評論
打印
William: Hello, I'm William Kremer and this is Authentic Real English.
Wang Fei: 大家好，我是王飛。William, can I choose the word for today's programme?
William: Well, actually, Wang Fei, I've got lots of really good words to talk about.
Wang Fei: Oh go on, please!
William: OK, go on then.
Wang Fei: Thanks. I was reading a newspaper and I found this word: Climategate. Climate 意思是氣候，那 Climategate 是什么意思呢？
William: Ah. That's a little bit complicated. Basically, the word gate is used after another word to indicate that something is a scandal.
那有點復雜，gate這個詞通常用在其他詞之后，表示一些丑聞。
Wang Fei: A scandal 丑聞。
William: And possibly the biggest scandal in American history was the Watergate scandal.
美國歷史上最大的丑聞就是“水門事件”。
Wang Fei: Watergate… that was why President Nixon had to resign, wasn't it?
那是尼克松總統必須辭職的原因，對吧？
William: Yes, you know your history!
你很了解歷史。
Wang Fei: Yes. Was it a scandal about water?
是的，那是與水有關的丑聞嗎？
William: No, no. The word Watergate was actually the name of a building but it came to be used to refer to the whole scandal. And it is because Watergate was such a big scandal that nowadays, whenever there is any kind of scandal, the media likes to use the word –gate as a suffix.
Watergate實際上一個建筑的名稱，但是它被用來指代整個丑聞。水門事件影響巨大，以至于當今出現什么樣的丑聞，媒體都喜歡加上一個“門”做后綴字。
Wang Fei: A suffix 后綴。So Climategate is a scandal about the climate?
"氣候門"是與氣候有關的丑聞？
William: That's right! It happened a couple of years ago now. It was when some emails and other documents from a university in England led to people asking questions about the way that scientists researched climate change.
Wang Fei: Climategate 也就是氣候門事件，那是幾年前的一個新聞事件。當時一些泄漏的電子郵件和文件，導致了人們對那些研究氣候變化科學家們的質疑。
William: Let me give you another example from last year. Gordon Brown, who was Prime Minister at the time, was overheard calling an old lady a "bigot".
Gordon Brown那時是首先，被偶然聽到管一個老婦人叫“老頑固”。
Wang Fei: A bigot 老頑固。Wow, William, that's not a very good word.
William: No, it's a very strong word. Unsurprisingly this was a bit of a scandal and it came to be known in the media as 'bigotgate'.
是的，那是個貶義很強的詞。這也難怪成為一個小丑聞，媒體稱之為“bigotgate”
Wang Fei: Bigotgate. 聽起來很滑稽，是不是？
William: I think you're right. I think using –gate on the end of a word can make it seem a little bit humorous. And it is possible to use this word –gate in normal conversation to make a joke. Listen to this:
