Question

It's not a new phenomenon, but have you noticed how many nouns are being used as verbs? We all use them, often without noticing what we're doing.

I was arranging to meet someone for dinner last week, and I said “I’ll pencil it in my diary”, and my friend said “You can ink it in”, meaning that it was a firm arrangement not a tentative one!

Many of these new verbs are linked to new technology. An obvious example is the word fax. We all got used to sending and receiving faxes, and then soon started talking about faxing something and promising we'd fax it immediately. Then along came email, and we were soon all emailing each other madly. How did we do without it? I can hardly imagine life without my daily emails.

Email reminds me, of course, of my computer and its software, which has produced another couple of new verbs. On my computer I can bookmark those pages from the World Wide Web that I think I'll want to look at again, thus saving all the effort of remembering their addresses and calling them up from scratch. I can do the same thing on my PC, but there I don't bookmark; I favorite—coming from “favorite pages”, so the verb comes from an adjective not a noun.

Now my children bought me a mobile phone, known simply as a mobile and I had to learn yet more new verbs. I can message someone, that is, I can leave a message for them on their phone. Or I can text them, write a few words suggesting when and where to meet, for example. How long will it be before I can mobile them, that is, phone them using my mobile? I haven’t heard that verb yet, but I’m sure I will soon. Perhaps I’ll start using it myself!

1.“I’ll pencil it in my diary” in the second paragraph probably means         .

A.it was a firm arrangement

B.he prefers a pencil to a pen

C.the arrangement should be written as a diary

D.it was an uncertain arrangement

2.A website address can be easily found if it has been______.

A.favorited B.messaged C.emailed D.texted

3.Which of the following has not been used as a verb yet?

A.message B.mobile C.email D.page

4.The best title for this passage is____.

A.Technology and Language.

B.Development of the English language

C.New Technology and New words

D.New Verbs from Nouns

Answer

1.D

2.A

3.B

4.D

【解析】

这是一篇说明文。本文通过多个例子告诉我们很多名词都已经转换成了动词。说明词汇是并不断的在变化。

1.词句猜测题。根据第二段第2行my friend said “You can ink it in”, meaning that it was a firm arrangement not a tentative one! 我的朋友说“你可以用墨水写下来”，意思是这是一个确定的安排，而不是暂时的! 所以通过上下文的语境可以判断出，“I’ll pencil it in my diary”意思是“这是一个不确定的安排”。故D正确。

2.细节理解题。根据第四段最后一行I favorite—coming from “favorite pages”, so the verb is derived from an adjective not a noun.说明我把这些网站设置成我最喜欢的网站，通过这种方法可以让我很快就找到这些网站。故A正确。

3.细节理解题。根据and we were soon all emailing each other madly. 和I favorite—coming from “favorite pages”, so the verb is derived from an adjective not a noun.以及I can message someone, 可知，我们很快就疯狂地给对方发邮件。我最喜欢——来自“最喜欢的页面”，所以动词是来自形容词而不是名词。我可以给某人发信息。说明ACD都可以作为动词，只有B项文章没有提及可以作为动词，故B正确。

4.主旨大意题。通读全文尤其是第一段“It's not a new phenomenon, but have you noticed how many nouns are being used as verbs?”可知，这不是一个新现象，但是你注意到有多少名词被用作动词了吗? 本文通过多个例子告诉我们很多名词都已经转换成了动词。所以短文的最佳标题为“来自名词的新动词”。故D正确。