有朋友留言，讨论了这样一句话:

Suboptimal decision making—also called incongruent decision making or dysfunctional decision making—occurs when a decision’s benefit to one subunit is more than offset by the costs to the organization as a whole.

Ta的问题是: 如何理解这里的more than? 到底谁比谁多?

这个问题让我想起了我在朗文字典上看到过一个例句:

例句: Her intelligence more than compensates for her lack of experience?

这里的more than什么意思? “多于”恐怕是说不通。

论坛上的一个网友的回答是:

In general, action taken to compensate for something implies exactly counterbalances. So to more than compensate means the rebalancing action actually goes further than necessary to equalise the situation. In this specific context, it simply means her intelligence is so high (or highly valued) as a positive attribute that this actually outweighs her negative attribute (lack of experience).Making her "net worth" positive, rather than simply neutral.

赵振才所著的《英语常见问题解答大辞典》第583页给出了答案：

More than + 动词， 一般可译作“十分” “大大地” “远远地” “岂止是” “不仅仅”...

回到开始的那个问题:

Suboptimal decision making—also called incongruent decision making or dysfunctional decision making—occurs when a decision’s benefit to one subunit is more than offset by the costs to the organization as a whole.

我们可以理解为:

A is more than offset by B.

A is greatly offset by B.

B greatly offsets A.

因为这句话就可以改写成:

When the costs to the organization as a whole greatly offsets a decision's benefit to one subunit, suboptimal decision making occurs.

我觉得学习的过程中，有时候需要“不求甚解” －－有些东西大概理解就好了，随着我们水平和阅历的提升，突然有一天就懂了；有时候需要“较真死磕” －－多问问为什么, 别自欺欺人得过且过。把这些疑难杂症都治一治，任督二脉也就会早日打开了。

“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.” — Thomas Szasz, 1973

感受一下Thomas Szasz上面的这句话。

Neil Gaiman 在 Philadelphia’s University of the Arts 毕业典礼中有一段精彩的演讲, 你也来感受一下。

“ When things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician — make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constrictor — make good art. IRS on your trail — make good art. Cat exploded — make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before — make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and that doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: Make good art. Make it on the bad days, make it on the good days, too.”

http://v.qq.com/iframe/player.html?vid=w01491odvvm&width=500&height=375&auto=0

相信我, 上面的视频和下面这个图都值得转发、收藏。