【词汇大师】探索与发现(1/2)

英语自学网

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探索英语的奥秘~

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TIPS
本篇对话中，主持人的对话不需要听写，只需听写嘉宾的话
主持人对话①  "As you did research for this book and looked at the trends and the words, did you see anything that would describe or illuminate the American character? I mean, were there any surprises to you?"
HINTS
  immemorialr
  Anne Fisher
  apologetic

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"A lot of people think that since time immemorial, 'he' has been the acceptable default pronoun -- 'he' alone for whether you're talking about a man or a woman. And this actually isn't true.
"This convention was invented in the mid seventeen hundreds by, interestingly enough, a female grammarian, Anne Fisher, the first female grammarian. And she was bothered because people had been using 'they' as a default pronoun for both singular and plural. People had been doing this since the thirteen hundreds."
"Yeah, there were -- quite a few. I think a lot of Americans are more than a bit apologetic about their language. They assume that British English is somehow purer or better than American English.