关于雅思英语，大家除了要了解一些常识以外，也有必要了解一些冷门知识，为了帮助大家拓宽知识面，本文就跟大家分享一下雅思英语的一些冷知识吧。
1、For more than a century, the English aristocracy couldn’t speak English.
有一个世纪多的时间，英国贵族不会说英语。
William the Conqueror tried to learn English at the age of 43 but gave up. Within 20 years of the Normans taking power in England, almost all of the local religious institutions were French-speaking. There is little to suggest that aristocrats themselves spoke English. It isn’t until the end of the 12th Century that we have evidence of the children of the English aristocracy with English as a first language.
英国国王威廉一世曾在43岁时尝试学习英语，但半途而废。诺曼人控制英国的20年里，大部分的地方宗教机构都说法语。鲜有证据显示英国的贵族自己会说英语。证据显示，直到12世纪末，才有英语贵族子女以英语为第一语言。
2、That is why Latin words sound more prestigious than Germanic ones.
这就是为什么拉丁词汇比日耳曼词汇听上去更高大上。
Think about the difference between a house (Germanic) and a mansion (French), or between starting something and commencing, between calling something kingly or regal. English has a huge number of close synonyms, where the major difference is the level of formality or prestige. The prestigious form is almost always the Latin one.
想想看"house"("房子"，日耳曼词汇)与"mansion"("宅邸"，法语词汇)的差异，及"starting(开始)"与"commencing(肇始)"的不同、“kingly(皇家气质)"与"regal(君威)"的区别。英语中有大量意思贴近的同义词，其主要差异在于其正式与高级程度。高级形式几乎都是拉丁词汇。
3、The concept of “correct” spelling is fairly recent.
“正确”拼写是相当新近的概念。
Shakespeare, for example, was liberal in his spellings of words, often using multiple variants within a single text; his name itself has been spelt in many different ways over the centuries.
例如莎士比亚，在拼写单词就非常随意，常在同一文本中使用数种变体;数世纪以来，其名字也有多种不同的拼法。
8、One man is largely responsible for the differences between American and British spelling.
美式英语和英式英语拼写上的差异很大程度上因一人而起。
Noah Webster, whose name you still find on the front of many American dictionaries, was a patriotic man. Between 1783 and 1785, he produced three books on the English language for American schoolchildren. During his lifetime, 385 editions of his Speller were published. The modern US spelling of color was initially spelt in the British way, colour, but this changed in later editions.
在美国的许多词典封面上你还能找到一个人的名字，一位富有爱国心的美国人——诺亚·韦伯斯特。在1783至1785年间，韦伯斯特为美国的学龄儿童创作了三本关于英语的书籍。韦伯斯特一生中，其拼写教材出了385版。现代美式英语中“color(颜色)”一词起初是英式的拼写方式，但在后来的版本中，这些词的拼写方式发生了变化。
4、-ize is not an American suffix-ize.
并不是美式英语中的后缀。
There is a popular belief that words such as popularise/ize, maximise/ize and digitise/ize have different spellings in British and American English.
人们普遍认为，popularise/ize(普及)、maximise/ize(最大化)、digitise/ize(数字化)等词在英式英语和美式英语中拼写方式不同。
Look at that z – isn’t it snazzy? It’s got to be American, hasn’t it?
看看这个Z——不是很时髦吗?它一定是美式英语，不是吗?
以上就是雅思英语冷知识，大家是不是感觉很稀奇呢?当然大家如果还有什么不懂的，可以随时咨询我们的在线老师哦!更多英语资讯尽在朗阁网校!
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