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”, but 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 live 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. fax

4. The best title for this passage is____________.

A. How to use verbs

B. Development of the English language

C. Origins of verbs

D. New Verbs from Nouns

 

Answer 1

【答案】

 

1.D

2.A

3.B

4.D

【解析】

试题分析：文章介绍了英语词汇词性的变化，随着社会的发展，原来的很多词性都发生了变化，许多名词可用作动词，本文以此为中心，介绍了一些名词作动词用的用法。

1.D细节理解题。I said “I’ll pencil it in my diary”, but my friend said “You can ink it in”, meaning that it was a firm arrangement not a tentative one!句意为：我说“I’ll pencil it in my diary”而我的朋友却说：“You can ink it”意思是说：它是一个固定的安排而不是一个暂定的安排，由此可知我说的应该是一个还没确定的安排，故答案应为B。

2.A细节理解题。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. 我能在我的个人电脑上做同样的事情，没有用书签，而是用“favorite”来做标记，因此这样一个动词来源于一个形容词。由此可知，对我最喜欢的网止,他们都已经被”favorited”

3.B词义理解题。I can message someone 此句message用作了动词，给某人发短信； we were soon all emailing each other madly此句email用作了动词，我们疯狂的发电子邮件；we'd fax it immediately.此句fax用作了动词，我们立刻传真它。由此可知答案应为B

4.D综合理解题。文章的第二自然段中pencil / ink分别用作了动词；下面的几个自然段又分别讲述了email / message等名词用作动词，由此可知讲的是由名词用作了动词的几个例子，故答案应为D

考点:文化类文章的阅读理解。