2017考研英語拓展閱讀：為何奧運選手愛咬金牌？

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It’s not a chocolate coin wrapped in gold foil, people. That’s actual metal that composes that Olympic medal, so why do athletes bite them?

大伙兒，這可不是包裹在金箔紙里的金幣巧克力，奧運會金牌是貨真價實的金屬制品，那為什么運動員熱衷于咬金牌?

There’s actually a few reasons, but the most obvious is that it’s a pose photographers really, really like to capture.

還真有幾種解釋，但最明顯的一個原因是，這是一個攝影師非常喜歡捕捉的拍照造型。

“It’s become an obsession with the photographers,” David Wallechinsky, the president of the International Society of Olympic Historians and co-author of “The Complete Book of the Olympics” told CNN in 2012. “I think they look at it as an iconic shot, as something that you can probably sell. I don’t think it’s something the athletes would probably do on their own.”

國際奧林匹克歷史學家協會主席、《奧運大全》的合著者戴維.沃利金斯基在2012年接受CNN采訪時說：“這已成為攝影師癡迷的拍照造型，我覺得他們把這看作一種標志性的鏡頭，認為這樣的照片會比較受歡迎。不過如果讓運動員自己選的話，我覺得他們還真不一定會這么做。”

Biting down on a hunk of metal is more likely something someone might have done during the Gold Rush to test whether the shiny golden rock they just panned for was actually pyrite or fool’s gold. Human teeth are harder than gold but softer than pyrite, according to the Mohs Hardness Scale, which categorizes how easily minerals scratch. This means a quick gnaw to real gold would actually leave an indentation. A hard chew of pyrite, meanwhile, might damage your teeth.

對著大塊的金屬咬下去，這更像是淘金熱時期的人可能做的事情，目的是測試剛淘出來的金光閃閃的石塊是否只是黃鐵礦或者愚人金。根據莫氏硬度表，人類牙齒的硬度比黃金大但比黃鐵礦小。這意味著迅速咬一下真正的黃金，會留下牙印。而使勁咬黃鐵礦則可能會毀掉你的牙齒。

The practice also once served to see whether coins were solid gold or just gold-plated over a cheaper metal, Today I Found Out explains.

《今日發現》解釋稱，這一做法也曾用來判斷硬幣是純金的，還是用較便宜的金屬鍍金的。

With that in mind, it’s likely that Old West/pirate lore led to someone once biting their Olympic medal in a spontaneous, “Is this real life?” moment, and the photographers thought it was cute. Because if someone really was hoping to discover whether that gold medal is pure gold, their smiles would quickly fade.

考慮到這一點，在懷疑“這一切都是真的么?”的獲獎時刻，很可能是西方古代或海盜的傳說曾使某個人自發地咬了一下奧運金牌，而攝影師認為這個動作很可愛。因為如果真有人希望測試那枚金牌是不是純金的，他們的笑容很快就會消失。

Olympic gold medals are actually just 1.34 percent gold. The rest is sterling silver, ABC Newsreports. And much of it is recycled silver this time around, which makes the 2016 Rio medals “the most sustainable ever made,” according to Forbes magazine contributor Anthony DeMarco (via ABC News). DeMarco says the materials that make up a “gold” medal are worth $564.

奧運金牌實際上含金量只有1.34%，其余的都是標準純銀。福布斯雜志撰稿人安東.德馬科稱，本屆奧運會大部分用的是回收銀，這使2016年里約奧運金牌成為“有史以來最可持續的”。德馬科表示，一枚“金”牌的制作材料價值564美元。