Six Things You Won’t Believe AnimalsDo Just like Us (II)

By Kristi Harrison

4. Birds Are Grammar Nazis1. Nazis: 霸道的人。鳥類也講究語(yǔ)法

Spend longer than a half second on the Internet and you’ll encounter someone so hung up on correct grammar usage that you suspect he’s got sentence diagrams where his ribs should be.2. 在網(wǎng)上隨便逛一下，你就會(huì)看到某個(gè)熱衷于正確使用語(yǔ)法的人，讓你不禁懷疑連他的肋骨都是句法構(gòu)成的。encounter: 偶遇；be hung up on: 沉溺于；diagram: 圖解。And if you haven’t,watch this: “Your my best friend.” Let’s see how many people flip their lids3. flip one’s lid: 失去理智。.

And for those of you who’d rather gouge out4. gouge out: 挖出。your own eyes than use or read bad grammar, hey, we get it. After all, what’s the point of language if we ignore the rules? And wasn’t it the invention of language that propelled5. propel: 推進(jìn)，驅(qū)使。humanity into civilization in the first place?

Well, hold your butts6. hold your butts: 這里指“坐穩(wěn)了，沉住氣”，butt意為“屁股”。, kids, because some animals are just as concerned about good grammar as we are.

Wait, what?

Bengal finches not only have rules of syntax when it comes to songs, but they also get mighty pissy when other finches break them.7. Bengal finch: 孟加拉雀；syntax: 語(yǔ)法，句法；mighty:adv. 很，非常；pissy: 生氣的，發(fā)怒的。

也許你是個(gè)文字工作者，會(huì)對(duì)錯(cuò)誤的字詞和語(yǔ)法異常敏感；也許你是個(gè)仲裁人，別人發(fā)生爭(zhēng)端時(shí)唯你決斷；也許你是個(gè)小商人，對(duì)以物易物、價(jià)格波動(dòng)等頗為精通……然而，這些并非人類才會(huì)，有些動(dòng)物也精于此道。Wait, what?!

Researchers at Kyoto University recorded the tweets,chirps and chi-chi-chu-wee-reeeees of a group of finches,8. tweet: 啾啾叫；chirp: 啁啾，唧唧叫。then played the songs back to a different group. After a while, the scientists pulled a fast one by taking the same songs and jumbling them up9. pull a fast one: 欺騙，搗鬼；jumble up:使混亂?！猣orming new “sentences,”if you will. In most cases, the finches didn’t seem to care.But one version of the jumbled song made the finches go bananas10. go bananas: 發(fā)怒，發(fā)狂。.

They started screeching angrily—the kind of call usually reserved for intruding enemy finches.11. screech: 尖叫；intruding: 闖入的，侵入的。The scientists tried playing the same sound sample again with another group,and they got pissed12. pissed: 惱怒的，不快的。, too—virtually every finch that heard it,in fact. The scientists had accidentally created the finch song version of a your/you’re mistake.

5. Chimps Rely on Third-Party Mediators to Resolve Disputes13. chimp: 黑猩猩，下文中chimpanzee為正式用法；mediator: 調(diào)解人；dispute:爭(zhēng)論。黑猩猩靠第三方調(diào)解爭(zhēng)端

If you’re anything like us, sitting between two grownass adults who were so angry that they required two lawyers and a neutral third-party arbitrator to communicate with each other was the stuff childhood (and puppet therapy) was made of.14. 你可能像我們一樣經(jīng)歷過這樣的童年（或是玩偶治療法）：坐在兩個(gè)所謂成熟的大人中間，他們吵得很兇，以至于要找兩個(gè)律師和一個(gè)第三方仲裁人來幫助他們溝通。-ass: 十分，透頂（貶義，通常用以加強(qiáng)語(yǔ)氣），這里的grownass實(shí)為反語(yǔ)；neutral: 中立的；arbitrator: 仲裁人；puppet therapy: 玩偶治療法，即通過玩偶來幫助病人表達(dá)情感，學(xué)習(xí)社交技能。

It’s a pretty brilliant system: Two people who would rather chug a gallon of peanut oil than have a conversation just call in a professional to do the talking for them.15. 這個(gè)一個(gè)相當(dāng)有效的辦法：對(duì)于兩個(gè)寧可喝掉一加侖花生油也不愿意坐下談一談的人來說，只要找一個(gè)專業(yè)人士幫助他們協(xié)調(diào)就好。chug: 一飲而盡；gallon: 加侖，1加侖約為3.8升。You might even say it’s one of the pinnacles16. pinnacle: 頂峰，巔峰。of human civilization.

Except, oh wait. Chimps have totally got the market on third-party mediators covered.

Wait, what?

Chimpanzees have figured out that when the feces hits the fan17. the feces hits the fan: 出問題，遇麻煩，feces: 糞便。, man chimps need to stay the hell away from each other. That’s when a very specific mediator walks into the picture: an older female.

Imagine two male chimpanzees are duking it out over who ate the last head lice or who pooted on Nuk-Nuk’s favorite tree or whatever.18. duke it out: 打架，一決高下；head lice: 頭虱；poot: 排出糞便。Anyway, after the brawl, each male will sit and wait, presumably with his arms crossed and toes tapping,for the other to come over to reconcile.19. brawl: 爭(zhēng)吵；reconcile: 調(diào)停，和解。If no one makes the first move, a female chimp will make it for them.

Here’s how: The female will approach one of the males and start grooming20. groom: （動(dòng)物）為（自己或另一動(dòng)物）梳理皮毛。him. You know, picking out dirt and bugs and gray hairs and whatnot21. whatnot: 諸如此類的東西。in order to help him calm down. Then she’ll walk over to the other male, making sure Fighter Male #1 follows. With Muhammad Ali on one side and Joe Frazier on the other,22. Muhammad Ali: 拳王阿里，全名穆罕默德·阿里，是世界拳壇上的人物；Joe Frazier: 喬·弗雷澤，世界上第一個(gè)擊倒拳王阿里的美國(guó)拳擊手。the female lets them groom her,together, because grooming is calming as shit.

Then, she walks away, her job done. She intervened23. intervene: 干涉。, and resolved their monkey conflict. The two males are left sitting together as friends, with neither losing face. We’re 95 percent sure this is exactly how the Cold War ended.

6. Monkeys Understand Money猴子懂得金錢

As soon as we’re old enough to toddle toward the Hubba Bubba on the lowest shelf at the checkout aisle,24. toddle:（幼兒等）蹣跚行走；Hubba Bubba: 一個(gè)泡泡糖品牌；checkout: 收銀臺(tái)；aisle: 過道，走廊。we get the concept of money. Money is what gets you food, toys and those lame ass OshKosh B’Gosh overalls your mom makes you wear.25. lame ass: 愚蠢的，蹩腳的；OshKosh B’Gosh: 美國(guó)知名的童裝品牌；overall: 工作服，防護(hù)服。Money is what puts some people on a throne and others in a sewage ditch.26. 正是金錢讓一些人有權(quán)有勢(shì)，也讓一些人跌落谷底。sewage ditch: 污水渠。Surely, this one part of human civilization is ours and ours alone.

Nope. Monkeys have also been proven able to comprehend, use and exploit27. exploit:（為獲取利益而）利用。money.

Wait, what?

First of all, it turns out that it’s not all that hard to teach monkeys to use a currency. In one experiment, it was just a matter of giving capuchin monkeys a bunch of silver discs, then demonstrating that they would get a treat when they turned one disc in to the researchers.28. capuchin monkey: 卷尾猴；a bunch of: 一堆；treat: 款待。After just a few months, they picked up the idea that the discs had inherent value(chimpanzees figured it out even faster in another experiment, and were even taught to recognize different denominations of“currency”).29. inherent value: 固有價(jià)值；denomination: 面額。

And to be clear, exchanging the silver discs for treats wasn’t just some mindless “perform an action to get a prize”trick—the capuchin monkeys were found to respond logically to price fluctuations, buying less if the price rose and vice versa.30. mindless: 無需動(dòng)腦的；price fluctuation: 價(jià)格波動(dòng)；vice versa: 反之亦然。

And then, chaos ensued31. ensue: 隨之產(chǎn)生。. One monkey, called Felix,quickly ran to the chamber where the “coins” were kept,threw all them into the communal cage and then scurried back.32chamber: 房間；communal: 公用的；scurry: 急匆匆地跑。What the scientists had witnessed was a bank heist33. heist: 搶劫，偷盜。.When the researchers went in to try and get the coins back,the monkeys put up a fight, only caving in once the scientists gave them treats.34. put up a fight: 奮勇抵抗；cave in: 認(rèn)輸。