【精英翻譯】的部落格

Urban▼ Legends: Fact or Fiction?　　真真假假‧都會傳奇.

精英翻譯社轉自http://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0062/303791/web/

Is the story you heard recently real or is it a myth▼?

你最近聽到的故事是真的還是虛構的呢？

　　Have you ever heard someone swear that the city's sewers▼ are full of alligators? How about the one about the woman who found a rat in her fast- food sandwich? These stories always seem to come from a friend who heard it from a friend. They are urban legends——amazing stories that are thought to be true but are fake.

　　你有聽過某人信誓旦旦說城市的下水道滿是短吻鱷嗎？你還有聽過有關一個女人在她的速食三明治裡發現一隻老鼠的故事嗎？這些故事似乎總是來自一個從朋友口中聽到的朋友。這些故事就是都會傳奇，也就是被認為是真的卻其實是捏造的精采故事。

　　Urban legends are basically made-up stories. No one seems to know how, or where, or why they start. One person tells another who tells yet another, and so on. Before long, so many people are telling the story that it takes on a life of its own. The belief is that if enough people are saying something happened, there must be some truth to it.

　　都會傳奇基本上是虛構的故事。似乎沒人知道它們是如何、在哪裡，及為何被開始編出來。一個人說給另一個人聽，然後再告訴另一個人，諸如此類。不用多久，很多人在說這個故事，然後這個故事便有了自己的生命。一般人相信如果夠多的人說發生了某件事，那其中一定有些地方是真的。

　　Today, it is pretty easy to prove that an urban legend is false. There are websites, such as snopes.com, that go about investigating the truth behind these tales. That doesn't mean urban legends are finished, though. In fact, thanks to the Internet, it's easier than ever for urban legends to travel far and wide.

　　現在，要證明都會傳奇是假的相當容易。像 snopes.com 這樣的網站會去調查這些故事背後的真相。然而，這並不表示都會傳奇玩完了。事實上，多虧了網際網路，都會傳奇比以往更容易四處流傳。