25.High School English Reading Listening

In the United States, when one becomes rich, he wants people to know it. And even if he does not become very rich, he wants people to think that he is. That is what ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is about, It is the story of someone who tried to look as rich as his neighbours.
　　The expression was first used in 1913 by a young American called Arthur Momand. He told this story about himself. He began earning $ 125 a week at the age of 23. That was a lot of money in those days. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighbourhood outside New York City. When he saw that rich people rode horses, Momand went horseback riding every day. When he saw that rich people had servants. Momand and his wife also hired a servant and gave big parties for their new neighbours.
　　It was like a race, but one could never finish this race because one was always trying to keep up. The race ended for Momand and his wife when they could no longer pay for their new way of life. They moved back to an apartment(公寓房间) in New York City.
　　Momand looked around him and noticed that many people do things just to keep up with rich life--style of their neighbours. He saw the funny side of it and started to write a series (系列) of short stories, He called it ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ because ‘Jones’ is a very common name in the United States.’ Keeping up with the Joneses’ came to mean keeping up with rich lifestyle of the people around you. Momand’s series appeared in different newspapers across the country for over 28 years.
　　People never seem to get tired of keeping up with the Joneses. And there are ‘Jonses’ in every city of the world. But one must get tired of trying to keep up with the Joneses because no matter what one does, Mr. Jones always seems to be ahead.
译文：
在美国，当一个人变得富有时，他想让人们知道这一点。即使他没有变得非常富有，他也希望人们认为他很富有。这就是 "紧跟琼斯 "的意义所在，这是一个试图让自己看起来和邻居一样富有的人的故事。
　　这个说法是在1913年由一个叫阿瑟-莫曼德的年轻美国人首次使用。他讲述了这个关于自己的故事。他在23岁时开始每周赚取125美元。这在当时是一笔很大的收入。他结婚后与妻子搬到了纽约市外一个非常富裕的街区。当他看到有钱人都骑马时，莫曼德每天都去骑马。当他看到有钱人有仆人时。莫曼德和他的妻子也雇了一个仆人，并为他们的新邻居们举办了盛大的宴会。
　　这就像一场比赛，但人永远无法完成这场比赛，因为人总是在努力跟上。当莫曼德和他的妻子无法再为他们的新生活方式支付费用时，这场比赛就结束了。他们搬回了纽约市的一个公寓。
　　莫曼德环顾四周，发现许多人做事只是为了跟上邻居的富裕生活方式。他看到了其中有趣的一面，开始写一系列的短篇小说，他把它叫做 "跟上琼斯"，因为 "琼斯 "在美国是一个非常普遍的名字。跟上琼斯 "的意思是跟上你周围的人的富裕生活方式。莫曼德的系列报道在全国不同的报纸上出现了28年之久。
　　人们似乎永远不会对跟上琼斯家的步伐感到厌倦。世界上每个城市都有 "Jonses"。但是，人们一定厌倦了试图跟上琼斯们的步伐，因为无论做什么，琼斯先生似乎总是领先。
重点词汇：
United States 美国 ; 美利坚合众国 ; 依宪法而联合起来的州的总称
does not 不 ; 不是 ; 否定就用
That is 即 ; 用于纠正之前说过的内容
at the age of 在…岁时
New York City 纽约市
every day 每一天 ; 每日