John: Welcome to this week’s edition of Round Table’s Word of the Week. I’m John Artman

ZHY: 大家好，我是赫揚，又到了一周一次的英語詞匯小百科板塊了。這個禮拜我們要聊一聊jaywalking, “jaywalking”中文應該叫“中國式過馬路”，我覺得這個把意義傳達的非常的直接。

John: Right, so Chinese crossing the street. In English, “jaywalking” is the illegal or reckless pedestrian crossing of a roadway. So, for example, people crossing between intersections without yielding to drivers or starting to cross at a crosswalk at a signal intersection without waiting for a permissive indication to be displayed.

ZHY: Well, that’s nicely put. 幾乎每天都會發生，我們看到在路上不看紅綠燈直接闖馬路，而且還有一個很有中國特色的一點就是一大窩峰的人一起過馬路。

John: And interestingly enough, the earliest use of the word “jaywalker” in print was in the Chicago Tribune in 1909 whereas the earliest citation was in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1917. And, so it was actually originally used as part of a deliberate effort by people trying to automobiles to redefine streets as places where pedestrians do not belong.

ZHY: 我們可以看到這個詞的背景。

John: So, actually, the word “jaywalk,” that’s J-A-Y-W-A-L-K, is actually a compound word derived from the word “jay,” which in this case means an inexperienced person, and the word, of course, “walk.”

ZHY: Ah, OK. “jay”這個詞看來還有表達沒有經驗的人的意思，雖然對于我們的中國聽眾來說，很多時候一說到 “jay”，我首先想到的就是周杰倫，或者是Modern Family 里面的那個老爺爺，他也叫Jay, 不過這里還有其他的含義。

John: Yes, exactly. So “Jay” is actually a very old word that’s not used in at least American English. I’m not quite sure about in theUK, but Looking at jaywalking in other countries, so in theUnited Statesusually state laws require that drivers yield to pedestrians at crosswalks and at many other locations. However, there are sometimes when pedestrians are supposed to yield to cars.

ZHY: When you say yield, you mean by giving way to the other party. Yes. 但是在中國的話，車子給人讓路的這種情況還是比較少的，所以從某種含義上講，也可以說中國式過馬路就是因為車子都不讓人，那人又過去，怎么辦呢？只好尋求互相的幫助然后一起沖過去。

John: Interestingly enough, in theUnited Kingdomand many other countries do legally recognize jaywalking. They do not actually have any formal regulations for drivers and pedestrians, except for Zebra, Pelican, and Puffin crossings.

ZHY: 本周的英語詞匯小百科就到這啦，這周你學會了這個新詞 “jaywalking” 了嗎？