节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2014-04-03
难易度:High
关键字:cannon, wilderness, vast, route, at full tilt, relay station
Hello. You are watching Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
My name is Carolyn.
And we're glad you're joining us today.
Open your magazine to the lesson called The Pony Express.
Today's lesson is a HISTORY lesson.
And just like most stories from history, we can learn something from the choices
that people made.
From The Pony Express we will learn about a problem and how a few people became
heroes by solving that problem.
So let's get started with the first reading for the day.
(Music).
The Pony Express.
These brave riders rode into American history.
April 3, 1860.
A cannon sounded as Johnny Fry took off on his horse through the streets of St.
Joseph, Missouri.
Crowds lined the streets, cheering and waving.
Fry rode west for 90 miles at full tilt.
He then passed a leather bag full of letters to another rider.
Eventually a chain of riders carried the letters across nearly 2,000 miles of
wilderness, and the Pony Express was born.
The reason.
Between California and the rest of the U.S. lay a vast wilderness.
Mail service was slow and often delayed.
As war among the states seemed likely, people wanted news more quickly.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.
(Chinese).
Thank you, Michelle.
Carolyn, had you heard of the Pony Express before today's lesson?
Of course! It's a kind of legend in American history.
Wait, I thought that legends weren't true.
Many legends are not true, but the word legend can also refer to true stories or
people in history that are so significant you cannot ignore them.
And the Pony Express in American history is just such a story.
Now our title is The Pony Express, but we read about a man named Johnny Fry who
took off on his horse.
What's the difference?
Ah. Well, a pony is a kind of horse.
It's a smaller horse.
Usually ponies have shorter legs, bigger bodies and thicker bones.
But if Johnny Fry took off on a horse, then why is this called the Pony Express?
Gabe, do you think it should have been the Horsey Express?
Well, huh, good point.
Pony Express does sound a bit cooler.
Um, but what does express mean?
Express is a system for fast and efficient delivery of something.
Many trains are express trains.
So in many countries, there are normal trains, which may take a long time,
stopping in many cities before reaching final destination,
or they may have express trains that don't stop as much or maybe don't stop at
all along the way.
All right.
So we have express trains and express buses.
And if you ever send mail, many times you have the option of sending it express.
It may be pricier, but it will get to its destination faster.
And that was the whole idea behind the Pony Express - getting mail to California
in the fastest way possible.
So a few people set up the Pony Express.
And we'll learn about those people later on.
But right now we're learning about some brave riders who rode into American
history.
Now this is kind of a play on words, isn't it - riding into history?
Yes, it is.
We often use the phrase: go down... to go down in history to talk about
something that was recorded in a particular way in history.
You've heard this phrase before.
Do you know the song Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?
Ah, yes. The last line of the song is: Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, you'll go
down in history.
Right.
So Rudolf helps Santa on a foggy Christmas Eve, and so when he went down in
history as one of the most famous reindeer.
Now of course he is a fictional character, so he didn't go down in the history
of actual events.
But anything you read about in your history books has gone down in history in
some way or another.
And if you study American history, you will certainly come across the story of
the Pony Express.
But you said this is a play on words earlier, Gabe.
Well, yes, because we read these riders rode into history.
Sometimes we talk about riders riding into physical places like riding into a
forest, riding into a city or even riding into the sunset.
But here people are riding into history.
So our author is just having fun with the words.
Sometimes this is called a play on words.
All right.
Well, our lesson begins like a story.
The date is April 3. Hey, that's today!
Uh, it's exactly 154 years ago today.
The year was 1860, Gabe.
Right.
Anyway, the date is April 3, 1860, and a cannon sounded as Johnny Fry took off
on his horse through the streets of St. Joseph, Missouri.
Already we have a picture in our minds of this scenario.
We picture a few things: a guy on a horse and a cannon.
A cannon is actually a powerful weapon people used in battle and in war.
But throughout history, cannon have also been used to celebrate certain events
because they sound so powerful.
And they've been used in music, too.
There's a classical music piece called the 1812 Overture, which features a
cannon.
Look it up sometime, the 1812 Overture.
But Gabe, did you just say cannon have also been used?
Don't you mean cannons have also been used?
Yeah, Carolyn. It's one of those strange words in English where the plural form
can be either with an S or without one.
English can certainly be strange sometimes.
Well, we read here that crowds lined the streets.
That means they gathered along the sides of the streets.
And they were cheering and waving.
Fry rode west for 90 miles at full tilt.
At full tilt. This means at the full potential that something has.
So for a horse to run at full tilt, that means it is running its fastest.
Well, Johnny Fry rode for 90 miles, and then passed a leather bag full of
letters to another rider until eventually a chain of riders carried the letters
across nearly 2,000 miles of wilderness.
Just like a postman.
A postman's job is to deliver letters and other kinds of mail.
The Pony Express riders were postmen in American history.
And when they delivered mail like this in 1860, the Pony Express was born.
Right. So we use the word "born" not only to talk about babies being born but
also to talk about events or other things having their beginning.
We could also say it was the birth of the Pony Express.
Now we see the reason for the Pony Express here.
Between California and the rest of the U.S. lay a vast wilderness.
But why use the word lay and not lie?
Let's learn about this with Liz in the Grammar Gym.
Hello, friends.
Welcome to the Grammar Gym.
My name is Liz.
Here's our Grammar Tip sentence from today's article.
Between California and the rest of the U.S. lay a vast wilderness.
Notice the word lay.
Normally lay, or to lie, is a verb we use to describe a person or animal
stretching their body out on a flat surface.
But in the case of today's sentence, the subject is this vast wilderness.
It certainly is not a person nor an animal.
However, to create a fun image, the writer treats the subject as if it were a
living thing all stretched out between California and the rest of the U.S.
Of course the writer could have said:
This vast wilderness is between California and the rest of the U.S.
But that's a bit boring.
Using a verb like lay, or to lie, is much more interesting to the reader than
just simply using is.
We can also use other verbs to describe the location of large things, places or
landmarks.
For example, we can use "sit" like:
The fountain sits in the middle of the town.
Or we can use "stand" like:
At the edge of the cliff stood an old lighthouse.
If you'd like to see some other examples, then check out today's Grammar Tip
section in your Studio Classroom magazine.
That's it for today.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
See you next time.
Thanks, Liz.
Well, we read that mail service was slow and often delayed.
Notice we use the word "service" when talking about mail delivery.
Of course it's a kind of public service.
And when we read that service was slow, that means it took a long time for the
job to get done.
And we talk about other kinds of service being fast and slow, too.
Like at a restaurant, if service is slow, that's probably because there are a
lot of customers so the servers can't come to your table very often, and it
takes a while to cook the food.
Well, we still have a lot more to learnright after this.