買房遭遇“臨時(shí)加價(jià)”

我一個(gè)朋友前幾天買房的時(shí)候遭遇了房主食言毀約(be gazumped)，本來(lái)他已經(jīng)和房主商量好了價(jià)錢，他也已經(jīng)開始準(zhǔn)備搬家了。但是簽合同之前，房主突然(out of the blue)打電話說(shuō)有人出了更高的價(jià)，所以他決定pull out(撤銷口頭協(xié)議等)。我朋友還因此白花了一些錢(out of pocket)，因?yàn)樗呀?jīng)開始辦理哪些昂貴的法定程序(legal formalities)了。

Gazump意為“抬價(jià)敲詐某人(rip someone off)”，但是gazump幾乎只用在房產(chǎn)市場(chǎng)中，而rip off的用途則更為廣泛。例如：

I got gazumped when I tried to buy that house - after we agreed on a price, they changed the contract.

我去買那個(gè)房子的時(shí)候被房主騙了——本來(lái)我們已經(jīng)商量好了價(jià)格，可是簽合同的時(shí)候，他們就食言了，要改合同。

The drinks in that new bar are a rip off!

那個(gè)新酒吧里賣的酒太宰人了。

Peter realized he'd been ripped off when his "new" car turned to have had three previous owners!

當(dāng)皮特知道他的“新車”原來(lái)已經(jīng)有三位舊主人了，他才意識(shí)到他被騙了。

“gazump”這個(gè)詞來(lái)源于猶太語(yǔ)，這種語(yǔ)言是德語(yǔ)和希伯來(lái)語(yǔ)的一種混合體，現(xiàn)在英語(yǔ)里面有很多猶太語(yǔ)詞匯，例如下面句子里面這些：

I was hungry so I went out to look for some nosh.

我很餓，所以就出門去看了看有什么吃的。

I bought a bagel and a coffee from the schmuck who owns the shop on the corner.

我在街角那家店買了一個(gè)百吉餅和一杯咖啡，那家店的老板很遜。

He gave me some spiel about a computer he had for sale. Everyone knows the guy is a klutz and that any computer of his would be full of glitches.

他極力向我推銷店里賣的一臺(tái)電腦。大家都知道那個(gè)人笨手笨腳的，他的電腦肯定有一堆小毛病。

If I was going to buy a computer I'd have a schmooze with my friend Danny. He's a real mensch and knows everything about information technology.

如果我打算買臺(tái)電腦，我會(huì)跟我朋友丹尼聊聊的。他人很好，而且對(duì)這些信息技術(shù)方面的東西很在行。