【轻松英文阅读】弹力牛仔裤

 Remember how stiff jeans used to be? In the olden days, even sitting down or climbing stairs was hard. But these days jeans can be skintight yet surprisingly comfortable. The secret is the spandex, which they add to denim¹ to make it stretchy and comfortable.

 

However, this comfort comes at a price. Believe it or not, our love of stretchy jeans has lead to a shortage in the materials used to make American money.

 

Until recently, one of the main materials in American money was leftover² denim from jeans manufacturers. The leftover denim was bleached³, turned into pulp⁴, and finally it was made into bills.

 

printing money

 

Nowadays, spandex is added to most denim to make it comfortable. Denim with spandex is unusable for paper-making. As a result, the company that prints US money has to find other sources of cotton fiber⁵. This switch has been difficult but these days they are mainly using natural fiber—not recycled.

1 denim   

n.斜纹棉布；斜纹棉布裤，牛仔裤

参考例句：

• She wore pale blue denim shorts and a white denim work shirt.她穿着一条淡蓝色的斜纹粗棉布短裤，一件白粗布工作服上衣。
• Dennis was dressed in denim jeans.丹尼斯穿了一条牛仔裤。

2 leftover   

n.剩货，残留物，剩饭；adj.残余的

参考例句：

• These narrow roads are a leftover from the days of horse-drawn carriages.这些小道是从马车时代沿用下来的。
• Wonder if that bakery lets us take leftover home.不知道那家糕饼店会不会让我们把卖剩的带回家。

3 bleached   

漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的

参考例句：

• His hair was bleached by the sun . 他的头发被太阳晒得发白。
• The sun has bleached her yellow skirt. 阳光把她的黄裙子晒得褪色了。

4 pulp   

n.果肉，纸浆；v.化成纸浆，除去...果肉，制成纸浆

参考例句：

• The pulp of this watermelon is too spongy.这西瓜瓤儿太肉了。
• The company manufactures pulp and paper products.这个公司制造纸浆和纸产品。

5 fiber   

n.纤维，纤维质

参考例句：

• The basic structural unit of yarn is the fiber.纤维是纱的基本结构单元。
• The material must be free of fiber clumps.这种材料必须无纤维块。