双语阅读｜《老友记》为什么朋友们总是记不住Chandler的工作？

为什么朋友们总是记不住Chandler的工作？
Via: Friends: Chandler"s Job (& Why Nobody Ever Remembered It) (screenrant.com)

Friends had a bunch of running jokes, including one about Chandler’s job, which no one seemed to remember what it was.
《老友记》中有很多反复出现的梗，其中就包括Chandler的工作，似乎没有人知道他是干什么的。
running joke，指一个故事中，反复出现的笑话（A joke or humorous element that is introduced early on in a story and then appears or is referred to again repeatedly.）
Friends followed a group of young adults (Monica, Phoebe, Rachel, Joey, Chandler, and Ross) living in New York City and trying to balance their personal, professional, and social lives. Although they were a close-knit group, with some of them ending up together, they didn’t know each other as well as they should have – or at least they didn’t know Chandler that well, as they often forgot (or didn’t know at all) what his job was.
《老友记》讲述了一群生活在纽约的年轻人的故事（Monica、Phoebe、Rachel、Joey、Chandler和Ross）。他们努力地平衡着各自的生活、工作和社交。虽然他们是一个关系密切的小团体，而且其中一些人最后还在一起了，但他们并没有那么了解彼此，至少他们就不太了解Chandler，因为他们经常忘记（或根本不知道）Chandler的工作是什么。

close-knit，形容词，指“紧密结合在一起的，志同道合的，意气相投的”（(of a group of people) united or bound together by strong relationships and common interests）
Chandler worked in “statistical analysis and data reconfiguration” for most of the series, but he really hated his job. He tried to quit in season 1 but stayed after his boss offered him a promotion, and went from Data Processor to Processing Supervisor. Although he talked about his job to the rest of the group a couple of times, none of them actually paid attention, and thus his job became a running joke.
Chandler大部分的时间都在从事“统计分析和数据重构”工作，但他真的很讨厌自己的工作。在第一季时，他还想要辞职，但在老板给他升职后，他留了下来，并从数据处理员晋升为处理主管。尽管，Chandler曾向朋友们谈论过几次他的工作，但并没有一个人真地留意过，因而，Chandler的工作也成了一个经久不衰的笑点。

On the episode “The One With The Embryos”, Rachel and Monica lost their apartment toChandler and Joey when they failed to answer what Chandler’s job was (with Rachel answering very confidently “transponster”). He finally quit in season 9 and, with the help of Monica, found a new job in advertising as junior copywriter.
在“The One With The Embryos”一集中，Rachel和Monica因为没能回答出Chandler的工作是什么而失去了公寓（Rachel当时很自信地回答“传输员”）。Chandler最终在第九季时辞职了，后来在莫妮卡的帮助下，又找到了一份新工作，成为一名初级广告文案。
In Friends’ alternate reality, Chandler quits his job much earlier to pursue his dream of being a comic book writer. Chandler had, by far, the most complicated (and quite possibly the best paid) job out of the six, which is probably why everyone had a hard time remembering what it was. At some point, Joey calls him an accountant, and Monica finally learns what he does after he quits. The joke also added to Chandler’s sense of abandonment, as not even his closest friends knew what he did for a living.
在《老友记》的第六季中，有两集讲述了六个人在“平行宇宙”会从事的工作。Chandler为了追求成为漫画家的梦想，选择了辞职。到目前为止，Chandler的工作是六个人中最复杂（也很可能是薪水最高的），这可能就是为什么每个人都很难记住那是什么工作。曾经，Joey以为Chandler的工作是会计，而Monica直到Chandler辞职后才知道他的工作是什么。这个笑话也增加了Chandler不被重视的感觉，因为连他最亲密的朋友也不知道他是做什么的。

alternate reality，相当于parallel universe，指“替代现实，替代的现实”（It is a self-contained separate reality. It is believed there are an infinite number of different realities, some more similar than others.）。
Like many other jokes within Friends that are actually a bit cruel and sad, Chandler’s job served many comedic purposes, and in the case of the apartment swap, it was what made it all happen. Chandler ended up having the last laugh as he was the most financially stable of the group, and eventually ended up in a job that he didn’t hate and gave him a bunch of new opportunities.
《老友记》中有很多笑中带泪的笑话，而Chandler的工作也是起到这个目的。也因为此，才使得交换公寓得以实现。Chandler笑到了最后，因为他是六个人中经济最稳定的，最后他找到一份并不讨厌的工作，拥有了更多新的机会。
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