英语学习笔记：2016-06-16

看到孔子的英文名是：Confucius，延展开来学习一下：

• 孔子（Confucius，confuci是孔夫子的音译的拉丁语写法，-us词根是“先生”）

• 孟子（Mencius，menci是孟子的音译的拉丁语写法，-us词根是“先生”）
• 老子（Lao-tzu）
• 孙子（Sun-tzu）

只有这两位是有独立名字的，其他的包括“老子”都是用的 -tzu 这个音译，-us 实际上是一个比较“有地位”的词根，看下面二位：

• Jesus（耶稣）

• Zeus（宙斯）

-us 是拉丁语表“阳性、单数”后缀，另外 -a 表“阴性、单数”后缀，-um表“中性”。

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遇到好几个“委员会”这个意思的单词，所以学习区分一下：

• Council（委员会，最高机构，具有决策能力的地方议会或者机构理事会）
• Committee（委员会，隶属于某个上级机构，具有常设机构性质）
• Commission（委员会，隶属于某个上级机构，重在完成某个特定的任务，弱化机构性）

Council can be defined as a group of individuals who come together in order to make decisions, consult or to deliberate on a common objective. At a city, town or county level, a council may function as a legislature representing the government although, on a national level, most legislative bodies are not considered as councils. In a town, certain schools and universities are run by two councils, which is considered as their local government. A member of a council is referred to as a councillor, councilman or a councilwoman. A board of directors may also be considered as a council.

Committee represents a parent body. It is formed either by election, nomination or agreed rules and performs functions which help in such activities of the parent body which either make sense as long as the parent body exists (e.g., advisory committee of a business organization) or are expected to be completed within the expected time of existence of the parent body (e.g., a judicial committee appointed by government to recommend legislative changes in a particular area). The functions of a committee make sense in the context of a parent body and may not necessarily be recognized after the parent body ceases to exist.

Commission is also formed by a parent body but it performs function which may help in the activities of the parent body but also are relevant to a larger context than the context of existence of the parent body and hence arrangements are made such that the commission would be recognized even when the parent body ceases to exist. A commission continues to function even when the parent body ceases to exist (e.g., Election Commission of India, National Commission for Women).

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前段时间系统的学习过奥斯卡、诺贝尔和米其林，今天看到 Guinness World Records，也就顺便简单了解了一下，关键还是痛点抓的好：

Guinness World Records, known from its inception in 1955 until 1998 as The Guinness Book of Records and in previous U.S. editions as The Guinness Book of World Records, is a reference book published annually, listing world records and national records, both of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. The book itself holds a world record, as the best-selling copyrighted book of all time. As of the 2016 edition, it is now in its 62nd year of publication. The international franchise has extended beyond print to include television series and museums. The popularity of the franchise has resulted in Guinness World Records becoming the primary international authority on the cataloguing and verification of a huge number of world records; the organization employs official record adjudicators authorised to verify the authenticity of the setting and breaking of records.

On an unknown date in November 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver (1890-1967) was out shooting on Slob Hill, by the river Slaney in County Wexford in the south-east of Ireland. Some golden plovers were missed by the party. That evening at Castleford House it was realized that it was not possible to confirm in reference books whether or not the golden plover was Europe's fastest game bird. It occurred to Sir Hugh, managing director of the Guinness Breweries, that there must be numerous other questions debated nightly in the 81,400 pubs in Britain and in Ireland, but there was no book with which to settle arguments about records.[^history]
[^history]: http://guinness.book-of-records.info/history.html

Guinness World Records 的 founder 有三位：

• Hugh Beaver^[1]
• Norris McWhirter^[2]（双胞胎之一）
• Ross McWhirter^[3]（双胞胎之一，1975年死于爱尔兰共和军的刺杀）

被刺杀的原因是：

Ross McWhirter had offered a £50,000 reward to anyone willing to inform the security forces of IRA activity

Norris McWhirter and Ross McWhirter

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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Beaver ↩

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norris_McWhirter ↩

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_McWhirter ↩