每周阅读 第七周
摘选自《经济学人》Farmers usually consider themselves lucky to till fertile soil. In Cambodia, however, such land often signifiesdanger rather than abundance. When America dropped an estimated 1.8m tonnes of explosives on the country during the Vietnam war, those falling on flinty ground generally detonated, whereas many landing on softer earth did not. No one knows how many bombs remain in rich soil. But a paper by four academics at Ohio State University (OSU), who studied satellite images and reports by landmine-removal groups from a single village, found that perhaps half of the munitions have not exploded.
Fertile： adj. 多义词
(1)肥沃的（本文用法）
(2)点子多的
(3)（环境或条件）适于…的
signify： v. 预示，表示。-ify后缀表示“使成为…”：
sign（迹象，征兆）-- signify（使成为迹象 → 预示，表示）
beauty（美）-- beautify（使成为美 →美化）
explosive： n. 炸药（本文用法）；adj. 易爆的（原义）；adj. 激增的（延伸义）
中文大意：通常情况下，农民会认为有沃土可耕种是幸运的。然而，在柬埔寨，这样的土地常常预示着危险而非丰饶。越战期间，美国在柬埔寨投放了约180万吨炸药，其中，落在坚硬的地面上的大都直接引爆，而许多落在较为松软地面上的则没有引爆。没有人知道肥沃的土壤里还残存着多少炸弹。四位俄亥俄州立大学的学者发表了一篇论文，他们研究了卫星图像和某个村庄扫雷小队的报告，发现可能约有一半的弹药都没有爆炸。
These wartime remnants have given the United States’ bombing campaign of 1965-73—which ostensiblytargeted Viet Cong supply lines, but caused perhaps 150,000 deaths—an enduringly lethal legacy. Since 1979, unexploded ordnance has killed at least 19,000 people in Cambodia (though some may have been blown up by landmines from subsequent wars, rather than by American bombs). Cambodia now has the world’s highest rate of amputees.
remnant： n. 残余部分，剩余部分
ostensibly： adv. 表面上
ostensible： adj. 表面的；假装的
lethal： adj. 致命的
lethal weapon ：致命武器
中文大意：1965-1973年间，美国曾对越南发动轰炸行动，此次行动表面上旨在破坏越共补给线，实际却造成15万人死亡。而此次行动后遗留在战场的武器，至今仍带来致命的后患。自1979年以来，未爆炸的军械已经在柬埔寨造成至少19,000人死亡。现在柬埔寨是世界上截肢率最高的国家。
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