Thank you, President Cowan, Mrs. President Cowen; distinguished guests, undistinguished guests—you know who you are, honored faculty and creepy Spanish teacher.
尊敬的考恩校长,校长夫人,尊敬的嘉宾——你们知道自己是谁,不用介绍了,尊敬的老师们,还有令人害怕的西班牙语老师,感谢你们!
And thank you to all the graduating class of 2009, I realize most of you are hungover and have splitting headaches and haven't slept since Fat Tuesday, but you can't graduate till I finish, so listen up.
When I was asked to make the commencement speech, I immediately said yes. Then I went to look up what commencement meant. Which would have been easy if I had a dictionary, but most of the books in our house are Portia's, and they're all written in Australian. So I had to break the word down myself, to find out the meaning.
当我应邀来发表毕业演讲时,我毫不犹豫就答应了,然后我才去查毕业典礼是什么意思。如果我有字典的话就轻松多了,但我家大多数的书都是波西米亚的,而且都是澳式英语,所以我得自己拆分单词,摸索它的意思。
commencement 由 commen 和 cement 构成,意思是“常见的水泥”。在人行道上你常看见水泥。人行道上有裂缝,你踩到了裂缝,撞伤了你妈妈的背。意思就是这样。但是我很荣幸应邀给你们做“常见的水泥”演讲。
I thought that you had to be a famous alumnus—alumini—aluminum—alumis—you had to graduate from this school. And I didn't go to college here, and I don't know if President Cowan knows, I didn't go to any college at all. Any college. And I'm not saying you wasted your time, or money, but look at me, I"m a huge celebrity.
我本以为要够有名,必须要是校友才能来。我没在这儿上过大学,而且,不知道考恩校长知道不知道,我完全没念过大学。任何一所大学。我不是说你们在浪费时间和金钱,看看我,我可是超越成功的名人。