PETS－2语法讲解(244)

　　Our plane was diverted.
　　对 话
　　Alice: We had a terrible time getting back from our vacation on Majorca last week.
　　Simon: Did you have an accident?
　　Alice: No, nothing like that thank goodness, but we were supposed to fly back direct to London and our plane was diverted to Manchester. It took us half a day extra to get home.
　　Simon: What bad luck! What was the reason?
　　Alice: There was a lot of fog in London, which was quite unusual for the time of year, so they diverted our flight for safety reasons.
　　Simon: Rather that than risk a crash.
　　Alice: I suppose you're right.
　　艾丽斯：上星期我们从马霍卡岛度假回来，旅途很不愉快。
　　西门：有发生意外事有故吗？
　　艾丽斯：不是，幸好没有那么糟。不过，我们原应直接飞回伦敦，却要转往曼彻斯特降落，多花了半天才回到家里。
　　西门：真倒霉！为什么要转飞曼彻斯特？
　　艾丽斯：伦敦当时起了浓雾，在这个季节实在不寻常。他们为了安全安全，要我们改飞曼彻斯特。
　　西门：改飞，总胜于坠毁。
　　艾丽斯：这个当然。
　　Divert是‘转移（方向、用途等）’，名词是diversion。除了说飞机，车辆改道也常用这个字，例如：All traffic had to take a diversion because of the car crash/All traffic had to be diverted because of the car crash（由于撞车事故，所有车辆都要改道）。空中交通叫air traffic，例如：The air traffic controller diverted all flights to New York（空中交通管制员要所有班机改道飞往纽约）。
　　Divert既有‘转移’的意思，所以也有‘使人分心’、‘娱乐’的意思，例如：(1) The clowns diverted the children（小丑把孩子们逗乐了）。(2) Two men quarreled to divert our attention while another man tried to pick our pockets（两个男人吵起来，一个分散我们的注意力，另一个则试图偷我们身上的东西）。转移人家注意力的手法，叫做create a diversion，例如：你可以说The two men created a diversion while another man tried to pick our pockets。艾丽斯说飞机没有遇上意外事故：Thank goodness。这个goodness请勿解作‘好’或‘善良’。英文常用goodness作感叹语，代替God，所以Thank goodness等于‘谢天谢地’，My goodness等于‘天哪’，Goodness knows等于‘天晓得’，For goodness' sake等于‘看在老天面子上’，例如：(1) For goodness' sake, don't tell her!（千万不要告诉她啊！）(2) Goodness knows what he wants（谁知道他要什么）。西方人认为感叹语用God、Christ等字，未免亵渎神明，goodness是较婉转的说法。