听播客学英语 294 虱子

 　　Last time we had mouse – mice. This time it is louse – lice.

　　Headlice are tiny creatures which are sometimes found on people’s heads or in their hair. The eggs that these creatures lay are called nits. Often we do not like to talk about such things. But it is a fact that most small children catch headlice at some time. One day, when my daughter was only 2 years old, we noticed that she was scratching¹ her head. We looked closely² and – ugh! – we found she had headlice. My wife went to the Chemist’s shop to buy a special shampoo to kill the headlice. My daughter went too. The Chemist’s shop was crowded, and there was a queue³ of people waiting to be served. My daughter sat happily in her buggy, holding her favourite doll. An old lady came up to her and smiled. “And what have you got, my dear”, she said. “I GOT LICE”, said my daughter in a loud voice. There was silence in the shop. Several people looked at their watches and realised that they had to be somewhere else very quickly! In about 20 seconds the shop was empty. If you ever feel that you too would like to do your shopping without lots of other people around, why not take a child with headlice with you!

　　Incidentally⁴, do you know the word “lousy” in English? Literally⁵, it means⁶ “infested with lice”. But in colloquial⁷ speech we use it to mean “bad” – the weather is lousy today, I got a lousy mark for my German homework, I’ve got a lousy headache, and so on.

1 scratching   

刮痕

参考例句：

• It wasn't easy scratching out a living in those hard times. 在那段艰难的日子里，糊口真不容易。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He has this irritating mannerism of constantly scratching his nose. 他老是挠鼻子，这个习惯真让人不舒服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 closely   

adv.紧密地；严密地，密切地

参考例句：

• We shall follow closely the development of the situation.我们将密切注意形势的发展。
• The two companies are closely tied up with each other.这两家公司之间有密切联系。

3 queue   

n.队列；辫子；长队；vt.梳成辫子；vi. 排队

参考例句：

• To what window are you standing in a queue?你在排哪个窗口的队？
• I had to queue for quite a while.我不得不排一会儿队。

4 incidentally   

adv.附带地，顺便提及

参考例句：

• Incidentally,I think you still owe me some money.顺便说一句，我想你还欠我一些钱。
• Incidentally,here's a good piece of news.附带告诉你一个好消息。

5 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

6 means   

n.方法，手段，折中点，物质财富

参考例句：

• That man used artful means to find out secrets.那人使用狡猾的手段获取机密。
• We must get it done by some means or other.我们总得想办法把它干完。

7 colloquial   

adj.口语的，会话的

参考例句：

• It's hard to understand the colloquial idioms of a foreign language.外语里的口头习语很难懂。
• They have little acquaintance with colloquial English. 他们对英语会话几乎一窍不通。