美国有线新闻 CNN 浅谈美国总统日的来历

 

CARL AZUZ: Maybe you owned government class. Maybe you can name all the U.S. presidents. But do you know who's honored by President's Day? You could have asked Calvin Coolidge but he might have been silent on the matter. Teddy Roosevelt might have walked softly around the subject, despite being a rough rider. Most Americans believe President's Day is about every president we've had but that's kind of wrong, at least as far as its origin goes.

President's Day was originally Washington's Birthday, Just Washington's on February 22nd. It became a Federal holiday in 1885 and as far as the U.S. government's concerned its still Washington's Birthday, not President's Day. In 1968, Congress voted to switch it to the third Monday in February giving government employees a three day weekend. But even though Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday were only days apart, Congress refused to combine them into President's Day, though that's what many Americans do. So if you work for the government you'll get a day off for Washington's Birthday. If you don't, you may get a day off for President's Day. Those after all are the precedents¹.

1 precedents   

引用单元； 范例( precedent的名词复数 )； 先前出现的事例； 前例； 先例

参考例句：

• There is no lack of precedents in this connection. 不乏先例。
• He copied after bad precedents. 他仿效恶例。