我一个朋友前几天买房的时候遭遇了房主食言毁约(be gazumped)，本来他已经和房主商量好了价钱，他也已经开始准备搬家了。但是签合同之前，房主突然(out of the blue)打电话说有人出了更高的价，所以他决定pull out(撤销口头协议等)。我朋友还因此白花了一些钱(out of pocket)，因为他已经开始办理哪些昂贵的法定程序(legal formalities)了。
Gazump意为“抬价敲诈某人(rip someone off)”，但是gazump几乎只用在房产市场中，而rip off的用途则更为广泛。例如：
I got gazumped when I tried to buy that house - after we agreed on a price, they changed the contract.
我去买那个房子的时候被房主骗了 本来我们已经商量好了价格，可是签合同的时候，他们就食言了，要改合同。
The drinks in that new bar are a rip off!
那个新酒吧里卖的酒太宰人了。
Peter realized he'd been ripped off when his "new" car turned to have had three previous owners!
当皮特知道他的“新车”原来已经有三位旧主人了，他才意识到他被骗了。
“gazump”这个词来源于犹太语，这种语言是德语和希伯来语的一种混合体，现在里面有很多犹太语词汇，例如下面句子里面这些：
I was hungry so I went out to look for some nosh.
我很饿，所以就出门去看了看有什么吃的。
I bought a bageland a coffee from the schmuckwho owns the shop on the corner.
我在街角那家店买了一个百吉饼和一杯咖啡，那家店的老板很逊。
He gave me some spielabout a computer he had for sale. Everyone knows the guy is a klutzand that any computer of his would be full of glitches.
他极力向我推销店里卖的一台电脑。大家都知道那个人笨手笨脚的，他的电脑肯定有一堆小毛病。
If I was going to buy a computer I'd have a schmoozewith my friend Danny. He's a real menschand knows everything about information technology.
如果我打算买台电脑，我会跟我朋友丹尼聊聊的。他人很好，而且对这些信息技术方面的东西很在行。
发表于 2016-8-12 16:40:47