首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Advance notice is often referred to in America as "lead time," an expression which is significant in a culture where schedules a
Advance notice is often referred to in America as "lead time," an expression which is significant in a culture where schedules a
admin
2011-01-05
45
问题
Advance notice is often referred to in America as "lead time," an expression which is significant in a culture where schedules are important. While it is learned informally, most of us are familiar with how it works in our own culture, even though we cannot state the rules technically. The rules for lead time in other cultures, however, have rarely been analyzed. At the most they are known by experience to those who lived abroad for some time. Yet think how important it is to know how much time is required to prepare people, or for things to come. Sometimes lead time would seem to be very extended. At other times, in the Middle East, any period longer than a week may be too long.
How troublesome differing ways of handling time can be is well illustrated by the case of an American agriculturalist assigned to duty as an attachê of our embassy in a Latin country, After what seemed to him a suitable period he let it be known that he would like to call on the minister who was his counterpart. For various reasons, the suggested time was not suitable; all sorts of cues came back to the effect that the time was not yet ripe to visit the minister. Our friend, however, persisted and forced an appointment, which was reluctantly granted. Arriving a little before the hour (the American respect pattern), he waited. The hour came and passed; five minutes--ten minutes--fifteen minutes. At this point he suggested to the secretary that perhaps the minister did not know he was waiting in the outer office. This gave him the feeling he had done something concrete and also helped to overcome the great anxiety that was stirring inside him. Twenty minutes--twenty-five minutes--thirty minutes--forty-five minutes (the insult period)!
He jumped up and told the secretary that he had been "cooling his heels" in an outer office for forty-five minutes and he was "damned sick and tired" of this type of treatment. This message was relayed to the minister, who said, in effect, "let him cool his heels." The attachê stay in the country was not a happy one.
The principal source of misunderstanding lay in the fact that in the country in question the five-minute delay interval was not significant. Forty-five minutes, on the other hand, instead of being at the tail end of the waiting scale, was just barely at the beginning. To suggest to an American’s secretary that perhaps her boss didn’t know you were there after waiting sixty seconds would seem absurd, as would raising a storm about "cooling your heels" for five minutes. Yet this is precisely the way the minister registered the complaints of the American in his outer office! He felt, as usual, that Americans were being totally unreasonably.
Throughout this unfortunate episode the attach6 was acting according to the way he had been brought up. At home in the United States his response would have been normal ones and his behavior correct. Yet even if he had been told before he left home that this sort of thing would happen, he would have had difficulty not feeling insulted after he had been kept waiting for forty-five minutes. If, on the other hand, he had been taught the details of the local time system just as he should have been taught the local spoken language, it would have been possible for him to adjust himself accordingly.
In that particular Latin American country, letting people wait for 45 minutes is considered ______.
选项
A、unreasonable
B、impolite
C、objectionable
D、quite normal
答案
D
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/OFVK777K
本试题收录于:
C类竞赛(非英语专业本科)题库大学生英语竞赛(NECCS)分类
0
C类竞赛(非英语专业本科)
大学生英语竞赛(NECCS)
相关试题推荐
Itwastheworsttragedyin【C1】________history,sixtimesmoredeadlythantheTitanic.WhentheGermancruiseshipWilhelm
Vibrationsinthegroundareapoorlyunderstoodbutprobablywidespreadmeansofcommunicationbetweenanimals.Itseems【C1
PASSAGETHREEAccordingtotheauthor,whatbalanceshouldwekeepinwelfare?
(1)Preschools—educationalprogramsforchildrenwhoareundertheageoffive—differsignificantlyfromonecountrytoanother
(1)AntonioSanzmightaswellhavewonthelottery.In1965,whenthesmall,curly-hairedSpaniardwas10,anAmericanprofesso
(1)Ifyourchildisoverweightorobese,thismeansthattheyarecarryingexcessbodyfat.Doctorsandnursescanchecktosee
【T1】________.InLatinAmerica,peopleexpresstheirhopesthroughthecoloroftheirunderwear.Ifyouworeyellow,thatsuppos
Single-sexEducationforGirlsThreemainargumentsagainstsingle-sexschools.Itgoesagainstthegoalofproviding【T
CarshavebecomehouseholdinChina.Itbringsconvenienceandpollutionatthesametime.Writeacompositionofnofewerthan
Thesedays,collegelecturehallsintheUnitedStatesarebeingfilledmoreandmorewithfemaleratherthanmalestudents.Wom
随机试题
组织内外部环境的变化,都要求对组织________进行调整,以适应变化。
慢性左心功能不全常见的症状和体征不包括
下列可作为缺铁性贫血病因存在是
严重腹泻可以引起
婚姻拥挤是指由于婚姻市场可供选择的男性和女性比例失调,进而导致部分男性或女性不能按传统模式择偶的现象。根据上述定义,下列属于婚姻拥挤的是()。
(不定项选择题)深化党中央机构改革的目的在于______________。(不定项选择题)从材料可知,以下说法不符合《深化党和国家机构改革方案》内容的是_________。
下列各句中,没有语病的一句是()。
某画家从来不在其作品上标明日期,其作品的时间顺序现在才开始在评论文献中形成轮廓。最近,将该画家的一幅自画像的时间定为1930年一定是错误的,1930年时该画家已经63岁了,然而画中年轻、黑发的男子显然是画家本人,但却绝不是63岁的男子。以下哪项是上述论证
设函数f(x,y)在区域D:x2+y2≤1上有二阶连续偏导数,且又C,是以原点为心,半径为r的圆周,取逆时针方向,求
Parentsofchildrenwhohappilyeatwhat’sputinfrontofthemmightassumetheirkidsarewellnourished.Buttwonewstudies
最新回复
(
0
)