词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Confusing Synonyms and。。。。

Broadcast on COAST TO COAST: July 29, 2004

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: we answer a few questions from listeners that really call for a dictionary editor.

RS: We called Peter Sokolowski, associate editor at the nation's oldest dictionary publisher, Merriam-Webster, for some help.

AA: A listener by the name of Atefeh Aghaei asked about the meaning of the word 鈥渦nconditional.鈥?

PETER SOKOLOWSKI: "It means absolute or unqualified. And in English, of course, there are always idioms associated with words. And unconditional¹ love is one of the best of the idioms that come up very frequently with this word. But also it's used for unconditional surrender, and that was the famous phrase from 1945 at the end of the World War Two. And also most recently in the news we see unconditional release, meaning the release of prisoners without their being harmed."

RS: "In this one, this next one, what the listener wants to know is the difference between festival and carnival²."

PETER SOKOLOWSKI: "Festival really comes from the word feast, from the Latin, feast meaning a holy day, a holy feast. And carnival comes from the Latin 'carne levare' which means to raise or to remove meat, and that's the time before Easter called Lent where you abstain³ from eating meat. And it's interesting that the end of Lent is, of course, the feast of Easter.

"So what's interesting is these two words are sort of wrapped up together. The basic way to distinguish these words is that festival is much more general. You can use festival to say folk festival, arts festival, film festival, whereas there are two very specific senses of carnival. One is that pre-Lenten festival or celebration that we mentioned. The other is sort of an enterprise or place where there are amusements. And in America they might be traveling carnivals⁴, something that would come from town to town and have maybe a carousel⁵ or I think of a lot of cotton candy and, uh ... "

AA: "And if you eat too much of that cotton candy, you might get sick. Or ill."

PETER SOKOLOWSKI: "Or ill.鈥?

AA: "Which brings us to our next question, from Alibek Suyumov, who wants to know, 'Could you please tell me what the difference is between the words sick and ill.'"

PETER SOKOLOWSKI: "Sick and ill. You know, that's a great question. Again, two words that basically mean bad health, but just like festival and carnival, one of them is a little bit more general than the other, and in this case it's sick. We have many idioms in English that refer to bad health that aren't referring to a specific ailment⁶ or a specific disease. Like we would say 'I've been worried sick about you,' meaning that I'm very worried about you. 'I'm sick and tired of this.' And when someone talks about being ill, often it's a little bit more clinical or a little bit more technical. We say mentally ill or we say gravely ill, and it sounds a little bit more specific.

"Now there are secondary uses that are not quite so synonymous between sick and ill. In the case of sick, you could say 'that was a sick joke' or 'he has a sick sense of humor' or 'he's a very sick person,' which means he's disturbed or abnormal or maybe has a sense of humor that we don't approve of. It can mean mean, as in unfriendly. But with the word ill, you have the notion of ill will, which also means unfriendly. Or ill omen⁷ means unlucky."

RS: "Or ill-advised."

PETER SOKOLOWSKI: "Ill-advised, exactly. These are very specifically bad things."

AA: But there was something specifically good about talking to a dictionary editor this week, with the Democratic convention in Boston. We wondered if any political terms in the news have sent people to the free dictionary online at webster.com.

PETER SOKOLOWSKI: "You know, one of the big words that is looked up frequently is democracy, because it's an abstract concept and it's something that folks need to sometimes remind themselves, and it's a word that is looked up quite frequently. One word that is very high this week is blog, and blog, of course, means a Web log, or a sort of journal kept on the Internet.

"And this is the first political convention to which many folks who maintain blogs, or bloggers as they're called, have been invited as journalists to record the events. So that word is very high on our list, and I'm very sorry to say it's such a new word it's not quite in our dictionary yet. [Laughter] But another word that came up is incumbent⁸. Also the word stump⁹, as in stump speech, I believe."

AA: "Incumbent, meaning the person who's currently in office, holding the office."

RS: "And stump, where a politician stands to give his speech."

AA: "Like a tree stump, because that's what they used to do, is stand on top of an old tree stump.鈥?

RS: "So they can be seen."

PETER SOKOLOWKI: "Exactly. But a couple of other words if you just go back a week that came up that can broadly be called political, the word czar was looked up quite a lot last week, when the 9-11 Commission report brought up the notion of perhaps a new cabinet-level position which some people call the 'intelligence czar.' And czar, of course, comes from Caesar, meaning the sort of emperor, and it's the same root as the word in German 'kaiser,' and it means the leader."

AA: Peter Sokolowski is associate editor at Merriam-Webster. He invites you to visit the company's Web site at webster.com [also, merriam-webster.com]. You can look up words and also hear how to pronounce them.

RS: Our address here is voanews.com/wordmaster. And, if you have any questions or comments for us, e-mail them to。。。。。。Please tell us where you are from and how to pronounce your name.

With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

 

1 unconditional   

adj.无条件的，无限制的，绝对的

参考例句：

• The victorious army demanded unconditional surrender.胜方要求敌人无条件投降。
• My love for all my children is unconditional.我对自己所有孩子的爱都是无条件的。

2 carnival   

n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演

参考例句：

• I got some good shots of the carnival.我有几个狂欢节的精彩镜头。
• Our street puts on a carnival every year.我们街的居民每年举行一次嘉年华会。

3 abstain   

v.自制，戒绝，弃权，避免

参考例句：

• His doctor ordered him to abstain from beer and wine.他的医生嘱咐他戒酒。
• Three Conservative MPs abstained in the vote.三位保守党下院议员投了弃权票。

4 carnivals   

狂欢节( carnival的名词复数 )； 嘉年华会； 激动人心的事物的组合； 五彩缤纷的颜色组合

参考例句：

• The Venice Carnival is one of the oldest and most famous international carnivals in the world. 威尼斯嘉年华是世界上最古老、最富盛名的国际嘉年华会之一。 来自常春藤生活英语杂志-2006年2月号
• A few exceptions would be made, he said, such as for carnivals. 他说一些免责条款将被制定出来，例如嘉年华会。

5 carousel   

n.旋转式行李输送带

参考例句：

• Riding on a carousel makes you feel dizzy.乘旋转木马使你头晕。
• We looked like a bunch of awkward kids riding a slow-moving carousel.我们看起来就像一群骑在旋转木马上的笨拙的孩子。

6 ailment   

n.疾病，小病

参考例句：

• I don't have even the slightest ailment.我什么毛病也没有。
• He got timely treatment for his ailment.他的病得到了及时治疗。

7 omen   

n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示

参考例句：

• The superstitious regard it as a bad omen.迷信的人认为那是一种恶兆。
• Could this at last be a good omen for peace?这是否终于可以视作和平的吉兆了？

8 incumbent   

adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的

参考例句：

• He defeated the incumbent governor by a large plurality.他以压倒多数票击败了现任州长。
• It is incumbent upon you to warn them.你有责任警告他们。

9 stump   

n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走

参考例句：

• He went on the stump in his home state.他到故乡所在的州去发表演说。
• He used the stump as a table.他把树桩用作桌子。