相傳曾經(jīng)有位老奶奶，有一天閑來(lái)無(wú)事清理冰箱存貨，在冷凍室的最里面翻出來(lái)一只不知道藏了多久的火雞，老奶奶給生產(chǎn)廠家打電話，問(wèn)這火雞還能不能吃，廠家回話說(shuō)：“您可千萬(wàn)別吃了，快扔了吧！”你猜老奶奶怎么說(shuō)？她老人家堅(jiān)定地說(shuō)：“這么好的火雞，我可舍不得扔，我拿去捐給災(zāi)區(qū)的人們好了。”……這就是我們今天要討論的問(wèn)題。

SWEDOW (Stuff WE DOn't Want) refers to unnecessary or inappropriate items donated to a charity organization or relief effort.

SWEDOW（“我們不需要的物品”英文表達(dá)的縮寫形式）指慈善或救災(zāi)組織收到的不必要的或者不合時(shí)宜的捐助物品。

In Indonesia, 4,000 tonnes of donated drugs arrived after the tsunami, well beyond local needs. Most of those drugs weren't required, were labelled in foreign languages or were close to expiry. They overwhelmed the capacity of local incinerators to dispose of them. The problem is known by the acronym SWEDOW.

印尼海嘯之后，有4000噸捐助的藥品抵達(dá)當(dāng)?shù)兀蟠蟪隽水?dāng)?shù)氐男枨罅俊＿@些藥品中的大多數(shù)要么不是災(zāi)區(qū)當(dāng)時(shí)需要的，要么是用外語(yǔ)標(biāo)注使用說(shuō)明的，要么就是快過(guò)期的。為了銷毀這些藥品，當(dāng)?shù)乩倩癄t甚至都超負(fù)荷運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)。這樣的問(wèn)題就叫做SWEDOW。

The latest SWEDOW dump came in the form of a massive donation from the National Football League to the Christian relief group World Vision. After the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl, the NFL was stuck with thousands of T-shirts heralding the Pittsburgh Steelers as champs. The league donated the merchandise to World Vision, which in turn plans to ship it to Armenia, Nicaragua, Romania and Zambia.

最近的一次SWEDOW事件與美國(guó)國(guó)家橄欖球聯(lián)盟（NFL）給世界宣明會(huì)新西蘭基督城救災(zāi)小組的大宗捐贈(zèng)物品有關(guān)。綠灣包裝工隊(duì)贏得超級(jí)碗冠軍后，NFL手里就積壓了大量宣傳匹茲堡鋼人隊(duì)得冠軍的T恤。他們把這些T恤捐給了世界宣明會(huì)，結(jié)果，后者只能把T恤運(yùn)去亞美尼亞、尼加拉瓜、羅馬尼亞和贊比亞等國(guó)家。

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（中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)網(wǎng)英語(yǔ)點(diǎn)津 Helen 編輯）

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