介绍:
Xiaohua: Hello and welcome to RoundTable’s Word of the Week. This week we’re goanna talk about ways to talk about weather. And who better to talk about this topic than Mark?
Mark: Yes. Why is that? Cause I’m from Britain. And British people have the reputation of always talking about the weather. And you know what? It’s true. I mean I found myself doing this. If I’m in the lift for example, here at the radio station, and I don’t want there’s to be just silence in the lift if there are someone else in there. I might say “It’s a hot day today, isn’t it?” And this is how British people always start a conversation in those circumstances.
Xiaohua: OK. So let’s learn some of the ways to start a weather conversation. Shall we?
Mark: Yes. Well you can say something like “Lovely day, isn’t it?”
Xiaohua: “It is indeed!” Something like that should be the answer.
Mark: I think so.
Xiaohua: What about this? I’ve heard British people say “It’s a bit nippy today.” What exactly does that mean?
Mark: That’s very interesting. You know in Beijing in the winter, sometimes when it might be -15°C outside, you go outside and you can feel a kind of pain on your ear as your ear gets very, very cold very quickly. And it’s as though someone is pinching it with their thumb and four fingers, and a nip is kind of like a pinch like that. So it’s to say your ears been pinched by the cold weather. So you can say “It’s a bit nippy today.”
Xiaohua: 英国人有的时候会说“bit nippy today”，这实际上是说天气非常冷把耳朵都冻得有点疼的那种感觉。
Mark: Another one which is interesting very,very old phrase, hundreds of years old, is a kind of weather forecasting phrase used originally by shepherds, and it refers to what you see in the sky at night and in the morning, and then it predicts the weather of the next day. The first one is “Red sky at night, shepherds’delight.” This means that the following day will be sunny. But the other one is “Red sky in the morning, shepherds’warning.” This means it’s going to rain a bit later.
Xiaohua:所以在很久以前羊倌儿们就会知道通过看天色来预计第二天的天气是不是好了。
Mark: I mean you could say “Red sky at any of the time of the day, and you are living on Mars maybe.”
Xiaohua: All right. Did not expect that! What about if the weather is bad? What are some of the things you can say to complain about it to other people?
Mark: Well, people will complain about the weather and I think it’s the same in Beijing, cause recently we’ve had some lovely warm weather in Beijing. Warm. And that’s of typical British on the statement. It’s being like 40 degrees like an oven.
Xiaohua: I see. 好吧。所以当英国人说“It’s a bit warm,”他们可不是在说天气很暖和，而是说天气已经热的快受不了了。
Mark: But you can put a positive spin on bad weather though. I mean generally people agree that they don’t like rain. So if someone is complaining about the rain, you might hear somebody saying “But never mind, it’s good for the garden.” Cause British people those who are fortunate enough to have a garden, usually they like gardening, and so that’s what they will say to make a positive out of a negative.
Xiaohua:英国人的乐观和幽默可是出了名的，所以当连绵不断下雨的时候，你可能会听到英国人说：“Never mind, it’s good for the garden.”不管怎么说，对花园还是有好处的。
Mark: Do you know Xiaohua, another interesting phrase is that has been traced back to 18th century British naval ships is, I’m going to say it now people would think this is very rude, people might say “It’s cold enough to freeze the balls of a brass monkey.” But that’s not as rude as it is might sound. The “Brass Monkey” was the brass tray that cannon-balls were used to stack up cannon-balls on a naval ship in the 18th century. And you know when metals contract and expand, so in the winter on these naval ships when they were at sea, if it’s cold, the cannon-balls metal would contract slightly. The cannon-balls would get slightly smaller. And that meant the pyramid shaped stack that they were in would collapse, hence the saying “cold enough to freeze the balls of a brass monkey.” It’s not rude at all.
Xiaohua: 在十八世纪的海军用语当中有这样一句话是说天气非常冷，冷得把装炮弹的盘子上的炮弹都冻住了。但是因为装炮弹的盘子那个时候叫做“Brass Monkey”，所以这句话也经常会被人曲解成另外的意思。
Mark: But you know what they say there about weather forecast that’s supposed to be true? There’s an eighty percent chance that tomorrow will have the same weather that we have today. And the weather forecasts on the TV never get it right eighty percent of the time. So we are better of just assuming that there’s four out of five chance that tomorrow’s weather would be the same as today. If we believe that, then we are doing better than the professional weather forecasters.
Xiaohua: That’s interesting. And judging from the current weather conditions, I’m going to bring an umbrella tomorrow as well.
Mark: I think you cannot go wrong in China. Have an umbrella with you all the time, and you can use it if it’s raining, or if it’s a bit too sunny.
Xiaohua: That’s true. And that all the time we have for this edition of RoundTable’s Word of the Week.
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