每日一词 124 | moral

1. 这是个什么词？

词：moral

英英释义：a practical lesson about what to do or how to behave, which you learn from a story or from something that happens to you

例句：The moral of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is that children should not lie.

2. 为什么选这个词？

“moral”可以是形容词可以是名词。它作名词时除了表示“道德”（一般用复数 morals，比如“公德”就是 public morals）外，还有一个好用、地道的意思--“寓意、教训”。当我们想表达“从某个故事、案例、经历中学到某某东西”时，就可以用 moral 替换 message 和 lesson。这个词尤其适用于写作中的举例论证，我们在描述完一个例子之后，将例子和观点作关联时就可以使用 moral。来看几个例子。

教育小孩子的一种常见方式是给他们阅读各种寓言故事，然后在最后教给他们一个道理。比如《狼来了》的故事就是要告诉小朋友不应该撒谎。我们就可以说：

The lesson of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is that children should not lie.

或

The message of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is that children should not lie.

我们可以把里面的 lesson 和 message 换成 moral:

The moral of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is that children should not lie.

再比如，深圳特区成功的例子说明了一个城市要想持续发展好必须要不断引入高素质人才，就可以说：

The moral of Shenzhen's boom is that talent is essential for a city's continuous economic success.

William Zinsser 在 On Writing Well 中教年轻作家写作，他经常会先讲一个故事，然后再说明里面的道理。比如这个句子：

One moral of this story is that you should always collect more material than you will use.

不难发现，moral 的用法非常简单。我们只要掌握 The moral of this story/case/experience is that... 这个句式就足够了。

3. 怎样学会使用这个词？

1）翻译下面的句子：

我们从这个 TED 演讲中可以学到的是，要想获得成功，得学会先帮助别人。

The moral of the TED talk is that to be successful, you should learn to help others first.

（参考翻译：The moral of the TED talk is that to succeed we should learn to help others first. 或 The moral of the TED talk is that to succeed we should learn to pay it forward.）

2）造句：

The moral of the thing is that giving is happier than taking.