酷兔英语



(原载南大百合,周童瑜著)

读懂笑话必先掌握的相关背景知识:

Chicken Little忧天小鸡,原为十九世纪中期西方童话故事《Henny-Penny》中的一个角色。它有一天在树林里散步,一颗椽子掉在它头上,它以为天要塌下来了,就急急忙忙跑去告诉它的鸡、鸭、鹅等朋友,大家商量后决定立刻报告林中之王,半途遇上一只愿意带路的狐狸,结果被带进狐狸洞,统统都给狐狸吃了。 后在英语中,Chicken Little就用来比喻胆小者,指因不必要的忧虑和担心而寝食不安的人或对事情估计过于悲观的人。

笑话如下:

One day the first grade teacher was reading the story of Chicken Little to her class. She came to the part of the story where Chicken Little tried to warn the farmer. She read, ".... and so Chicken Little went up to the farmer and said, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"

The teacher paused then asked the class, "And what do you think that farmer said?"
One little girl raised her hand and said, "I think he said: 'Holy ****! A talking chicken!'"
The teacher was unable to teach for the next 10 minutes.

额外更多:英国人对鸡似乎没有什么好感,chicken一字被用于比喻时,多属贬意。如:指嘴上没有毛的年轻人,胆小如鼠的人都为chicken.另外chicken与其它词组成的词组也是含贬义者居多.如chicken head 笨蛋,蠢人;chicken hearted 和 chicken livered 都为"胆怯的","软弱的"之意。chicken feed 为数甚微的款项,就像"鸡食"一样少。to chicken out 临阵逃脱 等等,非常常见。



关键字:笑话幽默
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