介绍:
Xiaohua: Hello and welcome to Roundtable’s Word of the Week. Since Teacher’s Day has just passed, we think we’re going to talk about some terms that teachers and students are likely to use in school.
Mark: Yes. A for effort for coming up with that idea, Xiaohua.
Xiaohua: Thank you!
Mark: Oh I think we’ve already started, because that’s one of the phrases, isn’t it? A for effort. The origin of it is very, very simple, of course, because when you do a test or something at school, it’s graded A, B, C, sometimes down to F, which is the one you want to avoid, because it means fail. So A is the top mark. So it’s A for effort.
Xiaohua: A for effort就是尽管可能某人努力了，但没有成功，但他的努力是值得被嘉奖的。So A for effort. Something else that our English teacher always said to us back in my school time is that “you should learn it by heart”.
Mark: Yes, learn it by heart. This is “rote learning”, as it’s more correctly called. This is where the teacher says something and you recite it. You know, we did our times tables, and I can still remember it to this day: 1*8 is 8; 2*8 is 16; 3*8 is 24; 4*8 is 32; 5*8 is 40; 6*8 is 48; 7*8 is 56… Isn’t that amazing? I learned that when I was what, 6 years old, and it’s still in there, because we repeated it hundreds and hundreds of times. So this is called learning something by heart.
Xiaohua: 所以learn something by heart的意思并不是说要你用心去学，而是说要你把某件事情记住，memorize something basically.
Mark: Yes. A quick question for you, Xiaohua, what is 9 times 8?
Xiaohua: 72.
Mark: Well-done. See, it works for you as well.
Xiaohua: That is very simple, and I have learned it by heart, too.
Mark: So therefore, I can say, Xiaohua, that you have passed with flying colors.
Xiaohua: Hum, I don’t remember drawing anything with any colors, but I know what you’re talking about.
Mark: Pass with flying colors, it means that you’ve done very, very well. It’s the same as A for effort is. It’s a big compliment. It means not only did you pass, but you’ve passed at the highest level, and you should be commended for passing.
Xiaohua: Pass with flying colors的意思就是说轻松通过，并且还拿到了高分。And I remember there were always classmates who would say “Oh I did terribly on this test”, and then they passed with flying colors.
Mark: That’s it. The interesting thing about flying colors, is it’s a very old phrase. It goes right back to the ancient days of Royal Navy, back in the 18th Century. And the ships’ flags were called the colors, because they would use different flags for different occasions, and to send different messages. So flying colors means the flags flown from the mast of a ship. I like phrases like this that have a real historical story to go with them. But we still use them today.
Xiaohua: Exactly. And while the good students pass with flying colors, the bad students might play hooky.
Mark: Ah! This is an American one, you know. This means not being at school when you’re supposed to be at school. In British English, the correct phrase is to play truant. That’s the proper English. But I want to teach you the real English, alright? (Xiaohua: OK, please.) No one says playing truant. Everyone says skiving off. You know, “did you skive off yesterday? I didn’t see you in the class. Yeah, I skived off.” So that’s the slang version of playing truant, or hooky.
Xiaohua: Skive off, play truant, or play hooky都是逃学、翘课的意思。And then another phrase that I hear teachers say is “put your thinking cap on”.
Mark: It’s a great phrase, isn’t it? It’s as though we have different hats for different thinking processes, isn’t it? (Xiaohua: Right.) A bit like in Harry Potter, do you remember, when they used that hat to decide which house they would go in within the school. This is the same idea, that you have a particular hat, or cap for thinking. Put your thinking cap on, I think it’s a very nice phrase actually, very old one as well, hundreds of years old.
Xiaohua: And I think also a very polite one, and pretty creative one, because you know Mark, a strict Chinese teacher would just say: “use your brain!”
Mark: Yeah. And there’s another thing, which is on paper sizes. You know we have A4 and A3. But a really big piece of paper is called fool’s cap. This is because the big piece of paper was used to make a fool’s cap, a cone-shaped hat that in a couple of hundred years ago the teacher would make the kids wear this cone-shaped hat. And that’s why it’s called fool’s cap. So it’s the fool’s cap as opposed to the thinking cap.
Xiaohua: I see. That’s not very pleasant. (Mark: No.) Put your thinking cap on的意思就是戴上一顶思考的帽子，认真地去想一想。And here comes a phrase that the teachers all like, but students all hate. That’s teacher’s pet.
Mark: Ah, yeah no one wants to be the teacher’s pet, not in western society anyway. And a teacher’s pet is a student that always puts their hand up to ask a question, always volunteering to help the teacher, generally sucking up to the teacher. That’s teacher’s pet. It’s a great phrase. I like the idea, you know. But no one wants to be the teacher’s pet as you said.
Xiaohua: No. 老师的宠物其实就是说老师最偏爱的那个学生，那老师很可能会喜欢teacher’s pet, 但是一般来讲同学们都会非常讨厌teacher’s pet. OK, and that’s all we have for this week’s Word of the Week.
