英语听力精选进阶版 11233

 

Keep your English up to date 

Bog¹ standard 

Professor David Crystal 

It's pretty rare in English to find a compound word with a slang 

first part and a formal second part. Bog standard is one of those 

that's come in in the last few years. It means…what does it 

mean? It means to be basic, to be ordinary, to be unexceptional, 

to be uninspired – it just means ordinary. If you say something is 

'bog standard', you mean it is perfectly² ordinary. "He's got a bog 

standard car" means a perfectly ordinary car. "I've got a bog 

standard library book" means I've got a perfectly ordinary library 

book that's not exceptional or interesting in any way.  

It's a British slang thing; its origin is quite obscure; nobody quite 

knows where it came from. Some people think that it's actually 

from early motorbike sales, because motorbikes used to come in 

a very large box you know when they were delivered – you 

didn't sort of drive them away, they were delivered. They came 

in what's called 'box standard' – and then that became 'bog 

standard'; in other words, out of the box, it's a perfectly ordinary 

kind of delivery, or ordinary kind of a bike that you bought.  

But people don't like that and they think that it's got a much more interesting 

etymology³ than that: a bog of course is a slang word for toilet in British English, 

and some people think that 'bog standard' has that kind of origin. Don't see it 

myself, somehow. I rather like the idea that bog means something rural, you know 

– the rural people are often in the bog, 'cause the bog's a muddy sort of area, full 

of peat and things like that. And so bog is often used to mean 'unsophisticated'. 

So I don't know: there's three possible etymologies⁴ for it; nobody quite knows 

where it comes from. It may have an ordinary meaning, but it certainly isn't an 

ordinary word. 

1 bog   

n.沼泽；室...陷入泥淖

参考例句：

• We were able to pass him a rope before the bog sucked him under.我们终于得以在沼泽把他吞没前把绳子扔给他。
• The path goes across an area of bog.这条小路穿过一片沼泽。

2 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

3 etymology   

n.语源；字源学

参考例句：

• The hippies' etymology is contentious.关于嬉皮士的语源是有争议的。
• The origin of OK became the Holy Grail of etymology.OK的出典成了词源学梦寐以求的圣杯。

4 etymologies   

n.词源学，词源说明( etymology的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• This dictionary does not give etymologies. 这部词典不介绍词源。 来自辞典例句
• Dictionaries are still good for obscure usages and etymologies. 字典依然擅长于不常用的用法和词源。 来自互联网