节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2014-03-12
难易度:Low
关键字:expense, freeze, dismiss, prosper
Hello, everyone.
My name is Gabe.
And my name is Carolyn.
Welcome to Studio Classroom.
We're glad you could join us today.
We're going to finish our story about Robin and Jay.
Robin and Jay, those two kids who wanted to play with a parrot from the zoo.
The parrot got away, but they found him in a park with their cousin Arthur.
We learned about Arthur's backstory, how the zoo manager Mr. Fox fired him.
He thought Mr. Fox was a wolf in sheep's clothing who was stealing money from
the zoo.
So the kids agreed to find the real account book to prove that Arthur was right.
Well, let's find out what happens next.
Open up your magazine and let's read.
What a Zoo!
Mr. Fox's office was so small that there was not enough room to swing a cat.
Quiet as a mouse, Robin dug through the desk while Jay waited by the door.
Finally Robin found the real book of business expenses.
Just then Mr. Fox came through the door.
The children froze.
"What are you doing?" shouted Mr. Fox. "Give me that.".
"When pigs fly!" Robin answered.
Mr. Fox moved toward her, and Robin realized she couldn't get past him.
She was a sitting duck.
(Chinese).
Thank you, Michelle.
Well, this story is getting exciting.
Poor Robin seems to be stuck.
Before we find out what happens next, let's look at some words from this
section.
We start out by reading: Mr. Fox's office was so small that there was not enough
room to swing a cat.
And let's take a look at that great phrase: something that is... so small that
it gives us a better understanding of how small something is.
Right. And you can replace the word "small" with other words.
For example, Mr. Bolt is so fast that even the police couldn't catch him.
Or the piece of cake was so big that I needed someone else to help me eat it.
And Mr. Fox's office was so small that there wasn't enough room to swing a cat.
Now I'm not really sure where this phrase came from, but it's got an animal in
it, so it's one of our lesson's animal idioms.
"There's not enough room to swing a cat" means that a space is really small.
You can't do much in a certain space, so there's not enough room to swing a cat
even.
So these kids are in Mr. Fox's small office, and they should be careful not to
make too much noise.
Gabe, you should not swing cats.
That's not a nice thing to do.
Right. I'm not doing that anymore.
No. OK. Well, it's just an idiom, and it's a very interesting one.
Well, Mr. Fox's office is small.
But it might be difficult not to make noise in a space so small.
I imagine the kids might bump into things in the office, creating some noise.
But our lesson says they were quiet.
Right. Quiet as a mouse, in fact.
That's another animal idiom.
Obviously mice are pretty quiet unless they squeak.
So this idiom simply means very quiet.
Right. So you could say this when you're in a library: Guys, we should be as
quiet as a mouse in here.
Or maybe it's late at night and everyone's asleep, so the whole house is quiet
as a mouse.
So as you can see, you can say something is as quiet as a mouse, or it's quiet
as a mouse - with no "as" beforehand.
Robin in our story is quiet as a mouse as she digs through Mr. Fox's desk.
Wait a minute. What's she digging in his desk for?
She's digging through his desk?
Is there enough dirt there in his desk?
No, Gabe. Good question, though.
We often use the word "dig" when we're trying to... move dirt with a shovel.
Like digging a hole, for instance.
We dig big holes in the ground to lay foundations before we build houses.
But here Robin is digging through a desk.
OK, so we get the picture that there is a lot of stuff on or in Mr. Fox's desk,
perhaps a lot of papers and other things like that.
Robin is doing the same motion with her hands that she would if she were digging
a hole in the ground.
Right.
Now what else can you dig through?
Sometimes if I have a lot of stuff in my purse, I need to dig through my purse
to find what I need.
Sometimes I have to dig through my shirt drawer in my room to find a shirt that
I really want to wear.
Or there have been many times where my room was so messy, I had to dig through
all of my stuff to find what I needed.
And it sounds like Mr. Fox might have a messy desk because Robin dug through the
desk while Jay waited by the door.
He waited by the door.
He is watching to see if Mr. Fox will come back.
Well, finally Robin found the real book of business expenses, the real account
book that Arthur had told them about.
Well, let's look at that word: expense.
An expense is something that you would spend money on, something that costs you
some money.
If you paid for something, then it was bought at your expense.
If I paid for something, you could say that it was bought at my expense.
Or sometimes you could say all expenses are paid, or simply all expenses paid.
For example, if your company paid for you to go on a business trip and stay at a
hotel and paid for your meals and transportation,
then you might say that the trip was all expenses paid.
Well, back to our lesson.
The kids found the real book of expenses.
But just then, Mr. Fox came through the door.
Next we read an interesting sentence.
The children froze.
When we read someone froze, often it means that person was so scared, he didn't
know what to do so he just stops.
That's right.
He freezes.
And I think that's what's happening with Robin and Jay here, they freeze because
they didn't expect Mr. Fox to show up.
They were a little bit scared.
But if you ask me, I think Jay wasn't doing his job very well.
He should have been guarding that door better.
Maybe. Well, Mr. Fox says: Give me that!
And Robin has an interesting reply: When pigs fly!
What does that mean?
It's kind of fun.
Basically that means never!
Can pigs fly?
No. OK, so will they ever be able to fly?
Um, probably not.
So whenever someone says "when pigs fly," they mean something won't happen.
Robin is not going to give the book to Mr. Fox ever.
When else might we use the phrase "when pigs fly"?
Maybe you have a dream to do something, and others around you don't believe you
can do it.
You might share your dream, and they might say: You will do that when pigs fly.
So in that case, it's not a nice thing to say because they are discouraging you
from following your dream.
But back to the story, Robin wasn't going to give Mr. Fox the account book, but
she realized she couldn't get past him.
Yes. It's a small office.
She realized she was a sitting duck.
That's the last animal idiom of this section.
If you're a sitting duck, that means you have no control over a situation.
You can't do anything. You can't move.
And she was certainly a sitting duck here.
How will she get out of this situation?
Well, we have one more animal idiom to look at in the next section of our
lesson.
But for right now, Steve and Ken have something they want to share with us about
animal idioms.
Let's go to the Information Cloud now.
If you like idioms that involve animals, you should enjoy today's lesson.
In addition to the many animal idioms found in our lesson today, there are still
lots of others.
For example, one animal that is not mentioned in the lesson is the bird.
Ken, have you ever killed two birds with one stone?
You know, that's actually a Chinese idiom that's been adopted in English.
If you get two things done at once, you're killing two birds with one stone.
But if you do the same thing as someone else, you're a copycat.
Ah, good one.
Don't be a copycat. Be original.
Another animal you don't want to be is a chicken because a chicken is a coward.
And if you decide not to do something out of fear, you chicken out.
When Joe went skiing, he chickened out when he got to the top of the mountain.
OK, one more animal - crocodile.
And the idiom - crocodile tears.
Crocodile tears are false tears.
If someone sheds crocodile tears, he or she is pretending to be sad.
(Chinese).