Jerry跟同事Paula和Will打招呼,注意听他们三人周末都干了些什么。

Jerry: Hey, Paula. Hi, Will. Did you have a good weekend?

Paula: Yeah… I checked out that new 3-D movie. It’s amazing what they can do with technologies these days!

Will: I went mountain biking with a couple of friends. We worked up a good sweat and had a good time. How about you, Jerry?

J: Actually, I spent most of the weekend looking at travel brochures.

Paula周末去看了新出的三维电影,3-D movie. Will 跟几个朋友一起去骑山地车,山地车在英语里叫 mountain bike,可以是名词,在上面那段话里是做动词用,Will went mountain biking. Will 还说,他们出了一身汗,玩得特别开心。work up a sweat 是一种习惯用法,指锻炼身体或从事体力活动很投入,可以是真的出了一身汗,也可以形容特别卖力。Jerry呢,一个周末大部分时间都在看旅游宣传材料 travel brochures. 看来他是要休假喽?Paula问:

P: Really? Are you going somewhere?

J: Well, starting on the 20th of this month, I’m taking a five-week vacation.

W: Five weeks!! No way!

P: Get out of here! How did you swing that?

J: Actually, the company owes me about four months’ worth of vacation time. I’ve been working here since 2002 and haven’t taken a vacation yet. I’ve got oodles of comp time as well.

W: Sorry, what’s comp time?

Jerry要休五个星期的假,Will和Paula都不敢相信,问Jerry, How did you swing that? to swing it 是一种口语里非正式的说法,意思是说服别人,达到自己的目的。Jerry解释说,他从2002年来这家公司工作,就一直没休过假,现在公司欠他四个月的假期,Jerry说,另外,I’ve got oodles of comp time as well. oodles is spelled o-o-d-l-e-s, oodles, oodles of something 也是一种非正式的说法,相当于 a lot of something 很多,Jerry说自己除了四个月的假期,还攒了很多 comp time. Will是新毕业的大学生,不知道什么是comp time. Paula解释说,

P: The “comp” is short for compensation. Basically he means overtime pay.

J: Yeah, but some companies – like ours – don’t really pay overtime…. they give you extra vacation hours instead. If you add up all the vacation time and comp hours I have, I have a lot of time.

P: When I was working for a company in Germany they had super short work weeks and very liberal overtime rules.

Paula解释说,comp, c-o-m-p, comp 是 compensation的简写,其实就是 overtime 加班,有些公司不发加班费,而是把员工加班的时间折合成假期,补偿给员工。另外,欧洲和美国的情况也有很大的区别,Paula说,她以前曾经在德国的一家公司工作过,they had super short work weeks and very liberal overtime rules. 那家公司不仅工作时间短,而且加班的规定也 very liberal, 很松。