Sometimes his mewling has an obvious prompt. When your approval ratings have sunk as low as his — a recent Gallup tracking poll showed that only 37 percent of Americans were pleased with his performance — you have an obvious investment in calling such surveys rigged and wrong, as Trump is still doing.
“动机”是意译。“investment”是投入金钱、时间或劳动以求回报。所以“have an investment in doing things”是做某事以求某种回报,但是这个“回报”很难直接放在中文译文中,所以意译为“动机”。
SOE
investment
II.
The investing of money (now also time or effort)
网络
Educational Models and Practices in Theological Education
PDF
Lawyers have an investment in doing things a certain way, for monetary reasons, but these ways have to change.
-ment的意思主要是:
the act or state or fact of~ing(……的行为、状况或事实),
the condition of being ~ed(被……的状况),
the product or result of ~ing(……的产物或结果),
the cause or means of ~ing(……的原因或手段)等。
《黑客帝国》4里的画面,ball可能大家很熟悉了——球;球类活动;舞会;睾丸;胆量,但放在这里都是不通的,ball还有其他意思,[transitive]ball sb(NAmE) (taboo, slang)(of a man男性)to have sex with a woman和(女性)交媾,你没有在这个文化环境里成长,没有广泛的听说交际和阅读,你连一个小屁孩说的英文都不懂。
多查字典,词义演变大多遵循:基本义→引申义→比喻义,例如stake
朗当:
if you have a stake in a business, you have invested money in it 股份,股本
→ have a stake in something
if you have a stake in something, you will get advantages if it is successful, and you feel that you have an important connection with it 与某事物有利害关系