英语听力精选进阶版 11224

Showbiz 

Professor David Crystal 

This is probably one of the most popular abbreviations of a word 

that took place in the 20th century in the United States.  It's an 

abbreviation - showbiz - of show business. And, to begin with, it 

was written as two separate words: show space biz; still is, to 

some extent, but increasingly these days, you'll see it written as a 

single word, showbiz, and pronounced like that.   

It’s actually been around since the 1940s, very wide use indeed as 

a noun. “That’s show biz!” they used to say in all kinds of 

circumstances, where something was happening that was rather 

unexpected, or something was going off the rails, or somebody 

lost their job, or some special circumstance came up:  “that’s 

show biz!” And it was used as an adjective too. “We’re going to 

have a show biz treatment tonight” or “…a show biz tribute”…or 

something of that kind.   

It hasn’t actually developed very many other uses as yet (these shortened forms 

often don’t, you know), but it’s actually something that I think is going to come in 

the near future.  I've heard for instance an adjective form “very show-bizzy” – 

that’s b-i-z-z-y,  not b-u-s-y – meaning ‘typical of show business’, in the last 5-10 

years.