評論
打印
William: Hello, I'm William Kremer and this is The English We Speak.
威廉：大家好，我是威廉·克萊默，這里是地道英語節目。
Wang Fei: Hi there. I'm Wang Fei.
王飛：大家好。我是王飛。
William: So, Wang Fei, today is 3 May.
威廉：王飛，今天是5月3日。
Wang Fei: Yes.
王飛：是啊。
William: Do you know what 3 May is?
威廉：你知道5月3日是什么日子嗎？
Wang Fei: Hmm… a Tuesday?
王飛：嗯……星期二？
William: Yes, it's a Tuesday, but it's not just any Tuesday. Today is World Press Freedom Day. This is the day that the United Nations has chosen to highlight the importance of a free press around the world.
威廉：對，就是星期二，不過并不是指所有的星期二。今天是世界新聞自由日。今天是聯合國選定的日子，用來突顯全世界新聞自由的重要性。
Wang Fei: A free press. So, newspapers that are free to write anything they think the public need to know and TV news that can report anything?
王飛：新聞自由。那報紙可以自由的報道他們認為民眾需要知道的事情嗎？電視新聞也可以報道任何事嗎？
William: Yes they can report anything, including things that look bad for the government! Scandals.
威廉：是的，他們可以報道任何事，包括那些對政府不太好的事情！可以報道丑聞。
Wang Fei: A scandal, so something very bad that damages someone's reputation.
王飛：丑聞，就是非常糟糕的事情，它會損害某人的名聲。
William: Exactly. And one of the most famous scandals from American history is the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s.
威廉：沒錯。美國歷史上最著名的丑聞之一就是上世紀70年代早期發生的水門事件。
Wang Fei: Watergate… that was why President Nixon had to resign wasn't it?
王飛：水門事件……那就是導致尼克松總統辭職的丑聞嗎？
William: Exactly, yes, because he was shown to have lied to the American people and basically obstructed the course of justice. The whole thing started when five men were arrested for breaking into an office block called Watergate. This was where the Democratic Party had their headquarters. Later on, the men were linked to the campaign to re-elect President Nixon, who was in the Republican Party.
威廉：完全正確，因為他對美國人民說謊，而且阻撓了司法公正。事件的起因是五名男子因闖入名為水門的辦公大樓而被捕。這座大樓是民主黨的總部。之后，這些男子被發現和共和黨總統尼克松的連任有關系。
Wang Fei: Well, this is very interesting but what has it got to do with The English We Speak, William?
王飛：嗯，這非常有趣，不過威廉，這和地道英語節目有什么關系？
William: Well, because Watergate was such a massive scandal, Wang Fei, the word -gate is now sometimes used as a suffix to suggest that something is a scandal. So, to give you an example from last year, when Gordon Brown was trying to get re-elected as British Prime Minister, he was overheard calling an old lady a "bigot"–a very strong word for somebody who is intolerant and close-minded. Anyway, this was a big scandal and it came to be known in the media as 'bigotgate'.
威廉：因為水門事件是大規模的丑聞，王飛，單詞-gate現在用作后綴，用來形容某件事是個丑聞。給你舉個例子，去年戈登·布朗試圖尋求連任英國首相，有人聽到他稱一名老婦人是“偏執者”，這是一個非常強烈的詞，用來形容某人偏執而且思想封閉。不管怎么樣說，這是一個大的丑聞事件，媒體稱之為“偏執門”。
Wang Fei: Bigotgate. That sounds almost a little bit funny.
王飛：偏執門。這聽起來有點好笑。
William: Yes, you're right. I think using -gate on the end of a word can make it seem a little humorous. This term -gate is used more in the USA, but another recent example from the UK is 'Climategate'–that 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. Climategate.
威廉：你說得對。我想在詞的后面加上后綴-gate聽上去會有一些滑稽。后綴-gate在美國應用的更廣，不過近期英國發生了“氣候門”丑聞，英國某大學的一些電郵和文件被公開，這使人們質疑科學家研究氣候變化的方法。這就是氣候門。
Wang Fei: So, can we use -gate in normal English conversation too?
王飛：那-gate這個后綴也能用在一般的英語對話中嗎？
William: Yes, you can–if you want to make a joke. Listen to this:
威廉：是的，可以，如果你想開玩笑的話。來聽這個例子：
Man A: Have you seen Mark recently?
男A：你最近見過馬克嗎？
Man B: Mark–he hasn't spoken to me since beergate!
男B：馬克，啤酒門之后他就不跟我說話了！
Man A: Beergate? What do you mean?
男A：啤酒門？你什么意思啊？
Man B: We had a big argument because I said Mark never bought a round of beer in the pub! He got very upset and went home.
男B：我們大吵了一架，因為我說馬克從來沒在酒吧請我們喝過啤酒！他非常難過，然后就回家了。
Wang Fei: So in that example, the speaker coined the word beergate to describe an argument about paying for beer!
王飛：在這個例子中，說話者創造了啤酒門這個詞來形容因為付啤酒錢而爆發的爭吵！
William: Yeah, which is obviously very silly. But of course, this suffix -gate is used in very serious situations too. And it was thanks to members of the free press, including the Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, that the public came to know about Watergate.
威廉：對，顯然這非常傻。不過當然，-gate這個后綴也用在非常嚴肅的場合中。多虧新聞自由組織的成員，《華盛頓郵報》的記者鮑勃·伍德沃德和卡爾·伯恩斯坦，公眾才了解了水門事件。
Wang Fei: Yes. Check our website this week for more information and learning English programmes about World Press Freedom Day. Goodbye.
王飛：好的。大家可以在本周瀏覽我們的網頁了解更多有關世界新聞自由日的信息并學習英語節目。再見。
William: Bye!
威廉：再見！
