Xiaohua: Hello, welcome to Round Table’s Word of the Week. This week we are talking about English expressions that have other countries or peoples in them.
John: Yes. Let’s start with France. So there are the French kiss and the “pardon my French” or “excuse my French”. So a French kiss, basically, just means it’s a type of very romantic kiss where two tongues are touching. Slang synonyms include, this is kind of vulgar actually, “swapping spit” or “tonsil hockey”. Interestingly enough, a French kiss is called that because at the beginning of the 20th century, the French had a reputation for more adventurous and passionate sex practices.
Xiaohua: I see. French kiss法式深吻，大家都知道了。
John: “Pardon my French” is a common English language phrase used to disguise profanity as French. These days it is used a bit tongue in cheek as in, you know, hey we all know that I said about words, but I’m just kind of joking about it. But when it first came into use, people were, in fact, serious about that. It was a way to apologize for saying bad words.
Xiaohua: “Pardon my French”一般是用在說了一些不好聽的話或一些臟話之后，然后請求對方的原諒。
John: Now we are going over to Mexico with the Mexican standoff. So it’s a confrontation among three armed opponents, usually the origin of the word list can armed with guns. So the problem is, NO.1, if you are in a duel, right the first person that shoots is at an advantage, because it’s only two people. But in a Mexican standoff, because there are three people, the first person you shoot is actually, at a disadvantage, because then the second person might shoot them, right? So the Mexican standoff, these days, has come to mean, basically, a confrontation or a situation where there is no tactical advantage in terms of first move. It’s also perhaps unsafe to try to withdraw from the confrontation.
Xiaohua: Mexican standoff, 我們在西部片里都看過類似的場景。三個牛仔在一起決斗，這個時候，第一個拔槍的人未必會占到先機，因為可能會被下一個人射倒。在現代英語中，Mexican standoff可能會指一個比較棘手的政治事件，在博弈當中最先出牌的人不見得會占到優勢。
John: These days it just comes to mean a confrontation no one has a measurable advantage and it might not be very wise to try to withdraw from the standoff. All right, now we are going to Greece with the phrase “it’s all Greek to me” or “it’s Greek to me”. Basically, it just means that when you’re looking at something written down, maybe someone who is speaking to you, maybe some complicated math or diagram, you look at it or you hear it and you have no idea what it’s supposed to mean. It’s all very foreign, completely incomprehensible, so it’s all Greek to you.
Xiaohua: 希臘話是很難學的，那么當有人說話聽上去像希臘話一樣，那就是說完全聽不懂。
John: And interestingly enough, some historians say this might be a direct translation from a similar phrase in Latin, which means it’s Greek, therefore it cannot be read. Now we are going over to the Netherlands with two different phrases “go Dutch” and “Dutch uncle”. I think everyone pretty much knows what “going Dutch” means, but it can actually be related to the farm doors on a Dutch barn house that are spit into two. But the “Dutch uncle” is someone who issues frank, harsh or severe comments and criticism to educate, encourage, or admonish someone.
Xiaohua: “go Dutch” 大家都知道是什么意思。我記得在以前的詞匯小百科里，我們也解釋過。那么“Dutch uncle”是指老是喜歡教育別人，說話不招人待見的人。
John: Then we are going to Russia with Russian roulette. Basically, you have a revolver which is a type of gun. A revolver has six different holes for six bullets. But in Russian roulette, you only put one bullet in one of the slots. You spin the barrel and then you play a game where each person has to put the gun to their head and pull the trigger.
Xiaohua: Yes. 俄羅斯輪盤賭可不是普通的賭博，而是真的在賭命，那么左輪手槍的轉輪一轉立刻就要決出生死。I think that’s the most stupid game I’ve ever seen.
John: Yeah, actually there is really no evidence to say that this actually comes from Russia at all. Instead, there was a short story by Georges Surdez in 1937, when he basically explained what he called the time Russian roulette. Now we are going to our favorite place in the entire world, China, to take a look at some words. So there are the Chinese wall and Chinese whispers. For Chinese wall, we usually don’t use these type of phrases in the United States any more. They are not considered to be politically correct. So a Chinese wall is basically just an information barrier or a communication wall between two different departments in the same organization. Usually, these days, we don’t call it a Chinese wall any more. We usually call it a fire wall.
Xiaohua: Chinese wall指的是難以逾越的障礙，那么也指的是在商業中兩個部門的人員之間的隔離以避免內幕交易。
John: And then there is the Chinese whispers, which I never heard of until today actually. For Chinese whispers, in the United States, we call it telephone. And basically it’s a game where we have a long line of people and someone at the beginning of the line whispers something like a sentence or phrase to the next person; then it has to keep going on. And more than likely, when it gets to the last person, the message has changed substantially, sometimes even to a comedic effect.
Xiaohua: 不知道有些英語專業的人，你們的老師有沒有給你們玩過Chinese whisper的游戲，在美國又叫telephone。