第一,迷你對(duì)話
A: Why doesn’t the boss fire her? She is so lazy.
為什么老板不解雇她呢?她太懶惰了。
B: Every company has a turkey farm.
每個(gè)公司都有低能但有不能解雇的人。
第二,地道表達(dá)
a turkey farm
1. 解詞釋義
Turkey farm中的turkey是指“火雞”,farm是指“農(nóng)場(chǎng)”,但是作為習(xí)慣用語跟火雞或農(nóng)場(chǎng)毫無關(guān)系。每個(gè)政府機(jī)構(gòu)或者私營(yíng)公司總會(huì)有一些工作能力低或者是不愿勤懇工作的人。但是,由于種種原因,領(lǐng)導(dǎo)又沒辦法解雇這些人。為了使工作不受影響,這些機(jī)構(gòu)的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)往往把他們調(diào)入到另外一個(gè)地方,就像將他們打入冷宮一言。這種對(duì)于他們來說像冷宮一樣的地方就叫做turkey farm。
2. 拓展范例
e.g. The man is so incompetent we'd like to fire him. But he has good political connections so we sent him to our turkey farm out in Denver where he can't cause much damage.
那個(gè)人實(shí)在無能,我們很想解雇他。但是他和一些政界人物關(guān)系很好,所以我們就把他送到丹佛那個(gè)機(jī)構(gòu)里去,那樣他就不能再起多大破壞作用了。
There is a secretary in my office who tries to do as little as possible. I have warned her several times. If she continues to behave that way, one day I am going to send her to the turkey farm.
我辦公室里的一個(gè)秘書總是設(shè)法干得越少越好。我已經(jīng)警告她好幾回了。 要是她繼續(xù)這樣下去的話,總有一天我要把她送到那個(gè)全是廢物的部門去。