英语单词大师：Common Slang

 AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: "Slang¹" that's not necessarily² slang.

RS: A. C. Kemp teaches international students as a lecturer in English language studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also runs the Web site slangcity.com and she used to teach a slang class at an adult education center.

AC KEMP: "I know when I started teaching³ this slang class, a lot of my friends said 'Oh, so you're teaching them hip-hop words,' or that sort of thing. And, in fact, the students, what they wanted to learn, were words that most Americans wouldn't consider slang."AA: "Such as?"AC KEMP: "Like 'cool' or idioms like 'kick someone out,' meaning to force someone to leave, or 'screw⁴ up,' to make a mistake. A lot of the things that Americans think are just regular English, they're not taught formally. If you're studying English in another country, in Turkey or Japan, they don't usually teach those kind of words."RS: "What do you consider the most important slang words for those students, those who are either coming to the United States or are learning⁵ English in other countries?"AC KEMP: "The most important words, I would say, are the most frequent words. The philosophy these days in teaching English as a second language is that when you look at vocabulary, you want to teach words that are very frequent. And that makes sense, because if you have a text, say, or you're listening to a conversation and you know ninety or ninety-five percent of the words, those words that show up from time to time are going to be a lot easier to guess if you know most of what that sentence means."AA: A. C. Kemp did a little research for us: an analysis of terms currently⁶ used in popular culture.

AC KEMP: "What I did was I made a list of popular television shows like 'Grey's Anatomy,' 'The Office,' 'Desperate Housewives' and '24,' and I took scripts⁷ from those and scripts from movies -- and I tried pick a variety, like 'Finding⁸ Nemo' and 'Kill Bill' and 'American Pie' -- and I put all of those scripts, which you can get on the Internet, I took those scripts and put them in a file and ran a computer program called a concordancer.'

RS: The result? A list of how often eA Ch word in the file was used.

AA: A. C. Kemp says linguists⁹ usually think of slang as being "insider language:" language that's used by a particular group. But she picked out words that her students would consider slang.

A C KEMP: "And the one that I found the most commonly [used] was 'dude.'"AA: "D-u-d-e."AC KEMP: "D-u-d-e, meaning man. And I thought, well, that's kind of strange, why is that so common? And I realized that I had some movies in there and some TV shows that were intended for teenagers. And for teenagers it's not just a word that means man, it's also the way they address each other. So when they say hello, they say 'Hey, dude.'

"And the next most common one was 'cool,' which most people know."AA: "And that's been around for decades."AC KEMP: "Oh, that's been around for over a hundred years. But that's one of those things about what is slang, that even though 'cool' has been around for so long, we still think of it as an informal slang word."RS: "What else came up on your list?"AC KEMP: "The third most popular one was 'hot,' meaning sexy or exciting, and 'hottie,' a sexy person. The next one was kind of interesting. That was 'whatever,' used as a sentence. Teenagers say 'whatever' to mean 'I don't care' or 'It doesn't matter to me.'"AA: "And next on the list?"AC KEMP: "'Chick.' That's another word that was really common in the sixties and seventies and it went out of fashion and it came back."RS: "Meaning ... "AC KEMP: "Meaning woman or girl."AA: "And it was a very controversial¹⁰ term in its earlier days, how is it -- because it was seen as very chauvinistic¹¹ -- "AC KEMP: "Personally, I still see it as a derogatory term but it's -- you know, teenagers, I'm not sure if they see it as a bad thing or not. I suspect many of them do."RS: A. C. Kemp teaches English to international students at M.I.T. and runs the Web site slangcity.com. She will be back with us next time to continue our conversation.

AA: And that's all for WORDMASTER this week. Archives on online at voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address is [email protected]. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

1 slang   

n.俚语，行话；vt.使用俚语，辱骂；vi.辱骂

参考例句：

• The phrase is labelled as slang in the dictionary.这个短语在这本字典里被注为俚语。
• Slang often goes in and out of fashion quickly.俚语往往很快风行起来又很快不再风行了。

2 necessarily   

adv.必要地，必需地；必定地，必然地

参考例句：

• More work does not necessarily call for more men.增加工作量不一定就要增添人员。
• A voter must necessarily be no younger than eighteen.选民必须在18岁以上。

3 teaching   

n.教学，执教，任教，讲授；(复数)教诲

参考例句：

• We all agree in adopting the new teaching method. 我们一致同意采取新的教学方法。
• He created a new system of teaching foreign languages.他创造了一种新的外语教学体系。

4 screw   

n.螺丝(钉)；vt.用螺钉固定；拧，拧紧

参考例句：

• Let's screw the two pipes together end to end.咱们把这两根管子接起来拧紧。
• Can you screw up this handle for me?你能帮我把这个把手拧紧吗？

5 learning   

n.学问，学识，学习；动词learn的现在分词

参考例句：

• When you are learning to ride a bicycle,you often fall off.初学骑自行车时，常会从车上掉下来。
• Learning languages isn't just a matter of remembering words.学习语言不仅仅是记些单词的事。

6 currently   

adv.通常地，普遍地，当前

参考例句：

• Currently it is not possible to reconcile this conflicting evidence.当前还未有可能去解释这一矛盾的例证。
• Our contracts are currently under review.我们的合同正在复查。

7 scripts   

剧本( script的名词复数 )； 文字； 笔迹； （一种语言的）字母系统

参考例句：

• Many felt he was prostituting his talents by writing Hollywood scripts. 许多人觉得他给好莱坞写剧本是滥用自己的才华。
• The scripts had a rather tired plot. 这部陈旧的剧本的情节是非常俗套的。

8 finding   

n.发现，发现物；调查的结果

参考例句：

• The finding makes some sense.该发现具有一定的意义。
• That's an encouraging finding.这是一个鼓舞人心的发现。

9 linguists   

n.通晓数国语言的人( linguist的名词复数 )；语言学家

参考例句：

• The linguists went to study tribal languages in the field. 语言学家们去实地研究部落语言了。 来自辞典例句
• The linguists' main interest has been to analyze and describe languages. 语言学家的主要兴趣一直在于分析并描述语言。 来自辞典例句

10 controversial   

adj.引起争论的，有争议的

参考例句：

• The topic of argument is controversial.这个议题是很有争议的。
• Immigration is a controversial issue in many countries.在很多国家，移民都是一个颇有争议的问题。

11 chauvinistic   

a.沙文主义(者)的

参考例句：

• The tribe has been forced to modify its chauvinistic attitudes. 部族不得不改变它的沙文主义姿态。
• And seeing others' suffering when considering your chauvinistic interests of great America. 在考虑大美沙文利益的时候想想世界的福祉。