美国国家公共电台 NPR U.K. Researchers Look To Revive Forgotten English Words
时间：2018-12-02 作者：英语课 分类：2017年NPR美国国家公共电台9月
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Now we're going to dust off some old words, starting with this one - dotard.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
It means an old person, especially one who has become weak or senile. It was popular during Shakespeare's time.
SIEGEL: Last week North Korea's Kim Jong Un called President Trump 1 a dotard. And then Trump fired back, calling Kim a madman.
CHANG: Now, had the president wanted to match Kim's archaic 2 vocabulary, he could have used one of these words.
DOMINIC WATT 3: Nickum, rouker, losenger.
SIEGEL: Nickum - a cheating or dishonest person.
CHANG: Rouker - someone who spreads rumors 4.
SIEGEL: Losenger - a lying rascal 5.
WATT: It's nice to have new ways of expressing old ideas.
CHANG: That's Dr. Dominic Watt, senior linguistic 6 lecturer at the University of York in the U.K. Recently he and a team of researchers combed through historical texts and dictionaries looking for old words they thought could be useful today.
SIEGEL: They came up with a list of 30, including snoutfair.
WATT: George Clooney is very snoutfair.
SIEGEL: Snout as in nose, fair as in handsome - as in, you've got a nice nose. You're a good-looking person.
CHANG: There's also...
WATT: Momist.
CHANG: That's a harsh critic. A momist is always finding fault with things.
SIEGEL: And then there's this old word.
WATT: Betrump.
SIEGEL: Betrump - it's a verb.
WATT: To swindle or to deceive, to cheat somebody.
CHANG: And while it sounds like something a critic of the president might have coined on Twitter, Dominic Watt says betrump actually dates back to the 16th century, found in a Scottish translation of Virgil's epic 7 poem "The Aeneid."
- He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
- The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。
- The company does some things in archaic ways,such as not using computers for bookkeeping.这个公司有些做法陈旧，如记账不使用电脑。
- Shaanxi is one of the Chinese archaic civilized origins which has a long history.陕西省是中国古代文明发祥之一，有悠久的历史。
- The invention of the engine is creditable to Watt.发动机的发明归功于瓦特。
- The unit of power is watt.功率的单位是瓦特。
- Rumors have it that the school was burned down. 有谣言说学校给烧掉了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- Rumors of a revolt were afloat. 叛变的谣言四起。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- If he had done otherwise,I should have thought him a rascal.如果他不这样做，我就认为他是个恶棍。
- The rascal was frightened into holding his tongue.这坏蛋吓得不敢往下说了。
- She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
- The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。