【话匣子英语】手机的普及

 哈皮和安德鲁今天讨论的主题是，手机已经被广泛应用开来，第一代手机还是很大的那种，现如今每人一部手机，那到底手机是方便了人们的沟通还是阻碍了人们的沟通呢？

Harp¹: Don’t depress me, OK. OK. So today we’re going to bring you a Chatterbox episode, and that’s basically where we chat. We talk about cultural events. We talk about different things happening in the news, or sometimes, we interview people.

 

Andrew: Right. And I think we have a pretty interesting topic today, and that is cell phones and communication.

 

Harp: Yup. Exactly. We’re gonna talk about cell phones. And we’re gonna start by talking about kind of the evolution of cell phones and how they’ve just become so popular.

 

Andrew: And then we’re gonna talk about etiquette² and kind of how acceptable behaviour for talking on the phone has really changed over the last ten years or so.

 

Harp: Yup. Exactly. And then we’re gonna talk about: Do cell phones really make communication better or worse? Interesting. Andrew: Very good, very deep question, and we’ll talk about that third. Harp: OK. So let’s get started with the evolution of cell phones.

 

Andrew: Sure. So I remember when I was maybe seven or eight years old, my uncle got a cell phone, and this was big news because it was the first person in our family to get a cell phone. And looking back on it now, he still has it actually. And it’s hilarious³ because this phone was massive. It was so huge and it had a massive, big, long antenna⁴ that came out the front of it. It had big push buttons, and you really just had to hold it up to your face with two hands almost to talk into it.

 

Harp: That’s so funny. No one in my family ever had one of those, but I’ve definitely seen it on a lot of movies.

 

Andrew: Yeah. And the sound quality was horrible, the reception was bad, and you really couldn’t use it as a cell phone because it was too big to carry along with you.

 

Harp: Yeah, but it was still revolutionary. I remember people talking about how they could use their cell phone in a car or when they were walking somewhere. It’s a pretty big idea for people who are used to having their phones at home.

1 harp   

n.竖琴；天琴座

参考例句：

• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。
• He played an Irish melody on the harp.他用竖琴演奏了一首爱尔兰曲调。

2 etiquette   

n.礼仪，礼节；规矩

参考例句：

• The rules of etiquette are not so strict nowadays.如今的礼仪规则已不那么严格了。
• According to etiquette,you should stand up to meet a guest.按照礼节你应该站起来接待客人。

3 hilarious   

adj.充满笑声的，欢闹的；[反]depressed

参考例句：

• The party got quite hilarious after they brought more wine.在他们又拿来更多的酒之后，派对变得更加热闹起来。
• We stop laughing because the show was so hilarious.我们笑个不停，因为那个节目太搞笑了。

4 antenna   

n.触角，触须；天线

参考例句：

• The workman fixed the antenna to the roof of the house.工人把天线固定在房顶上。
• In our village, there is an antenna on every roof for receiving TV signals.在我们村里，每家房顶上都有天线接收电视信号。