又一则广告

U.S. Route 66 (also known as the Will Rogers Highway after the humorist, and colloquially known as the "Main Street of America" or the "Mother Road") was a highway within the U.S. Highway System. One of the original U.S. highways, Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926 -- with road signs erected the following year.[1] The highway, which became one of the most famous roads in America, originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, before ending at Los Angeles, covering a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km).

ysun wrote:

Route 66 - Feel the Freedom
http://www.route66licensing.com/

http://www.theroadwanderer.net/route66.htm

Route 66 & the National Old Trails Highway

The story of Route 66 starts over a century earlier when a young country began to grow westward. The vast unexplored lands beyond the Mississippi River fired the imagination of the American people. The seemingly limitless resources beckoned to a nation on the move. The mountain men themselves, in an effort to leave the settled east behind, inadvertently opened up the unspoiled west to the westward expansion of a nation by their explorations. There were no established trails but the ones the mountain men blazed themselves as they followed the beaver along the traces left by the Native Americans.
These old trails, blazed by the mountain men, were generally all that existed for the immigrant wagon trains that followed shortly after. The trails were general courses, where wagons would spread out over a wide area, following a single track only where landforms forced them to.
…

Route 66 is the National Old Trails Highway. On November 11, 1926 Route 66 was born. It followed the old trails laid out by the early explorers and railroad. Route 66  became the twentieth century version of the Oregon Trail, the golden road to the promised land and has inspired our spirit ever since. John Steinbeck called it the Mother Road, and indeed it was. It provided hope to the farmers of the dust bowl era going west to find a new life. It served our country well during time of war. In optimistic post W.W.II America, Route 66 defined a generation looking for adventure and freedom on the open road. To understand the history of Route 66 is to understand a little bit about ourselves, where we came from and where we hope to go in the future.

Zhoudan wrote:

这几天电视里天天在放这则广告：
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjY4NTg5MTg4.html

最后那句“如果你想知道什么是自由，就把凯迪拉克开上66号公路”，没啥感觉。主要问题是绝大多数中国人不知道66号公路在哪里，为什么那么特别，不会产生广告片原本想要的联想。估计这也是英文直接翻译过来的。

ysun wrote:

当然，其前提是国道上别堵车。因此，也许可以改为：“如果你想知道什么是自由，就把凯迪拉克开上顺顺溜溜的国道。”


不知当初为什么给那条路取名为U.S. Route 66。难道美国人也讲究六六大顺？　

Championed by Tulsa, Oklahoma businessman Cyrus Avery when the first talks about a national highway system began, U.S. 66 was first signed into law in 1927 as one of the original U.S. Highways, although it was not completely paved until 1938. Avery was adamant that the highway have a round number and had proposed number 60 to identify it. A controversy erupted over the number 60, largely from delegates from Kentucky which wanted a Virginia Beach–Los Angeles highway to be U.S. 60 and U.S. 62 between Chicago and Springfield, Missouri. Arguments and counter-arguments continued and the final conclusion was to have US 60 run between Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Springfield, Missouri, and the Chicago–L.A. route be U.S. 62.[7] Avery settled on "66" (which was unassigned) because he thought the double-digit number would be easy to remember as well as pleasant to say and hear.

wherestip wrote:

Yueyin,

This is from the Wikipedia page you provided a link to above ...

wherestip wrote:

纵观广告全体，追求、向往自由与美好的主题还是相当突出的。但恰如 Zhoudan 所说，在 Route 66 上开车这一细节原本是企图起到一种双关联想及画龙点睛的作用。中国大多观众不经解释很可能是不易理解的。

Don’t be surprised if this ad spurs new interest in Route 66 in China. A recent New Yorker magazine article took note that the Chinese are becoming a big force in world travel:

Last year, more than fifty-seven million Chinese people went abroad, ranking China third worldwide in international tourism. The World Tourism Organization predicts that before the end of the decade China will double that.

ysun wrote:


Steve,

Thank you for answering my question. I didn't read the entire webpage since it's too long. It seems there is something in common between the east and the west.

ysun wrote,

寓意太深刻，反而让人看不明白了。如果画龙点睛再点得清楚一些，“马列主义老太太”就要出来干预了。

不过我想，作为一则卖车的广告，只要说“如果你想知道什么是自由，就把凯迪拉克开上高速公路（或国道）”就可以了。至于究竟是哪条高速公路，对中国人而言，没必要说得那么具体。如果具体说明是66号公路，那倒反而是画蛇添足了。

wherestip wrote:

不过宣扬自由、幸福如今是无可指摘的。