介绍:
Xiaohua: Hello, and welcome to Roundtable’s Word of the Week. Today we’re talking about bikini, a word that everyone knows but maybe not everyone knows the origin of.
John: As Xiaohua just said, almost everyone knows what a bikini is. But just to be clear, the bikini is a two-piece swimsuit with a bra top and panties cut below the navel. So it’s not just a two-piece swimsuit. Specifically, it is a fairly revealing two-piece swimsuit.
Xiaohua：嗯，比基尼我们都知道是什么意思，就是一种两片式的由胸衣还有三角裤构成的泳衣。
John：Now it’s really interesting that are actually lots of different bikini variants. Basically just has the -kini or the -ini at the end. So you have the monokini, the microkini, the tankini, the trikini, the sling bikini among many others. And we’ll talk about what those are specifically a little bit later.
Xiaohua: So where does the word bikini come from?
John: Well, interestingly enough, it actually comes from the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, where the United States actually tested its first peace-time nuclear weapons. So the word bikini has nothing to do with the actually meaning of bikini. Bikini in the local language of that area basically means the surface of coconuts. But the original designer of the bikini named it after the Bikini Atoll because he was hoping it was going to be just as explosive as the nuclear bomb test.
Xiaohua: I see. 所以比基尼这个词其实来自太平洋的一个小岛，叫比基尼岛，Bikini Atoll。在上世纪40年代的时候，美国曾在比基尼岛上试爆过原子弹。bikini在当地语言中的意思是“椰子的表面”，但这并不是比基尼设计者用这个词给泳衣命名的原因，他是希望这种泳衣发明，效果或者影响力会像原子弹爆炸一样。
John：So the French mechanical engineer who actually came up with the bikini, the reason that he did it: he was actually working at his mother’s lingerie shop, and he noticed on the beach that many women, they had two-piece swimsuits that were fairly modest you might say. But he noticed that many women were actually rolling them up to get a better tan. And that’s how he came up with the idea for bikini, so a lot less fabric. The thing is, at the time, it was hugely risqué and deemed inappropriate for many women to be wearing. The Vatican completely outlawed them. In the U.S., in many cases, you had beaches that would ban people, men and women, from wearing this kind of very revealing underwear. But it wasn’t until the 1950s that Hollywood stars such as Bridget Bardot, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor, they started to wear these bikinis, mostly because it got them a lot of attention. And then it kind of came to the main stream.
Xiaohua: 比基尼的发明者是一位法国人，他的灵感实际上是这么来的。他在海滩上看到很多妇女穿着两片式的泳衣，但她们实际上把自己的泳衣向上卷起来，这样可以更好地晒到阳光。但是当他发明这款比基尼泳衣之后，在当时的西方社会引起了非常大的轰动，很多人都不能接受这种很暴露的穿着方式。一直到20世纪50年代，有很多好莱坞明星开始穿着比基尼之后，比基尼才开始流行起来。
John: And of course, this is where the notion of bikini tan comes from, basically where a woman, or a man, because there are men’s bikinis, just the bottom part really. You can see they have a tan line, a bikini tan line where the bikini actually is.
Xiaohua: bikini-tanline就是穿着比基尼泳衣时晒太阳在皮肤上留下的一种痕迹。
John: Let’s take a look at the different and many variations. We’re only going to give you a small sampling. Certainly there are more, but here are some of the more interesting ones. So a bandeau-kini, sometimes also called a bandini, is any bikini bottom worn with a bandeau as the top, so basically it’s a strapless top.
Xiaohua: bankini, 或者是bandeau-kini，是指泳衣的上身是由抹胸构成的泳衣。
John：And a microkini, including a minikini or a mini-mini, is basically an extremely skimpy bikini. So you take what the bikini already is, fairly revealing, and you make it even more revealing.
Xiaohua: microkini就是用料非常节省的泳衣。We all know what the effects are like.
John: Exactly. And a monokini or a unikini or sometimes even a numokini is basically just the bottom part, the panties of the bikini itself. And really it just refers to any type of topless swimsuit,
Xiaohua: monokini, 就是没有上片，只有三角裤的一种泳衣。I don’t anyone who will wear that.
John: You are not gonna see this in China. But topless swim bathing happens quite often in Europe. And then there is the skirtini, which is a bikini top and a small, skirted bottom. So basically it just gives you a bit more coverage on the bottom.
Xiaohua: 下半身是裙式的这种bikini叫skirtini. This is quite commonly seen in China.
John: Yeah very common. And then there is a string bikini, sometimes called a tie-side. Basically the bottom is just held together by 2 pieces of string.
Xiaohua: 系绳式bikini叫string bikini。
John: Then, last but not least for today, there is a tankini, which is a swimsuit combining a tank top, and then of course, the bikini bottom.
Xiaohua: Tankini上身的泳衣是背心式的。That’s a lot of knowledge for one day.
John: And there is so much more. I think that for me, I know nothing about women’s fashion. But certainly, I myself and doing the research learnt more than I ever needed to know.
Xiaohua: That’s right, and that wraps up roundtable’s Word of the Week.
