Unit 7
New Words
deadeye:In informal English,dead
may mean "precise(ly)" or
"accurate(ly)".
---Bill was a dead shot with a rifle.
---The model plane landed dead in the
middle of the square.
ignorant:(of,about) knowing little
or nothing
---Thousands of children leaving
school are ignorant of even basic
skills.
----Many children are surprisingly
ignorant about current politics.
spoil:1,cause to become of no
use or value; ruin 损坏 ; 糟蹋
2,give a child whatever it wants,
or let it do what it wants,with the
result that it behaves badly 宠坏,
溺爱 Spoil carries a strong
implication of inevitable
uselessness,destruction or ruin
----The bad soap powder has
spoiled my expensive new dress,
----The bad weather spoiled our
holidays,
---Her parents spoilt her with
toys of very kind.
nasty,unkind and unpleasant towards
other people
Something that is nasty is very
unpleasant to see,hear,smell,taste,
touch or experience.
--There's a nasty smell in the kitchen.
----He had a nasty cut above the eye,
----He shouted a nasty word at her.
A nasty person is someone who is
rude or unpleasant to other people,
Don't be nasty to your brother,
The landlord of the apartment
was really nasty to John last night,
chase:follow rapidly in order to
catch 追赶,追逐
Chase implies an effort to catch or as
if to catch a fleeing object or to drive
away an oncoming thing,
The policeman was chasing the
fleeing thieves,
The boys chased the cat out of the
school yard,
whereas;although; while
He must be about sixty,whereas his
wife looks about thirty.
You eat a massive plate of food for
lunch,whereas I have just a sandwich.
follow-up:A follow-up is an
action or a thing,such as a
second or subsequent visit,letter,
plan,etc.,designed to be a
further effort in achieving some
goal,The word is also used as
an adjective to mean "used or
sent as a follow-up".
This conference is a follow-up
to an earlier one in Beijing,
He needed follow-up treatment
from a specialist doctor.
mess:a state of disorder or confusion;
Compare,mess,disorder,
confusion
Mess refers to an untidy,disorganized or
troubled state; disorder implies lack or
disturbance of due order or arrangement;
while confusion suggests mixing or
mingling that removes clear distinction,
My place is a mess,but make yourself
at home.
Students often make a mess of this
type of question,
The burglar had searched his desk
for money and left it in disorder with
contents thrown about,
He was so busy that he always leaves
his desk in confusion with objects
mingled together.
dimension:characteristic; quality
When dimension means a
characteristic or quality of
somebody or something,it is used in
its figurative sense and refers to an
aspect or a factor that influences the
way people understand the person or
the thing,
The finds have added a new
dimension to the personality of
this great man,
His personality has several
different dimensions.
presence:1,the fact or state of being
present 2,a person,or a being with
human characteristics,which is not
visible,but which people are aware of
in a particular place
In the whole course of the event,there
was a presence behind the scene.
She felt a mysterious presence with
her in the room.
venture:take the risk of saying
(something that may be
opposed or considered foolish)
She tentatively ventured the
opinion that the project would
be too expensive to complete.
"He has much more talent than
anyone else we've interviewed so
far," I ventured.
hunk,a large piece of sth,that is
cut from a whole
a hunk of bread
a hunk of cheese
a hunk of meat
gasp:catch the breath suddenly,
esp,because of surprise,shock,
etc,
When she saw the money hidden
in the box,she gasped in
surprise,
I gasped when I heard how
much his new car had cost.
New Phrases
battle one’s way,一路奋战
The word way is used with a verb in
a number of expressions such as
"make one's way","push one's way",
"force one's way"," work one's
way",etc,in order to suggest an
idea of movement,progress,or
force as well as the action described
by the verb,
Examples:
You can't force your way into
somebody's house.
He shouldered his way to the
front of the crowd to get a
better look.
come of,result from 产生 ; 是 … 的结果
I'll let you know what comes of
the meeting.
You're always fooling around(闲混 ),No good will come of it,I
assure you.
No harm can come of trying.
Poverty often comes of idleness.
ease in (小心翼翼地 )使逐步适应
He is gradually eased in to the
job.
It takes some time to ease in
a new employee.
get at,1,rush at 向 … 冲来
2,tackle; take in hand with energy
着手处理
The boy went at the cat with a
stick.
The breakfast arrived and he went
at it like a starving refugee,
Let's go at the problem right now.
He went at his job.
among other things:除了别的以外 ;
其中
When you use the phrase among
other things,you are indicating that
something is one characteristic,
example,situation,etc,of many
other characteristics,examples,
situations,etc,which you could
have mentioned instead,
Examples:
It would be right to describe your
father,among other things,as a
very hard-working person.
He suggested,among other things,
that she might stay there for a
few days,
Thomas Jefferson,
Thomas Jefferson served as
third President of the United
States,was the author of the
Declaration of
Independence,独立宣言,,and founded what
came to be the Democratic
Party,
He played a major part in
shaping government theory and
practice,putting into words and
laws the ideals of a nation
dedicated to the principle that all
men are created free and equal,
Beyond his achievements in
politics,Jefferson is noted as a
"renaissance man" for his
accomplishments in architecture,
science,and philosophy,among
other fields.
He designed his own home,
Monticello,which is now a
national park,and founded the
University of Virginia,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
known popularly as F.D.R.,
was elected to four
consecutive terms as
president of the United States,
serving from 1933 to 1945,
He is credited with leading
the country out of the Great
Depression through an
ambitious plan of
government spending known
as the New Deal (新政 ),
Roosevelt also led the U.S,through
most of World War II,though he
died before the war ended,He is
considered by many to be the
greatest president of the 20th
century and his likeness is
immortalized on Mt,Rushmore
along with those of Washington,
Jefferson and Lincoln.
Yankee:1.（美国的）新英格兰人 ; （美国）北方佬
2.（纽约）扬基队（美国职业棒球队）
The most popular theory holds that
the word Yankee comes from Jan Kee
("Little John"),a Dutch expression
applied to Dutch seamen in America
and then to New England sailors,It
was then applied to all New
Englanders and later to all Americans
during the American Revolution,
Nowadays,the British and others
use it for American Northerners,
and American Northerners use it
for New Englanders,who are
usually proud of the nickname,
The New York Yankees are the
most famous and the most
successful team in the history of
major league baseball,playing in
the borough of the Bronx in New
York City,They won the World
Series championship,which is
played each October,more often
than any other team,
Harlem:
Harlem is a section of upper Manhattan
in New York City which,though
originally settled by the Dutch,has
long contained one of the largest urban
concentrations of black people in the
United States,In the 1930s,such
figures as the writer Langston Hughes
contributed to a Harlem Renaissance in
arts and literature,Today,much of the
area is dilapidated and high in crime,
Louisiana is a state of the southern
U.S,on the Gulf of Mexico;
originally a French colony,bought
by the United States as part of the
Louisiana Purchase.
The Louisiana Purchase refers to
the land deal made between U.S,
president Thomas Jefferson and
Napoleon Bonaparte of France in
1803,Jefferson authorized the
purchase of land from the
Mississippi River westward to the
Rocky Mountains and from the
Gulf of Mexico northward to
Canada for roughly $525 million.
Though it was a great bargain,
doubling the size of the U.S,at
the time and adding richly
productive farmlands,the
Louisiana Purchase was
controversial because it was
unclear that the president had
the authority to make such a
purchase without the approval of
Congress,
LANGUAGE POINTS
(1) a school that was otherwise all
white -- a school in which all pupils
would have been white if I had not
entered it
otherwise -- adv,under other
circumstances; in other respect.
This is a very bad defect in an
otherwise perfect piece of work.
I couldn't see you at that time,for I
was otherwise engaged.
(2) The prevailing wisdom in the
neighborhood was that we were
spoiling it and we ought to go
back where we belonged,-- The
most common opinion of people
living in that area was that our
presence was ruining the area,
and that we ought to move back
to the area (for blacks) from
which we had come.,
prevailing -- adj,normal,usual
or most common at a particular
time
This is the prevailing view on the
current world situation.
He wore his hair in the
prevailing fashion.
belong -- vi,(to a particular place
or time) come from,begin in or
exist in that place or time
His wife belongs to another
village.
This behavior belongs to an
earlier stage of human evolution.
3) for a time = for a period of time
I lived in Beijing for a time during
the 1980's.
He was for a time my next-door
neighbor.
4) pretty -- adv,(in informal English)
quite,rather,very
I am pretty certain she enjoys the
book.
I must say this is pretty strange.
(5),.,they did establish the fact that I could
speak English,--,.,they (my answers)
actually proved that I was able to speak
English and was not foreign.
establish -- vt,1) show beyond dispute;
prove
The doctors have so far been unable to
establish the cause of his death.
He established his innocence by showing
that he was in another city when the
murder was committed,
2) (used in the pattern,establish
sb,as) gain full recognition or
acceptance of sb,as
The victory established him as a
leading politician,
The company has established
itself as a low-cost and high-
quality manufacturer.
(6) a question that required me to
clean up the girl's mess and
established me as a smart person
-- a question that required me to
set aright the girl's wrong answer
and that (when I answered it
smartly) proved that I was a
smart person
(7) a dark presence in the back of the
room -- an unknown black kid in the
back of the classroom that nobody
really cared about
(8) I was for Roosevelt because my
parents were,.,-- I supported Roosevelt
because my parents supported him,..
be for -- be in favor of
The majority of the people are for peace.
Are you for or against the proposal?
(9) Like our high-school building,
he just was,-- Like our high-
school building,he simply existed
-- a fact that we took for granted
and never questioned,
be -- vi,exist
I think,therefore I am,
Not all that is can be understood,
(10),.,she shot back,--,.,she
quickly asked me another question
(upon my answer to the first one).
shoot -- vt,send forth like a shot
or an arrow; send right away and
swiftly
The reporters shot question after
question at the mayor.
She shot a suspicious look at me.
(11) Her final service to me
came,.,-- The last thing she did
that helped me occurred,...
service -- n,a helpful act; sth,
done to help or benefit others,
Will you do me a service?
George Washington performed
many services for his country.
(12) That was the ice breaker,
That in the sentence refers to the
incident described in the preceding
paragraph of Miss Bean's throwing
a hunk of gum eraser at the black
boy,This incident "broke the ice",
that is,ended the situation in which
the white students would not talk to
the black newcomer.
(13) I became just another kid in
school,-- I became just as ordinary
as any other kid in school (with
nothing special or different about
me),
1.Do / did used for "emotive
emphasis"
It is possible to use do / did +
infinitive in the affirmative when
we wish to add special emphasis.
You do look nice today!
She does talk a lot,doesn't she?
The structure is especially used
when another speaker has expressed
doubt about the action referred to,
a) -- He hasn't met the newcomer
yet,
-- He did meet him yesterday,
b) -- It seems that he heard nothing
about the plan,
-- Yes,he did hear about it.
merely:only and nothing else
Compare,merely,only
Both merely and only can be used to imply
that something or someone is no better,
worse,more interesting,more important,
more useful or more valuable than what is
stated,but merely carries the implication of
"simply and nothing more",while only is
used especially to imply restriction to what
is specified,
We accept plans like this merely
because they have proved
feasible.
It's not a fight,It's only a quarrel,
I'm only interested in finding out
what the facts are.
(10) Negroes -- black people
Negroes,blacks and African Americans:
Each of these terms refers to the
minority group in the U.S,who traces
their ancestry to sub-Saharan Africa,
Over the years,these words have
changed substantially,in their degree of
acceptance and their use among the
white majority and the black population
itself,
The term Negro,which is capitalized,became the
preferred term in the early 20th century,but has
been out of date since the 1960s (though it is found
in the writings of Dr,Martin Luther King and
many other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement),
It was replaced by the term black (not Capitalized)
which reflects a greater pride in African identity,as
indicated by James Brown's song,"Say it Loud,
I'm Black and I'm Proud." In the 1970s the term
Afro-American was used in many formal contexts,
but it has now been replaced by African-American
(sometimes without the hyphen).
In current usage,"black" is used in
most spoken or informal contexts,
and "African-American" in most
formal or written contexts (though
there is also a difference in
meaning between the two as the
former,but not the latter,includes
Africans and Afro-diasporic
peoples living outside of the U.S.).
New Words
deadeye:In informal English,dead
may mean "precise(ly)" or
"accurate(ly)".
---Bill was a dead shot with a rifle.
---The model plane landed dead in the
middle of the square.
ignorant:(of,about) knowing little
or nothing
---Thousands of children leaving
school are ignorant of even basic
skills.
----Many children are surprisingly
ignorant about current politics.
spoil:1,cause to become of no
use or value; ruin 损坏 ; 糟蹋
2,give a child whatever it wants,
or let it do what it wants,with the
result that it behaves badly 宠坏,
溺爱 Spoil carries a strong
implication of inevitable
uselessness,destruction or ruin
----The bad soap powder has
spoiled my expensive new dress,
----The bad weather spoiled our
holidays,
---Her parents spoilt her with
toys of very kind.
nasty,unkind and unpleasant towards
other people
Something that is nasty is very
unpleasant to see,hear,smell,taste,
touch or experience.
--There's a nasty smell in the kitchen.
----He had a nasty cut above the eye,
----He shouted a nasty word at her.
A nasty person is someone who is
rude or unpleasant to other people,
Don't be nasty to your brother,
The landlord of the apartment
was really nasty to John last night,
chase:follow rapidly in order to
catch 追赶,追逐
Chase implies an effort to catch or as
if to catch a fleeing object or to drive
away an oncoming thing,
The policeman was chasing the
fleeing thieves,
The boys chased the cat out of the
school yard,
whereas;although; while
He must be about sixty,whereas his
wife looks about thirty.
You eat a massive plate of food for
lunch,whereas I have just a sandwich.
follow-up:A follow-up is an
action or a thing,such as a
second or subsequent visit,letter,
plan,etc.,designed to be a
further effort in achieving some
goal,The word is also used as
an adjective to mean "used or
sent as a follow-up".
This conference is a follow-up
to an earlier one in Beijing,
He needed follow-up treatment
from a specialist doctor.
mess:a state of disorder or confusion;
Compare,mess,disorder,
confusion
Mess refers to an untidy,disorganized or
troubled state; disorder implies lack or
disturbance of due order or arrangement;
while confusion suggests mixing or
mingling that removes clear distinction,
My place is a mess,but make yourself
at home.
Students often make a mess of this
type of question,
The burglar had searched his desk
for money and left it in disorder with
contents thrown about,
He was so busy that he always leaves
his desk in confusion with objects
mingled together.
dimension:characteristic; quality
When dimension means a
characteristic or quality of
somebody or something,it is used in
its figurative sense and refers to an
aspect or a factor that influences the
way people understand the person or
the thing,
The finds have added a new
dimension to the personality of
this great man,
His personality has several
different dimensions.
presence:1,the fact or state of being
present 2,a person,or a being with
human characteristics,which is not
visible,but which people are aware of
in a particular place
In the whole course of the event,there
was a presence behind the scene.
She felt a mysterious presence with
her in the room.
venture:take the risk of saying
(something that may be
opposed or considered foolish)
She tentatively ventured the
opinion that the project would
be too expensive to complete.
"He has much more talent than
anyone else we've interviewed so
far," I ventured.
hunk,a large piece of sth,that is
cut from a whole
a hunk of bread
a hunk of cheese
a hunk of meat
gasp:catch the breath suddenly,
esp,because of surprise,shock,
etc,
When she saw the money hidden
in the box,she gasped in
surprise,
I gasped when I heard how
much his new car had cost.
New Phrases
battle one’s way,一路奋战
The word way is used with a verb in
a number of expressions such as
"make one's way","push one's way",
"force one's way"," work one's
way",etc,in order to suggest an
idea of movement,progress,or
force as well as the action described
by the verb,
Examples:
You can't force your way into
somebody's house.
He shouldered his way to the
front of the crowd to get a
better look.
come of,result from 产生 ; 是 … 的结果
I'll let you know what comes of
the meeting.
You're always fooling around(闲混 ),No good will come of it,I
assure you.
No harm can come of trying.
Poverty often comes of idleness.
ease in (小心翼翼地 )使逐步适应
He is gradually eased in to the
job.
It takes some time to ease in
a new employee.
get at,1,rush at 向 … 冲来
2,tackle; take in hand with energy
着手处理
The boy went at the cat with a
stick.
The breakfast arrived and he went
at it like a starving refugee,
Let's go at the problem right now.
He went at his job.
among other things:除了别的以外 ;
其中
When you use the phrase among
other things,you are indicating that
something is one characteristic,
example,situation,etc,of many
other characteristics,examples,
situations,etc,which you could
have mentioned instead,
Examples:
It would be right to describe your
father,among other things,as a
very hard-working person.
He suggested,among other things,
that she might stay there for a
few days,
Thomas Jefferson,
Thomas Jefferson served as
third President of the United
States,was the author of the
Declaration of
Independence,独立宣言,,and founded what
came to be the Democratic
Party,
He played a major part in
shaping government theory and
practice,putting into words and
laws the ideals of a nation
dedicated to the principle that all
men are created free and equal,
Beyond his achievements in
politics,Jefferson is noted as a
"renaissance man" for his
accomplishments in architecture,
science,and philosophy,among
other fields.
He designed his own home,
Monticello,which is now a
national park,and founded the
University of Virginia,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
known popularly as F.D.R.,
was elected to four
consecutive terms as
president of the United States,
serving from 1933 to 1945,
He is credited with leading
the country out of the Great
Depression through an
ambitious plan of
government spending known
as the New Deal (新政 ),
Roosevelt also led the U.S,through
most of World War II,though he
died before the war ended,He is
considered by many to be the
greatest president of the 20th
century and his likeness is
immortalized on Mt,Rushmore
along with those of Washington,
Jefferson and Lincoln.
Yankee:1.（美国的）新英格兰人 ; （美国）北方佬
2.（纽约）扬基队（美国职业棒球队）
The most popular theory holds that
the word Yankee comes from Jan Kee
("Little John"),a Dutch expression
applied to Dutch seamen in America
and then to New England sailors,It
was then applied to all New
Englanders and later to all Americans
during the American Revolution,
Nowadays,the British and others
use it for American Northerners,
and American Northerners use it
for New Englanders,who are
usually proud of the nickname,
The New York Yankees are the
most famous and the most
successful team in the history of
major league baseball,playing in
the borough of the Bronx in New
York City,They won the World
Series championship,which is
played each October,more often
than any other team,
Harlem:
Harlem is a section of upper Manhattan
in New York City which,though
originally settled by the Dutch,has
long contained one of the largest urban
concentrations of black people in the
United States,In the 1930s,such
figures as the writer Langston Hughes
contributed to a Harlem Renaissance in
arts and literature,Today,much of the
area is dilapidated and high in crime,
Louisiana is a state of the southern
U.S,on the Gulf of Mexico;
originally a French colony,bought
by the United States as part of the
Louisiana Purchase.
The Louisiana Purchase refers to
the land deal made between U.S,
president Thomas Jefferson and
Napoleon Bonaparte of France in
1803,Jefferson authorized the
purchase of land from the
Mississippi River westward to the
Rocky Mountains and from the
Gulf of Mexico northward to
Canada for roughly $525 million.
Though it was a great bargain,
doubling the size of the U.S,at
the time and adding richly
productive farmlands,the
Louisiana Purchase was
controversial because it was
unclear that the president had
the authority to make such a
purchase without the approval of
Congress,
LANGUAGE POINTS
(1) a school that was otherwise all
white -- a school in which all pupils
would have been white if I had not
entered it
otherwise -- adv,under other
circumstances; in other respect.
This is a very bad defect in an
otherwise perfect piece of work.
I couldn't see you at that time,for I
was otherwise engaged.
(2) The prevailing wisdom in the
neighborhood was that we were
spoiling it and we ought to go
back where we belonged,-- The
most common opinion of people
living in that area was that our
presence was ruining the area,
and that we ought to move back
to the area (for blacks) from
which we had come.,
prevailing -- adj,normal,usual
or most common at a particular
time
This is the prevailing view on the
current world situation.
He wore his hair in the
prevailing fashion.
belong -- vi,(to a particular place
or time) come from,begin in or
exist in that place or time
His wife belongs to another
village.
This behavior belongs to an
earlier stage of human evolution.
3) for a time = for a period of time
I lived in Beijing for a time during
the 1980's.
He was for a time my next-door
neighbor.
4) pretty -- adv,(in informal English)
quite,rather,very
I am pretty certain she enjoys the
book.
I must say this is pretty strange.
(5),.,they did establish the fact that I could
speak English,--,.,they (my answers)
actually proved that I was able to speak
English and was not foreign.
establish -- vt,1) show beyond dispute;
prove
The doctors have so far been unable to
establish the cause of his death.
He established his innocence by showing
that he was in another city when the
murder was committed,
2) (used in the pattern,establish
sb,as) gain full recognition or
acceptance of sb,as
The victory established him as a
leading politician,
The company has established
itself as a low-cost and high-
quality manufacturer.
(6) a question that required me to
clean up the girl's mess and
established me as a smart person
-- a question that required me to
set aright the girl's wrong answer
and that (when I answered it
smartly) proved that I was a
smart person
(7) a dark presence in the back of the
room -- an unknown black kid in the
back of the classroom that nobody
really cared about
(8) I was for Roosevelt because my
parents were,.,-- I supported Roosevelt
because my parents supported him,..
be for -- be in favor of
The majority of the people are for peace.
Are you for or against the proposal?
(9) Like our high-school building,
he just was,-- Like our high-
school building,he simply existed
-- a fact that we took for granted
and never questioned,
be -- vi,exist
I think,therefore I am,
Not all that is can be understood,
(10),.,she shot back,--,.,she
quickly asked me another question
(upon my answer to the first one).
shoot -- vt,send forth like a shot
or an arrow; send right away and
swiftly
The reporters shot question after
question at the mayor.
She shot a suspicious look at me.
(11) Her final service to me
came,.,-- The last thing she did
that helped me occurred,...
service -- n,a helpful act; sth,
done to help or benefit others,
Will you do me a service?
George Washington performed
many services for his country.
(12) That was the ice breaker,
That in the sentence refers to the
incident described in the preceding
paragraph of Miss Bean's throwing
a hunk of gum eraser at the black
boy,This incident "broke the ice",
that is,ended the situation in which
the white students would not talk to
the black newcomer.
(13) I became just another kid in
school,-- I became just as ordinary
as any other kid in school (with
nothing special or different about
me),
1.Do / did used for "emotive
emphasis"
It is possible to use do / did +
infinitive in the affirmative when
we wish to add special emphasis.
You do look nice today!
She does talk a lot,doesn't she?
The structure is especially used
when another speaker has expressed
doubt about the action referred to,
a) -- He hasn't met the newcomer
yet,
-- He did meet him yesterday,
b) -- It seems that he heard nothing
about the plan,
-- Yes,he did hear about it.
merely:only and nothing else
Compare,merely,only
Both merely and only can be used to imply
that something or someone is no better,
worse,more interesting,more important,
more useful or more valuable than what is
stated,but merely carries the implication of
"simply and nothing more",while only is
used especially to imply restriction to what
is specified,
We accept plans like this merely
because they have proved
feasible.
It's not a fight,It's only a quarrel,
I'm only interested in finding out
what the facts are.
(10) Negroes -- black people
Negroes,blacks and African Americans:
Each of these terms refers to the
minority group in the U.S,who traces
their ancestry to sub-Saharan Africa,
Over the years,these words have
changed substantially,in their degree of
acceptance and their use among the
white majority and the black population
itself,
The term Negro,which is capitalized,became the
preferred term in the early 20th century,but has
been out of date since the 1960s (though it is found
in the writings of Dr,Martin Luther King and
many other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement),
It was replaced by the term black (not Capitalized)
which reflects a greater pride in African identity,as
indicated by James Brown's song,"Say it Loud,
I'm Black and I'm Proud." In the 1970s the term
Afro-American was used in many formal contexts,
but it has now been replaced by African-American
(sometimes without the hyphen).
In current usage,"black" is used in
most spoken or informal contexts,
and "African-American" in most
formal or written contexts (though
there is also a difference in
meaning between the two as the
former,but not the latter,includes
Africans and Afro-diasporic
peoples living outside of the U.S.).
