Making short work of someone/something: 迅速完成，快速解決; To deal with someone or something quickly and effectively.

Example:

  • John made short work of the cake as soon as the waiter served it to his table.
  • Our favorite badminton player made short work of her opponent last night.

(New York Times, 2022/7/2)

On a Long Climb to the Top, She Makes Short Work of an Opponent

在漫長的登頂過程中，她迅速淘汰一名對手

Kayla Harrison’s second bout of the Professional Fighters League regular season unfolded as predictably as the betting odds — tilted heavily in her favor — suggested.

凱拉·哈里森（Kayla Harrison）在職業格鬥聯盟例行賽的第二輪比賽，正如博彩賠率所預測的，大部分時候都占上風。

 

Harrison, who has won the P.F.L.’s women’s lightweight title each of the last two seasons, needed only two minutes, 35 seconds, one body slam and a series of punches on Friday night to dispatch Kaitlin Young and qualify for the postseason

哈里森過去兩季例行賽，都贏得P.F.L. 的女子羽量級冠軍。她週五晚上她只花了2分35秒，就以一招[泰山壓頂]和一連串出拳，擊敗凱特琳·楊，取得季後賽資格。

(The Guardian, 2022/7/10)
It was my wife’s fault, mostly. The entire chain of events can be traced back to one interaction she had a few months back with another mum, when the subject of jigsaws came up. Having always enjoyed them, our son is now so good at them he routinely completes them with the tiles facing down, ignoring the design in favor of merely matching the shapes on sight. Our natural inclination towards pride in our son notwithstanding, we allow that this is objectively impressive. It’s just that I also find it slightly unnerving, like something I can imagine kids being made to do in a Cold War orphanage. (…)

這主要是我妻子的錯。整件事可以追溯到幾個月前，她跟另一位媽媽聊到拼圖。我們的兒子很喜歡玩拼圖，也非常拿手，他還經常把圖片正面朝下，不理會它的圖樣設計，光是靠著形狀完成拼圖。我們對自己的兒子雖很自豪，但客觀來看這也真的滿厲害的。只是我也覺得這有點令人不安，我可以想像冷戰時期孤兒院裡強迫兒童做的事。 (…)

 

I speak of his birthday gift, a Transformers toy that was marked 8+. I’ll admit that I thought he’d make short work of it, until I saw him thrashing it on the floor in frustration some minutes after it had been presented. ‘Hey!’ I said, like a caring, resourceful dad from an American sitcom, ‘Don’t give up, let’s try again.’ Tragically, this became a lesson for both of us; not only was my son unready for Transformers marketed to eight-year-olds. The ‘8+’, it turns out, might as well have been specifying the hours required to make this thing or the sessions of therapy necessary to overcome the trauma of making an attempt.

說到他的生日禮物，它是一個標有[八歲以上]的變形金剛玩具。我承認我當時以為他會立刻把玩具拼完，沒想到幾分鐘之後我看到他沮喪地把它摔在地板上。“嘿！”我說，就像美國情景喜劇中一個有愛心、足智多謀的父親一樣，”不要放棄，我們再來試試看”。可悲的是，這對我們倆來說都是一個教訓。我兒不但沒準備好挑戰賣給八歲孩子的變形金剛，結果也證明，“8+”可能指拼好這個東西所需的鐘點，或者是安撫創傷所需的心理療程數目。

 

 

Photo: nytimes, theguardian