词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Spider-Related Expressions

Broadcast on "Coast to Coast": May 30, 2002
Re-broadcast on VOA News Now: June 2, 2002

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster -- etymology¹ meets entomology! The new movie "Spider-Man" inspired us to untangle some spider-related expressions.

RS: Meet a real spider man, not the comic book superhero. Al York is a professor of entomology at Purdue University in Indiana. He teaches a popular course all about our eight-legged friends.

AA: So why are people so fascinated? For one thing, says Professor York, we have a long history together.

YORK: "They live with us. They tend to inhabit homes, probably because there are flies and insects in the homes and the spiders are looking to eat, they spend most of their time trying to acquire a meal, and since they only eat living organisms, they tend to be where those things are. And I think they're obvious too because of the cobwebs, which they form. Cobwebs are generally throughout literature used as symbols of dirt and disuse and abandonment, but we notice those and then we notice the spiders."

AA: Professor York says the word "web," meaning a spider web, spun² out of a different meaning originally.

YORK: "The interconnection in web actually meant woven cloth. This was Indo-Germanic and showed up back in the 600s, 700s in print, and then turned into spider web."

RS: "And then into our World Wide Web on our Internet."

YORK: "And then came World Wide Web. And in fact, spiders, of the technical people, spiders are in fact search engines which go out and search the World Wide Web."

AA: "Right, and can you talk a little about why the World Wide Web is called the World Wide Web?"

YORK: "Probably because it's so interconnected, it's reached out to connect all these different units, and you can pass from one unit to another along a particular trunk line and then from there you can go to another, and in fact it's frequently envisioned as a web."

AA: In American English, at least one kind of spider has found a special place. We're talking about a North American spider with a notorious reputation: the black widow.

RS: Yes, its bite is poisonous. But that's not why a woman who kills her husband might be nicknamed a "black widow." Al York describes the habits of the female black widow spider

YORK: "They do eat the male after copulation. They may and they may not, it depends on whether they're hungry. Frequently they do, frequently they don't. But this is not just the black widow. Almost any spider, female, will eat a male after copulation if she can catch him."

AA: "Oh what a tangled³ web we weave/When first we practise to deceive!" Sir Walter Scott wrote these words in a poem in eighteen-oh-eight. This saying remains⁴ popular, even at the risk of sounding cliched.

RS: Same with this classic way to describe being lured⁵: "'Come into my parlor⁶,' said the spider to the fly." As Professor York explains, it's from another nineteenth century verse, this one by the English poet Mary Howitt.

YORK: "It was a children's poem. Now, flies are not lured into spider's webs, but in fact just wander into them, although I'll tell you a real interesting little tale. There is a spider called a bola, spider b-o-l-a. This spider manufactures a chemical which smells like a female moth⁷, and she puts this on a little sticky round drop of silk, extended by a cord form her body.

"Now she spins this bola around and as she does so the smell of the female moth is exuded⁸ into the air and it attracts male moths⁹ of the same species, in which case then they come up and they get stuck to this bola. But other than that, 'come into my parlor' doesn't fit the biology of the spider at all."

AA: "Last question, have you seen the movie 'Spider-Man'?"

YORK: "No, but I have an old Spider-Man mask that I wear to class. [Laughter]"

RS: Al York at Purdue University. Before we go we鈥檇 like to thank listener Abdul Karim Muhammad from Zaria, Nigeria, for sharing a spider-related expression that he hears locally. He says young people use the saying, "what a cobweb reason."

AA: This, he says, means that a reason given is confused and has no meaningful or strong point.

RS: . . . though we suspect that a spider might disagree! But speaking of webs, you'll find Avi and me at...............or write to...........With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

MUSIC: "Spider-Man" movie theme

 

1 etymology   

n.语源；字源学

参考例句：

• The hippies' etymology is contentious.关于嬉皮士的语源是有争议的。
• The origin of OK became the Holy Grail of etymology.OK的出典成了词源学梦寐以求的圣杯。

2 spun   

v.纺，杜撰，急转身

参考例句：

• His grandmother spun him a yarn at the fire.他奶奶在火炉边给他讲故事。
• Her skilful fingers spun the wool out to a fine thread.她那灵巧的手指把羊毛纺成了细毛线。

3 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

4 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。

5 lured   

吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The child was lured into a car but managed to escape. 那小孩被诱骗上了车，但又设法逃掉了。
• Lured by the lust of gold,the pioneers pushed onward. 开拓者在黄金的诱惑下，继续奋力向前。

6 parlor   

n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅

参考例句：

• She was lying on a small settee in the parlor.她躺在客厅的一张小长椅上。
• Is there a pizza parlor in the neighborhood?附近有没有比萨店？

7 moth   

n.蛾，蛀虫

参考例句：

• A moth was fluttering round the lamp.有一只蛾子扑打着翅膀绕着灯飞。
• The sweater is moth-eaten.毛衣让蛀虫咬坏了。

8 exuded   

v.缓慢流出，渗出，分泌出( exude的过去式和过去分词 )；流露出对（某物）的神态或感情

参考例句：

• Nearby was a factory which exuded a pungent smell. 旁边是一家散发出刺鼻气味的工厂。 来自辞典例句
• The old drawer exuded a smell of camphor. 陈年抽屉放出樟脑气味。 来自辞典例句

9 moths   

n.蛾( moth的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The moths have eaten holes in my wool coat. 蛀虫将我的羊毛衫蛀蚀了几个小洞。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The moths tapped and blurred at the window screen. 飞蛾在窗帘上跳来跳去，弄上了许多污点。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》