【原創(chuàng)】《閱讀理解特訓(xùn):3真2模含解析》2014屆高三英語突破54
閱讀理解(共20小題;每小題2分,滿分40分)
閱讀下列短文,從每題所給的四個(gè)選項(xiàng)(A、B、C和D)中,選出最佳選項(xiàng)。
A
There are many other “Dutch” expressions in English, many of which were invented in Britain in the seventeenth century, when the Dutch and the English were commercial and military rivals. The British used “Dutch” to refer to something bad, cheap and shameful. A “Dutch bargain” at that time was an uneven, one-sided deal; “Dutch reckoning” was an unitemized account; and “Dutch widow” was slang for prostitute. Later centuries brought in “Dutch courage”, for bravery induced by drink; “Dutch concert”, for discordant music; “Dutch nightingale”, meaning a frog; and “double Dutch”, for incomprehensible language, or unintelligible talk.
Some of the expressions are still in use today, but some are not. In fact, in American English, some “Dutch” expressions have nothing to do with the Dutch, but something with the German. It was probably because of the similar spelling and pronunciation that people made a mistake in distinguishing between “Dutch” and “Deutsch” (the German word for German), when German immigrants came to America in the 1700s. For instance, “the Pennsylvania Dutch” refers to the German descendants, instead of the Dutch descendants, living in Pennsylvania.