【英语语言学习】狗狗其实比你想象中厉害

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

There are enormous implications in a report this week from a team of Hungarian scientists who say that dogs can understand words, not just the tone in which we may tell them, oh, good boy, good little girl. Scientists at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest wrote in the Science journal that the 13 family dogs they studied used the same parts of their brain as humans to process language. They probably understand words.

Now, this is just not a cute little pet story. It might lead to rethinking the whole relationship we have with the dogs in our lives. It means we should no longer speak doggie baby talk, like otay snookie-woofums time for a walkie-poo. Instead, people will have to tell their dogs, good morning. In a moment, I'll take you outside to evacuate¹ your bowels² and bladder. In the meantime, I've left food with beef, rice and shards³ of carrots in your bowl that contains about 800 calories, zinc⁴, sulfate, vitamin E supplement, sodium⁵ selenite and 1.5 crude fiber⁶. I've put The Times op-ed page next to your bowl. I think you'll love Frank Bruni, but there's a column next to it you might want to poop on.

This research means we should probably speak in soft tones when talking near our dogs about delicate topics like spaying and neutering. Perhaps it's just wisest to whisper, you know, I think we have to take Olly in for that thing the vet⁷ does, you know. This finding that dogs understand words means that if you leave Morning Edition on for your dog while you go off to work, by the time you come home, your dog will be better informed than you. Imagine living with a smart-aleck dog who can correct you about the fine points of the Trans-Pacific Partnership⁸ trade deal or gets the answers to the weekend Sunday puzzle before you do.

Instead of leaving on music - light jazz or Vivaldi - as company for your dog when you go out at night, your dog might prefer to listen to an audiobook of Noam Chomsky reading "Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order." And if dogs understand language, how can we look into their soft, limpid⁹ eyes and woolly snouts to confide¹⁰ our deepest anxieties and darkest secrets if we know our dogs take in each and every word and just think I'd rather scratch myself than hear all this again?

(SOUNDBITE OF THE SINGING DOGS & DON CHARLES' "HOT DOG ROCK AND ROLL")

SIMON: Do we know the names of the singers? You're listening to NPR News.

1 evacuate   

v.遣送；搬空；抽出；排泄；大(小)便

参考例句：

• We must evacuate those soldiers at once!我们必须立即撤出这些士兵！
• They were planning to evacuate the seventy American officials still in the country.他们正计划转移仍滞留在该国的70名美国官员。

2 bowels   

n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处

参考例句：

• Salts is a medicine that causes movements of the bowels. 泻盐是一种促使肠子运动的药物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The cabins are in the bowels of the ship. 舱房设在船腹内。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 shards   

n.（玻璃、金属或其他硬物的）尖利的碎片( shard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyewitnesses spoke of rocks and shards of glass flying in the air. 目击者称空中石块和玻璃碎片四溅。 来自辞典例句
• Ward, Josh Billings, and a host of others have survived only in scattered shards of humour. 沃德、比林斯和许多别的作家能够留传下来的只是些幽默的残章断简。 来自辞典例句

4 zinc   

n.锌；vt.在...上镀锌

参考例句：

• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。
• Zinc is used to protect other metals from corrosion.锌被用来保护其他金属不受腐蚀。

5 sodium   

n.（化）钠

参考例句：

• Out over the town the sodium lights were lit.在外面，全城的钠光灯都亮了。
• Common salt is a compound of sodium and chlorine.食盐是钠和氯的复合物。

6 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。

7 vet   

n.兽医，退役军人；vt.检查

参考例句：

• I took my dog to the vet.我把狗带到兽医诊所看病。
• Someone should vet this report before it goes out.这篇报道发表之前应该有人对它进行详查。

8 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

9 limpid   

adj.清澈的，透明的

参考例句：

• He has a pair of limpid blue eyes.他有一双清澈的蓝眼睛。
• The sky was a limpid blue,as if swept clean of everything.碧空如洗。

10 confide   

v.向某人吐露秘密

参考例句：

• I would never readily confide in anybody.我从不轻易向人吐露秘密。
• He is going to confide the secrets of his heart to us.他将向我们吐露他心里的秘密。