名人教英文：to the... of..
《经济学人》（the economist）妙语如珠，是很好的英文教材。去年10月22日关于剑桥大学校长选举的报道，开首形容生动，语言幽默：
"tourists clogging the king's parade in the historic heart of cambridge often seem let down by the absence of begowned scholars (students these days tend to wear t-shirts and trainers). not so on october 15th, when a merry crowd of dons and alumni queued up in robes to cast their votes for a new chancellor of cambridge university, much to the glee of camera-wielding onlookers."
"tourists clogging the king's parade..." 生动地描写出游人水泄不通的情景。clog解作「塞满」，例如："many people were trapped in the fire because the fire escape was clogged with furniture dumped by the residents".
begowned scholars（穿袍的学者）和camera-wielding onlookers（拿相机的旁观者）都用了自创的形容词。begowned的格式如bespectacled（戴眼镜的，spectacles即眼镜）：gown（袍）加上be...ed，就变成形容词。camera-wielding是复合形容词，类似的例子包括record-breaking（破纪录的）、time-consuming（花时间的）和food-loving（爱吃的）。
dons和alumni也值得解释。在剑桥和牛津，导师叫做don。alumni源自拉丁文，较常见于美式英语，是alumnus（男校友）的复数；女校友叫alumna，复数是alumnae；如果校友有男有女，可用alumni，但也有人认为用alumnae/i较为政治正确。
最后特别想谈谈 "much to the glee of camera-wielding onlookers"（令拿相机的旁观者满心欢喜）。"(much) to the... of someone" 或 "to someone's ..." 表示「令某人感到……」。例如：
1) peter failed to get into cambridge, much to the disappointment of his parents.
（彼得考不进剑桥大学，令父母大失所望。）
2) during the cruise, a pod of dolphins jumped out of the water, to the delight of the passengers.
（船只航行时，一小群海豚跳出水面，令乘客十分高兴。）
3) the spanish prime minister watched the football match between spain and italy at the stadium. to his chagrin, spain lost.
（西班牙总理到场观看西班牙对意大利的足球赛。西班牙输了，令他很懊恼。）
4) lazy johnny came first in his class, much to the surprise of his classmates.
（懒惰的庄尼在班上得第一名，令同学大感意外。）
英语单词词汇学习：
clog 塞满
chagrin （因失败、尴尬而引起的） 懊恼
glee 欢欣
wield 手持并使用