drug bust: 毒品搜查
常说大千世界无奇不有,瞧这篇题为“Fishy discovery leads to Australia drug bust”的新闻,不仅标题用词醒目,内容也甚是新奇——澳大利亚一名毒贩竟然将39个装有海洛因的安全套塞进腌制成的咸鱼腹内——可惜,伪装再巧也在劫难逃,在通过海关时“咸鱼”被边境人员一双亮眼全部缴获。
请看外电相关报道:Australian customs officers thought something was fishy when they inspected a man's luggage and found jars of pickled fish. Closer inspection found 39 condoms of heroin inside the fish.
"Closer inspection revealed a number of condoms sewn inside the fish pieces," said the statement on Thursday.
对英语学习者而言,这篇新闻最大的价值在于它的标题,颇值推敲。先来看bust一词,我们最常见的bust用法是形容“半身雕像”或“女性的胸部”,如“量一下她的胸围”就可以表达为:to measure her bust size。在这则新闻中,drug bust指“毒品搜查”,其暗含意“毒品被缴获,毒犯被逮捕”。
Drug在这里是俚语,常用作动词——“逮捕、搜查”,请看下面两个例句:
The man was busted for pot.他因吸食大麻而被捕。
His house was busted this morning.今天早上,警察搜查了他的房间。
另外,标题中最精彩的一个词当属fishy,在这里它采用了“双关”修辞手法。Fishy在俚语中指“可疑的、靠不住的”,如:There's something fishy about it.(这里面有鬼。)在这桩案件里,fish恰是主角,所以,新闻中的fishy既指“与咸鱼有关的”(搜查),又指这些咸鱼里面有“鬼”,一语双关的手法很是巧妙。