Using English at Work：11 Checking Mail,Email,and Voicemail(4)

Another word for "junk mail" when we're talking about email is "spam."

At my house, most of the junk mail I get are advertisements that I don't want, so I throw them away without even reading them.

At the office, I spend a few minutes sorting through the junk mail.

"To sort" means to put things in order, or to divide things into different groups or categories.

In this case, I'm separating the junk mail from the mail I really want to read.

You might, for example, sort your clothes by color, or you might sort your papers in alphabetical¹ order from A to Z.

After sorting through my junk mail, I turn on my computer to check email.

I open my email program and my new messages automatically² download into my inbox.

"To download" means to copy a file from the Internet or a large network computer onto your own computer.

Many people like to download music or videos from the Internet.

My email gets downloaded from the company's large computer servers into my inbox, the electronic space for new messages that I need to read.

I have a pretty good spam filter³.

A "spam filter" is usually part of your email program that keeps, or prevents, spam - unwanted emails - from coming into your email inbox.

We say the spam filter "traps" a lot of emails for advertisements and other things I never asked for.

"To trap," here, means to get, to hold, and not to let go so that you don't see them when you open your inbox.

Sometimes a spam filter is too high and it puts emails that want to see into the trash or spam folder⁴ by accident or by mistake.

We talk about a spam filter being "high," that means it's trapping too many messages.

That's why I still check through my trash folder carefully to make sure nothing important was trapped or filtered⁵ out.

1 alphabetical   

adj.字母（表）的，依字母顺序的

参考例句：

• Please arrange these books in alphabetical order.请把这些书按字母顺序整理一下。
• There is no need to maintain a strict alphabetical sequence.不必保持严格的字顺。

2 automatically   

adv.不加思索地，无意识地，自动地

参考例句：

• The machine cycles automatically.这台机器自动循环运转。
• She had automatically labelled the boys as troublemakers.她不假思索地认定这些男孩子是捣蛋鬼。

3 filter   

n.滤器，过滤嘴；v.过滤，透过

参考例句：

• Foreign influence began to filter into the country.外国势力开始渗透进这个国家。
• Charcoal is used to filter water.木炭是用来过滤水的。

4 folder   

n.纸夹，文件夹

参考例句：

• Peter returned the plan and charts to their folder.彼得把这份计划和表格放回文件夹中。
• He draws the document from its folder.他把文件从硬纸夹里抽出来。

5 filtered   

adj. 过滤过的 动词filter的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• Sounds of cheering filtered in through the closed window. 欢呼声透过关闭的窗户传了进来。
• The news of his appointment filtered out before it was officially advertised. 他被任命的消息在还没正式公布前就被透漏出去。