时髦英语口语词汇讲解第16期:Dumb! 笨蛋都懂!

Way back in the 1930s, you could dumb something down.
回到上个世纪30年代，你可能会把事物通俗化（把问题简单化到即使很愚蠢的人也能懂）。

For instance, a newspaper making a story more appealing to the masses would say, 'we're dumbing it down', or something like that.
比如，新闻报道要想更能吸引民众的眼球，报社会采取使其简化或类似的方法。

It was an American usage, dumb meant stupid.
Dumb something down（简化事情）过去是美国的用法，dumb意为愚蠢的。

It was transitive, that is the verb governed an object, 'you're dumbing something down'.
它是一个及物动词，即可带宾语的动词，比如“you're dumbing something down”——你在简化事情。

Now in the 1990s, we get a different grammatical use - a use of the verb without an object, an intransitive use, 'they're dumbing down'.
而到了20世纪90年代，dumb有了另一种截然不同的语法用法——其后不接某物，也就是作为不及物动词使用，如“they're dumbing down”（后面没有带宾语）。

It has the same meaning, it means become less intellectually challenging.
它的含义没有变，指的是把事情变得没那么费脑力。

It now refers to any of the media where the content is being trivialised in the opinion of somebody.
现在它指的是媒体报道的内容对某些人来说太繁琐（所以要简化）。

'Television is dumbing down... Britain as a whole is dumbing down,' because of its fascination with trivia and reality TV and all sorts of undemanding watching.
电视节目正在简化……不列颠整体在变得简单——因为它一直都着重于琐碎的电视节目和现实电视秀以及各种各样的对观众要求并不高的节目。

'Are we dumbing down?' said a newspaper headline recently.
“我们的生活在变得简单吗？”最近的一条新闻头条这样写道。

It's got a whole range of grammatical use now, both transitive and intransitive, you get, 'it's been dumbed down', 'it's being dumbed down' ...
Dumb如今在语法上有一系列的新用法，可以是及物动词，也可以是不及物动词，例如：“it's been dumbed down”或“it's being dumbed down”等。

I've even heard the word as a noun - or the phrase really - 'I don't like the dumbing down of programmes', or for short, probably the commonest use of all now, 'I don't like all this dumbing down'.
我甚至还听见过它作为名词或是名词短语的用法-“I don't like the dumbing down of programmes（我喜欢电视节目被简化）”。或者简短一点，这大概是现在最常用的：“I don't like all this dumbing down（我讨厌所有被简化的东西）”。

No need to worry here, there's no dumbing down on this website!
在此你们不用担心，我们的网站可没有简化什么内容。