千奇百趣学英文10.29

大话妹

UK cemetery: Share a grave with a stranger?
英国公墓：要同陌生人“合葬”？


LONDON – So you think London, population 8 million, is crowded with the living?There are many millions more under the soil of a city that has been inhabited for 2,000 years. And London is rapidly running out of places to put them.
伦敦报道——如果你认为拥有八百万人口的伦敦，已经人满为患？那么早在2000年前，就已经有额外的几百万“先人”在城市地下长眠已久。目前伦敦正面临逐渐没有空间摆放“先人”的局面。


Now the city's largest cemetery is trying to persuade Londoners to share a grave with a stranger.
The problem is a very British one. Many other European countries regularly reuse old graves after a couple of decades. Britain does not, as a result of Victorian hygiene obsession, piecemeal regulation and national tradition. For many, an Englishman's tomb, like his home, is his castle.
目前市内最大的公墓，正游说伦敦居民与陌生人合葬在同一块墓地。
这是一个非常“伦敦本土化”的一个问题。很多欧洲的其它国家已经习惯，多年后重新翻新一块墓地。但系在英国这不适用，这是由于它受维多利亚时期卫生习惯的影响，或者受火化和其它民族习惯影响。对于很多英国人来讲，坟墓等同他的一个"家”，是他的一个“城堡”。


Since a change in the law last year, cemetery staff have begun the even more sensitive process of digging up old remains, reburying them deeper and putting new corpses on top, in what have been dubbed "double-decker" graves. They'll be sold for the same price as the cemetery's regular "lawn" graves — those in open grassy areas — or about $3,200.
但自从去年的法律修改案以后，墓地员工开始了更加敏感的“工程”，发掘旧的遗体，重新埋葬他们在较深的泥层，然后在他们上一层再埋葬新的尸体——这种做法称之为“双层墓地”。这新的一层会以草地上“普通墓地”同样的价钱出售，而那些地面上开放的草地墓地大约售$3200美元一块。


The future-looking are touting resummation, or "flameless cremation," a process that uses an alkaline solution to dissolve bodies. But it is not yet recognized in British law. Still, many religions — including Muslims, Jews and some Christian denominations — strongly favor burial over cremation and the number of Britons who want to be buried remains steady at more than 25 percent.
未来的趋势是鼓吹“合葬”，或者“无烟火葬”——一种用碱性物体来溶解尸体的方法。但系在英国法律中还没有批准这种做法。何况，很多宗教——包括穆斯林，犹太教和一些基督分教都热衷用“土葬”而不用火葬的方式，更甚的系，英国人希望“土葬”的人数长期都占全国四分之一。



Useful Expression

• hygiene [‘haidVi:n] n.
  卫生, 卫生学

• corpses [kC:ps] n.
  尸体

• tout [taJt] v.
  吹捧
  
• alkaline  [‘AlkElain]

      adj. [化]碱的, 碱性的