UK Culture-New Words and Phrases 英国文化-新用语

 Hello and welcome to Trend UK, your shortcut¹ to popular culture from the British Council. In the next few minutes we’re going to be talking about new words and phrases.

New words enter the English language all the time, in fact English has always been in a state of evolution and in recent years more and more words and phrases have entered the language, partly due to the increased willingness of lexicographers to include them in the dictionaries. But where do all these new words come from? Our reporter Mark has been finding out.

If you want to know what words like screenager and splod mean, the man to ask is John Simpson, chief editor of the Oxford² English Dictionary. John, what’s your favourite new word at the moment?

Really I don't have favourite new words, but let’s say that one of my favourite new words is screenager, which is a young person or a teenager who spends a lot of time in front of the computer.

Any other favourites, John?

Some of those rather unpleasant words like splod, somebody who is socially inept³, a splody person, but as I said I don’t really have favourite words because all words as far as I’m concerned are objects of scientific study.

And where do these new words and phrases come from?

Well, words come out of the culture that they represent and they describe so if you’ve got a new development in medicine, for example bird flu, then you’ll get a new word coming out of that. If there’s a military conflict that may well bring all sorts of new words to the fore⁴. Going back in time the First and Second World Wars were times of great creativity of language because people from different countries met each other and exchanged their words and words developed from there. So really words come from, they come from the playground, they come from politics, they come from any area of life because every area of life is changing from day to day.

How do you keep up with the huge weight of new words you must have to evaluate?

Well, it’s not just me, we’ve got something like 60 editors working on the Oxford dictionary and we also have readers and word spotters throughout the world who are sending us information in. In the old days they used to write them out on index cards when they came across some in books, but nowadays they tend to type them onto their computers and send them into the central computer here. It’s an enormous issue, but one which we just about manage to keep under control. We don’t include words just because we’ve seen one example of them we have to wait for evidence of general currency to build up in our computer files before we start putting the word in the dictionary. So a lot of the time it’s collecting data, letting it build up and then reviewing it and seeing what you’ve got and so that’s how we manage the work.

And why is it, John, that English has more words than any other language?

It certainly has more words than other European languages and probably of any other language in the world. English is put together from so many different bits. Originally it was a Germanic language and then after the Norman Conquest there was an enormous influx⁵ of French words. It comes from a country, the United Kingdom, which has been quite an expansive, trading, colonial⁶ power in the past and that’s brought all sorts of other new words into the language because words come in through contact often and so yes, it’s a very receptive language and this contrasts really with many of the other European languages who because they are smaller than English are concerned that they may well suffer what they call loss of domain⁷, in other words, there may be areas where their language may not be used, in university teaching for example, or in business or whatever, in preference for English say and they tend to be much more concerned about maintaining and defending their language. English is really so large that it doesn’t really bother about that. It also doesn’t have a central academy that imposes⁸ a policy on the language – we don’t really have any language policies here, we really allow the language to be self-regulating.

John Simpson of the Oxford English Dictionary – thank you!

Well, we've been trawling our network of British Council teachers and examiners to get their thoughts on how English students acquire new words. Andrew Edmonds from Poland says his students pick up new words and phrases from DVDs, songs, computer games and websites, most common new ones at the moment are "like whatever" and "doh!". Anthony Sloam, also based in Poland, agrees and adds that students who are into heavy metal have been known to pick up words like 'sinful', 'veins⁹' and 'wither¹⁰'. Well, I'm off to look those up in the dictionary.

 

1 shortcut   

n.近路，捷径

参考例句：

• He was always looking for a shortcut to fame and fortune.他总是在找成名发财的捷径。
• If you take the shortcut,it will be two li closer.走抄道去要近2里路。

2 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

3 inept   

adj.不恰当的，荒谬的，拙劣的

参考例句：

• Whan an inept remark to make on such a formal occasion.在如此正式的场合，怎么说这样不恰当的话。
• He's quite inept at tennis.他打网球太笨。

4 fore   

adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部

参考例句：

• Your seat is in the fore part of the aircraft.你的座位在飞机的前部。
• I have the gift of fore knowledge.我能够未卜先知。

5 influx   

n.流入，注入

参考例句：

• The country simply cannot absorb this influx of refugees.这个国家实在不能接纳这么多涌入的难民。
• Textile workers favoured protection because they feared an influx of cheap cloth.纺织工人拥护贸易保护措施，因为他们担心涌入廉价纺织品。

6 colonial   

adj.殖民地的，关于殖民的；n.殖民地，居民

参考例句：

• The natives were unwilling to be bent by colonial power.土著居民不愿受殖民势力的摆布。
• The people of Africa have successfully fought against colonial rule.非洲人民成功地反抗了殖民统治。

7 domain   

n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围

参考例句：

• This information should be in the public domain.这一消息应该为公众所知。
• This question comes into the domain of philosophy.这一问题属于哲学范畴。

8 imposes   

强迫( impose的第三人称单数 )； 勉强（某人做某事）； 推行； [印刷]把…装版

参考例句：

• The school imposes a very regimented lifestyle on its students. 学校将非常死板的生活方式强加给学生。
• The Act imposes more stringent regulations on atmospheric pollution. 法案对大气污染作出更为严格的规定。

9 veins   

n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理

参考例句：

• The blood flows from the capillaries back into the veins. 血从毛细血管流回静脉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I felt a pleasant glow in all my veins from the wine. 喝过酒后我浑身的血都热烘烘的，感到很舒服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 wither   

vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡

参考例句：

• She grows as a flower does-she will wither without sun.她象鲜花一样成长--没有太阳就会凋谢。
• In autumn the leaves wither and fall off the trees.秋天，树叶枯萎并从树上落下来。