英倫翻譯社/ Trsmaster

◎陳維真

Outspoken US Senator John McCain raised eyebrows online Monday when he compared Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a monkey that the Islamic republic recently launched into space.

一向敢言的美國參議員麥肯，週一把伊朗總統阿瑪迪尼賈比為伊朗最近送上太空的猴子，讓眾人震驚。

"So Ahmadinejad wants to be first Iranian in space - wasn’t he just there last week?" said a message on McCain’s official Twitter feed, followed by the headline and link to a recent story："Iran launches monkey into space."

麥肯的官方推特發言表示：「所以阿瑪迪尼賈想成為首位上太空的伊朗人，可是他不是上週才去過嗎？」文後附上一則新聞的標題和連結：「伊朗發射猴子上太空。」

The comments by the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, a strong advocate for tougher sanctions on Tehran for its nuclear program, followed Ahmadinejad’s claim earlier Monday that he is ready "to be the first man in space" under Iran’s ambitious program which aims to send a human being into orbit by 2020.

麥肯是2008年總統大選的共和黨候選人，也強烈主張對德黑蘭當局的核計畫施加更嚴苛的制裁。麥肯此番發言之前，阿瑪迪尼賈在週一稍早聲稱，他準備好成為伊朗野心勃勃計畫中「第一位進入太空的人」，伊朗的目標是2020年將人類送入太空軌道。

The slur by McCain, the senator with by far the most Twitter followers, with nearly 1.8 million, elicited swift condemnation on Twitter.

麥肯是推特追蹤人數最多的參議員，有近180萬人，在他說出這番侮辱的話後，立刻在推特上引起眾人撻伐。

"Wow, way to elevate political discourse," tweeted @heyitsurban to McCain. Another user, @manolo_loop, wrote："@SenJohnMcCain is racism funny?"

網友@heyitsurban推文：「哇！真是提升政治對話的好方法。」另一位網友@manolo_loop寫道，「麥肯，種族歧視好笑嗎？」

About 50 minutes after his original "monkey" tweet, McCain posted a follow-up. "Re：Iran space tweet - lighten up folks, can’t everyone take a joke?" （AFP）

在發布原本的「猴子」推文約50分鐘後，麥肯又張貼了一則後續推文，「回覆：伊朗太空推文—大家輕鬆點，難道你們都開不起玩笑嗎？」（法新社）

新聞辭典

outspoken：形容詞，敢言，直言不諱。例句：He has been outspoken in his criticism of the government.（他對政府的批評一向很敢說。）

advocate：名詞，擁護者、支持者。Advocates for abolishing the death penalty are sometimes slammed as cold-blooded.（支持廢除死刑的人常被外界抨擊冷血。）

slur：名詞，誹謗、詆毀。例句：The comments were a slur on staff at the hospital.（這些評論在詆毀醫院員工。）

文章出處 ：自由時報電子報中英對照新聞