TPS News

Answer: We believe the sentence is best completed this way:

“The commissioner found the sentiment expressed by the girl disagreeable, partly because the girl’s voice was as whiny as a molly in a cage.”

Public officials are not to be pitied. They generally do all right. But it is true that they must endure conversations with all kinds of people. In this instance, a commissioner admits that the unpleasantly stressed voice of a young woman is not helping her cause. In describing the voice as that of “a molly in a cage,” the writer compares it to a female cat that is loudly objecting to being in an enclosed container of some sort. The keening, incessant cries of a cat in such a situation indeed can be noisome, even though the animal may be a favorite and otherwise quite loveable. By the same token, the appeal of the young woman might be valid, but her presentation is not winning her points. The description is apt in explaining the commissioner’s reaction.
公務員不需要人憐憫，他們通常過得蠻不錯的；不過他們確實得和各式各樣的人打交道。這個句子中，一位長官承認年輕女子尖銳的聲音令人不舒服，無法幫她解決問題。本句以「a molly in a cage」形容女子的聲音，就像母貓被關起來而放聲大叫的聲音。儘管貓咪可能很討人喜歡，平常也很可愛，但如果被關起來，持續不斷尖叫也是很可怕的。同樣地，這位年輕女子儘管很有魅力，但她的表現卻不會為她加分。這句話恰如其分地解釋了長官的反應。