词汇大师--Some Online Words to Help Remember a Year

　　AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: some words to help us remember 2009.
RS: The American Dialect Society, a small scholarly group, just chose its Word of the Year as well as a Word of the Decade. Wordsmith Ben Zimmer, a guest of ours from time to time, tells us the nominees¹ for word of the year.

　　BEN ZIMMER: "One that I was kind of pushing for was 'fail' as a noun or interjection used to describe something egregiously² unsuccessful. This is a kind of online interjection that got very popular and then became used frequently as a noun, as in 'epic³ fail.' So that was a word that I had nominated. It actually won in the category of Most Useful.
"We had a couple of other sort of health-related terms. One was 'H1N1.' By the end of the year, people were actually using that H1N1 to refer to the virus rather than simply saying 'the swine flu virus.'"
AA: "Or calling it 'hiney' or 'hinney.'"
BEN ZIMMER: "That's true. [Laughter] That had been suggested -- hiney or hee-nee -- as a way to pronounce that. We also had 'public option,' obviously a much discussed component⁴ of the health care reform bills before Congress this year. And we also had the suffix⁵ '-er' as in 'birther' or 'deather.' So people who questioned whether Obama was born in the United States were disparaged⁶ as 'birthers.'
"People who believed in the so-called death panels -- 'death panel,' by the way, won in the Most Outrageous⁷ category. That was a term that Sarah Palin had introduced when talking about the health care legislation, that supposedly these death panels would be set up. So people who believed in that were disparaged with the term 'deather.'"
RS: But Ben Zimmer says the winner was actually nominated from the floor during the voting session at the society's convention in Baltimore, Maryland.
BEN ZIMMER: "Someone wasn't really satisfied with these choices that we had in front of us and said 'I would like to nominate tweet.' 'Tweet' being either a noun or a verb, the noun referring to an update on one's Twitter account, and then tweet as a verb meaning to post an update on Twitter."
RS: "And the word of the decade?"
BEN ZIMMER: "The word of the decade, after much spirited discussion, the selection was actually 'Google.' Google used as a verb meaning to search the Internet."
AA: "So now, as a keen observer of the language, and one who I imagine Googles a good deal here, can you fill us in on some of the other 'word of the year' votes that were put out there. We've been seeing in recent days, different dictionaries and companies all sort of choosing a word of the year, maybe a word of the decade. What are you seeing out there?"
BEN ZIMMER: "Yeah, it's become very popular to select a word of the year. American Dialect Society started doing it twenty years ago and we were the only game in town. But now there are lots of others who are getting into the act.
"And so, for instance, the New Oxford⁸ American Dictionary had a very good choice I thought as word of the year, and that was 'unfriend.' Unfriend, meaning to remove someone from one's friend list on Facebook or some other social networking site."
AA: "So that was one choice. What about some others?"
BEN ZIMMER: "Well, Merriam-Webster went about their choice a little differently this year. They based their word of the year on what people were looking up on their online dictionary and thesaurus. So the one that they ended up choosing was rather unusual. It was 'admonish⁹.'
"And the reason that admonish got looked up so frequently was because of the incident involving the Congressman¹⁰ Joe Wilson who shouted out at Obama during his address to Congress. He shouted out 'You lie.' The House of Representatives decided¹¹ to admonish Joe Wilson for what he had done, but they didn't go so far as to rebuke¹² or censure¹³ him. So it's a slightly milder form of criticism or chastisement¹⁴."
RS: Ben Zimmer is executive producer of visualthesaurus.com.
AA: Next time, we'll join the discussion about what to call the first decade, actually the first two decades, of this century. What do you suggest? Post your ideas at voanews.com/wordmaster.
RS: Where you can also find transcripts¹⁵ and MP3s of our segments. And that's WORDMASTER for this week. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

1 nominees   

n.被提名者，被任命者( nominee的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She's one of the nominees. 她是被提名者之一。 来自超越目标英语 第2册
• A startling number of his nominees for senior positions have imploded. 他所提名的高级官员被否决的数目令人震惊。 来自互联网

2 egregiously   

adv.过份地，卓越地

参考例句：

• But previous Greek governments egregiously violated those limits. 但之前几届希腊政府都严重违反了这些限制。 来自互联网

3 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

4 component   

n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的

参考例句：

• Each component is carefully checked before assembly.每个零件在装配前都经过仔细检查。
• Blade and handle are the component parts of a knife.刀身和刀柄是一把刀的组成部分。

5 suffix   

n.后缀；vt.添后缀

参考例句：

• We add the suffix "ly" to make the adjective "quick" into the adverb " quickly ".我们在形容词“ quick”后加“ly” 构成副词“quickly”。
• It described the meaning of suffix array and also how to built it.它描述的含义，后缀数组以及如何建立它。

6 disparaged   

v.轻视( disparage的过去式和过去分词 )；贬低；批评；非难

参考例句：

• French-Canadian fur trappers and Sioux disparaged such country as "bad lands. " 法语的加拿大毛皮捕兽器和苏人的贬低国家作为“坏土地”。 来自互联网
• She disparaged her student's efforts. 她轻视她的学生做出的努力。 来自互联网

7 outrageous   

adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的

参考例句：

• Her outrageous behaviour at the party offended everyone.她在聚会上的无礼行为触怒了每一个人。
• Charges for local telephone calls are particularly outrageous.本地电话资费贵得出奇。

8 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。

9 admonish   

v.训戒；警告；劝告

参考例句：

• I will tactfully admonish him not to behave like this again.我会婉转的规诫他不要再这样做。
• Admonish your friends privately,but praise them openly.要私下告戒朋友，但是要公开夸奖朋友。

10 Congressman   

n.（美）国会议员

参考例句：

• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman.他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。
• The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics.这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。

11 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

12 rebuke   

v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise

参考例句：

• He had to put up with a smart rebuke from the teacher.他不得不忍受老师的严厉指责。
• Even one minute's lateness would earn a stern rebuke.哪怕迟到一分钟也将受到严厉的斥责。

13 censure   

v./n.责备；非难；责难

参考例句：

• You must not censure him until you know the whole story.在弄清全部事实真相前不要谴责他。
• His dishonest behaviour came under severe censure.他的不诚实行为受到了严厉指责。

14 chastisement   

n.惩罚

参考例句：

• You cannot but know that we live in a period of chastisement and ruin. 你们必须认识到我们生活在一个灾难深重、面临毁灭的时代。 来自辞典例句
• I think the chastisement to him is too critical. 我认为对他的惩罚太严厉了。 来自互联网

15 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句