英语博客-北美风情 170、Who’s got mail?

　　Before we had e-mail, the popular way to exchange written messages was by sending letters through snail¹ mail. Canada’s postal² service recently went through a period when they weren’t delivering mail, which inspired us to create this episode. We talk about traditional mail versus³ e-mail too, as well as Harp’s grandparents’ letters from India and Maura’s pen pal⁴ in England.

　　Harp:  So you met him on the Internet, and then you guys become pen pals⁵ and used traditional snail mail. Then you met in real life and then now you met again, years later, using Facebook.
Maura:  Yup. It’s pretty cool.
Harp:  That’s a very cool story.
Maura:  Yeah, it was fun. And it’s always fun to meet people from different places and exchange with them and get to know people. I like that.
Harp:  Yeah. I had pen pals when I was young but they were always living somewhere far and I never wrote to them for a long time. I never met any of my pen pals. That’s very cool.
Maura:  Yeah, yeah, it was fun.

1 snail   

n.蜗牛

参考例句：

• Snail is a small plant-eating creature with a soft body.蜗牛是一种软体草食动物。
• Time moved at a snail's pace before the holidays.放假前的时间过得很慢。

2 postal   

adj.邮政的，邮局的

参考例句：

• A postal network now covers the whole country.邮路遍及全国。
• Remember to use postal code.勿忘使用邮政编码。

3 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

4 pal   

n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友

参考例句：

• He is a pal of mine.他是我的一个朋友。
• Listen,pal,I don't want you talking to my sister any more.听着，小子，我不让你再和我妹妹说话了。

5 pals   

n.朋友( pal的名词复数 )；老兄；小子；（对男子的不友好的称呼）家伙

参考例句：

• We've been pals for years. 我们是多年的哥们儿了。
• CD 8 positive cells remarkably increased in PALS and RP(P CD8+细胞在再生脾PALS和RP内均明显增加(P 来自互联网