词汇大师(Wordmaster)--The Oxford Dictionary

Broadcast on COAST TO COAST: August 26, 2004

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: a guide to some political talk in America.

This week, reporters asked President Bush about a television commercial that attacked the Vietnam War record of his Democratic opponent, John Kerry. The message was sponsored by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, though in political lingo¹ this organization is known as a 527.

PRESIDENT BUSH: "I can't be more plain about it, and I wish -- I hope my opponent joins me in saying -- condemning² -- these activities of the 527s. It's, I think they're bad for the system."

Five-twenty-sevens get their name from section 527 of the federal tax code. Organizations defined under this section can donate money for political causes without being taxed. But they must be unaffiliated with any candidate or party. Still ...

GRANT BARRETT: "If the 527 organization is promoting a popular point of view, they really can do a great deal to support a candidate without being specifically affiliated³ with that campaign. Of course, there's been congressional hearings about this, there's been accusations⁴ on both sides, but for the time being it continues."

AA: Grant Barrett is editor of a new book called "Hatchet⁵ Jobs & Hardball: The Oxford⁶ Dictionary of American Political Slang." We asked him about a number of terms in the news right now, including all the talk about color-coded states.

GRANT BARRETT: "This year because of what happened in the 2000 presidential election, red states and blue states is something that you keep hearing about. Red states are those states which supposedly will go Republican, or conservative. And the blue states are those states which supposedly will go to the Democrats⁷ because they're liberal or from the left.

"These terms come out of the maps of the electoral votes from the 2000 election where during those weeks after the election and then the drama that ensued, the map always came up on the screen as television journalists were talking about how the voting went, particularly in Florida.

"So the colors have come to kind of represent the tendency of those people to vote a certain way. Of course, then we have purple states, which is red plus blue, which are the states that are right on the line. These are also called the swing states, where no one quite knows how the vote is going to go until the day after the election."

RS: "So how did they get these colors -- was it just purely⁸ TV?"

GRANT BARRETT: "Completely arbitrary."

AA: "These swing states are also called battleground states."

GRANT BARRETT: "Yes."

AA: "We keep hearing that term."

GRANT BARRETT: "Knife-edge states, as well. If you go back to pre-2000, you'll actually see people talk about red states and blue states but they're switched the other way around." RS: "There are three phrases that I see constantly now, and I'd like for you to give us some quick definitions, all right? ABB."

GRANT BARRETT: "'Anybody But Bush.' Actually it was first used against the first President Bush. It's just a shorthand. So much of slang is a shorthand, just a quicker way of saying something that everybody understands."

RS: "Here's another one: 'hook and bullet crowd.' What's that mean?"

GRANT BARRETT: "That's a fun one. The strategists always try to define a target audience who's underserved or whose politics are so broad that they can be easily focused upon in campaign advertisements. The hook and bullet crowd are the fisherman and the hunters. And it's not just people who like to fish and hunt. It also overlaps⁹ with people who own guns, people who probably live in rural settings, people who see themselves as being traditionalists. So they are seen as a favorable target, somebody to throw money at and try to persuade."

RS: "And 'no-carb diet' has nothing to do with losing weight."

GRANT BARRETT: "No, it doesn't. But the pun there is the well-known Atkins diet in the United States which tries to rid your food intake¹⁰ of carbohydrates¹¹. So 'no-carb diet' kind of rides along that wave. But what it stands for is 'No Cheney, No Ashcroft, No Rumsfeld, No Bush.'

"There are, and I don't have any numbers for this, but there are a number of people who don't mind President Bush. They like him, they like his politics, they find him an appealing fellow, but they don't like some of the people such as [Attorney General John] Ashcroft, [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld or [Vice President Dick] Cheney that he has put into office."

AA: "Now the last question I want to ask you is about the expression 'it's the economy, stupid.'"

GRANT BARRETT: "During the first Clinton campaign in 1992, Democratic strategist James Carville was a part of that. There was a story that appeared in the August 3rd, 1992, edition of the Washington Post where they described this being written on the chalkboard: 'it's the economy, stupid.'

"And it wasn't a message that they [the Democrats] were directing outward to their opponent and it wasn't a message that they were trying to get across to voters or to the media. It was a message for themselves, because they found that again, again and again they were straying from the core issue that they felt would make Americans vote for them, and that was the economy."

AA: Grant Barrett is editor of "Hatchet Jobs & Hardball: The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang," being published in September. And that's all for this week. Our e-mail address is。。。。。。And our Web site is voanews.com/wordmaster. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

 

1 lingo   

n.语言不知所云，外国话，隐语

参考例句：

• If you live abroad it helps to know the local lingo.住在国外，学一点当地的语言自有好处。
• Don't use all that technical lingo try and explain in plain English.别尽用那种专门术语，用普通的词语解释吧。

2 condemning   

v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的现在分词 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地

参考例句：

• The government issued a statement condemning the killings. 政府发表声明谴责这些凶杀事件。
• I concur with the speaker in condemning what has been done. 我同意发言者对所做的事加以谴责。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

3 affiliated   

adj. 附属的, 有关连的

参考例句：

• The hospital is affiliated with the local university. 这家医院附属于当地大学。
• All affiliated members can vote. 所有隶属成员都有投票权。

4 accusations   

n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名

参考例句：

• There were accusations of plagiarism. 曾有过关于剽窃的指控。
• He remained unruffled by their accusations. 对于他们的指控他处之泰然。

5 hatchet   

n.短柄小斧；v.扼杀

参考例句：

• I shall have to take a hatchet to that stump.我得用一把短柄斧来劈这树桩。
• Do not remove a fly from your friend's forehead with a hatchet.别用斧头拍打朋友额头上的苍蝇。

6 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。

7 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

9 overlaps   

v.部分重叠( overlap的第三人称单数 )；（物体）部份重叠；交叠；（时间上）部份重叠

参考例句：

• The style in these two books largely overlaps. 这两本书的文体有许多处是一致的。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The new office overlaps the functions of the one already in existence. 新机构的职能与那个现存机构的职能部分重叠。 来自辞典例句

10 intake   

n.吸入，纳入；进气口，入口

参考例句：

• Reduce your salt intake.减少盐的摄入量。
• There was a horrified intake of breath from every child.所有的孩子都害怕地倒抽了一口凉气。

11 carbohydrates   

n.碳水化合物，糖类( carbohydrate的名词复数 )；淀粉质或糖类食物

参考例句：

• The plant uses the carbohydrates to make cellulose. 植物用碳水化合物制造纤维素。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All carbohydrates originate from plants. 所有的碳水化合物均来自植物。 来自辞典例句