TPS News

Suggested answer: “The gasoline engine rumbled and shook as the spark plugs explosively awakened the machine for another work day.”

The sentence speaks of a machine that is at rest and then abruptly running on all its cylinders. The transition was sudden, touched off by spark plugs that caused fuel to burn in a burst of energy. So what happened here? The machine was “awakened” from stillness. It was a violent awakening and only the integrity of the machined parts kept it from flying apart. “Awakened” would not be a good choice of words in this case were it not paired with the adverb “explosively.” Together the words paint a picture of a machine, as if it were a person, shoved violently from slumber to frantic activity. Other “a” words that could be used include activated, actuated, perhaps accelerated, yet none of those create the interesting image of harshly interrupted sleep.
這個句子描寫一個原本處於靜止狀態的機器突然全速運轉。這個轉變是突然的，起因是火星塞的觸發，使爆發的能量引起燃料燃燒。因此導致了什麼事件呢？原來是機器從靜止的狀態中「被喚醒」（awakened）了。這麼猛烈的動作，原是靠著機件的組合才不至於讓機器四散。在這種情況下，「awakened」並不是個恰當的用字，這個形容詞和副詞「explosively」（爆發地）其實並不搭。不過這樣的用字描繪出一個畫面，形容機器就像人一樣，猛然地自沈睡狀態中醒來，然後瘋狂地投入工作。其他以「a」為字首的字包括：activated（活動起來）、actuated（開動機器）或者是accelerated（加速），不過這些字都不足以描繪出當睡眠被粗暴打斷的有趣情境。