长沙的张小姐发来了email,就本刊2000年第10期刊登的《E-Books forStudent and Teachers》提问。我们的回答如下:张小姐的理解是正确的。句子的难点是break-even,《英汉大词典》对其释义是:得失相当的,不盈不亏的。如:attain the break-even condition达到不盈不亏的状况/The zoo did slightly betterthan break-even.动物园收入略多于开支。无论是《英汉大词典》还是《金山词霸2000》,均收入了break-even的形容词用法,而下句却把break-even用作动词。英语词汇的词性弹性可见一斑。】 Ms. Zhang from Changsha sent an email and asked questions about “E-Books for Student and Teachers” published in the 10th issue of the magazine in 2000. Our answer is as follows: Miss Zhang’s understanding is correct. The difficulty of the sentence is break-even. The definition of the English-Chinese Dictionary is: The gains and losses are equal, and the profits are not lost. Such as: attain the break-even condition to achieve the situation without loss./The zoo did slightly betterthan break-even. The zoo has slightly more income than expenses. Both the English-Chinese Dictionary and the “Kingshan PowerWord 2000” both included break-even adjective usage, while the following sentence used break-even as a verb. The word elasticity of English vocabulary is evident. 】