 |
Words about Pencils
|
|
|
|
E: Hi, welcome to "Let's talk". In the next few programs we are going to be talking to you about office equipment and tools. But we've thought we would first start with our wonderful, most important tool which is the "pencil".
R: Yeah. It's used at home and in the office and in the school. I bet you are taking notes with them right now. Pencils have an old history and it's very interesting we've learned a lot about pencils.
E: Yeah. It dates back a long way and it originally comes from Latin "penicillus", and it's sounds like "penicillin" , which is an antibiotic but it's not. It means little tail, and originally of course the writing improvement was brushes like in China, but in Latin the word for a small brush with a very fine point is little tail "penicillus" and also I guess you can say that the point of a pencil is like a little tail.
R: It's interesting to think the maybe they were like the "毛筆".
E: There is another Chinese connection here with pencils, and that is in the US, pencils are usually painted this color yellow.
R: That's true. But why do you think the American pencils are yellow?
E: Well, American pencils have been painted yellow since the 1890's. It's been a long history. And they're painted yellow actually connected with China. They are painted yellow because the American found out the yellow was a sign of respect.
R: The royal color.
E: Yeah, the emperor.
R: Now of course originally people were writing with lead and lead is poison and is very messy. So they've changed from lead to graphite because it is used for anywhere anytime under water and upside-down. It's sort of our most basic tool.
E: Pencils are really nice because you can erase them.
R: In America there is also a difference, have this little erasers. In British English that's called the "rubber" and in American English we called it "an eraser". And there is also a verb "to erase", to take away. And they like to have them on the end of the pencils either with metal or you add one but that's not true in Europe usually and in China you use your own eraser, it doesn't attach to the pencil.
E: Yeah. This is the European one, see no eraser, Chinese one no eraser. But ever since I was a child we've always had this pencils that have eraser or the rubber on the top.
R: We have some idioms actually with pencils. One comes from a habit "chewing on your pencil", and that's a bad habit we all have, it's not good for our teeth.
E: That means if your chew on your pencil, means you are nervous. So you might say "Oh, look he's chewing on his pencils he must be very nervous."
R: And another good one we thought of is " I'll pencil you in ". " I'll pencil you in " might sounds like you're drawing, but it really means I'll write an appointment with you in my calendar. Because it's pencil, it might change, it's not "inking you in".
E: But we don't say "inking you in".
R: No. "pencil you in" means we have a date but it could change.
E: Right. And so that's a really important one now we don't say "I'm gonna pen you in", an unchangeable date, we never say that its always "I'm going to pencil you in "or "I'll write you in". "Write you in " sounds a little more permanent than "pencil you in".
R: That's funny. There is also vocabulary. There are different kinds of pencils. This is Eyln's beautiful set of colored art pencils and of course that's for art. But we also use this is a pencil case and I'm sure you have pencils in a pencil case.
E: To take to school. This one is called "a mechanical pencil". "Mechanical" because you can put the lead in and then push it out. You have lots of you have pencils like this mechanical pencil, and then if you need to add more lead you can. Notice that we still say "pencil lead", the word for this stuff that's in your pencil is called "the lead" even though it's not made of lead anymore. The first pencils were made of lead, they found that you could write with lead and that was in the 1200, about 800 years ago. They were writing with lead but lead is dangerous. People often used to lick their pencils, I think it wasn't very dark and to make them darker they'd actually lick their pencils to make the lead darker, the writing darker.
R: Lead is poison so they switched to graphite. So pencils today have graphite in them. And there is easy to sharpen, this is Eyln's pencil sharpener. So sharpener, case, colored pencils, mechanical pencil and actually if you put on to make up everyday, the females in our audience, you maybe using an eyebrow pencil, make up pencil or lip pencil. That's more vocabulary for you.
E: Yeah. So we hope you've enjoyed our discussion of pencils, maybe you've learned a little history too. We'll see you again next time.
|
|
|
|
|
談談辦公用品
|
|
|
|
我們要談一些有關辦公用品的話題
我們想先以最重要的工具“鉛筆”開始
人們在家裏 在辦公室 在學校都要用它
我想你也正在用它記筆記呢
鉛筆有很長的歷史了
有關它的許多事情都很有趣
沒錯 它的歷史可追溯很遠
最初來自於拉丁文的"penicillus"
聽起來像"penicillin"（青黴素）
那是一種抗生素
"penicillus"的意思是小尾巴
人們最初的書寫工具是毛刷狀的
這有點像中國
在拉丁文中 把有精緻細尖的毛筆
稱作"penicillus"小尾巴
你可以看到鉛筆的尖端像個小尾巴
有趣的是它們就像毛筆似的
鉛筆與中國還有其他聯絡
在美國 鉛筆通常被染成黃色
對 你覺得這是為什麼呢
在美國這是從19世紀90年代就開始的
已經有很長的歷史了
實際上它們被染成黃色
就與中國有關
美國人發現（在中國）黃色表示尊敬
是皇家的顏色
最初人們用的鉛筆含有lead（鉛）
可是鉛有毒而且容易把東西弄臟
因此人們用石墨（graphite）代替了鉛
石墨可以在任何時間和地點被應用
無論在水中還是在筆尖朝上時
這使鉛筆成了一種最基本的工具
鉛筆很好用 因為你可以擦掉它
這裡有個區別 美國的鉛筆帶塊橡皮
英國人叫它"rubber"（橡皮）
而我們美國人説"eraser"
有個動詞"erase"是“去掉”的意思
他們將橡皮裝在鉛筆的末端
套上個金屬套或只套上橡皮頭
但在歐洲和中國橡皮和鉛筆是分開的
對 這個是歐洲的鉛筆 沒有橡皮
中國的也沒有
在美國 我小時候就用裝上橡皮的鉛筆了
這裡還有些有關鉛筆的習慣用語
其中一個來自於一個習慣
"chewing on your pencil" 咬鉛筆
這是個壞習慣 對我們的牙齒不好
意思是説 如果你咬鉛筆 意味你很緊張
你可以説 他正在咬鉛筆 他一定很緊張
另一個是 "I'll pencil you in."
聽起來好像是與畫畫有關
實際是 我要把和你的約會寫進日曆裏
因為是用鉛筆寫的 所以可以改
並非是 用墨水記錄
實際上我們從不説 "inking you in"
"pencil you in"是指可以改的約定
對 很重要的是我們從不用
“用鋼筆記錄” 來表示 不可改的約定
我們從不那麼説 只説 "pencil you in "
或者 "I'll write you in"
"write you in"比"pencil you in"
聽起來更持久些
真有意思 這裡還有些不同的鉛筆
這是Eyln的一套漂亮的彩色鉛筆
是用來畫畫的
這是鉛筆盒 pencil case
你肯定把鉛筆都放到鉛筆盒裏
帶到學校去
這是"mechanical pencil"自動筆
因為你可以把筆芯裝進去再推出來
你可以準備許多這樣的筆芯
在需要的時候添上筆芯再用
要注意的是我們説"pencil lead"
筆心的材料稱作 "lead"
可它並非用鉛做成的
從前的鉛筆是鉛做成的
人們13世紀的時候發現可用鉛寫字
那是800多年以前了
他們那時用鉛寫字可用是很危險的
人們寫字時常舔鉛筆
我想可能是覺得它寫出的字太淺
而讓它的顏色深一些
人們就舔舔他們的鉛筆
這樣顏色就深一些了
鉛是有毒的因此現在改成了石墨
現在的鉛筆裏都是石墨了
削尖它也很容易
這個就是Eyln的削鉛筆刀
削鉛筆刀pencil sharpener
鉛筆盒pencil case
彩色鉛筆colored pencil
自動筆mechanical pencil
還有 每天都化粧的女性觀眾注意了
你也許要用"eyebrow pencil" 眉筆
"make up pencil" 化粧筆
"lip pencil" 唇粧筆
還有很多的詞呢
希望你喜歡我們關於鉛筆的話題
可能你還學到了一點歷史知識
|
|
