etymology, the study of words and word roots,阅读理解答案

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1、Etymology,thestudyofwordsandwordroots,阅读理解答案Etymology,thestudyofwordsandwordroots,maysoundlikethekindofthingdonebyboringlibrariansinsmall,dustyrooms．Yetetymologistsactuallyhaveauniquelyinterestingjob．Theyareinmanywaysjustlikearchaeologists（考古学家）diggingupthephy

2、sicalhistoryofpeopleandevents．Thespecialaspectofetymologyisthatitdigsuphistory,sotospeak,throughthewordsandphrasesthatareleftbehind．TheEnglishlanguage,inparticular,isagreatfieldtoexplorehistorythroughwordsAsalanguage,Englishhasanextraordinarynumberofwords．This

3、ispartlyduetoitsabilitytoadaptforeignwordssoreadily．Forexample,“English”wordssuchaskindergarten（fromGerman）,croissant（fromFrench）,andcheetah（fromHindi）havebecomepartofthelanguagewithlittleornochangefromtheiroriginalsoundsandspellings．SoEnglish-languageetymolog

4、istshaveavastworldofwordstoexplore．Anotherenjoyablethingaboutetymologyformostwordexpertsissolvingwordmysteries（谜）．No,etymologistsdonotgoaroundsolvingmurders,likethegreatdetectiveSherlockHolmes．Whatthesewordexpertssolvearemysteriousoriginsofsomeofourmostcommonw

5、ordsOneofthebiggestquestionsEnglishlanguageexpertshavepursuedishowEnglishcametohavethephraseOK．Thoughitisoneofthemostcommonlyusedexpressions,itsexactbeginningisapuzzleeventothisday．Evenitsspellingisnotentirelyconsistent-unlessyouspellitOkay,itishardeventocalli

6、taword．EtymologistshavebeenabletonarrowOK’sorigindowntoalikely,althoughnotcertain,source（来源）．ItbecamewidelyusedaroundthetimeofMartinVanBuren’srunforpresidentin1840．HisnicknamewasOldKinderhook．Whattroubleswordexpertsaboutthisexplanationisthatthephraseappearedin

7、somenewspapersbeforeVanBurenbecamewellknown．ItislikelythatVanBurencouldbecalleditsprimarysourceEtymologistswilldoubtlesslykeepsearchingfortheinitialsource．However,itisclearthatOK’spopularityandreputationhavetoppedthoseoftheAmericanpresidenttowhomithasbeenmostc

8、learlylinked．63．Theauthormentionsthewordslike“croissant”inParagraph2toindicate．A．wordshavechangedalotinthetwolanguagesB．whatEnglish-languageetymologistsareexploringnowC．Englishhasa