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We’re going to be looking at a letter from the English alphabet.It’s a letter which has a particular meaning when used at the end of a piece of informal writing such as letters, emails, texts and messages.
我們將看一下英語字母表里的一個(gè)字母。當(dāng)這個(gè)字母被用在一封非正式文本結(jié)尾處的時(shí)候，像是信件，郵件，信息或者消息，它會(huì)有一個(gè)特殊的意思。
Oh, I’m very EXcited.
我非常興奮。
Ha ha, yeah, very good, very good, Rob!
哈哈，很好，很棒，羅伯！
My EXpectations are really high.
我真的好期待。
Yep, that’s another good one.
好吧，那說得又很好。
Is it an EXtraordinary letter?
它是一個(gè)不同尋常的字母嗎？
OK, thank you Rob.That’s enough of your jokes. I’m getting EXasperated!Oh, now you’ve got me at it!Well, no prizes for guessing what letter we’re focussing on today.
好吧，謝謝你，羅伯。你的玩笑夠了，我要惱了！我已經(jīng)明白你想表達(dá)什么了。好吧，猜今天我們將討論的字母并沒有獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)。
Why?
為什么？
No, it’s not ’Y’.
不，不是字母“Y”。
No, no, I didn’t mean the letter ‘Y’, I meant the word ‘why’, as in - why are there no prizes?
不，不，我指的不是字母“Y”，我指的是單詞“why”，就是說為什么沒有獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)？
Because of all the not so subtle clues you’ve been giving.The letter is ’X’.
因?yàn)槟憬o出的全不是隱含線索。那個(gè)字母是“X”。
Yes. Exactly.
是的，正是。
Alright, I think we get the idea!Before we go much further, let’s have a question.English has 26 letters.Which language has 74 letters?Is it… a) Khmer(Cambodian) b) Hindi or c) Armenian?Any ideas Rob?
好吧，我覺得我們說到點(diǎn)上了！但是在我們談?wù)摳嘀?，讓我們回答一個(gè)問題。英語有26個(gè)字母。哪種語言有74個(gè)字母？是a) 高棉語(柬埔寨語) b) 北印度語 還是c) 亞美尼亞語？有什么想法嗎，羅伯？
An excellent question, but quite obscure, I’m going to say b) Hindi.
一個(gè)非常好的問題，但是相當(dāng)晦澀，我會(huì)說是b) 北印度語。
Well, I’ll have the answer later on.Now, Rob, what does the letter ’X’ all by itself at the end of a message mean?
好的，稍后我將會(huì)揭曉答案?，F(xiàn)在羅伯，字母“X”單獨(dú)在信息最后指什么？
Well, it means a kiss.The more kisses, the more affection you are showing.
好吧，它指的是親吻。親吻越多，你表現(xiàn)出的感情越多。
Where does this concept of putting an X to mean a kiss come from?Dr Laura Wright is from the Faculty of English at Cambridge University,and she appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme Word of Mouth.When does she say this practice started and where does it come from?
放一個(gè)“X”意味著“親吻”這個(gè)概念從哪里來的？勞拉·懷特博士來自劍橋大學(xué)英語系，她做客BBC廣播4頻道Word of Mouth節(jié)目。她說這個(gè)做法從什么時(shí)候開始的，從哪里開始的？
Well, we’ve been adding Xs for kisses at the bottom of letters since at least 1763.So the very first one we know of had seven Xs.I have to say, I haven’t gone to seven ever.We get ’X’ from the Roman alphabet which got it from the Greek alphabet, pronounced /ks/ and the Romans...
好的，我們至少從1763年就開始在信件的末尾加“X”來表達(dá)親吻。我們知道的最早的一封有7個(gè)“X”。我不得不說，我從來沒有過七個(gè)的。我們從羅馬字母表里得到“X”這個(gè)字母，而它又源于希臘字母表，發(fā)音是/ks/，而且羅馬人……
That’s nearly a kiss, isn’t it?
那發(fā)音差不多就是“親吻”的發(fā)音，不是嗎？
Yes, it is, isn’t it?I think a penny’s just dropped there.
是的，是的，不是嗎？是不是恍然大悟？
It has, clunk.
是的，哐啷一聲。
What do we learn about the origins of the ’X’ for kisses?
從代表“親吻”的“X”的起源中，我們學(xué)到了什么？
Well, it’s been used since at least 1763, and it comes from the Roman alphabet and they got it from the Greeks.
好的，它至少是從1763年被使用，而且它來源于羅馬字母表，而且那是羅馬人從希臘字母表中得來的。
And why did this come to mean a kiss?
而且為什么這指的是親吻？
Well, Dr Wright suggests it’s because of the original pronunciation - /ks/.
好的，懷特博士說那是因?yàn)樵l(fā)音——/ks/。
And at the point the presenter made the connection, didn’t he?
而那個(gè)時(shí)候主持人把那和發(fā)音聯(lián)系起來了，不是嗎？
Yes, he did.And Dr Wright used a phrase for when someone suddenly understands something, particularly something that is obvious to others.She said ’the penny has just dropped’.
是的，是的。而且懷特博士用了一個(gè)詞組指代某人突然理解某事，特別是某事對(duì)其他人來說顯而易見。她說“恍然大悟”。
And this has got nothing to do with a penny, which is small coin, actually dropping anywhere.But the presenter makes a joke by using a word we use for the noise of something falling - ’clunk’.
而且這和一便士沒什么關(guān)系，那是一枚小面額硬幣，實(shí)際上扔得到處都是。但是主持人通過我們用來指某物掉下來的聲音——“哐啷一聲”這個(gè)詞講了一個(gè)笑話。
Although, to be honest, a penny would never really clunk.That’s more like the noise two heavy metal objects would make - the clunk of a car door, for example.
然而說實(shí)話，一便士真的絕不會(huì)發(fā)出哐啷一聲。那更像是兩個(gè)巨大的金屬物發(fā)出的聲響——例如像是汽車門發(fā)出的哐啷一聲。
Let’s listen to that exchange again.
讓我們?cè)俾犚淮蝿偛诺慕徽劇?/span>
Well, we’ve been adding Xs for kisses at the bottom of letters since at least 1763.So the very first one we know of had seven Xs.I have to say, I haven’t gone to seven ever.We get ’X’ from the Roman alphabet which got it from the Greek alphabet, pronounced /ks/ and the Romans...
好的，我們至少從1763年就開始在信件的末尾加“X”來表達(dá)親吻。我們知道的最早的一封有7個(gè)“X”。我不得不說，我從來沒有過七個(gè)的。我們從羅馬字母表里得到“X”這個(gè)字母，而它又源于希臘字母表，發(fā)音是/ks/，而且羅馬人……
That’s nearly a kiss, isn’t it?
那發(fā)音差不多就是“親吻”的發(fā)音，不是嗎？
Yes, it is, isn’t it?I think a penny’s just dropped there.
是的，是的，不是嗎？是不是恍然大悟？
It has, clunk.
是的，哐啷一聲。
One thing to note about putting an X at the end of a communication is that it is not something you do for everyone.It’s usually only to friends and family members, people you might kiss in real life.Professor Nils Langer from the University of Bristol told a story about a colleague of his who wasn’t too familiar with this convention.What was her mistake?
在通信最后加上“X”要注意的一件事是它不是你對(duì)每一個(gè)人都要做的事情。它通常僅是對(duì)朋友和家庭成員而言，你在現(xiàn)實(shí)生活中或許會(huì)親吻的人。來自布里斯托大學(xué)的尼爾斯·蘭格教授講述了一個(gè)關(guān)于他同事的故事，他的同事對(duì)這個(gè)慣例并不是太熟悉。她犯了什么錯(cuò)誤？
A colleague of mine from Bristol, who... when she came over from Germany thought that X was just the normal way of closing a letter in England.And so she would finish any letter with Xs, even a letter to the Inland Revenue.We never heard, really, how the Inland Revenue responded to these letters with these Xs.
我布里斯托大學(xué)的一個(gè)同事，她……她從德國過來的時(shí)候認(rèn)為在英國，“X”在只是結(jié)束信件的一種常見方式。所以她完成任何信件都以“X”結(jié)尾，甚至是給稅務(wù)局的信件。我們真的從來沒聽說過稅務(wù)局是如何回復(fù)這些帶“X”的信件的。
They docked her another 20 quid, I think!
我覺得他們扣了她20英鎊的薪酬。
What was her mistake, Rob?
她的錯(cuò)誤是什么，羅伯？
She didn’t realise that you don’t put an X on every communication.So she even put it on business letter including one to the Inland Revenue, which is the government department in the UK that deals with tax.
她沒有意識(shí)到不用把“X”放在每封通信上。所以她甚至把它放在商業(yè)信件中，包括給稅務(wù)局的一封，那指的是英國處理稅務(wù)的一個(gè)政府部門。
We don’t know how the tax people felt about the letter with kisses.But the presenter joked about what their response would have been.
我們不知道稅務(wù)人員是對(duì)帶“親吻”的信件作何感想。但是主持人對(duì)他們過去可能做出的回復(fù)進(jìn)行了調(diào)侃。
Yes, he joked that they probably docked her another 20 quid.To dock money’ is to cut the amount of money you are expecting to receive,and ’a quid’ is a slang word for a British pound.
是的，他調(diào)侃說他們或許會(huì)扣她另外20英鎊的薪酬。“To dock money”是說削減你預(yù)期得到的錢數(shù)，而“a quid”是一英鎊的俚語。
Now time for the answer to our question.English has 26 letters.Which language has 74 letters?Is it… a) Khmer (Cambodian) b) Hindi or c) Armenian?
是時(shí)候揭曉我們問題的答案了。英語有26個(gè)字母。哪種語言有74個(gè)字母？是a) 高棉語(柬埔寨語) b) 北印度語 還是c) 亞美尼亞語？
I guessed b) Hindi.
我猜是b) 北印度語。
Well, I suppose it was a one in three chance, but not correct this time.The answer is a) Khmer.Very well done if you knew that.Now on to the vocabulary we looked at in this programme.
好吧，我猜有三分之一的答對(duì)機(jī)會(huì)，但是這次不正確。答案是a) 高棉語。如果你知道的話那你很棒啊。現(xiàn)在繼續(xù)我們?cè)谶@個(gè)節(jié)目里看到的詞匯吧。
We started with ’a penny’.A penny is an English coin.A hundred pennies makes one pound sterling.
我們從“一便士”開始。一便士是一種英國硬幣。100便士是1英鎊。
The phrase, ’the penny has dropped’, means that someone has suddenly understood something.
詞組“恍然大悟”指的是某人突然理解某事。
A clunk’ is the noise of two heavy objects hitting each other.
“哐啷聲”是兩個(gè)巨大物體彼此碰撞的聲音。
The Inland Revenue’ is the UK’s tax authority.
“稅務(wù)局”是英國的稅收部門。
If you dock money from someone, you reduce the amount of money you pay them.For example, as an employee in the UK, your tax is automatically docked from your salary.
如果你扣某人的薪酬，你就是削減了付給他們的錢。例如，作為英國的雇員，你要交的稅自動(dòng)從你的工資中扣除。
And finally, ’a quid’, which is a slang term for one pound sterling.Right, before they start docking our pay for being late, it’s time to say goodbye.Find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, our App and of course the website bbclearningenglish.com.See you soon, goodbye.
最后，“a quid”是一英鎊的俚語。好的，在他們因?yàn)槲覀兘Y(jié)束得晚扣我們薪水之前，是時(shí)候說再見了。要在Instagram，F(xiàn)acebook，Twitter，YouTube，我們的應(yīng)用上查找我們的內(nèi)容呀，當(dāng)然還有網(wǎng)站bbclearningenglish.com。下次見，再見。
Bye bye!
拜拜！
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