Hello everyone, this is Rosalyn from HJ English. Welcome to Lesson 6 of New Borns, new words to the English dictionary.

You might remember that a couple of weeks ago, we learnt a new phrase called ‘Mouse potato’. Someone who spends a lot of time on the computer! You might have figured out that here a person is likened to a dull, lifeless, possibly fat, potato! Well, there are many other food related words that are brand new to the English language, and can be very colourful and creative additions to your conversational English.

We call these types of phrases, “Figures of Speech”, and this means that they are words that are used in another way that diverges from their usual meaning. Here are some fun examples!

Muffin Top 

You may know of the delicious American muffin. It is similar to a cake in taste, and baked in a small cupcake tin. Think of the top of the muffin. The batter rises above the tin and rounds over the top of the tin, creating a curved top. Now think of a person who might be slightly overweight. Perhaps they are wearing tight jeans, and there is a little excess of skin, or a roll that curves over the top of their jeans. See the similarity?? This brand new word refers to exactly that, the fat that bulges over the top of your waistline when you are wearing clothes. It’s almost enough to put you right off eating muffins!

Cream-Crackered

Cream crackers are small, flat, usually square or rectangular savoury biscuits. However this word means nothing related to these biscuits at all! In fact, this is an example of cockney rhyming slang. The word Cream-Crackered rhymes with ‘knackered’ which means ‘very tired, or exhausted’. So cream-crackered means to be exhausted!

You can use these new words like this:
“I’ve worked for 12 hours straight today, I’m cream-crackered!”

“She may have a great new album out, but she doesn’t seem to have gotten rid of her muffin top!” 

小编的话...

不知你是否还记得几个星期以前,我们学习了一个新词“Mouse potato”(鼠标土豆),(>>温故知新去<<)指那些成天花很多时间在电脑前的人!在这个词组中,这一类人被比喻成呆滞,没有生机的肥土豆!其实英语中还有很多和食物有关的新词汇,掌握好它们,会让你的英语富有趣味而且有创意哦!

这一类词语运用了修辞手法,以下是几个有趣的例子:

Muffin Top

Muffin(小松饼)听说过吧?想一想小松饼的顶部……黏黏的糊状物布满了小松饼的顶端,形成了一个倒弧型。再想想微胖的人,想象他们穿着紧身牛仔裤……看到两者的相似之处了吗?(见下图o(╯□╰)o)

Muffin Top 指的正是穿衣服时腰部凸出的一圈赘肉。不吃小松饼就不会有赘肉啦~

【例句】Too-tight pants could result in unsightly muffin top.
穿紧身裤会出现不雅观的肚腩肉。



Cream crackers

Cream crackers(奶油苏打饼干)块头小,扁平,经常是四方形或者长方形,口感不错~但是,Cream crackers的另一层意思与饼干无关哦!事实上,这个俚语运用了伦敦腔的押韵——Cream-Crackered与knackered(非常疲惫)押 韵!因此Cream-Crackered暗含精疲力竭的意思。

【例句】“I’ve worked for 12 hours straight today, I’m cream-crackered!”
今天我连续工作12个小时了,已经精疲力竭了!

进入部落【跟外教学地道英英】节目单,选择其中一个或两个词造句,看看你是不是能够灵活运用了呢~(认真回答的筒子都可以获得100HY的奖励!);想一个和食物有关的词汇,必须有修辞的意思在里面哦~比如,carrot top可以指红头发的筒子~ 发挥你的想象力!(奖励100HY

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