A face peers over the edge several hundred feet above me. It is a grown man gripped by a morbid elation as he looks down on a sheer drop to the rocks, the beach — where I am standing — and the sea.

一个成年男子站在几百英尺高的悬崖边缘往下看，峭壁之下是巨石，是沙滩，还有大海，我站在下面，看着他沉浸在病态的喜悦之中。

What he can’t see from his perch is that he is resting on an overhang, a lump of chalk protruding over thin air and a very long drop. At any minute, the ground might simply give way, as this famous English beauty spot has had a habit of doing since time immemorial.

但他看不见自己正站于一大块向外突出的白垩岩上，巍巍高耸的峭壁之上空气稀薄，那块岩石随时都有可能垮塌，自古以来在这个著名的英国景点可没少发生这种事。

What happens next, though, is a more recent phenomenon.

接下来这个男人要进行一项如今风靡全球的活动。

Slowly a hand comes in to view and it is holding — what else? — a selfie-stick. Click. Moments later, the man has retreated back from the brink and moved on.

他慢慢地伸出了一只手，拿着一个什么东西？哦，自拍杆，咔哒！过一会儿他从悬崖边退了回去，继续上路了。

How much longer can it be before a new category is added to the list of verdicts available to a coroner? In addition to ‘accident’, ‘misadventure’ and ‘open’, there will soon be a new pronouncement: ‘death by selfie’.

估计过不了多久，在验尸官开具的死亡鉴定类型上除了“事故”、“意外”、“存疑”以外，又会多上一条新判决了，那就是“自拍死”。

Last year, it was reported that the number of people killed by sharks around the world had, for the first time, been overtaken by the number of those killed while snapping themselves on a phone (and in a record year for shark attacks, too).

去年，有报告称全世界“自拍死”的人数有史以来第一次超过了被鲨鱼袭击而死的人数（并且这年的鲨鱼袭击事件也创了新高。）