自杀率降低提供了帮助。
①-②即段落主旨，城市化和更高的自由度对减少自杀行为很有帮助。
③据试图自杀和成功自杀者的亲属描述，亚洲女性自杀主因是家庭暴力和婆媳关系。
④随着移居城镇和传统力量的减弱，女性对于自己的结婚对象和居住地点有了更多的自主权，使得生活不再让人难以忍受。
⑤⑥从另一方面来说，搬离农村也让枪、杀虫剂这类致死物不再容易获得。

词句精读

• account：An account is a written or spoken report of something that has happened.
  CET4级词汇。account常用账户，解释、说明，本文则是“书面或口头的记述，描述，陈述，报告”。
  e.g.：He gave a detailed account of what happened on the fateful night.
  他详细描述了那个灾难性夜晚所发生的事。

• drive：The desire or feeling that drives a person to do something, especially something extreme, is the desire or feeling that causes them to do it.
  CET4级词汇。drive在本文中作动词，驱使，迫使(某人做出极端的事情)。
  e.g.：More than once, depression drove him to attempt suicide.
  抑郁症使他不止一次地企图自杀。

• overbearing：An overbearing person tries to make other people do what he or she wants in an unpleasant and forceful way.
  傲慢的；专横的；盛气凌人的；飞扬跋扈的。

• in-law：Someone who you are related to by marriage, especially the father or mother of your husband or wife.
  姻亲，尤其是结婚对象的父母。

• rural：Rural places are far away from large towns or cities.
  乡村的，农村的，田园的

• take one's own life：Kill oneself, commit suicide.
  自杀的同义替换。take life还有一个很有趣的句子跟大家分享下：

Take ten lives, you're a serial killer. Take thousands, you're a war hero.
夺走十条生命，你就是个连环杀手。但如果是上千，你倒能成战争英雄了。

• the grip of tradition loosens：表示人们并不再拘泥于传统，传统的束缚也放松了。
  与grip有关的还有一个词组：in the grip of（If a person, group, or place is in the grip of something, they are being severely affected by it.），即受制于；受…的深刻影响。
  e.g.：Britain is still in the grip of recession.
  英国依然没有摆脱经济衰退。
  

Paragraph 6
①Social stability is also a factor. ②In the turbulence that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, many middle-aged people saw their sources of income and status collapse. ③Unemployed people kill themselves at around two-and-a-half times the rate of those in work. ④The financial crash of 2007-08 and the resulting recessions are reckoned to have caused an extra 10,000 or so suicides in America and western Europe. ⑤As crises recede and employment rises, so suicide tends to ebb. ⑥And falling poverty rates among the old, which have declined faster than among other groups globally, are reckoned to have contributed to the drop in the number of elderly suicides.

段落赏析

①是用“also”来承上启下，并且直接点出了这段话的中心思想：自杀率高低跟社会稳不稳定有关系。②③从政治层面举例：随着苏联解体，那些失业的自杀率是在职的的2.5倍。④则从经济层面来说明：在欧美的07-08的金融危机，自杀数攀升。⑤则跟②③④反面即社会环境稳定下说明：后来在危机减弱加上就业率的攀升的情况，自杀也消退。⑥则从老年人这个群体来说明：随着贫困率的降低下，老年人的自杀情况也急剧好转。

词句精读

• ④The financial crash of 2007-08 and the resulting recessions are reckoned to have caused an extra 10,000 or so suicides in America and western Europe.
  
  reckon：在这句话里，“reckon”表示“认为…；把…当作”。
  e.g.：The sale has been held up because the price is reckoned to be too high.
  销售陷入停滞，因为大家认为价格太高了。

• ⑤As crises recede and employment rises, so suicide tends to ebb.
  
  recede：在这里，recede表示“问题或疾病等逐渐减弱，好转”。
  e.g：Just as people started to think that he was never going to get well, his illness began to recede.
  正当人们开始觉得他永远都好不了了的时候，他的病开始好转了。
  ebb：ebb的英文释义是: fig. To take a backward or downward course; to decay, decline; to fade or waste away。它的原义是“退潮”，引申为“减弱；减退”。
  e.g.：In 2018 the price of crude oil soared to its highest since the lofty days of 2014, only to drop on fears of ebbing demand.（form "The Economist" -- The World in 2019）
  2018年原油价格涨到其至高点，开始担心它的需求在减少。

• ⑥And falling poverty rates among the old, which have declined faster than among other groups globally, are reckoned to have contributed to the drop in the number of elderly suicides.
  
  ⑥的主句是"And falling poverty rates among the old are reckoned to have contributed to the drop in the number of elderly suicides." ，由“which have declined faster than among other groups globally”而修饰“poverty rates among the old”。同时我们要学习“下降”的几个表达以及contribute。
  contribute：在这句话里，它表示“对……起作用”的意思。贫困率的下降对老年人自杀数的减少有影响。
  e.g.：在The World in 2019里，说美国总统的各种表现对美国社会态度很有影响，《经济人》是这么说的：
  The president’s habitual lying, his attacks on the press and his wilful stoking of grievance among his supporters have all contributed to a mood in American society that is more divided, febrile and angry than at any point since at least the late 1960s.
  e.g.：Parental supervision over her/his children's homework by force has contributed to increase their scores, but is of dubious value to them.
  家庭的强力作业监督是对小孩当前的成绩有帮助，但对小孩不一定有用。
  fall decline drop：这句话里用了三个表示“减少，下降”的词，前二个是用动词形式，最后一个则用了名词。这三者在程度上有何区别呢？
  drop: 指物体从一定高度落下。
  fall: 与drop同义，指突然或猛烈地降落，但fall也可指任何下落，同高度或形式无关。
  decline：表示数量减少时，与fall同义。
  e.g.：Oil prices continue to decline. [=decrease, fall]

Paragraph 7
①But the decline is not just the consequence of big social trends. ②Policy plays a role, too. ③When Mikhail Gorbachev restricted the production and distribution of booze in the mid-1980s, both drinking and suicide fell sharply. ④The collapse of the Soviet Union swept those regulations aside, and both drinking and suicide shot up again. ⑤Restrictions introduced by Vladimir Putin in 2005 are reckoned to have contributed to the recent decline.

段落赏析

第①句用not just引出自杀下降的另一原因。第②句直接了断地阐明了它：政策。这个短句就用得很好，非常突出。③④⑤句用俄国（前苏联）对酒的管控及其相应自杀变化的关系来说明。③④这两句都是前面policy后面suicide的变化，同样的句式有助于加强对比效果。第⑤句则用单句串起了policy跟suicide，让句式有了变化。

词句精读

• ①But the decline is not just the consequence of big social trends.②Policy plays a role, too.
  
  其实这两句可以改成：But the decline is not just the consequence of big social trends，but also the result of policy plays。比较起来，原文更强调政策的作用。同时，我们说个表达： role。
  role：在这句话里，role的英文释义：a part that someone or something has in a particular activity or situation，中文我们可以理解为“地位”，引申为“作用”。它经常后面接in，表示“在……事情起作用”。
  e.g.：Newspapers play a major role in determining how people think about politics.
  在人们怎么看待政治问题上，报纸起了关键作用。
  role常用的动词搭配有：have, occupy, perform, play, serve。

• ④The collapse of the Soviet Union swept those regulations aside, and both drinking and suicide shot up again.
  
  sweep (something) aside：这是个固定表达，它的英文释义：to treat (something) as not important : to ignore (something)。 它的本义是“把……扫到一边”，引申出“对……置之不理；无视”。
  e.g.：She sweeps aside every suggestion I make.
  她把我的话当耳边风。
  shoot up：它表示“陡增；飙升”。
  e.g.：《经济学人》的有关老师短缺的文章里，在接下来的十年里，小学生人数会猛增，它就用到了shoot up。
  Worse, the Department for Education’s forecasts suggest that the number of pupils will shoot up over the next decade.
  e.g.：Housing price in Hangzhou has shot up to 300% since 2016.
  杭州房价自2016年快速飙升。

Paragraph 8
①Governments can also help limit the consequences of social and economic turbulence.②Active labour-market policies,which help re-train jobless workers and ease them back into work, prevent many suicides.③And spending on health services, especially those that most benefit the old and sick, can make a big difference: fear of chronic pain is one of the things that leads people to seek a quick way out.④The remarkable recent fall in suicide among elderly Britons may have happened in part because Britain’s palliative-care system is the best in the world.

段落赏析

政府对自杀率下降所起的作用。

词句精读

• limit the consequences

• turbulence：词根-turb-: stir up 同根词： disturb, disturbance, turbine, turbulent, imperturbable, masturbate, perturb, perturbation, turbid.

• ease：指痛苦、压力、负担的减缓/轻

• in part because：部分是因为

• palliative-care：临终关怀，姑息治疗 美['pæli.eɪtɪv] 英['pæliətɪv]

• ③ And "spending on health services", especially those (that most benefit the old and sick), "can make a big difference": fear of chronic pain is one of the things (that leads people to seek a quick way out).
  
  这句话的主干为 S:" "，VO:" ". 即：Spending on health services 和 can make a big difference. 冒号后是一个解释说明的句子，句间用了插入语和两个定语从句增加细节内容。
  chronic pain：慢性（严重）的 与 chronicle相区分

Paragraph 9
①Efforts to curb access to the means to kill oneself can help, too. ②Suicide is surprisingly impulsive.③A study of young Chinese women who had tried to kill themselves showed that three-fifths had been contemplating suicide for less than two hours, and one in ten for less than a minute. ④Of 515 people who had survived the leap from San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge between 1937 and 1971, 94% were still alive in 1978—which suggests that a suicide postponed is likely to be a suicide prevented.

段落赏析

抑制自杀的工具途径也有助于降低自杀率（下一段具体展开讲了从哪些方面控制自杀的方式和途径）。

词句精读

• curb：control, limit 写作中超好用的一个词 印象深刻的就是经常被同事劝告curb my appetite，哈哈哈~
  另外，curb做名词用常搭配介词 on。
  e.g.：impose/introduce/put curbs on smoking...
  做动词就太多搭配了。也可以用来替换limit/control。比如本文上段第一句"Governments can also help limit the consequences of social and economic turbulence."， 就可以把limit替换为curb。

• help：vi.: "每日一词08" 的用法出现了，再次巩固一下。

• ④ (Of 515 people who had survived the leap from San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge between 1937 and 1971), "94% were still alive" in 1978—(which suggests that a suicide postponed is likely to be a suicide prevented).
  这句话的主干为 " "，SVO--" ". 即：94% (people) were still alive in 1978.
  需要注意1978后which为非限制性定语从句，代指的是前面整个句子。
  此处用破折号的原因是避免和前面逗号冲突引起歧义，英语常用破折号代替会引起歧义的逗号。
  a suicide postponed is likely to be a suicide prevented. 此句主系表结构前后对仗，而且postponed和prevented压头韵也注意到了音律的工整。

Paragraph 10
①Governments can do a lot to put self-slaughter a little further out of reach. ②The most toxic pesticides account for one-seventh of suicides. ③When South Korea outlawed paraquat in 2011, it saw a decline in suicides but no drop in agricultural output. ④Requiring potentially lethal medicines to be sold only in small quantities, as some countries have done with aspirin and paracetamol, has also been shown to help. ⑤But the most effective measure of all is limiting access to guns. ⑥Half of all Americans who commit suicide shoot themselves, and the overall rate in America is about twice that in Britain, which has strict gun controls. ⑦The difference in gun ownership largely accounts for the state-by-state variation in suicide rates.

段落赏析

本段主要是说政府的举措可以使得自杀行为不是那么容易实现。主要从控制剧毒农药的禁售、致命药物的小剂量出售和枪支管制方面，通过举出韩国、美国、英国的例子来重点阐述的。

词句精读

• outlaw：动词，意思是“将…定为非法，全面禁止”，to completely stop something by making it illegal. 本文中是指韩国2011年全面禁止paraquat，paraquat不知道是什么没关系，因为上文提到了，是“the most toxic pesticide”。outlaw还有个名词形式，意思是“不法之徒，逃犯”，someone who has done something illegal, and who is hiding in order to avoid punishment.
  e.g.：The bill would have outlawed several types of guns.
  这项法案将全面禁用几种枪支。
  e.g.：Robin Hood is Britain's most famous outlaw.
  罗宾汉是英国最著名的亡命之徒。

• state-by-state：各州的，本文中的理解是“对于枪支持有情况的不同很大程度上造成各州自身率的不同”，也就是说枪支持有率高的州自杀率也高。除了可以说state-by-state，还可以延伸来说“country-by-country”（各国的）或是“industry-by-industry”（各行业的），经常使用的表达是“on a state-by-state/country-by-country/industry-by-industry basis”表示“以州/国家/行业为单位”。
  e.g.：It should not be done on an industry-by-industry or country-by-country basis because that tends to encourage industry to move to a country that hasn’t implemented any changes.
  不应逐个产业或逐个国家地来处理，因为这样做往往会促使产业转移到不采取任何改变措施的国家。

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①The media can also do their bit. ②Suicide is strangely contagious. ③When Robin Williams, an actor, killed himself in 2014, his method and motives were reported in great detail. ④Researchers calculated that there were 1,800 more suicides than would otherwise have been expected in the next four months, often using the same method. ⑤Journalists should cover such tragedies in less detail, and with more restraint.

段落赏析

本段是说导致自杀的发生，媒体也要负一定的责任。因为自杀奇怪的传染性，用演员Robin Williams自杀的例子来说明，他去世的那段时间，由于媒体过于细节性质的报道，导致采取和他相同方式自杀的案件明显增多。建议记者报道时要少细节，多约束。

词句精读

• do one's bit：意思是“尽一份力”，本文指媒体的因素也起到一定的作用。本篇文章中其他段落还用“play a role，is also a factor”等来表示“起到一定的作用”。还可以延伸说，do my bit，就是“尽自己微薄之力”。
  e.g.：I will work hard and do my bit in building China into one of the strongest countries in the world.
  我将努力工作为把中国建成世界上最强大的国家之一而做出自己应有的贡献。

• restraint：意思是“限制”， rules or conditions that limit or restrict someone or something。 本文是指记者在报道像自杀这样的悲剧时应当少披露细节，多加些限制。
  e.g.：The government has imposed restraints on corporate mergers.
  政府对公司合并实行了限制。

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①For a few people—those who are terminally ill, in severe pain and determined to die—suicide may be the least terrible option. ②In such circumstances, and with firm safeguards, doctors should be allowed to assist. ③But many of the 800,000 people who kill themselves each year act in haste, and more could be saved with better health services, labour-market policies and curbs on booze, guns, pesticide and pills. ④America, in particular, could spare much pain by learning from the progress elsewhere.

段落赏析

本段是说对于重症患者，通过自杀来缓解疼痛也是不得已而为之的选择。在这种特殊情况下，医生应当提供帮助，也就是提供“安乐死”。最后一句话精炼地总结全文，通过更好的医疗服务、劳工市场的政策、控酒、控枪、控杀虫剂、控药等方式，可以减少自杀率。美国，学学其他国家吧！

词句精读

• act in haste：意思是“采取匆忙的措施，仓促行事”，本文是指那些仓促之中采取自杀方式的人们。haste本身是指“匆忙，仓促”，great speed in doing something, especially because you do not have enough time. 有句表达“haste makes waste”，欲速则不达。
  e.g.：You should not act in haste.
  不宜操之过急。

• spare...pain：意思是“免除...痛苦”，文末这句是指美国应该向其他国家学习一下来减少自杀率升高带来的痛苦，其实是有戏谑美国的成分在其中。spare除了和pain，还可以和trouble/difficulty连用，“spare sb the trouble/difficulty/pain etc (of doing sth)”的表达，是指“免除某人（做某事）的麻烦/困难/痛苦”，to prevent someone from having to experience something difficult or unpleasant.
  e.g.：I wanted to spare them the trouble of buying me a present.
  我不想让他们费事给我买礼物了。