新西兰英语 695 Prince Charles has a birthday party

 　　Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, arrived in New Zealand last weekend for a 6 day visit. The visit is part of the Queen’s 60th Jubilee¹. It is too far for the Queen to travel now but her son and grandson have been visiting countries in the Commonwealth² to celebrate her 60 years on the throne.

　　Today is Prince Charles’ birthday. He is 64. A special celebration was held in Government House with 63 guests who have a birthday today. They had to apply and were chosen by ballot³. The chef made 64 small cakes – one for each guest including the Prince. Each cake was decorated with a New Zealand icon⁴ – something that New Zealand is famous for. The icons⁵ were all made of icing or something else like chocolate that people could eat.

　　Here are some of the icons on the cakes: jandals, buzzy bee, kiwi fruit, gumboots, hokey-pokey icecream in a cone⁶, and a woolly sheep.

　　Vocabulary

　　?apply – send their name and say they wanted to be invited

　　?ballot – by chance, like a lottery⁷; their name was pulled out of a box

　　?chef – expert cook (French word so ch is pronounced like sh)

　　?decorated – a picture or design on top of the cake

　　?icon – something that is important to a culture

　　?jandals – flip⁸ flops⁹, thongs¹⁰; rubber sandals with a rubber piece between the first two toes.

　　?buzzy bee – a child’s pull-along toy

　　?gumboots – boots made of rubber, worn by farmers

　　?hokey-pokey – a crunchy icecream flavour made of golden syrup¹¹

　　Questions

　　1.If you live in New Zealand, can you think of other icons?

　　2.If you live in another country, what are the icons for your culture?

1 jubilee   

n.周年纪念；欢乐

参考例句：

• They had a big jubilee to celebrate the victory.他们举行盛大的周年纪念活动以祝贺胜利。
• Every Jubilee,to take the opposite case,has served a function.反过来说，历次君主巡幸，都曾起到某种作用。

2 commonwealth   

n.共和国，联邦，共同体

参考例句：

• He is the chairman of the commonwealth of artists.他是艺术家协会的主席。
• Most of the members of the Commonwealth are nonwhite.英联邦的许多成员国不是白人国家。

3 ballot   

n.（不记名）投票，投票总数，投票权；vi.投票

参考例句：

• The members have demanded a ballot.会员们要求投票表决。
• The union said they will ballot members on whether to strike.工会称他们将要求会员投票表决是否罢工。

4 icon   

n.偶像，崇拜的对象，画像

参考例句：

• They found an icon in the monastery.他们在修道院中发现了一个圣像。
• Click on this icon to align or justify text.点击这个图标使文本排齐。

5 icons   

n.偶像( icon的名词复数 )；（计算机屏幕上表示命令、程序的）符号，图像

参考例句：

• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons. 用图标来区分重要的文本项。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Daemonic icons should only be employed persistently if they provide continuous, useful status information. 只有会连续地提供有用状态信息的情况下，后台应用程序才应该一直使用图标。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

6 cone   

n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果

参考例句：

• Saw-dust piled up in a great cone.锯屑堆积如山。
• The police have sectioned off part of the road with traffic cone.警察用锥形路标把部分路面分隔开来。

7 lottery   

n.抽彩；碰运气的事，难于算计的事

参考例句：

• He won no less than ￡5000 in the lottery.他居然中了5000英镑的奖券。
• They thought themselves lucky in the lottery of life.他们认为自己是变幻莫测的人生中的幸运者。

8 flip   

vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的

参考例句：

• I had a quick flip through the book and it looked very interesting.我很快翻阅了一下那本书，看来似乎很有趣。
• Let's flip a coin to see who pays the bill.咱们来抛硬币决定谁付钱。

9 flops   

n.失败( flop的名词复数 )v.（指书、戏剧等）彻底失败( flop的第三人称单数 )；（因疲惫而）猛然坐下；（笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地）移动或落下；砸锅

参考例句：

• a pair of flip-flops 一双人字拖鞋
• HPC environments are often measured in terms of FLoating point Operations Per Second (FLOPS) . HPC环境通常以每秒浮点运算次数(FLOPS)加以度量。 来自互联网

10 thongs   

的东西

参考例句：

• Things ain't what they used to be. 现在情况不比从前了。
• Things have been going badly . 事情进展得不顺利。

11 syrup   

n.糖浆，糖水

参考例句：

• I skimmed the foam from the boiling syrup.我撇去了煮沸糖浆上的泡沫。
• Tinned fruit usually has a lot of syrup with it.罐头水果通常都有许多糖浆。