译林版牛津高中英语(必修3):Unit 2 Language-Reading(4)

It is interesting to learn how the words for animals and meat developed.

了解一下表示动物和表示肉类的词汇是如何发展的很有趣。

After the Norman Conquest¹, many English people worked as servants who raised animals.

诺曼征服之后，很多英国人沦为诺曼人的仆人，他们为诺曼人饲养牲畜。

Therefore, the words we use for most animals raised for food, such as cow, sheep and pig, came from Old English,

所以，我们现在所用的大多数表示专为肉食而饲养的动物的单词都是从古英语里来的，如cow（母牛）、sheep（羊）、Pig（猪）。

However, the words for the meat of these animals, which was served to the Normans, came from Old French: beef, mutton, pork and bacon².

而表示这些动物肉的词汇，是诺曼人用的，源自古法语：如beef（牛肉）、mutton（羊肉）、pork（猪肉）以及bacon（熏猪肉，咸猪肉）。

Old French made other contributions to Middle English as well.

古法语对中世纪英语还有其他的贡献。

In Old English, the Germanic way of making words plural³ was used. For example, they said housen instead of houses, and shoen instead of shoes.

在古英语里，单词变复数采用的是日尔曼语中单词变复数的方法。例如，他们说“housen”，而不是“house”；是“shoen”，而不是“shoes”。

After the Normans took control, they began using the French way of making plurals⁴, adding an -s to house and shoe.

诺曼人控制以后，他们开始使用法语单词变复数的方式，在“house”和“shoe”后加“-s”。

Only a few words kept their Germanic plural forms, such as man/men and child/children.

只有为数不多的单词保留了日耳曼单词变复数的方式，如man/men和child/children。

1 conquest   

n.征服；克服；掠取物；征服的土地或人们

参考例句：

• They succeeded in the conquest of that city.他们夺取了那城市。
• One of the great achievements of the modern science and technology is the conquest of space.现代科学技术的一项伟大成就是对空间的征服。

2 bacon   

n.咸肉，熏肉

参考例句：

• He is frying the bacon.他在煎咸肉。
• This bacon is too salty for me.这块熏咸猪肉我觉得太咸了。

3 plural   

n.复数；复数形式；adj.复数的

参考例句：

• Most plural nouns in English end in's '.英语的复数名词多以s结尾。
• Here you should use plural pronoun.这里你应该用复数代词。

4 plurals   

n.复数，复数形式( plural的名词复数 )

参考例句：