VOA慢速英語:Words and Their Stories: Computer Terms

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

現(xiàn)在是美國之音慢速英語詞匯掌故節(jié)目。

Computer technology has become a major part of people's lives. This technology has its own special words. One example is the word mouse. A computer mouse is not a small animal that lives in buildings and open fields. It is a small device that you move around on a flat surface in front of a computer. The mouse moves the pointer, or cursor, on the computer screen.

計算機(jī)技術(shù)已經(jīng)成為人們生活的重要組成部分，它有一些術(shù)語，例如鼠標(biāo)(mouse)。電腦的鼠標(biāo)可不是那種生活在建筑物或室外的小動物。它是一種在電腦前的桌面上移動的小裝置，鼠標(biāo)用于操作計算機(jī)屏幕上的指針或光標(biāo)。

Computer expert Douglas Engelbart developed the idea for the mouse in the early nineteen-sixties. The first computer mouse was a carved block of wood with two metal wheels. It was called a mouse because it had a tail at one end. The tail was the wire that connected it to the computer.

十九世紀(jì)六十年代早期，計算機(jī)專家道格拉斯·恩格爾巴特(Douglas Engelbart)發(fā)明了全球第一個鼠標(biāo)，這是一個有著兩個金屬輪子的木雕制品。因?yàn)樗袀€尾巴而被稱為鼠標(biāo)，這個尾巴就是連接計算機(jī)的數(shù)據(jù)線。

Using a computer takes some training. People who are experts are sometimes called hackers. A hacker is usually a person who writes software programs in a special computer language. But the word hacker is also used to describe a person who tries to steal information from computer systems.

使用計算機(jī)需要參加一些培訓(xùn)。計算機(jī)專家有時也被稱為黑客(hackers)。黑客通常是指使用特殊計算機(jī)語言書寫軟件程序的人。但是，黑客一詞也用于形容試圖從計算機(jī)系統(tǒng)竊取信息的人。

Another well known computer word is Google, spelled g-o-o-g-l-e. It is the name of a popular "search engine" for the Internet. People use the search engine to find information about almost any subject on the Internet. The people who started the company named it Google because in mathematics, googol, spelled g-o-o-g-o-l, is an extremely large number. It is the number one followed by one-hundred zeros.

另一個眾所周知的計算機(jī)詞匯是Google(中文名谷歌)，它是一個熱門互聯(lián)網(wǎng)“搜索引擎”的名稱。人們使用這個搜索引擎在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上可以找到幾乎任何主題的信息。公司創(chuàng)始人把它命名為Google，因?yàn)樵跀?shù)學(xué)上，googol是一個非常大的數(shù)字，即1后面跟了100個0(即10的100次方)。

When you "Google" a subject, you can get a large amount of information about it. Some people like to Google their friends or themselves to see how many times their name appears on the Internet.

當(dāng)你搜索某個主題，你可以得到大量相關(guān)信息。有些人喜歡搜索朋友或自己的名字看看他們在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上出現(xiàn)了多少次。

51VOA注：Google在這里做動詞用，類似國內(nèi)的“百度一下”

If you Google someone, you might find that person's name on a blog. A blog is the shortened name for a Web log. A blog is a personal Web page. It may contain stories, comments, pictures and links to other Web sites. Some people add information to their blogs every day. People who have blogs are called bloggers.

如果你搜索某人，你可能會找到他的博客。博客(blog)是網(wǎng)絡(luò)日志(Web log)的縮寫。博客是一種個人網(wǎng)頁，它可能包含一些經(jīng)歷，評論，圖片和其他網(wǎng)站的鏈接。有些人會每天更新博客。有博客的人被稱為博主(bloggers，也可譯為博客)。

Blogs are not the same as spam. Spam is unwanted sales messages sent to your electronic mailbox. The name is based on a funny joke many years ago on a British television show, "Monty Python's Flying Circus." Some friends are at an eating place that only serves a processed meat product from the United States called SPAM. Every time the friends try to speak, another group of people starts singing the word SPAM very loudly. This interferes with the friends' discussion – just as unwanted sales messages interfere with communication over the Internet.

博客與垃圾郵件(spam)不同，垃圾郵件是指發(fā)往你的電子信箱的一些無用的銷售信息。這個單詞基于很多年前的英國電視秀節(jié)目《巨蟒劇團(tuán)之飛翔的馬戲團(tuán)》上的一個有趣的笑話。朋友們來到到一個只提供斯帕姆午餐肉(SPAM)的餐館，斯帕姆午餐肉是一種來自美國的預(yù)烹肉制品。每當(dāng)這些朋友想要說話，另一批人就開始大聲唱SPAM。這干擾了朋友們的討論 - 就像垃圾郵件影響互聯(lián)網(wǎng)交流。

注：《巨蟒劇團(tuán)之飛翔的馬戲團(tuán)》，英式無厘頭的始祖, BBC最偉大的電視節(jié)目第五名。