社會時事

　　This year marks the 50th anniversary of the classic， silly， children's book called Amelia Bedelia. In the story， Amelia Bedelia， a maid who is hired to clean and cook， takes everything anyone says literally. For example， her boss tells her to “draw the curtains.” So what does Amelia do? She takes a pencil and paper and draws a beautiful picture of the curtains.
　　Actually， this is wrong. What her boss meant was “close the curtains.”To draw the curtains actually means to close the curtains. Amelia Bedelia is like many non-native English speakers who make the harmless mistake of taking some things literally that shouldn't be. In other words， they misunderstand phrases with deeper or alternative meanings. For more commonly made English mistakes， check out the Amelia Bedelia books.
　　——Heather Pfeiffer
　　阿米莉亞·貝迪利亞 50周年
　　今年是經典搞笑的兒童著作《阿米莉亞·貝迪利亞》的50周年紀念。在這個故事里，阿米莉亞·貝迪利亞是一個被雇來打掃，做飯，只會照別人字面意思做事的僕人。例如，她的老闆告訴她“畫一幅窗帘（draw the curtains的字面意思）。”那麼阿米莉亞會做什麼呢？她拿起筆和紙，畫了一幅漂亮的窗帘。
　　實際上，這是錯誤的。她老闆的意思是“關上窗帘。”draw the curtains實際上是一個表示關上窗帘的固定表達。阿米莉亞·貝迪利亞跟許多非英語母語者一樣，照字面意思做了不該是字面意思的事情，因此她總是犯些無傷大雅的錯誤，也就是說，他們誤讀了那些具有深層或者包含其他含義的短語。更多常見的英語錯誤。來看看《阿米莉亞·貝迪利亞》系列書集吧！　　（原標題：Amelia Bedelia's 50th Anniversary）