VOA慢速英语2012 AMERICAN MOSAIC - OK, Here's the Story of 'America's Greatest Word'

AMERICAN MOSAIC¹ - OK, Here's the Story of 'America's Greatest Word'

 

JUNE SIMMS: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I’m June Simms. This week on our program, we have music from Drake ...

We also look at the history of the world's best-known American word ...

But first we tell you about some terms in American English that not even all Americans would know.

(MUSIC)

Dictionary of American Regional English 

JUNE SIMMS: In your country, are there terms that only people from your area can understand? Local language may be meaningless to outsiders without a special dictionary, like the Dictionary of American Regional English. As Barbara Klein reports, the fifth and final volume of the dictionary known as DARE has just been published.

BARBARA KLEIN: Joan Houston Hall is the chief editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English. She says DARE includes words, phrases, pronunciations and even grammar and syntax that differ from one part of the country to another.

JOAN HOUSTON HALL: "That strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street can be the parking strip, the parking, the parkway, the berm, the terrace, the tree lawn, the tree belt, the tree box, and the verge² and the swale and other things, too. It’s amazing to see the tremendous variety of terms used for the same thing."

BARBARA KLEIN: In some parts of the country, a carbonated soft drink is known as a soda³; in others, people call it pop. Some Americans cook with what they call a frying pan; others call it a skillet. And a party where everyone brings food is either a potluck or a pitch-in.

Work on the Dictionary of American Regional English began in nineteen sixty-five under Frederic Cassidy. He was an English professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He and a team of eighty researchers traveled across the United States to document words used by Americans to describe their daily lives.

The first volume, A to C, was released in nineteen eighty-five. The final volume starts with slab⁴, a term for a concrete road, and ends with zydeco, a kind of music popular in Louisiana.

Joan Houston Hall showed the final volume at a meeting of the American Dialect Society in January. Linguist⁵ Ben Zimmer writes about language for the Boston Globe and recalls the excitement.

BEN ZIMMER: "People just wanted to touch it like it was the holy relic⁶ or something."

BARBARA KLEIN: The Dictionary of American Regional English contains almost sixty thousand words and terms that offer a linguistic⁷ tour of America. One word we liked is honeyfuggle. It means to cheat or trick. The earliest uses were found in the eighteen hundreds in the South.

(MUSIC)

The Story of OK

JUNE SIMMS: Next we turn to the story of an American word that began in Boston, Massachusetts, and spread around the world. "OK" started as a joke in eighteen thirty-nine -- and, no, we're not honeyfuggling you.

Our listener question this week comes from Stirlitz, an English teacher in Cuba. She wants to know the true origin of OK. She says, "I have five different versions but I don't know which one to pick."

Well, a couple of years ago, VOA's Avi Arditti and Rosanne Skirble talked with Allan Metcalf. He wrote the book "OK: The Improbable Story of America's Greatest Word." And, he says, not just the greatest word.

ALLAN METCALF: "America's most important word. The most successful American export to the rest of the world. And also an embodiment of the American philosophy, the American way of thinking."

AA: "All this, packed into two letters."

ALLAN METCALF: "Yes, that's the beauty of it and that's the economy of it. One of the two aspects of the American view of the world is pragmatism, getting things done. Even if they're not perfect, they're OK. And the nice thing about OK is it doesn't imply that everything is perfect or beautiful or wonderful. In fact, it's a neutral affirmation. When you say 'That's OK' or someone asks you 'How are you?' and you say 'I'm OK,' it doesn't mean that you're in perfect health. But it also doesn't mean that you're sick.

RS: "O-K are just two letters of the alphabet. Do they stand for something?"

ALLAN METCALF: "Well, they do, as a matter of fact. One of the curious things about OK that makes it require a whole book to tell its story is that it began as a joke. It was on March twenty-third, eighteen thirty-nine, in a Boston newspaper, that the newspaper first used 'o.k.' and explained those as an abbreviation for 'all correct.' And, of course, the joke was that 'o' is not the beginning of 'all' and 'k' is not the beginning of 'correct.' So this thing supposedly all correct was not all correct."

JUNE SIMMS: At that time, Boston newspapers were publishing all sorts of abbreviations that were meant to be funny. Most of these disappeared.

ALLAN METCALF: "But it turns out that in the next year, eighteen forty, in the American presidential election of eighteen forty, a man named Martin Van Buren was running for re-election. He happened to come from Kinderhook, New York, and so somebody thought of calling him 'Old Kinderhook' and then thought of founding clubs supporting him throughout the country, called OK Clubs. OK, Old Kinderhook, is OK, all correct or all right. And that suddenly gave continued life and prominence⁸ to OK."

JUNE SIMMS: And then a third thing happened.

ALLAN METCALF: "During that presidential election year, Martin Van Buren's predecessor⁹ as president had been Andrew Jackson, and so there was an attack on Andrew Jackson by an opponent of Van Buren. The attack said that Jackson couldn't spell, so that Jackson would look at a document and if he approved of it, he would write 'OK' on it, meaning it was all correct. Now it turns out that that was a complete hoax¹⁰."

JUNE SIMMS: Andrew Jackson never wrote OK on a document, Allan Metcalf says. But as a result of that story, within about twenty years people really began marking OK on documents. People have been doing that ever since. But Allan Metcalf says the idea that OK began as a joke kept people trying to guess where it really came from.

ALLAN METCALF: "The OK-as-Andrew-Jackson's hoax was the first misleading statement of its origins. And then around the eighteen eighties a professor decided¹¹ that the true origin was from the Choctaw Indian language, where they had an expression like OK which means 'it is so,' and for various reasons that was proposed as the true explanation for OK. They spelled it 'o-k-e-h,' and the only American president ever to have a PhD, Woodrow Wilson, thought that was the correct explanation, so he would mark o-k-e-h on documents."

RS: "How does OK in our vocabulary represent who we are as Americans?"

ALLAN METCALF: "One way that it represents who we are is that it represents the pragmatic sense of getting it done. Maybe not getting it done perfectly¹², but it's OK. But the other way began with a book published in 1967 by a guy named Thomas Harris. The book is called 'I'm OK -- You're OK.' And the book happens to be about a kind of psychology¹³ known as transactional analysis.

"'I'm OK' -- that means I can do what I want. 'You're OK' -- you can do what you want. Maybe we aren't doing the same thing, but that's OK."

JUNE SIMMS: Allan Metcalf is an English professor at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois, and longtime executive secretary of the American Dialect Society.

He's been trying to gather support to celebrate a national OK Day each year on March twenty-third -- the day it first appeared in the newspaper.

(MUSIC)

Drake

JUNE SIMMS: Twenty-five year old Aubrey Drake Graham is best known by his stage name – Drake or Dizzy Drake. His second record album, “Take Care,” was released last November. Christopher Cruise has more.

(MUSIC)

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: “Headlines” was the first single from Drake’s latest album “Take Care.” The song quickly made its way to the number one position on Billboard¹⁴ magazine’s Rap Songs chart. It rose to number eighteen on the Canadian Hot 100 chart. Shortly after the album was released, it appeared at number nine on Billboard’s Hot 100 list.

Aubrey Drake Graham was born in the Canadian city of Toronto on October twenty-eighth, nineteen eighty six. His parents ended their marriage when he was five years old. He lived with his mother in Toronto’s wealthy Forest Hill neighborhood and spent summers with his father.

Aubrey Drake Graham attended high school at the Forest Hill Collegiate Institute, where he began acting¹⁵. He left high school before his studies were completed. But he went on to seek positions in acting. In two thousand one, he got the part of Jimmy Brooks¹⁶ in the television show “Degrassi: The Next Generation.” His work on the show ended in two thousand nine, when Jimmy finally graduated from the school.

In two thousand eight, Drake heard from recording¹⁷ artist Dwayne Carter, better known as Lil Wayne. The hip-hop star had heard about Drake’s music and flew him out to Houston for some performances. The two men worked together on many projects. In two thousand nine, Lil Wayne signed Drake to his recording label, “Young Money.”

Under the deal, Drake received two million dollars before recording his first album. He also got total publishing rights for all of his work. “Young Money” only got twenty-five percent on money earned from his music sales.

(MUSIC)

Within months of the deal, Drake released “So Far Gone,” which included the hit single “Best I Ever Had.” The single quickly claimed the number one position on Billboard’s R&B and Hip-Hop Song charts. It also earned two Grammy Award nominations¹⁹, three Soul Train Award nominations, five BET Hip-Hop Award nominations and an MTV Video music Award nomination¹⁸.

Drake has released two albums since signing his record deal. We leave you with “Look What You’ve Done,” a song from his album, “Take Care.”

(MUSIC)

JUNE SIMMS: I’m June Simms. We had writing help this week from Arick Simms and Avi Arditti.

Go to www.voanews.cn to find transcripts²⁰ and MP3s of our programs and to post comments on our relationship advice blog. If you want to ask our audience for advice, write to [email protected]. Type "relationship" in the subject line. We won't publish your name but please include your age, gender²¹ and country.

Join us again next week for music and more on AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

1 mosaic   

n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的

参考例句：

• The sky this morning is a mosaic of blue and white.今天早上的天空是幅蓝白相间的画面。
• The image mosaic is a troublesome work.图象镶嵌是个麻烦的工作。

2 verge   

n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。

3 soda   

n.苏打水；汽水

参考例句：

• She doesn't enjoy drinking chocolate soda.她不喜欢喝巧克力汽水。
• I will freshen your drink with more soda and ice cubes.我给你的饮料重加一些苏打水和冰块。

4 slab   

n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上

参考例句：

• This heavy slab of oak now stood between the bomb and Hitler.这时笨重的橡木厚板就横在炸弹和希特勒之间了。
• The monument consists of two vertical pillars supporting a horizontal slab.这座纪念碑由两根垂直的柱体构成，它们共同支撑着一块平板。

5 linguist   

n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者

参考例句：

• I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家，后来成了作家。
• Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。

6 relic   

n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物

参考例句：

• This stone axe is a relic of ancient times.这石斧是古代的遗物。
• He found himself thinking of the man as a relic from the past.他把这个男人看成是过去时代的人物。

7 linguistic   

adj.语言的，语言学的

参考例句：

• She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
• The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。

8 prominence   

n.突出；显著；杰出；重要

参考例句：

• He came to prominence during the World Cup in Italy.他在意大利的世界杯赛中声名鹊起。
• This young fashion designer is rising to prominence.这位年轻的时装设计师的声望越来越高。

9 predecessor   

n.前辈，前任

参考例句：

• It will share the fate of its predecessor.它将遭受与前者同样的命运。
• The new ambassador is more mature than his predecessor.新大使比他的前任更成熟一些。

10 hoax   

v.欺骗，哄骗，愚弄；n.愚弄人，恶作剧

参考例句：

• They were the victims of a cruel hoax.他们是一个残忍恶作剧的受害者。
• They hoax him out of his money.他们骗去他的钱。

11 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

12 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

13 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

14 billboard   

n.布告板，揭示栏，广告牌

参考例句：

• He ploughed his energies into his father's billboard business.他把精力投入到父亲的广告牌业务中。
• Billboard spreads will be simpler and more eye-catching.广告牌广告会比较简单且更引人注目。

15 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

16 brooks   

n.小溪( brook的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Brooks gave the business when Haas caught him with his watch. 哈斯抓到偷他的手表的布鲁克斯时，狠狠地揍了他一顿。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ade and Brooks exchanged blows yesterday and they were severely punished today. 艾德和布鲁克斯昨天打起来了，今天他们受到严厉的惩罚。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

18 nomination   

n.提名，任命，提名权

参考例句：

• John is favourite to get the nomination for club president.约翰最有希望被提名为俱乐部主席。
• Few people pronounced for his nomination.很少人表示赞成他的提名。

19 nominations   

n.提名，任命( nomination的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Nominations are invited for the post of party chairman. 为党主席职位征集候选人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Much coverage surrounded his abortive bids for the 1960,1964, and 1968 Republican Presidential nominations. 许多消息报道都围绕着1960年、1964年和1968年他为争取提名为共和党总统候选人所做努力的失败。 来自辞典例句

20 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句

21 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。