核心畫面

One way to hold this word: EMS is not a word with a picture inside it. It is three letters standing in for a long name, and different fields have each borrowed the same three letters for a different long name. So the letters are an empty shell, and the field you are reading in is what fills them. Ambulances in one paragraph, parcels in the next, factories in a third. The first question is never what does EMS mean, it is what is this text about.

可以想成:EMS 不是一個有畫面的字,而是一個空殼。它只是三個字母,替一個很長的名字站在那裡。不同的領域各自借走了同更多收起可以想成:EMS 不是一個有畫面的字,而是一個空殼。它只是三個字母,替一個很長的名字站在那裡。不同的領域各自借走了同樣這三個字母,去代表自己那個長名字。所以填滿它的不是字本身,是你正在讀的那個領域。同一頁上,前一段可能在講救護車,下一段在講包裹,再下一段在講工廠。看到它的時候,該問的不是「EMS 是什麼意思」,而是「這篇在講哪一行」。

Two branches

把東西送出去

這一支底下的兩個長名字剛好都跟「把東西送到另一端」有關,所以放在一起記比較省力。

noun · C1

A mobile phone service for sending messages between phones, where a message can carry pictures and other content as well as words.

手機多媒體訊息服務

歐洲的貨幣制度

同樣三個字母,在經濟史的文字裡被填成一個特定制度的名字。

noun · C1

The European Monetary System: a system used in the past to limit how far the different currencies of countries inside the European Union could move up and down in value against each other.

歐洲貨幣體系