英语博客-北美风情 175、Working like a dog

　　Many people try their best and put in a lot of effort at work or school. This week, we’re talking about expressions that mean to work hard. You can work like a dog, work your butt¹ off, or put your nose to the grindstone. As usual, we give you lots of examples and teach you about how you can use these expressions.

　　Maura:  To work like a dog means to work very hard.
Harp:  Yes. So if you use the expression to work like a dog, that means that someone is working very hard, putting in a lot of effort.
Maura:  Whenever we have an idiom with an animal, I always wonder, “Why that animal?”
Harp:  And Maura, why a dog?
Maura:  Well, dogs do work hard. And I’m not talking about the dogs that most people have for pets, but dogs that work, like a seeing-eye dog that helps people who are visually impaired² or the dogs that pull sleds, they work pretty hard too.
Harp:  Yeah, and police dogs work really hard too.
Maura:  Right. So a dog that works³, works almost all the time.

1 butt   

n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶

参考例句：

• The water butt catches the overflow from this pipe.大水桶盛接管子里流出的东西。
• He was the butt of their jokes.他是他们的笑柄。

2 impaired   

adj.受损的；出毛病的；有（身体或智力）缺陷的v.损害，削弱( impair的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Much reading has impaired his vision. 大量读书损害了他的视力。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• His hearing is somewhat impaired. 他的听觉已受到一定程度的损害。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 works   

n.作品，著作；工厂，活动部件，机件

参考例句：

• We expect writers to produce more and better works.我们期望作家们写出更多更好的作品。
• The novel is regarded as one of the classic works.这篇小说被公认为是最优秀的作品之一。