This point would have made a worthwhile footnote. As a substitute for an account of what happened, it is a cop-out.

这一点若作为脚注应当合情合理，可用来取代对事件真相的记述，就只能是一种回避事实的托词而已。

youdao

Unwrapping a stick of gum can even turn out to be a substitute ritual for lighting up a cigarette as a conditioned response to stress.

点燃香烟是你在压力下的条件反射，打开一块口香糖甚至就可以替代你的习惯性动作了。

youdao

There is no substitute for hearing your own voice say the words out loud.

自己说自己听是最好的、无可替代的方式。

youdao

Whatever the mortgage rate is quoted, you substitute it into this formula and you find out what the square bracket thing is.

如果知道利率,你把它带入公式,就能得出方括号的数值

耶鲁公开课 - 金融市场课程节选

Also according to the Nuzi texts, if a wife is barren, she is to provide a maidservant as a substitute to bear her husband's children. And this is something that happens with three out of the four matriarchs, who are afflicted with infertility: Sarah, Rachel and Leah.

根据Nuzi文件，如果妻子不能生育,那作为替代她就要让自己的女仆为自己的丈夫生养后代,女族长中四分之三都会出现这种情况,她们饱受不孕的折磨，撒拉、拉结和利亚都是这样。

耶鲁公开课 - 旧约导论课程节选

And I had always thought that cosmetic surgery was a substitute for working out in the gym.

FORBES: Heidi Montag Shows That Plastic Surgery Doesn't Work

But a means-test is no substitute for sorting out overlapping benefits and confining payments to people who are genuinely disabled.

ECONOMIST: Welfare benefits

Combe could only block Marius Zaliukas' close-range effort from Aguiar's angled free-kick and Elliot, who impressed as a substitute last time out, forced the ball over the line.

BBC: Hearts 3-1 Kilmarnock