英语单词大师：Meeting Some People Whose

 AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: epic¹ eponyms.

RS: An eponym, as dictionaries tell us, is a real or mythical² person for whom something is or is believed to be named. For example, George Washington is the eponym of Washington, D.C.

AA: But you won't find obvious examples like that in a new book called "The Reverend Guppy's Aquarium³: From Joseph P. Frisbie to Roy Jacuzzi, How Everyday Items Were Named for Extraordinary People." From his brother-in-law's recording⁴ studio in London, author Philip Dodd explained to us how he got the idea.

PHILIP DODD: " I was watching a TV program a couple of summers ago here in the U.K. It's called 'University Challenge,' and there was a question along the lines of 'What tropical fish was named after a West Indian clergyman?' And nobody on the show knew -- and nor did I, come to that. And the answer came: it was the guppy.

"I looked to my left and we had a tropical aquarium at home full of guppies. and my then three-year-old daughter and I loved the guppies, these kind of cute little frilly tailed fish. I just had one of those little eureka moments where you think, 'I never, ever knew that.' And I never knew they were named after a person. And it just got me thinking and I started checking out things, and discovering that the Frisbee⁵ was named after somebody, and the Jacuzzi, and I started checking out their stories."RS: "What kind of people did you find, or what new items in our lexicon⁶ did you find that were related to real people?"PHILIP DODD: "I mean, it was things like the saxophone is named after Adolphe Sax. He was a Belgian musical instrument maker⁷ in the nineteenth century. He invented a lot of instruments and he named pretty well all of them something-sax, and it just happens that the one that stuck around is the saxophone.

"And then there'd be weird⁸ things like I just heard in passing the fact that the foxtrot dance was named after somebody called Harry⁹ Fox."AA: "You thought maybe it was named after the animal or something?"PHILIP DODD: "Could be -- you know, the funny thing, isn't it, when you use language every day, you don't stop and analyze¹⁰ every single word that comes out of your lips. And you gaily¹¹ go around using these words like 'sandwich' and you don't sort of think, oh yeah, there was somebody called the Earl of Sandwich and that's where the name comes from."RS: "So, you really in this book are telling us stories, stories behind the words."PHILIP DODD: "Yes, stories about people, really, and how their name had been immortalized in the English language. Sometimes they didn't know about it. Joseph P. Frisbie, who the Frisbee is named after, he never knew that his name was going to be applied¹² to this fantastic plastic flying disc."AA: "Why, then, did it end up being called a Frisbee?"PHILIP DODD: "He was a pie manufacturer in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and a very successful pie manufacturer in the beginning of the last century. He made fruit pies, primarily, that were famous in the area, and they came in these metal pie tins. And the delivery guys and people who just had one of his apple pies found that when the pie tins were empty and you kind of flicked¹³ them, they had an inbuilt aerodynamic quality that meant they just glided¹⁴. And locally this was known as Frisbie-ing.

"Joseph P. Frisbie died in nineteen-forty. Cut to nineteen fifty-seven, when the Wham-O toy company of California, working with a couple of inventors, were just about to market this new plastic flying disc -- which at the time was called the Pluto¹⁵ Platter. And they did a market research trip up in New England and they heard this word being used. People would say, 'Oh, I remember, that's like the Frisbie.' And they thought that's a great name for the product. In fact, Joseph P. Frisbie's name ended i-e and they changed it to double-e, which kind of suits the product better. It reminds me of the word 'whee,' and that sense of flying."AA: "And tell us, where is Roy Jacuzzi?"PHILIP DODD: "Roy Jacuzzi is in California, but strangely he was in England last week; I had breakfast with him. His son now lives just outside London. And Roy is from a great Italian family who came over from just north of Venice, through Ellis Island, in the nineteen hundreds. And they were like a bunch of brothers and sisters -- seven brothers and six sisters or the other way around -- and they were inventive guys who were always looking for practical solutions."RS: And one of those solutions, it turned out, was the whirlpool bath. More about that story, and other eponyms, next week with Philip Dodd, author of "The Reverend Guppy's Aquarium."AA: And that's WORDMASTER for this week. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

1 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

2 mythical   

adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的

参考例句：

• Undeniably,he is a man of mythical status.不可否认，他是一个神话般的人物。
• Their wealth is merely mythical.他们的财富完全是虚构的。

3 aquarium   

n.水族馆，养鱼池，玻璃缸

参考例句：

• The first time I saw seals was in an aquarium.我第一次看见海豹是在水族馆里。
• I'm going to the aquarium with my parents this Sunday.这个星期天，我要和父母一起到水族馆去。

4 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

5 frisbee   

n.飞盘(塑料玩具)

参考例句：

• We always go to the park on weekends and play Frisbee.我们每个周末都会到公园玩飞盘。
• The frisbee is a light plastic disc,shaped like a plate.飞盘是一种碟形塑料盘。

6 lexicon   

n.字典，专门词汇

参考例句：

• Chocolate equals sin in most people's lexicon.巧克力在大多数人的字典里等同于罪恶。
• Silent earthquakes are only just beginning to enter the public lexicon.无声地震才刚开始要成为众所周知的语汇。

7 maker   

n.制造者，制造商

参考例句：

• He is a trouble maker，You must be distant with him.他是个捣蛋鬼，你不要跟他在一起。
• A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。

8 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

9 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

10 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。

11 gaily   

adv.欢乐地，高兴地

参考例句：

• The children sing gaily.孩子们欢唱着。
• She waved goodbye very gaily.她欢快地挥手告别。

12 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

13 flicked   

（尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等）

参考例句：

• She flicked the dust off her collar. 她轻轻弹掉了衣领上的灰尘。
• I idly picked up a magazine and flicked through it. 我漫不经心地拿起一本杂志翻看着。

14 glided   

v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔

参考例句：

• The President's motorcade glided by. 总统的车队一溜烟开了过去。
• They glided along the wall until they were out of sight. 他们沿着墙壁溜得无影无踪。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 Pluto   

n.冥王星

参考例句：

• Pluto is the furthest planet from the sun.冥王星是离太阳最远的行星。
• Pluto has an elliptic orbit.冥王星的轨道是椭圆形的。