介绍:
Heyang:大家好！我是赫扬~欢迎来到这周RT英语词汇小百科。今天和马克我们要一起来聊一聊关于shower的那些事儿。
Mark: Yes, and today we are going to be talking about a phenomenon of…either the weather or the bathroom. Right?
HY: I guess so. Actually this word has a surprisingly wide range of different meanings.
M: And the word is…
HY: Shower!
M: Yeah, we’re going to be talking about shower. So most of us are familiar in getting up in the morning and have a shower. Or actually many of my Chinese friends tell me that they have a shower last thing at night. There’s a cultural difference. Some people have a shower both at night and in the morning.
HY: And that’s a waste of water. But anyway, I think that going to bed without a shower is dirtying the bed.
M: Some people never have a shower. Isn’t it funny how you can always tell who those people are on the subway.
HY: Yes, it’s pretty obvious. One thing that always interested me and at first got me a bit confused is, in English, there’s this phrase “baby shower.” At first, I thought it’s about giving a bath to a baby. And it turns out to be a completely different thing.
M: This is an American thing actually. I don’t think it appears outside of America. But maybe it’s spreading through films and TV shows like Friends. I don’t know if there ever was a baby shower in Friends. But I’ll bet there was. Because it’s just the kind of thing that they would include in something like Friends, isn’t it?
Baby shower, as far as I know not being an American citizen and my knowledge of this is limited, I think it is where friends of the new mother buy gifts and give the gifts to the mother and have a sort of party. Why not? And they would get thing that are quite useful like nappies or sometimes in America known as dippers, blankets, useful stuff. I think it’s a good new tradition really the baby shower.
HY: Yeah, I think it’s the perfect occasion to celebrate the transformation of a woman into a mother. That’s something quite culturally unique, coz we don’t see that very much in China. But I do think it is an opportunity and occasion worth celebrating.
M: Sometimes it’s the companies themselves that are behind these new traditions. Is ‘new tradition’ an oxymoron? I think it is, isn’t? It’s something where each word contradicts itself. Anyway, it could be that it’s the manufacturers of the baby products that are behind this. So what, people don’t have to do it. Actually they do, it’s become part of the baby tradition in America.
That’s quite a good word to use for it. Coz they ‘shower’ the baby with gifts. We said that there’s two meanings to this word, but there aren’t really. Because there’s the shower you take in the morning, there’s the baby shower, or there’s a shower of rain which is light rain usually not lasting for very long. In fact, they all have the same meaning. Meaning something descending on you from above whether it be rain or water from the shower or presents. It’s pretty much the same meaning in all the uses of the word shower.
HY: And what about that phrase called “April showers bring May flowers.” What does it mean? Is it a nursery rhythm?
M: I’ve never heard of it. I don’t know where you’ve got it from. I’m always impressed when you find these ancient bits of English culture and literature. And I’ve never heard of any of them. But it makes sense, doesn’t it?
Because April showers gets the ground moist in April. So that means the seeds will pop up in May as flowers I suppose that’s what it refers to.
HY: It is a reminder that even the most unpleasant things, in this case the heavy rains of April, can bring about very enjoyable things indeed – in this case, an abundance of flowers in May. Many of life’s greatest things come only to those who wait, and by patiently and happily enduring the clouds and damp of April you can find yourself more easily able to take in the sights and smells of May. After all, it’s easier to love something if you begin with an optimistic outlook. I think it’s actually quite a nice phrase.
M: There’s one more meaning of shower that does have a different meaning. Our listeners who like watching old English films starring people like Terry Thomas perhaps you’ve never heard of him but it’s worth watching some of his movies and it was used to describe a bunch of losers. He’d say something like ‘What an absolute shower!’ that’s how he’s pretty much spoke. I think that was quite a good impression of him. So that’s another use of it which is different to the other meanings.
HY: That’s all the time we have for this week’s Word of The Week. We’ll see you next week!
