英语单词大师：American English

 RS: I'm Rosanne Skirble with Avi Arditti, and this week on Wordmaster: Shakespeare in American English.

This is the seventy-fifth anniversary year of the Folger Shakespeare Library, home to the largest collection of Shakespeare materials in the world. That collection is housed here in Washington, where Georgianna Ziegler heads the reference department. Ms. Ziegler says she has been poking¹ around the Folger archives lately to document the influence of Shakespeare on American life, dating back to the founding of the nation.

GEORGIANNA ZIEGLER: "And it really did become a part of American language, through the schools, through people having a copy of Shakespeare in their homes. If they had any book, they would usually have the Bible, and then Shakespeare."AA: "And so why don't you -- you've brought a book with you there ... "GEORGIANNA ZIEGLER: "Yes, well there's a wonderful book by Michael Macrone called 'Brush Up Your Shakespeare' in which he lists a lot of these popular terms that we find all the time -- for example, something happened 'in one fell swoop,' everything happening at once. And, of course, we don't think about 'Macbeth' when we say that, but that's where it's from. And there are actually a lot of these terms -- I was just looking through this and discovering that there are lot of things that we use that come from 'Macbeth,' for some strange reason.

"For example, if you say it's the 'be all and the end all.' The idea of the 'be all and the end all' seems that it's the goal, it's a kind of a goal that you reach for. Or 'knock, knock! Who's there?' comes from the drunken porter scene in 'Macbeth' where the guy who is supposed to answer the door is drunk, and somebody's knocking and he goes into this long, sort of inebriated² speech. He says 'knock, knock, knock! Who's there?'"AA: "Are you serious? So when children now do knock, knock -- "GEORGIANNA ZIEGLER: "Knock, knock jokes."AA: "Knock, knock jokes came from Shakespeare."GEORGIANNA ZIEGLER: "Well, knock, knock, who's there? [laughter] I think a lot of times Shakespeare is using phrases and things that were popular at his own time -- for example, 'to thine own self be true.' That comes from 'Hamlet,' from Polonius giving Laertes a lot of advice before he goes off to the Continent.

"He's sending his son off to Europe and he knows this is a dangerous place, so he gives him a whole slew³ of advice before he goes, and one of the last things he says is to thine own self be true. Of course, 'to be or not to be,' 'there's the rub,' that comes from Hamlet."AA: "Which if you could explain simply what that means, when people say 'ah, there's the rub.'"GEORGIANNA ZIEGLER: "There's the catch. There's the essence, might be close to it, as Michael Macrone suggests. The rub apparently⁴ in Shakespeare's time came -- it's a sports term. It came from an obstacle in the game of bowls, which diverts the ball from its true course."RS: "What do you think has given these phrases that originated in Shakespeare such staying power?"GEORGIANNA ZIEGLER: "Well, I think they're sort of catchy⁵ -- 'there's the rub,' or 'to be or not to be' or 'to sleep, perchance to dream.' Or 'friends, Romans, countrymen' -- they're things that stay in people's minds because they are sort of, they are a little bit catchy. And the other ones are really proverbial, like 'to thine own self be true.'

"In fact, Polonius' entire speech is made up of common proverbs. And a lot of those proverbs have come down not only in English but in other foreign languages, too. They just have other ways of expressing the same ideas. You know, 'neither a lender nor a borrower be,' that kind of thing."AA: "Now when Shakespeare was writing -- this was late fifteen hundreds, early sixteen hundreds --GEORGIANNA ZIEGLER: "Uh-hm."AA: "How close to contemporary English was that?"GEORGIANNA ZIEGLER: "Very close. Shakespeare's language is very conversational⁶ for the time. Today it may seem a bit elite⁷ to us or musty, but in fact it was pretty much commonplace English in Shakespeare's time."RS: "Does it surprise you that there are so many words in American English that come from Shakespeare -- or so many words and phrases?"GEORGIANNA ZIEGLER: No, not really, I think because American English is so -- it goes back so much to the British English of the time. People in early America turned to England for their literature. It was only in the nineteenth century when you had people like Hawthorne and Melville and Thoreau and Emerson who began to think that they ought to build their own American tradition of literature.

"But even those men were extremely well-read -- and someone like Margaret Fuller, who was one of the early feminists⁸, even in her writing [she] was really drawing on Shakespeare -- because they knew Shakespeare so well.

RS: Georgianna Ziegler is head of reference at the Folger Shakespeare Library. The library this year is celebrating its 75th anniversary as the largest and finest collection of Shakespeare materials in the world -- and a popular link between the Bard⁹ of Avon and the American people.

And we hope that you stay linked with us at voanews.com/wordmaster. Our e-mail address is [email protected] Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

1 poking   

n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• He was poking at the rubbish with his stick. 他正用手杖拨动垃圾。
• He spent his weekends poking around dusty old bookshops. 他周末都泡在布满尘埃的旧书店里。

2 inebriated   

adj.酒醉的

参考例句：

• He was inebriated by his phenomenal success. 他陶醉于他显赫的成功。 来自互联网
• Drunken driver(a driver who is inebriated). 喝醉了的司机（醉酒的司机） 来自互联网

3 slew   

v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多

参考例句：

• He slewed the car against the side of the building.他的车滑到了大楼的一侧，抵住了。
• They dealt with a slew of other issues.他们处理了大量的其他问题。

4 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

5 catchy   

adj.易记住的，诡诈的，易使人上当的

参考例句：

• We need a new slogan.The old one's not catchy enough.我们需要新的口号，旧的不够吸引人。
• The chorus is very catchy to say the least.副歌部分很容易上口。

6 conversational   

adj.对话的，会话的

参考例句：

• The article is written in a conversational style.该文是以对话的形式写成的。
• She values herself on her conversational powers.她常夸耀自己的能言善辩。

7 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

8 feminists   

n.男女平等主义者，女权扩张论者( feminist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Only 16 percent of young women in a 1990 survey considered themselves feminists. 在1990年的一项调查中，只有16%的年轻女性认为自己是女权主义者。 来自辞典例句
• The organization had many enemies, most notably among feminists. 这个组织有许多敌人，特别是在男女平等主义者中。 来自辞典例句

9 bard   

n.吟游诗人

参考例句：

• I'll use my bard song to help you concentrate!我会用我的吟游诗人歌曲帮你集中精神！
• I find him,the wandering grey bard.我发现了正在徘徊的衰老游唱诗人。