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(单词翻译)

VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember. This week, we tell about the history of one of the most popular and colorful toy products in America. Generations of American children have grown up coloring and drawing with crayons made by the Crayola company. These small sticks of color are also popular around the world.


Crayola crayons

(MUSIC)

(SOUND)

Andrew:

Hi, my name is Andrew Bracken and I am six years old. I like to draw neighborhoods and cities. Right now I am drawing an ice cream store. My favorite crayon colors are: pink is my first, purple is my second and blue is my last.

VOICE ONE:

That was Andrew Bracken from Arlington, Virginia. He is one of many children in America who likes to draw with Crayola crayons. Many people use these fun drawing tools, but not everyone knows their history and how they are made.

The story of Crayola began in eighteen sixty-four. Joseph Binney started a company in the state of New York called Peekskill Chemical Works. The factory made products such as paints, dyes, and charcoal1. Joseph Binney later asked his son Edwin Binney and another family member, C. Harold Smith, to work with him.

VOICE TWO:


Binney & Smith Founders2

In eighteen eighty-five Joseph Binney retired3. Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith decided4 to become business partners and changed the name of the company to Binney & Smith. The company made products like red oxide5, a chemical used to give color to the red paint used for painting barn buildings on farms. Peekskill chemists also had an important role in how modern cars look. The first car tires were a white color because of the zinc6 oxide in the rubber. Peekskill experts learned that adding carbon black to tires not only made them darker but also made them much stronger.

VOICE ONE:

In nineteen hundred the company started making slate7 school pencils in their factory in Easton, Pennsylvania. Binney & Smith started listening carefully to teachers who wanted better materials to use in their classrooms. The company soon made the first dustless chalk sticks for writing on school blackboards. A few years later the company decided to produce safe and low cost wax crayons, which are coloring sticks that can be made out of wax, chalk or charcoal. In fact, crayon comes from the French word for pencil.

VOICE TWO:


A box of Crayola crayons from 1903

Crayons were not a new art material, but good quality ones were costly8 to buy. It was Edwin Binney's wife Alice who invented the product name Crayola. The first part of the name comes from craie the French word for the material chalk. The second part comes from ola in the word oleaginous which means having to do with, or containing, oil.

Today, you can buy boxes of Crayola crayons with more than one hundred colors. But the first box of Crayolas only had eight colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown and black.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

If you want to understand how these famous colorful sticks are made, you can visit the Crayola Factory visitor's center in Easton, Pennsylvania. The real factory where Crayola crayons are produced is no longer open to the public. But at the visitors center you can see older versions of the machines that make crayons. Listen as one of the factory's guides tells about the company.

(SOUND)

CHARLIE DOHERTY:

Hi, I'm Charlie Doherty. I work here at the Crayola Factory making crayons...well, showing people how we make crayons and markers. Crayola was founded, the crayon part of the company, in nineteen-oh-three. In two thousand three we had our one-hundredth anniversary. We were the first to package eight different colors back in nineteen-oh-three. We had an eight pack. You know how many colors we make now? Guess! How many?

One hundred and a half. Yeah, they come in a tower.

VOICE TWO:


Charlie Doherty pouring liquid parrafin wax to make crayons

Charlie Doherty can also show you how the many machines work that produce crayons. He starts by pouring hot paraffin wax that has been colored with pigment9 onto a special table. The hot liquid pours into one thousand two hundred thin container molds that are the shape of a crayon. Then, Mister Doherty runs a scraper over the table to make sure the wax is evenly placed. As the wax cools, it keeps the shape of the crayon forms. Cold water helps cool the crayons more quickly. Next, he carefully takes the cooled crayons out of the forms. The ones that break or do not have perfect tips get melted again into the wax.

VOICE ONE:

Charlie Doherty then shows the labeling machine that wraps small squares of paper around the crayon using sticky glue made from cornstarch. The paper helps strengthen the crayon so it does not break easily when used. The labels also give the name of the color.

Before these machines existed, local farmers put the colored labels on the crayons by hand. It was a good way for these families to make money during the winter. If you visit this factory, you can try to roll and glue the paper on a newly made crayon. It is not as easy as it looks! Charlie Doherty says the farmers used to be able to put the paper labels on ten to twelve crayons a minute.


The sorting machine that puts crayons into their boxes

Next, there is a machine that puts crayons into small boxes made out of cardboard paper.

(SOUND)

The machine sorts the crayons so that every box has one of every color.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

A whole history could be written about Crayola's names for its many colors. Over the years Crayola has renamed three of its colors to be more politically correct and not risk insulting some groups of people. These include Prussian blue which became midnight blue, and Indian red which became chestnut10. In nineteen sixty-two the company changed the color flesh to peach. The Crayola Web site says this was partly a result of the civil rights movement in the United States during the nineteen-sixties.

VOICE ONE:

It might surprise you to learn how seriously some people take their crayons. In nineteen ninety Crayola decided to retire eight colors including raw umber, maize11 and lemon yellow. The company did not expect that many adults who grew up with those colors would be very upset. Some people even protested in front of the Crayola headquarters. People organized themselves into protest groups like RUMP. This stands for the Raw Umber and Maize Preservation12 Society. Another protest group was called The Society to Save Lemon Yellow.

Crayola did not return the eight old colors permanently13. But they did create special edition metal boxes of crayons that included the newly retired colors. They sold hundreds of thousands of those tins.

VOICE TWO:

You might be wondering who names all these colors. Crayola has three main ways for finding new names. Sometimes the company uses a book from the United States Commerce Department called Color: Universal Language and Dictionary of Names. This book is used by experts in industries like biology, botany, and home designing. Crayola also gets names from colors used by artists.

VOICE ONE:

Sometimes Crayola asks its workers for color ideas. Their suggestions include pig pink and blue bell. Crayola has even asked its buyers for color name ideas. In nineteen ninety-three Crayola held a competition for new names. Adrienne Watral was six years old at the time. She named an orange crayon after her favorite food, macaroni and cheese. Eighty-nine-year-old Mildred Sampson picked the name purple mountain majesty14. This phrase comes from a famous song about America, but it is also the perfect name for a color.

Crayola recently started writing the names of each color in Spanish as well as French. So, now when you pick up the blue color cornflower you can improve your language skills. Cornflower is azul aciano in Spanish and bluet in French.

VOICE TWO:

Crayola is not the only company that makes crayons. For example, the Swiss company Caran d'Ache makes many kinds of high quality art products. These include colorful drawing sticks like oil pastels and wax pastels. This company's products are mostly for professional artists and designers.

The company Dixon Ticonderoga makes Prang crayons out of wax and also out of soybean oil. Some people buy soy crayons because the colors are very bright and are good for the environment. These other companies might make similar products. But Crayola crayons have their own special place in the popular imagination of generations of Americans.

We leave you with the words of Daisy Bracken. She can tell you exactly which Crayola colors are special to her.

(SOUND)

Daisy:

My name is Daisy and I am four years old. Sometimes I color with crayons. I like indigo15, green and purple and pink and red and I like yellow...and green...and brown....

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Our program was written and produced by Dana Demange. I'm Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember. You can see pictures of crayons being made at our Web site, www.unsv.com. You can also find transcripts16 and audio archives of our programs. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 charcoal prgzJ     
n.炭,木炭,生物炭
参考例句:
  • We need to get some more charcoal for the barbecue.我们烧烤需要更多的碳。
  • Charcoal is used to filter water.木炭是用来过滤水的。
2 founders 863257b2606659efe292a0bf3114782c     
n.创始人( founder的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • He was one of the founders of the university's medical faculty. 他是该大学医学院的创建人之一。 来自辞典例句
  • The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. 我们宗教的创始人把这看作是道德的基石。 来自辞典例句
3 retired Njhzyv     
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的
参考例句:
  • The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
  • Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。
4 decided lvqzZd     
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 oxide K4dz8     
n.氧化物
参考例句:
  • Oxide is usually seen in our daily life.在我们的日常生活中氧化物很常见。
  • How can you get rid of this oxide coating?你们该怎样除去这些氧化皮?
6 zinc DfxwX     
n.锌;vt.在...上镀锌
参考例句:
  • Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。
  • Zinc is used to protect other metals from corrosion.锌被用来保护其他金属不受腐蚀。
7 slate uEfzI     
n.板岩,石板,石片,石板色,候选人名单;adj.暗蓝灰色的,含板岩的;vt.用石板覆盖,痛打,提名,预订
参考例句:
  • The nominating committee laid its slate before the board.提名委员会把候选人名单提交全体委员会讨论。
  • What kind of job uses stained wood and slate? 什么工作会接触木头污浊和石板呢?
8 costly 7zXxh     
adj.昂贵的,价值高的,豪华的
参考例句:
  • It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
  • This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用,左不过贵了些。
9 pigment gi0yg     
n.天然色素,干粉颜料
参考例句:
  • The Romans used natural pigments on their fabrics and walls.古罗马人在织物和墙壁上使用天然颜料。
  • Who thought he might know what the skin pigment phenomenon meant.他自认为可能知道皮肤色素出现这种现象到底是怎么回事。
10 chestnut XnJy8     
n.栗树,栗子
参考例句:
  • We have a chestnut tree in the bottom of our garden.我们的花园尽头有一棵栗树。
  • In summer we had tea outdoors,under the chestnut tree.夏天我们在室外栗树下喝茶。
11 maize q2Wyb     
n.玉米
参考例句:
  • There's a field planted with maize behind the house.房子后面有一块玉米地。
  • We can grow sorghum or maize on this plot.这块地可以种高粱或玉米。
12 preservation glnzYU     
n.保护,维护,保存,保留,保持
参考例句:
  • The police are responsible for the preservation of law and order.警察负责维持法律与秩序。
  • The picture is in an excellent state of preservation.这幅画保存得极为完好。
13 permanently KluzuU     
adv.永恒地,永久地,固定不变地
参考例句:
  • The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
  • The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。
14 majesty MAExL     
n.雄伟,壮丽,庄严,威严;最高权威,王权
参考例句:
  • The king had unspeakable majesty.国王有无法形容的威严。
  • Your Majesty must make up your mind quickly!尊贵的陛下,您必须赶快做出决定!
15 indigo 78FxQ     
n.靛青,靛蓝
参考例句:
  • The sky was indigo blue,and a great many stars were shining.天空一片深蓝,闪烁着点点繁星。
  • He slipped into an indigo tank.他滑落到蓝靛桶中。
16 transcripts 525c0b10bb61e5ddfdd47d7faa92db26     
n.抄本( transcript的名词复数 );转写本;文字本;副本
参考例句:
  • Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样,都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
  • You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书,你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句

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