词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Slangman: A Really Bad Day

Broadcast on Coast to Coast: October 23, 2003

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster -- it's time for our monthly chat with Slangman David Burke in Los Angeles.

RS: We were sad to hear that even Slangman, who's always so happy, occasionally has a really bad day.

SLANGMAN: "I proved last week that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong -- which is, of course, Murphy's Law, which is a list of truths, things that can happen in one's life, and I proved this one big time. So I wrote a letter, of course, to my mother, explaining it to her which I'd like to share with you now.

'Dear Slangmom: Last week, I was invited to be a guest on a big international TV show' -- and, of course, TV is the way we all say television, because it's faster -- 'at 10 o鈥檆lock the next morning to talk about -- what else? -- slang.

"I only had a few hours to pull it all together (which means to prepare, to pull it all together) so I had to kick it into high gear (which means to hurry, because when a car is traveling at its highest speed, it has to be in high gear -- you can see that the only way I can write a letter, of course, is in slang!)"

AA: "Of course."

SLANGMAN: "'Well, I pulled an all-nighter (which means I stayed up all night) creating illustrations that represent some of our American expressions to show to the TV audience. Finally, by 6 a.m., I finished the illustrations. But as soon as I pushed the save button on my computer, the hard drive crashed' -- which is something you never want to have happen, which means the heart of my computer died!"

AA: "One thing, when you say illustrations, do you mean scripts?"

SLANGMAN: "No, actual illustrations. These are drawings, so when we talk about an expression, for example, a hard drive driving, we show an illustration of a hard drive, which is that part of the computer where it stores all of your files, crashing -- so I like to show it visually, it makes it more fun. 'So, as we say in slang, I was rather freaked, bummed¹ out, ticked off and blown away. All that means very upset. Of course, there were other words I used at the time, but I鈥檒l keep those to myself for now.

"With only now four hours before going on international television, I hauled buns to my friend鈥檚 house.' And hauled buns simply means I hurried, because when you haul you hurry, and buns is slang for one's rear end."

RS: "So you got yourself there very fast."

SLANGMAN: "Yes, exactly. 'I hauled buns to my friend's house because he鈥檚 a computer geek (and a computer geek is someone who is an expert at computers. In fact, a geek is also used to describe someone whose clothing is not current with today鈥檚 fashion, that's also a geek.)

"So after eyeballing my hard drive, my friend the computer geek knew immediately that I had lost all my files! There was nothing left! I started sweating bullets because I knew I had to create the illustrations again from scratch (which means, from the beginning, from the very beginning.) So I was able to recreate all the illustrations by 9 o鈥檆lock. But as soon as I got into my car, it died!'"

RS: "The car."

SLANGMAN: "Yes, it died, the car died. Or as we say in slang, it conked out, bit the bullet, kicked the bucket, croaked³. 'So I decided⁴ to take a bus, but as you know, this week and last week all the buses -- "

RS: "Were on strike!"

SLANGMAN: "Were on strike."

AA: "In Los Angeles."

SLANGMAN: "In Los Angeles, and to be on strike means to stop working in protest of something. 'So I high tailed it (which means to hurry), so I hailed it it by foot -- "

AA: "You ran."

SLANGMAN: "I ran -- there's another way of saying it, a more normal way of saying it. 'I ran all the way there, only to discover that they decided to scrap⁵ my segment."

RS: "Awww."

SLANGMAN: "And to scrap means to cancel. 'So after all the trouble I went through, they blew me off (which means rejected me), they blew me off! I thought I was going to die, or should I say, conk out, bite the bullet, kick the bucket, croak²! Well, on that note, I鈥檒l leave you for now. Hug, hug, kiss, kiss. Love your son, the freaked, bummed out, ticked off and blown away, Slangman."

AA: And so ends a story inspired by actual events 鈥?though, admittedly, embellished⁶. We know it will make Slangman David Burke feel better if we tell you that you'll find all his English teaching materials on his Web site, slangman.com.

RS: You can also link from our Web site, voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address is [email protected]. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

1 bummed   

失望的，沮丧的

参考例句：

• I was really bummed out that there were no tickets left. 没有票了，我非常恼火。
• I didn't do anything last summer; I just bummed around. 去年夏天我游手好闲，什么正经事也没做。

2 croak   

vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚

参考例句：

• Everyone seemed rather out of sorts and inclined to croak.每个人似乎都有点不对劲，想发发牢骚。
• Frogs began to croak with the rainfall.蛙随着雨落开始哇哇叫。

3 croaked   

v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说

参考例句：

• The crow croaked disaster. 乌鸦呱呱叫预报灾难。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• 'she has a fine head for it," croaked Jacques Three. “她有一个漂亮的脑袋跟着去呢，”雅克三号低沉地说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 scrap   

n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废

参考例句：

• A man comes round regularly collecting scrap.有个男人定时来收废品。
• Sell that car for scrap.把那辆汽车当残品卖了吧。

6 embellished   

v.美化( embellish的过去式和过去分词 )；装饰；修饰；润色

参考例句：

• The door of the old church was embellished with decorations. 老教堂的门是用雕饰美化的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The stern was embellished with carvings in red and blue. 船尾饰有红色和蓝色的雕刻图案。 来自辞典例句