英语阅读：伦敦地铁站的怪名字原来都大有来头.doc

美联英语 提供：伦敦地铁站的怪名字原来都大有来头两分钟做个小测试，看看你的英语水平 Circus牛津马戏团站The oldest sense of circus is ‘a large building, surrounded with rising tiers of seats, for the exhibition of public spectacles’but, in this instance, it is simply a ‘circular open space at a street junction’.circus 最古老的意思是“一幢大楼，由层层座椅围绕着，可以作展览和公开表演之用”但这里就是“十字路口圆形空地”的意思King’s Cross St Pancras国王的十字圣潘克洛斯站This tube station services King’s Cross and St Pancras National Rail stations. The former is now perhaps best known for being Harry Potter’s entrance to Hogwarts, but the king in question is King George IV (who reigned 1820-1830), and the cross, a monument that was demolished in 1845. St Pancras was born around 289, and beheaded for his Christian faith when he was 14 years old.这个地铁站监管国王的十字和圣潘克洛斯国家火车站。

前者即哈利波特通往霍格沃茨的车站，广为人知；但引人热议的国王是指乔治四世（1820-1830 执政）；而十字毁于 1845年圣潘克洛斯出生于约莫 289 年，14 岁时因其基督信仰而被斩首Angel天使站It’s named after a former coaching inn on the Great North Road called the Angel, dating from the 17th century.这个站名来源于大北方之路过去一家名为“天使”驿站，可以追溯到 17 世纪Baker Street贝克街站The most famous resident of Baker Street is, of course, Sherlock Holmes. You might think that it was named after a maker of cakes of pastries, but its namesake is actually William Baker, a builder who laid out the street in the second half of the 18th century.贝克街最著名的居民自然是夏洛克·福尔摩斯。

或许你觉得这名字是根据蛋糕点心师傅取的，但事实上，街名来自建筑师威廉·贝克，18 世纪下半叶，贝克对这条街做了布局规划Bank班克站Bank is named after the Bank of England. Incidentally, it was voted the most disliked tube station in 2013.班克（英语中”银行“的音译为”班克“）取自英格兰银行顺便一提，2013 年班克被投票选为最受人讨厌的地铁站Canary Wharf金丝雀码头站Canary Wharf takes its name from a warehouse, built for the Mediterranean and Canary Islands fruit trade.金丝雀码头的名字取自一间仓库，仓库是为地中海和金丝雀岛屿水果贸易而建的Hainault海诺特站This unusual name comes from the Old English ‘Hyneholt or ‘Henehout’ and means ‘wood belonging to a religious community’.这个不同一般的名字来自古英语的 Hyneholt 或者 Henehout，意为“宗教社区的树木”。

Hanger Lane汉格巷站The lane is named after Hanger Hill. hanger comes from the Old English hangra, ‘a wood on a slope’.这条巷子根据汉格山命名，"汉格"来自古英语 hangra，意为“斜坡上的树林”Swiss Cottage瑞士小屋站This area owes its unusual name to a local inn. The Swiss Tavern, built in 1803-4, was in the style of a Swiss chalet – later renamed to the humbler Swiss Cottage.这块地区名字独特是因为当地的一家小旅馆瑞士酒店”建于 1803 至 1804 年间，是瑞士小木屋风格，“瑞士小屋”这个名字要低调很多，是后来重新命名的Turnpike Lane登碧里站It’s a historical term for a toll gate, though was originally a spiked barrier – thus a sense of pikemeaning ‘a spiked staff or stick’.收费站史称" 登碧里" ，尽管最初指带刺的障碍物，因而 pike 有“带刺拐杖或棍子”之意。

两分钟做个小测试，看看你的英语水平。