英语流利说 第25天

红色表示重点词汇

蓝色表示句子主干

带着问题听讲解

Q1: “toxic”和“poisonous”有何区别？

Q2: “gaslighting”该如何理解？

Q3: 你认为 2018 年的年度词是什么？

‘Toxic’ is Oxford’s word of the year. No, we’re not gaslighting you.

Oxford Dictionaries has chosen “toxic” as its international word of the year, selecting it from a short list that included such politically inflected contenders as “gaslighting,” “incel” and “techlash.”

Katherine Connor Martin, the company’s head of U.S. dictionaries, said there had been a marked uptick of interest in the word on its website over the past year. But the word was chosen less for statistical reasons, she said, than for the sheer variety of contexts in which it has proliferated, from conversations about environmental poisons to laments about today’s poisonous political discourse to the #MeToo movement, with its calling out of “toxic masculinity.”

Oxford’s word of the year is chosen to reflect “the ethos, mood or preoccupations” of a particular year, but also to highlight that English is always changing. Last year’s winner was “youthquake.” In 2016, it was “post-truth.”

“Toxic” derives from the Greek “toxikon pharmakon,” meaning “poison for arrows.” The current entry in the online Oxford English Dictionary dates its earliest known printed occurrence to 1664.

Other words on the short list highlight different ways words emerge or evolve. While “toxic” is an old and very common word that has expanded in usage, “incel” — short for “involuntarily celibate” — is an example of jargon used by a limited group that suddenly enters widespread usage. And then there’s “techlash,” defined as “a strong and widespread negative reaction to the growing power and influence of large technology companies, particularly those based in Silicon Valley.”

 

《牛津词典》2018年度词汇：“有毒”，我们不是在忽悠你

《牛津词典》从一份候选名单中选择了“有毒”作为 2018 年度全球热词，该名单上与其相竞争的还有诸如“煤气灯操纵法”、“非自愿独身者”和“科技抵制”等颇具政治色彩的词汇。

该公司的美国版词典负责人凯瑟琳·康纳·马丁说，过去一年中，人们在牛津词典网站上对 “有毒” 一词的兴趣明显增加。但她说，之所以选择这个词，与其说是出于数据统计方面的原因，不如说是因为它在各种各样的语境中大量涌现：从关于环境中有毒物质的讨论、对现今恶毒的政治话语的哀叹，到指控那些“有毒的男子气概”的 #我也是# 运动，都与之息息相关。

《牛津词典》的年度词汇是被挑选出来反映出该年份的“精神特质、情绪或关注焦点”的，同时也是为了强调英语是一门不断变化的语言。去年的年度词汇是“青年震荡”，而在 2016 年，则是“后真相”。

“有毒”源自希腊语中的“toxikon pharmakon”，含义是“箭上的毒药”。目前在线牛津英语词典上关于该词的条目可追溯到 1664 年，它最早于此年出现在印刷品中。

候选名单上的其他单词突出了单词起源或演变的不同方式。虽然“有毒”是一个古老、很常见且应用语境很广的单词，但“incel”——“非自愿单身者”的缩写，却是一个小群体内行话突然被广泛使用的例子。然后是“科技抵制”，该词被定义成“对科技巨头（尤其是硅谷公司）日益增长的权力和影响的强烈且广泛的抵制”。