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】

试题分析：本文讲述的是在语言的发展过程中，很多次的词性都发生了变化，由名词变成了动词。本文举了多个例子来证明这一点。

1.D 推理题。根据第二段2,3行“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!说明用铅笔写的是不确定的，用墨水写的是确定的，故D正确。

2.A 推理题。根据第四段最后两行I favorite—coming from “favorite pages”, so the verb comes from an adjective not a noun.说明我们可以从最喜欢的网页中找出自己喜欢的，也就是说你 可以把这些网站放在你所喜欢的收藏夹里。故A正确。

3.B 细节题。I can message someone和we were soon all emailing each other madly以及 I favorite—coming from “favorite pages”, so the verb comes from an adjective not a noun.说明ACD三项的名词都可以转换为动词，只有mobile不是，故B正确。

4.D 主旨大意题。根据文章主题段第一段可知本文是语言中的词性变化的话题，很多名词都会转变成动词，故D正确。

考点：考查文化类短文阅读