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英譯中:Cough syrup

(104 年公務人員特種考試關務人員考試試題) A Taiwanese passenger carrying bottles of cough syrup was stopped and fined by a customs officer at the entry point of an American airport. It turned out that the syrup contained opium, which was deemed illegal by the airport customs security agents. The bottles were later confiscated and the passenger was fined US$500. 美國機場入境站的海關人員,攔停了一名攜有瓶裝糖漿的臺灣旅客。糖漿中含有美國機場海關安全人員認為違法的鴉片成分,隨後被收歸國有。該名旅客則被處以美金 500 元罰金。 (Courtesy: Pxhere)

The accepted gospel



原始問題(連結):
Any rule followed by 85 percent of engineers as part of the accepted gospel of best practice has to be broken by the other 15 percent just to get their system to work.

這句話如何翻譯?更新網友 bluecadence 提供的解析。


這段話為 David E. Simon 的著作 An Embedded Software Primer (1st edition) 的序文(連結)。

感謝網友 bluecadence 提供的解析:

依據序文前後文的意思,原文中「their systems」的「their」應是指那 15% 的工程師。因此本句的意思為:
對於 85% 工程師最好的規則,在另外 15% 工程師看來是必須打掉重練,才有辦法讓他們(15% 工程師)的系統能夠運作。
其結構應為

Any rule followed by 85 percent of engineers (as part of the accepted gospel of best practice) has to be broken by the other 15 percent just to get their system to work.


  1. 「as part of the accepted gospel of best practice」用來補充說明 any rule
  2. 「the accepted gospel」,我理解上是「公認的真理」,出自片語「accept/take as gospel」,類似「信以為真」的意思
  3. 「best practice」為管理學名詞,中文多數譯為「最佳實務」,亦可譯作「最佳典範」(連結
  4. 「just to」可譯作「只是為了」「僅僅是為了」

因此,整句話試譯的結果為:
任何被 85% 的工程師奉為最佳實務的圭臬而遵循的規則,是要由剩下 15% 的工程師打破的,這樣才能讓整個系統運作起來。
我在這裡將「信以為真」、「公認的真理」 意譯為「奉為圭臬」,語意流暢且較好理解。

以下是網友 bluecadence 對我的指教
(Courtesy: PPT Eng-class 板)

看來我還有一堆學問要搞懂啊!幸好沒去當英文老師誤人子弟⋯⋯

(Courtesy: Pastelitodepapa @ Wikimedia Commons)

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