共和黨候選人克魯茲“退選”

Republican US presidential candidate Ted Cruz announces that he is dropping out of the 2016 race for the Republican presidential nomination as his wife Heidi looks on at his Indiana primary night rally in Indianapolis, Indiana, US, May 3, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

我們來看看外媒都是怎么報道這件事的：

AP

Cruz exits Republican race for president

Ted Cruz ends his bid for Republican presidential nomination

TIME

Ted Cruz Drops Out of Republican Race After Indiana Loss

CNBC

Ted Cruz suspends presidential campaign

Washington Post

Cruz quits race; Trump win in Indiana puts him in sight of nomination

Reuters

Ted Cruz drops out of Republican White House race

BBC

Ted Cruz pulls out of Republican race

The Guardian

Ted Cruz suspends campaign, clearing path for Trump to get nomination

從上面的報道標題引述中，我們可以看到，關于“退出競選”在英文中的表述有：exit race, end bid for nomination, drop out of race, suspend campaign, quit race, 以及pull out of race等。

【詳解】

Exit既能做動詞也能做名詞，大家對于這個詞最熟悉的大概就是機場、車站以及建筑物里的各類“出口”了，除了“退場、離開”，exit還可以表示“退出(計算機)程序”，比如：I can open other applications without having to exit WordPerfect.(我不必退出WordPerfect程序就可以打開其他應用程序。)

End最常用，表示“結尾，尾聲，結束”，比如：It is wise of you to end this relationship.(你結束這段戀情是很明智的決定。)

Drop out of這個短語最常見的搭配是drop out of school，也就是“退學、輟學”的意思，一般都是主動做出的決定。比如：Research suggests that children whose parents split up are more likely to drop out of high school.(研究表明，父母離異的孩子更容易從中學中途退學。)中途退學的人就叫dropout。

Suspend這個詞在這里用得比較巧妙，因為這個詞表示的是“stop something for a while”，也就是“暫停”的意思，《衛(wèi)報》和CNBC用suspend campaign，難道是覺得Ted Cruz四年后還有可能再戰(zhàn)?

Quit多指“放棄、停止做某件事”，比如，說到“戒煙、戒酒”我們都會用quit smoking/drinking來表示，還有另一個常見的情形就是quit one's job(辭職)。老板對你太苛刻，你一拍桌子說“I quit”，也是可以的。嗯，這句是開玩笑的。

Pull out of多指“撤出、取消”，比如，之前奧巴馬決定從阿富汗撤軍用的就是US troops pull out of Afghanistan，這個動作的名詞形式為pullout。