原文: We sometimes fall in with persons who have seen much of the world, and of the men who, in their day, have played a conspicuous part in it, but who generalize nothing and have no observation, in the true sense of the world.
这句话选自英国神学家John Herry Newman所著的《大学教育的范围与性质》，完整的篇章大家可以看这个网站http://www .newmanreader.org/works/idea/diseourse6 html
约翰·亨利·纽曼(John Henry Newman, 1801—1890)，是现代重要的高等教育思想家，毕业于牛津大学三一学院（Trinity College）他原本是英国国教圣公会成员，后来皈依了天主教，在英国思想界引起了极大的震动。
下面是完整文本，阅读时可以找出今天要译的那句话的位置
原文: We sometimes fall in with persons who have seen much of the world, and of the men who, in their day, have played a conspicuous part in it, but who generalize nothing and have no observation, in the true sense of the world
钱歌川《翻译的基本知识》译：我们有时邂逅一些熟悉世故的人和一些曾经见过许多在其全盛时代叱咤风云，世界安危所系的有名人物的人，但是他们却不能归纳出一点什么来，也毫无真正的观察力。
另外参考译文:我们有时遇见一些久经世故的人，他们熟知各大风云人物/举足轻重的人物，但这些人却对世界的本质知之甚少,也对其毫无洞察力。
钱歌川所著书籍:《 翻译的基本知识》《英文疑难 . 详解》《翻译的技巧》 《英文一日一 题》
fall in with persons 区分 fall in love with persons
Will you fall in love with two persons at once?
你会同时爱上两个人吗？
I didn't think I'd fall in love with him.
我没想过我会爱上他。
Will you fall in love with English!
你会爱上英语吗？
fall in love with someone secretly 暗恋
fall in with
符合，与…一致；交友；碰到；（船只的）偶然相遇
I had to fall in with her wishes as much as possible.
我不得不尽量顺从她的意愿。
fall in line with national standards
符合国家标准
He won't listen to any suggestion that doesn't fall in with his scheme.
他不愿听取与他的计划不一致的任何意见。
...have seen much of the world是一个固定表达，指的是见多识广、久经世故的、深谙世故的，同义词是sophisticated。 of the men 完整的结构是与之并列的have seen much of the world一样的固定搭配形式have seen much of the men, 那much of可以修饰可数名词the men 吗?
1.常见的用法是much of修饰不可数名词，或者是抽象名词，修饰抽象名词的时候名词前有the, 例句：
Much of the opposition to this plan has come from the media.
该计划的主要反对声音来自媒体。
柯林斯高阶英汉双解学习词典
2.单独的Much of the world可以指世界上许多国家，或者世界大部分地区，例如金融时报例句:
Throughout much of the world, auto market prospects appear sluggish.
在世界大部分地区，汽车市场的增长前景似乎都很不妙。
3. Much of也可以修饰可数名词，注意名词前有the，含义是许多，不过 现在这种用法不常见，例如联合国网站上( documents- dds-ny.un.org)一份2010年的文件中就有这么一句话:
Much of the efforts resulted in crack downs by government sponsored gangs that routinely violated rights of citizens.
很多这些努力招致了政府主导的一些集团的镇压，而这些集团经常侵犯公民的权利。
可见，much of 可以修饰可数名词，句中much of修饰the men，注意定冠词the, much of the men是指许多人而seen much of the world 不是真的具体见过世界，指久经世故，而seen much of the men指熟知很多人，而不一定是见过。
the men who, in their day, have played a conspicuous part in it中in their day 是定语从句中的，所以指的the men而不是persons的。
句子结构分析：
网友评论