【雅思阅读素材】美国人所不知道的关于英国的有趣事实

2015年05月07日15:28 来源：小站整理

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· We don't get excited about freedom of speech. It's a bit of a non-issue. (And things seem to run smoothly - I'm pretty sure that any group like the Westboro Baptist Church would be banned/arrested fairly quickly. And no one would worry about whether their rights had been violated.) (And someone was recently sent to prison for what they wrote on Twitter).
言论自由对我们而言，根本就不是个事儿（某些在美国横行的邪教别想在我们这立足，被取缔了是不会有人关心是否有人权被侵犯；有人最近因为在推特上喷粪被送进号子）

· There is no right to bear arms, and no movement (worth mentioning) for a relaxation in very strict gun laws.
这里没有持枪的权利，也没有任何值得一提的运动在为严苛的强制法的宽松化而努力

· It's very, very rare to see a police officer carrying a gun. Most British police never carry a gun.
看到警察持枪是极其罕见的。大多数英国警察从来没带过枪。
注：他们的逻辑是，警察是服务和支持民众的，警察持枪，会给身边的守法大众和不法之徒同时传递不良的信号，一方面，守法大众会认为这个社会的治安不佳，所以警察需要持枪；另一方面，犯罪分子会从自身安全角度考虑而在实施犯罪时携带更加具有杀伤性的武器。总之，会造成一种更不安全的社会。

· Police in Britain fired their guns three times (that's three gunshots, i.e. three bullets) in 2013. No one was killed by those shots. (In 2012, one person was killed by being shot by the British police - I haven't seen information about how many shots were fired.)
英国的警察2013年总共开过三次枪，未造成人员死亡。
注：这个跟美国简直不敢比啊。

· The last time a British police officer was shot and killed was 2012 (when two officers were shot). The time before that was 2007.
最近一次警察被枪杀是2012年，再之前是2007年。

· Carrying a knife can get you arrested if the blade is more than 3 inches long and you don't have a good explanation of why you have it. You may not buy a knife if you are under 18 - even a butter knife. There is no movement for a right to bear knives either.
无正当理由携带超过三英寸（1英寸约2.54厘米）刀具会导致你被捕。如果低于十八岁，不允许购买任何刀具。

· In 2011 there were 177,185 people born in the US living in the UK. (I didn't find a source of the opposite - British citizenship is not as clear as US citizenship.) That's approximately 1 person in 300, and includes Boris Johnson, the mayor of London.
伦敦市长是一个美国人。

· If you're born in the UK, you are not automatically a UK citizen.
出生在英国，不会自动成为英国人。

· There is no separation of church and state. In fact, it's the opposite. The Queen, as head of state is nominally the head of the Church of England. She defers to the prime minister who appoints the person who actually runs it (the Archbishop of Canterbury). The Church of England bishops have a role in the government - there are 26 bishops in the House of Lords (imagine that 26 pastors of super-churches automatically sit in congress, and that these people led prayers at the start of each day. )
不存在政教分离。事实上，恰恰相反。女王，作为国家元首，是英国国教会的首领，而国教会的主教们在政府内有职位。

· Many state (public) schools are influenced by the church. I went to three Church of England (Controlled) schools - which is very common. In such a school, the local Church of England vicar chairs the board of governors. (I don't know if that's still the case - there was nothing special about it, this was a regular local school).
许多公立学校受到教会影响。教会学校十分普遍，有的教区牧师同时任学校董事会主席。

· Related to that, the monarch, and the heir to the throne may not marry a Catholic.
皇室，及王位继承人不允许与天主教徒结婚（这个规定在2013年新的王室继承法案中被废除）

· The education system allows you to specialize early. I did not study history, geography, art, Spanish after age 14. At 16 I dropped French, English, math(s), chemistry, English. (I think you have to do some science up to age 16 now). At 16 you choose three subjects to study.
教育系统允许你更早地专才化。比如某人在14岁后就没有学习过历史，地理，艺术和西班牙语。

· Most people teaching and working in universities are not professors. When I was an undergraduate there was one professor in the psychology department. I then went on to work in another psychology department of a university which had no professors (for several years).
绝大多数大学教职人员不是教授。

· There's only one private university in the country. (There are a few very, very small places - but only one that you would really consider to be a university). It's the University of Buckingham.
本国仅有一所私立大学。即白金汉大学。
注：美国的顶尖大学，如耶鲁哈佛，差不多都是私立大学。