VOA标准英语2014--黑色星期五购物拉开帷幕

 

Black Friday Holiday Shopping Kicks Off 黑色星期五购物拉开帷幕

WASHINGTON—

The U.S. holiday shopping season is officially under way, with Black Friday discounts drawing millions of shoppers in stores and online.

From California to New York - this is how the holiday shopping season begins -- the early lines, the massive crowds - many of them lured¹ in by Black Friday specials, from $99 flat screen TV’s to toys at less than half their usual price. It’s enough to bring in the savvy² shoppers and those just curious to see what all the fuss is about.

“I’ve never been out on one of these Black Friday things before so just thought I’d check it out, see what's going on,” said one man. “I got this Highlanders [toy figures] on special for my kid, it’s a very good one.”

Earlier start

But Black Friday sales are no longer limited to the day after the Thanksgiving holiday. This year the shopping frenzy³ started early - with some stores opening as early as 6 a.m. Thanksgiving Day.

Traci Markel, who manages a shopping center in California, said traffic has been steady since Thursday night.

“We’ll expect hundreds of thousands [of people] until the end of tomorrow [Friday] night at 11 p.m.

Online retailers⁵, such as Amazon, also launched Black Friday deals on Thursday.

It's when retailers hope to start moving into the black -- as in profits. This year, the sales and the deep discounts started early with retailers hoping to take advantage of improving consumer sentiment and pent-up demand.

Retail⁴ sales

The U.S. National Retail Federation⁶ forecasts holiday sales will increase 4.1 percent this year to nearly $617 billion. That is the biggest jump since 2011.

Early estimates show consumers spent more than $2 billion on Thanksgiving day. All told, American consumers are expected to spend more than $600 billion by the end of December -- largely the result of pent-up demand and more spending cash caused by low gasoline prices and an improving job picture.

Black Friday totals won’t be known until next week, but the National Retail Federation’s Kathy Grannis said the numbers are not as important as in previous years.

“Believe it or not, a good Black Friday is not indicative of an overall healthy holiday season. It could mean that there are more people focused on those deep discounts. Whereas if you were to see “normal” holiday shopping levels it means that people are spreading out their shopping. They’re not only focused on those 70, 75 percent off sales,” said Grannis.

Brits join in

And Black Friday shopping is no longer just an American phenomenon. It is becoming a tradition in Britain, too, which on Friday experienced the day's potential for chaos⁷.

British police were called to stores across the country as the Black Friday frenzy led to rowdy crowds and customer disputes.

Amazon is credited with introducing Black Friday to British consumers in 2010.

Maintaining calm

Police in the United States also were at work trying to keep Black Friday shopping peaceful.

As in previous years, it may not be the safest day to shop -- as two shoppers fighting over a TV set at a Houston, Texas, Walmart found out.  

And in Missouri, where protesters demanded stores shut down on Black Friday to protest a grand Jury’s decision not to indict⁸ a police officer who shot and killed an unarmed teen.

But for those who didn’t get a chance to shop during the Black Friday weekend -- there’s always Cyber Monday -- now one of the busiest online shopping days of the year.

Violent history

The name of the day itself actually alludes⁹ to a history of such darkness.

A linguistics¹⁰ researcher told VOA that many believe the "black" in Black Friday refers to store profits. The term "into the black" describes accounting¹¹ ledgers¹² going from negative values, known as "in the red" for the red ink used to document them, to positive values, traditionally written in black ink.

But Bonnie Taylor-Blake contends it appears the term "Black Friday" actually originated among police officers, who described it that way because of the large numbers of traffic incidents, sidewalk crowding and even violence it triggered.

In 2008, a Wal-Mart worker died after being trampled¹³ by a stampede of shoppers.

1 lured   

吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The child was lured into a car but managed to escape. 那小孩被诱骗上了车，但又设法逃掉了。
• Lured by the lust of gold,the pioneers pushed onward. 开拓者在黄金的诱惑下，继续奋力向前。

2 savvy   

v.知道，了解；n.理解能力，机智，悟性；adj.有见识的，懂实际知识的，通情达理的

参考例句：

• She was a pretty savvy woman.她是个见过世面的漂亮女人。
• Where's your savvy?你的常识到哪里去了？

3 frenzy   

n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动

参考例句：

• He was able to work the young students up into a frenzy.他能激起青年学生的狂热。
• They were singing in a frenzy of joy.他们欣喜若狂地高声歌唱。

4 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

5 retailers   

零售商，零售店( retailer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• High street retailers reported a marked increase in sales before Christmas. 商业街的零售商报告说圣诞节前销售量显著提高。
• Retailers have a statutory duty to provide goods suitable for their purpose. 零售商有为他们提供符合要求的货品的法定义务。

6 federation   

n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会

参考例句：

• It is a federation of 10 regional unions.它是由十个地方工会结合成的联合会。
• Mr.Putin was inaugurated as the President of the Russian Federation.普京正式就任俄罗斯联邦总统。

7 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

8 indict   

v.起诉，控告，指控

参考例句：

• You can't indict whole people for the crudeness of a few.您不能因少数人的粗暴行为就控诉整个民族。
• I can indict you for abducting high school student.我可以告你诱拐中学生。

9 alludes   

提及，暗指( allude的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• In the vegetable kingdom Mr. Mivart only alludes to two cases. 在植物界中，密伐脱先生仅提出两点。
• Black-box testing alludes to test that are conducted at the software interface. 黑箱测试是指测试软件接口进行。

10 linguistics   

n.语言学

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。

11 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。

12 ledgers   

n.分类账( ledger的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The ledgers and account books had all been destroyed. 分类账本和账簿都被销毁了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The ledgers had all been destroyed. 账簿都被销毁了。 来自辞典例句

13 trampled   

踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯

参考例句：

• He gripped his brother's arm lest he be trampled by the mob. 他紧抓着他兄弟的胳膊，怕他让暴民踩着。
• People were trampled underfoot in the rush for the exit. 有人在拼命涌向出口时被踩在脚下。