每周阅读 第九周
文章链接：摘抄自《经济学人》“People refer to a corner shop, a bar, a tree—even a tree!” exclaims Rolando Granja Enríquez, a postman. For a place with well-developed public services, Costa Rica’s addresses are a conundrum. Nearly everyone uses vague places, distances and compass directions, rather than street-names and postcodes: 200 metres west of such-and-such juice bar, 100 metres north of the house with the pink fence, and so on. Worse, sometimes the landmarks used as reference points have long gone, says Mr Enríquez.The lack of clear addresses obstructs the smooth delivery not only of letters, but of other public and private services, too. Police, for example, may be slow to respond to calls for help if they cannot find the caller. Food takes longer to deliver, resulting in lukewarm chifrijo (pork and beans). The past year has been particularly troublesome, as many Ticos (as people from Costa Rica are known) have stayed at home and ordered goods online.
In 2002 the post office came up with a plan for naming the streets, which became a government decree in 2005. Since then, just 30% of Costa Rica’s 82 municipalities have worked with the post office to name their streets. Overall the initiative has been a failure, admits Mr Campos. Other institutions do not seem terribly interested in change. Even in towns where streets and houses have numbers, all too often locals keep using the old way of specifying places.
Refer to：固定搭配，提到，说起。
conundrum n. 令人迷惑的难题
postcode n. 邮政编码（英式）
obstruct v. 妨碍，阻碍
lukewarm adj. 微温的，不冷不热的
troublesome adj. 令人烦恼的
decree n. 法令，政令
municipality n. 自治市
initiative n. 倡议，新方案
alltoo often：固定搭配，常常
中文大意：人们在写地址的时候，提到的参照物可能是街头的小店、酒吧、树——甚至是一棵树！” 邮递员罗兰多·格兰哈·恩里克斯抱怨道。尽管哥斯达黎加的公共设施建设良好，但想要弄清每一个地方的地址仍然是一个令人迷惑的难题。几乎每一个人在写地址的时候都会使用模糊不清的地点、距离和指南针方向，而不是用街道名和邮政编码：在某个果汁店西侧200米，在有粉色篱笆的房子北面100米，诸如此类。恩里克斯先生说，更糟糕的是，有时候，一些用作参考点的地标很早以前就没有了。缺乏准确的地址不仅令信件无法顺利寄送，也妨碍了其他的公共和私人业务。例如，如果警方找不到报警的人在哪，他们可能无法对求救电话做出快速反应。外卖寄送时间变长，chifrijo也变得半冷不热。2002年，邮局提出了街道命名的计划，该计划在2005年成为一项国家法令。从此以后，82个县市只有30%配合邮局完成了街道命名。坎波斯先生说，总体而言，这个方案是失败的。其他的机构似乎对这种改变并不是很感兴趣。即使是在街道和房屋有邮编的城镇，当地人还是经常使用老方法说明地址。
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