| 释义 |
■ down the road意思原先是“顺着路走下去”。 - Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said, “I see a way to decide our dispute. (…)” (Aesop Fables)忽然他们看见一个旅客一路走过来，于是太阳就说：“我找到了解决咱们争执的办法了。(…)”
- They had walked some way and it was now night, but they could see a large iron gate a little way farther down the road on their left.(Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out)他们走了一些路，现在已经天黑了，但是他们还能够看到自己左边前面稍远处有一座大铁门。
- He walked down the road and went into one or two liquor shops, staying for nearly half-an-hour in the last of them.(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet)他顺着路走下去，进去了一两家卖酒的店，在最末一家停留了将近半个钟头。
但是 down the road 也可以从空间的意义转到时间的意义，表示“今后”（有对今后可能如何不能预测的口气）。 - If... we will pay a terrible price down the road.如果…的话，我们今后会付出可怕的代价。
- We may at some point buy a house but that's down the road.我们有朝一日会买一栋房子，但那是后话了。
- This is a wonderful invention, but a marketable product is several years down the road.这个发明很了不起，但是要成为能销售的产品，那是几年以后的事了。
- I was asked to gather statistical data that could be useful down the road.他们叫我收集统计数字，日后可能有用。
- The White House insists the package(of tax cuts) will stimulate the economy, but Democrats warn that consumers will pay down the road. (US News & World Report, June 2, 2003, p.13)白宫坚持说这套措施将刺激经济，但是民主党人提出警告，说今后要由消费者付出代价（注意：pay 与 down 不能连起来）。
但是空间的意义仍然保留一些痕迹。 - If ever, someplace down the road, you and I differ on a matter of judgment that's important, you have my permission to remind me of this incident, and that your judgment was right and mine wrong.今后的某个时候，如果你我在一个重大的判断问题上意见相左，我允许你拿这件事件来提醒我，指出你的判断正确而我的判断错误（这里用 someplace 而不用 sometime，但指的是时间，可见是借用空间表示时间）。
目录 |