听美文故事记6级单词03-06

6. Yahoo Celebrates a Decates Online

Yahoo, one of the net's most iconic companies, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week.

The web portal has undergone remarkable¹ changes since it was set up by Stanford University students David Filo and Jerry Yang in a campus trailer.

The students wanted a way of keeping track of their web-based interests.

The categories lists they devised soon became popular to hundreds of people and the two saw business potential in their idea.

Originally dubbed² "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web", the firm adopted the moniker Yahoo because the founders³ liked the dictionary definition of a yahoo as a rude, unsophisticated, uncouth⁴ person.

The term was popularised by the 18th Century satirist⁵ Jonathan Swift in his classic novel, Gulliver's Travels.

"We were certainly not sophisticated or civilised," Mr Yang told reporters ahead of the anniversary, which will be officially recognised on 2 March.

They did have business brains however, and in April 1995 persuaded venture capitalists Sequoia⁶ Capital, which also invested in Apple Computer and Cisco Systems, to fund Yahoo to the tune⁷ of $2m (￡1.04m).

A second round of funding followed in the autumn and the company floated in April 1996 with fewer than 50 employees.

Now the firm employs 7,600 workers and insists its dot-com culture of "work hard, play hard" still remains⁸.

It is one of just a handful of survivors⁹ of the dot-com crash although it now faces intense rivalry¹⁰ from firms such as Google, MSN and AOL.

Jerry Yang, who remains the firm's "Chief Yahoo", is proud of what the company has achieved.

"In just one decade, the internet has changed the way consumers do just about everything - and it's been a remarkable and wonderful experience," he said.

Through it all, we wanted to build products that satisfied our users wants and needs, but it's even more than that - it's to help every one of us to discover, get more done, share and interact."

1 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

2 dubbed   

v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

• Mathematics was once dubbed the handmaiden of the sciences. 数学曾一度被视为各门科学的基础。
• Is the movie dubbed or does it have subtitles? 这部电影是配音的还是打字幕的？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 founders   

n.创始人( founder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was one of the founders of the university's medical faculty. 他是该大学医学院的创建人之一。 来自辞典例句
• The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. 我们宗教的创始人把这看作是道德的基石。 来自辞典例句

4 uncouth   

adj.无教养的，粗鲁的

参考例句：

• She may embarrass you with her uncouth behavior.她的粗野行为可能会让你尴尬。
• His nephew is an uncouth young man.他的侄子是一个粗野的年轻人。

5 satirist   

n.讽刺诗作者，讽刺家，爱挖苦别人的人

参考例句：

• Voltaire was a famous French satirist.伏尔泰是法国一位著名的讽刺作家。
• Perhaps the first to chronicle this dream was the Greek satirist Lucian.也许第一个记述这一梦想的要算是希腊的讽刺作家露西安了。

6 sequoia   

n.红杉

参考例句：

• The sequoia national forest is at the southern end of the sierra nevada range.红杉国家公园位于内华达山脉南端尽头处。
• The photo shows the enormous general Sherman tree in California's sequoia national park.照片显示的是加利福尼亚州红杉国家公园内巨大的谢尔曼将军树。

7 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

8 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

9 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

10 rivalry   

n.竞争，竞赛，对抗

参考例句：

• The quarrel originated in rivalry between the two families.这次争吵是两家不和引起的。
• He had a lot of rivalry with his brothers and sisters.他和兄弟姐妹间经常较劲。