[节日散片] 牛津英文词典新词汇，给火鸡撒胡椒粉，感恩节的来历

(一) 2011牛津词典新词汇
语言是约定俗成的。语言是受使用语言的人的思维情感和社会经历社会现实的影响不断变迁发展的。英语世界的权威牛津词典每年会收入具有影响力的新词汇，更新词典。2011年的新词汇有：占领(名词)，百分之九十九，虎妈，等等。
年度词汇：压缩的中产阶级 (SQUEEZED MIDDLE) ；

最新十个词： Arab Spring， Bunga bunga，Clicktivism，Crowdfunding，Fracking， Gamification，Occupy， The 99 percent，Tiger mother，Sifi.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/squeezed-middle-is-named-oxford-dictionaries-word-of-the-year-2011-2011-11-22

(二) 玛莎 司徒雅特给火鸡撒胡椒粉

Martha Stewart pepper sprays a turkey

感恩节免不了吃火鸡，火鸡怎么烹调？玛莎是自创一体的家居饮食大拿，常自作节目向各位掌管厨房的家庭主妇们传授烹调方法，这一次，玛莎向大家传授的方法，据说是来自前几天加州大学戴维斯校园发生的事件。玛莎自称，受到朝静坐学生喷射胡椒的警察动作的启示，她也为自己准备了一具警察面罩，说着把头上的警察透明面罩戴好，一边随手向摆在炉台上的火鸡撒胡椒粉，模仿警察，维妙维肖，极具笑果。

http://campusprogress.org/articles/martha_stewart_pepper_sprays_a_turkey/

(三)感恩节的来历
No thanks: A little historical truth-telling about Thanksgiving
By Eesha Pandit | Published: November 23, 2011
The historical narrative that surrounds the American Thanksgiving feast is fairly recent.

The purportedly idyllic partnership between the European Pilgrims and New England Indians is actually only about 120 years old. After WWI, the story that we learn in school today became THE story. I believe deeply in the power of re-appropriating racist and sexist traditions, but I do not believe that we can effectively do that if we do not know the history of what we’re re-appropriating. So, today I’m sharing some links that I’ve used as resources over the years that have helped me understand the holiday, the story and get a little closer to the truth. We know that victors write history books, but we also know it’s our job to correct and re-write them.

From an article by Richard Greener in the Huffington Post last year:

“The first Thanksgiving Day did occur in the year 1637, but it was nothing like our Thanksgiving today. On that day the Massachusetts Colony Governor, John Winthrop, proclaimed such a “Thanksgiving” to celebrate the safe return of a band of heavily armed hunters, all colonial volunteers. They had just returned from their journey to what is now Mystic, Connecticut where they massacred 700 Pequot Indians. Seven hundred Indians – men, women and children – all murdered.

This day is still remembered today, 373 years later. No, it’s been long forgotten by white people, by European Christians. But it is still fresh in the mind of many Indians. A group calling themselves the United American Indians of New England meet each year at Plymouth Rock on Cole’s Hill for what they say is a Day of Mourning. They gather at the feet of a statue of Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoag to remember the long gone Pequot. They do not call it Thanksgiving. There is no football game afterward.”

From a very moving and powerful article in AlterNet, by Jacqueline Keeler, a member of the Dineh Nation and the Yankton Dakota Sioux: Read More »