词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Greetings in the U.S.

Broadcast: February 22, 2005

I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: we say hello again to English teacher Lida Baker¹ in Los Angeles to talk about greetings in America.

AA: "So now typically, if someone says 'how are you doing?' ... "

RS: "Yeah, typically when you say 'hi, how are you?' what's the typical response there?"

LIDA BAKER: "Well, 'fine.' And, in fact, that's something I have to teach students right at the beginning of the course, that when somebody says to you 'how are you?' they're not really asking about your health. It's just a different way of saying hello. Back in the days when people were more conscious of grammar, one of the traditional replies to the question 'how are you?' was 'I'm well.' But when's the last time you heard somebody say 'I'm well?'"

RS: "I guess the last time we heard someone answer that same question 'I'm sick'! [laughter]"

LIDA BAKER: "But you do hear people all the time saying 'I'm good.' At least here in California, that is extremely common. You know, and as a teacher, this kind of presents me with a dilemma²: Do I teach students expressions that are grammatically³ incorrect but that everyone is using?"

RS: "Yes."

LIDA BAKER: "Well ... "

RS: "Yes with a warning."

LIDA BAKER: "Exactly! Yes, I like that -- yes with a warning, that this is what people say, but don't use it if you're in a formal situation or a situation where you're trying to make a very good impression."

AA: "Like the expression 'how do you do,' that's a little formal, right?"

LIDA BAKER: "Well, 'how do you do' is a really interesting expression. I don't know if you realize this, but on subsequent⁴ meetings, you don't use 'how do you do.' You can switch to 'how are you?' or 'hello.' But we only use 'how do you do?' the first time that we meet somebody."

RS: "So, in other words, when you're introduced to someone, you say 'how do you do?'"

LIDA BAKER: "That's right."

AA: "Now what about a greeting like 'good morning'? Good morning, Rosanne."

RS: "Hi, Avi."

LIDA BAKER: "Yeah, there are greetings I think that are time-bound. We have 'good morning,' 'good afternoon,' 'good evening' and 'good night.' But, again, there's something tricky⁵ about 'good night.'"

RS: "You say it when you're going to sleep."

LIDA BAKER: "That's right. And you also say it when you're leaving. Like at the end of the workday, people might say 'good night' to one another. But you can't say 'good night' as a greeting. On the other end of the spectrum⁶, again out here in California, I don't know about the rest of the country, but it's very common to greet people by just saying 'hey.' Again, you wouldn't use it if you were in a job interview, if you were talking to your boss, if you were talking to maybe a religious leader. You would use something a little more elevated⁷ than that, like 'hello' or 'how are you?'"

RS: "Hey, Lida. [laughter] I want to know how you would go about teaching this."

LIDA BAKER: "Well, first of all, you want to provide students with information about the language. So on the blackboard I would make a list of greetings, and at the top of the list I would put the more formal ones, and at the bottom of the list I would put the least formal ones. And I would draw an arrow from the top of the list to the bottom of the list, to give students the visual notion⁸ that there's a range here.

"And then we would move into the practice phase of the lesson, where there's one activity that I really like to do. And I'm afraid I can't remember where I first read this, because I'd like to give credit, but it's called the 'cocktail⁹ party waltz.' It's great to have students meeting each other at the beginning of the course. And what you do is, you put the students in two circles. One circle is inside the other circle, so the students are facing one another.

"At a signal from the teacher, these people greet one another, and then they spend a couple of minutes in small talk, talking about the weather, about the event where you happen to be, about a person's background or what they like to do. Or their work -- that's always a good topic in the United States.

"You let the students talk to one another for a couple of minutes, and then the teacher gives another signal, and the people who are on the outside circle move like, you know, one person to the right. So that's one really fun activity, and what's nice about it is that it works with people at all levels."

AA: Lida Baker teaches at the American Language Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and she's working on a reading comprehension textbook that might come out in about a year.

RS: And that's Wordmaster for this week. Our e-mail address is。。。。。。。。。。。。And our segments¹⁰ are online at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

MUSIC: "Pop Song '89"/R.E.M.

 

1 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。

2 dilemma   

n.困境，进退两难的局面

参考例句：

• I am on the horns of a dilemma about the matter.这件事使我进退两难。
• He was thrown into a dilemma.他陷入困境。

3 grammatically   

adv.符合语法规则地

参考例句：

• This essay is grammatically smooth and readable. 这篇作文写得还顺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Grammatically, the Sanskrit paradigm exemplifies the concept of radical. 从语法的观点看，梵语的变格范例明确了词根的概念。 来自辞典例句

4 subsequent   

adj.后来的，随后的，继起的

参考例句：

• The story will be continued in subsequent issues of the magazine.小说将继续在以后几期杂志上连载。
• Subsequent events vindicated the policy.后来的事实证明那政策是对的。

5 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

6 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

7 elevated   

a.提高的，升高的；高贵的，庄严的

参考例句：

• He elevated many of his friends to powerful positions within the government. 他将许多朋友都提拔到政府部门的要职上。
• The house is in an elevated position, overlooking the town. 这栋房子地势较高，可以俯瞰全城。

8 notion   

n.概念，意念，看法

参考例句：

• One common Chinese notion is that the elders ought to be respected.中国人共有的一种观念是长者应受到尊敬。
• He had a sudden notion to visit all his relatives.他心血来潮，突然想去拜访他所有的亲戚。

9 cocktail   

n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物

参考例句：

• We invited some foreign friends for a cocktail party.我们邀请了一些外国朋友参加鸡尾酒会。
• At a cocktail party in Hollywood,I was introduced to Charlie Chaplin.在好莱坞的一次鸡尾酒会上，人家把我介绍给查理·卓别林。

10 segments   

部分( segment的名词复数 )； 瓣； [计算机]（字符等的）分段； [动物学]节片

参考例句：

• He is eating oranges in segments. 他正在一瓣瓣地吃橘子。
• Gene cloning provides a means of purifying and propagating specific DNA segments. 基因克隆化提供了一种纯化和扩增特定DNA片段的方法。