近日，百事公司(PepsiCo)传奇女CEO卢英德（Indra Nooyi）宣布将于今年10月3日起卸任。身为印度国民偶像的她，在百事掌舵十二年营收增长80%，股价几乎翻倍，连续五年入围最有权力商业女性前三甲。

“领导百事公司是我毕生的荣幸。”

本周，最新一期《经济学人》以极短的一篇文章对此进行了介绍。

下面，我们就一起来学习一下。

- ◆ -

PepsiCo said this week that Indra Nooyi will step down[1] in October after 12 years as chief executive. During her tenure revenues rose by 80% to over $63bn, though rival Coca Cola delivered bigger gains in market capitalisation.

[1]step down表示“退位”，英文解释为“ If someone steps down or steps aside, they resign from an important job or position, often in order to let someone else take their place. ”

类似“退位”的表达还有“stand down & abdicate”

举个🌰：

John stood down during the competition for pulling his muscle.

约翰因肌肉拉伤而中途退出了比赛。

stand down表示“(从要职上)退下，退出竞赛(或竞选)”等。

abdicate表示“(国王或女王)退位”，英文解释为“to give up the position of being king or queen.”

2015年考研英语阅读中一篇选自《卫报》(The Guardian)的文章中有这样一段话:

King Juan Carlos of Spain once insisted “kings don’t abdicate, they die in their sleep.”But embarrassing scandals and the popularity of the republican left in the recent Euro-elections have forced him to eat his words and stand down.

两种表达通过文章的逻辑（转折）可以联系到一起。

[2]tenure一词共有3个意思

✨此处的意思是“〔重要职位的〕任期”，英文解释为“the period of time when someone has an important job formal。原文“during her tenure”，就可以翻译成“在她任职期间//在她任期内”。后面可以加上“as+职位”，比如我们要说“他在首席执行官任期内”，英文可以用“during his tenure as chief executive officer”。

它还可以表示“〔大学教师的〕终身职位，终身教席，终身教职”，英文解释为“the right to stay permanently in a teaching job”，经常和academic连用，“academic tenure”即“终身教职/教席”。

举个🌰：

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to acquire academic tenure .

获得终身教职现在越来越难了。

最后，它还可以表示“〔房地产的〕保有权”，英文解释为“the legal right to live in a house or use a piece of land for a period of time law”。

- ◆ -

Ms Nooyi presciently invested in healthier offerings, offsetting[3] weakness in sales of sugary products. She fended off[4] activist investors who demanded a break-up.

[3]offset此处用作动词，意思是“补偿，抵销”，英文解释为“if the cost or amount of something offsets another cost or amount, the two things have an opposite effect so that the situation remains the same.”

Cuts in food prices will be offset by direct payments to farmers.

食品降价将通过直接付款给农民的方式进行补偿。

offset sth against sth

He was able to offset his travel expenses against tax.

他可以用旅费抵税。

还可以表示“衬托出”，英文解释为“to make something look better by being close to it and different.” 

His blonde hair offset a deep tan.

满头的金发衬出了他黝黑的皮肤。

[4]fend off

fend一词带有“照料”的意思，常见的搭配为“fend for yourself”，表示“照料（自己）”，英文解释为“to look after yourself without relying on help from anyone else. ”

加了个off后缀，引申出“避开”&“挡住（攻击）”的意思。这两个意思看上去一样，但要注意略有差别，后面接的对象不一致。

避开：If you fend off unwanted questions, problems, or people, you stop them from affecting you or defend yourself from them, but often only for a short time and without dealing with them completely. 

挡住 (攻击)：If you fend off someone who is attacking you, you use your arms or something such as a stick to defend yourself from their blows.

- ◆ -

She was one of the first Asian Americans to run an American giant, helping to shatter a “bamboo ceiling”.

[5]bamboo ceiling 竹子天花板

所谓“竹子天花板”，是指一种对于亚裔（尤其是东亚裔，主要是中日韩）而言，无形的升职障碍；之所以叫做竹子天花板，可能是由于东亚人种对于竹子文化的热爱以及竹子这种植物对于东亚人的意义。（来源：看新西兰网站）

此外，还有个类似的词叫 glass ceiling 玻璃天花板：

玻璃天花板，指在公司、企业和机关、团体中对某些群体（如女性、少数族裔）晋升到高级职位或决策层的潜在限制或障碍。（来源：维基百科）

希拉里在2016年败选演讲:为理想奋斗绝对值得中就提到了“我们还没有打破玻璃天花板”：

- ◆ -

When she took the top job, roughly 2% of Fortune 500 firms were run by women, a figure that has crept up to less than 5% today. Ramon Laguarta, an inside man at PepsiCo, will succeed her.

[6]creep up：

creep表示“悄悄地，缓慢地前进”，up表示上升，所以合在一起有“攀升”的意思。但又不像rocket作动词表示的那种“飞速增涨”，creep up强调“渐渐地上升”。英文解释为“If a rate or number creeps up to a higher level, it gradually reaches that level. ”

举个🌰：The inflation rate has been creeping up to 9.5 per cent. 

- END -

https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?vid=f1346t3a750&width=500&height=375&auto=0