英语听力精选进阶版 7111

Background: Enormous, capacious, skelping 还有 vast – 这些词语仅仅是单词 large 在即将发行的，迄今最大的同义词词典里289个同意词语里的几个代表。Thesaurus 意思是同义词词典。The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford¹ English Dictionary 里共有词语60万条历代词语，这些词语是按照日期和意思来分类的。经过40余年的整理编写后，这本巨型同义词词典即将问世。

It’s the world's first historical thesaurus, grouping words by meaning and by date. And it survived fire, lack of funds and the death of some of its founders².

Tomorrow the work will finally be unveiled to academics prior to its publication in October.

Professor Christian³ Kay of the University of Glasgow began work on the project as a 28-year-old research assistant. She's now 69 and thinks it will be invaluable⁴ to scholars not just of linguistics⁵ but of cultural and social history.

Professor Kay:

"You know, if you're interested in something like clothes, it's very interesting to see what people have been wearing for the last 1,300 years. So I was looking at a whole list of words to do with trousers and there were words that would never have occurred to you probably that these words meant trousers."

That's where a thesaurus beats a dictionary, she says. But it's much harder work to compile. In the early days they simply wrote the words on slips of paper and grouped them in different ways.

Professor Kay remembers the dreadful day when the building caught fire and they nearly lost ten years' work. Fortunately the slips were in metal filing cabinets and survived.

Now all that work, and all those words, can be shared with the world.

GLOSSARY⁶ 词汇表

funds 资金

founders 创建人

unveiled 揭开面纱

academics 学者

prior to 在…之前

invaluable 无价的

linguistics 语言学

compile 编纂

slips of 纸张

in metal filing cabinets 在金属文件柜里

Questions and Answers

1. When will the thesaurus be published?

It will be published in October.

2. How old is Professor Kay?

She is 69.

3. Does Professor Kay think the book will be valuable to scholars of linguistics?

Yes, she thinks it will be invaluable. Invaluable means 无价的.

4. How many years' work was lost in the fire?

They nearly lost ten years' work that day, but it survived because it was stored in metal filing cabinets.

1 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

2 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

3 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

4 invaluable   

adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的

参考例句：

• A computer would have been invaluable for this job.一台计算机对这个工作的作用会是无法估计的。
• This information was invaluable to him.这个消息对他来说是非常宝贵的。

5 linguistics   

n.语言学

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。

6 glossary   

n.注释词表；术语汇编

参考例句：

• The text is supplemented by an adequate glossary.正文附有一个详细的词汇表。
• For convenience,we have also provided a glossary in an appendix.为了方便，我们在附录中也提供了术语表。