he gave as his excuse for being late that old chestnut about the train being delayed 他用火車誤點那樣老掉牙的說法作為自己遲到的借口。
the congressional watchdogs will even unearth that old chestnut ? the decision to put dick cheney, the vice-president, in charge of a task-force on energy that advocated all-out drilling 議員們甚至要翻出舊賬??讓副總統(tǒng)切尼負責(zé)能源特派工作組的決定,號稱全面鉆探,果真如此?
the senator from arizona told the same old chestnut about two drunken irishmen to several crowds in new hampshire this week, most of whom had doubtless heard it before 這位來自亞利桑那州的參議員這個禮拜在新罕普什爾州的人群前講了同樣古老陳腐的關(guān)于兩個喝醉了的愛爾蘭男人的笑話,大多數(shù)人毫無疑問之前聽過它。
it is an old chestnut, but a telling one : if carmakers built vehicles as microsoft produces software, they would come in only one colour, the dashboard would be incomprehensible and they would crash a lot 這是一個很老套的笑話,但是卻很生動:如果汽車制造商像微軟編寫軟件一樣來生產(chǎn)汽車,那么這些汽車將會是同一種顏色,儀表板讓人無法理解,并且經(jīng)常崩潰。