节目资讯
刊物:空中英語教室
日期:2012-04-18
难易度:Medium
关键字:butcher, undesirable, reef, overcome, Saxon
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to Studio Classroom Worldwide.
Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to study English with us.
My name is Steve.
Now has this ever happened to you?
You're talking with a friend or a classmate, and then you suddenly stop because
a word or phrase you just used sounds kind of weird, right?
Well, this is something that I think happens to people everywhere - no matter
what language they're speaking.
Well, if you've ever wondered about the origin of certain English words and
phrases,
then stay tuned because we're going to dig into a handful of them in this
month's LANGUAGE feature.
We'll kick off our lesson with the weird-sounding word "Shambles" on page 36.
Where Did That Come From?
Some English words and expressions have interesting origins.
Did you ever hear an English expression and wonder,
"Where did that come from?" The stories behind some words and phrases are as
interesting as the phrases themselves.
Let's look at a few.
Shambles.
A mother might describe a teen's room as being a shambles, meaning big mess.
The word comes from the Saxon word scamel, which means a stall that displays
meat.
In Britain, the Shambles was a street containing butcher shops and markets.
By the end of the day, leftovers of the messy meat trade littered the street.
So the name came to mean an undesirable mess.
Hello, friends.
Thank you so much for joining us here in the studio.
My name is Kaylah.
And my name is Brandon.
Today we are talking about a LANGUAGE article, and it's entitled: Where Did That
Come From?
That's an interesting title, Kaylah.
That's right.
Brandon, we're doing the series on LANGUAGE, learning about different things
that are funny about the English language.
We've talked about tongue twisters and some weird words.
This time we're talking about weird expressions from the English language.
And I have to agree, a lot of times I ask: Where did that come from?
Me too!
So I think this is a great article to talk about.
And I know all of you out there, you also probably have questions sometimes:
Where did this start?
Where did this begin?
Where did this word come from?
Well, we begin today's article with: Some English words and expressions have
interesting origins.
OK. The word "origins" means where it comes from, or what it belongs to, where
it started, the very beginning of something.
So the origins, the beginning of these phrases, where did we get them?
Well, we're going to look at a couple.
Well, did you ever hear an English expression and wonder: Where did that come
from?
Yes, Brandon, I have.
Thanks for asking.
I have wondered that.
And I have been speaking English my whole life, so you, friends, you must be
wondering as well.
Where did that come from?
English, Brandon, is a very... very bizarre and silly language.
Yeah, sometimes we don't really understand why we say certain things.
We don't think about it because it seems so natural to us.
But there are actually stories behind some words and phrases.
And this makes the words or the phrases much more interesting.
And the phrases themselves, well, they are interesting as well.
But the stories that we are going to talk about today, they are very
interesting.
That's right.
So... this phrase here it says "as interesting as the phrases themselves." And
"as interesting as" means the phrases are interesting, and so are these.
So let's take a look at a few.
We're going to start with the first one.
That word is Shambles.
Shambles.
It means something that is not organized very well, or it's a mess.
A mother might describe a teen's room is being a shambles.
I can imagine, Kaylah, my mom walking into my room when I was a child and
saying, "Your room is a shambles," meaning it's a mess!
That's right.
It's a big mess. It's not just a little mess, it's not one corner has a mess in
it.
It means everything is messed up.
That's right.
And so that's what "shambles" means... eh, that's the meaning behind that word.
And it actually comes from a Saxon word.
"Saxon" is describing people who move from Germany to Britain a long, long time
ago.
And it comes from that Saxon word scamel.
Scamel, which means a stall that displays meat, so.
A meat stall would be where you go when you buy meat for the day.
And you can see a picture of a meat stall in your Studio Classroom magazine on
page 36.
And actually in Britain, the Shambles was a street containing butcher shops and
markets.
Now a "butcher" is someone who sells meat.
And so that's where this word originated.
OK. But that doesn't explain quite yet why we think of it as a mess.
It says at this street called Shambles, by the end of the day, leftovers of the
messy meat trade littered the streets,
which means all the gross leftovers from meat were all over this street that was
called Shambles.
So the name came to mean an undesirable mess.
Wow. Yes, "undesirable." That's a good word to use, meaning you don't want this
mess.
It's not something you desire.
Something is undesirable, it's not something that you want at all.
There are many things in our lives we can describe as undesirable: maybe
problems that we have, or maybe even things that we... we eat.
It's not something we really desire; it's undesirable.
I would say something that's undesirable to everyone with be headaches.
Nobody likes feeling sick.
So undesirable mess - they don't want this mess.
So if we look at this word, there's a couple of different steps we go through.
We see it comes from the Saxon word, and the name is actually the name of a
street.
The "Shambles" was actually a street, we see.
And it's the messy street that the name comes from.
That's exactly right.
And so now you know a little bit more about this word.
Try to practice using this word.
The next time you see a mess, maybe the next time you see someone's desk or
room, it's really messy, you can say it's in a shambles.
That's right.
Or if you visit a busy restaurant, after they have had lots of customers, the
restaurant might be a shambles.
So try practicing this word.
Well, that last sentence with "undesirable" in it is our Grammar on the Go
sentence, so let's visit Liz.
And then we'll see today's skit.
Hello, friends.
How are you doing today?
My name is Liz, and it's time for Grammar on the Go.
I'm outside a butcher shop right now.
Why?
In our article today, we read about the origin of shambles.
We learn that it was originally the name of a street filled with butcher shops,
and how "...the name came to mean an undesirable mess." Notice the phrase, came
to mean.
Normally, when we say "come to do something," it just means being here to do
something, like:
We came to see how you're doing.
But in today's sentence, "come to mean" has nothing to do with being here.
Instead, it is another way to say "eventually understood as." We can use other
verbs after "come to" to talk about how something eventually is a certain way.
For example, "come to appreciate" means eventually appreciate, as in:
After spending time with his American host family, the French student came to
appreciate American culture more.
Or, "come to understand" means eventually understand, as in:
After learning to spend quality time with his children, Mr. Carson came to
understand his children more.
If you turn to today's Grammar Tip section in your Studio Classroom magazine,
you'll find more example sentences there.
That's all the time we have for today.
Thanks again for joining me here.
This is Liz with Grammar on the Go signing off.
Bye-bye.
Why are we here at the ocean?
We're here to learn about the tide.
Well, I know all about the tide.
Sometimes the tide comes in and sometimes the tide goes out.
That's right.
Now let's learn some idioms that use the word tide.
I know one.
When something tides you over, it gets you through for a short time.
That's right!
Can you give me an example?
Sure.
Can I have $10?
$10, what for?
Well, $10 will tide me over until payday.
Oh. That's a good example.
So, can you give me $10?
Uh, no.
But I can give you another example.
All right. What is it?
Can I have a banana?
A banana, what for?
I'm really hungry. A banana will tide me over until lunch.
Good one!
Now I want a banana too.
Here's another idiom that uses the word tide.
"To go against the tide" means that you do the opposite of what most people are
doing.
To go against the tide is opposite.
Yeah. You can go against the tide or you can go with the tide.
"To go with the tide" means you go along with others.
That's right.
If you go with the tide, you do what other people do.
I get it.
Those are good idioms.
Yeah.
So uh... can I have the $10?
No.
What about the banana?
No. No.
Sorry.