(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
Now, Words and Their Stories from VOA Learning English.
The United States is a big country with many, many roads. Many, if not most, of Americans depend on motor vehicles to get from place to place.
It goes without saying that, when talking or writing, Americans often use expressions with words from the world of automobiles. Now, let's examine a few common expressions that come from parts of a vehicle.
First is the part of the car that protects the front and back of a vehicle -- the bumper. The bumper is what suffers the most damage in a small accident.
The front bumper extends on both sides to the fender, which protects the front wheels. If your car hits someone else's and causes a small amount of damage, we call it a fender-bender.
But let's get back to the word bumper.
American traffic reporters often use the term bumper-to-bumper when describing heavy traffic. It means that vehicles are moving very slowly, and almost touching each other.
Americans can use the term bumper-to-bumper as an adjective. If you are late for dinner because of traffic, you can tell your friends, "Sorry, I'm late. But traffic was bumper-to-bumper." They will understand.
Another part of a vehicle – mainly found on small trucks and on some models of cars -- is the tailgate. This is the gate or doorway that opens up in the back of the vehicle. If your car or truck has one, you can lower the tailgate and sit on it.
This door on the back of larger passenger vehicles has led to something very American: the tailgate party. Tailgate parties usually take place in a parking area, where one or more of these vehicles are stopped. Their tailgates are open, with food or drinks available for the drivers and their passengers.
In the United States, tailgate parties are common at large sporting events or music shows.
Now, many cars do not have tailgates. That's fine. If you spend time friends and others in a large parking lot before a rock concert or a big game, you are still tailgating!
So, that form of tailgating is fun. But it is not fun when someone is tailgating your vehicle. A tailgater is someone who drives much too close to the back of your car. At best, this can be a pain, if not making you, the driver, really angry. But tailgating is also dangerous and the cause of many rear-end accidents.
There are other behaviors that can lead to a traffic accident.
Let's take rubber necking, for example. Rubber necking is when drivers slow down on a road to look closely at a wreck or something else eye-catching as they are passing.
Some drivers can stretch their neck far out of the window to see something like a serious crash. This is where we get the term. Drivers who rubber neck, however, can create their own accidents. First, they slow down, causing problems for other drivers and affecting the flow of traffic. But more importantly, they aren't looking at the road in front of them!
The first rule of driving should always be look where you are going! Another rule should be, stay calm.
The most dangerous kind of driving behavior is road rage. This is anger or violence towards other drivers. Road rage is such a big problem in some areas, that local governments have laws that make some acts of road rage illegal.
The road hog is more of a pain than dangerous. To hog something means to take too much of something. So, a road hog takes up too much of the road. The road hog sometimes drives in two lanes of traffic. Other times, they may not let other motorists pass them.
And that bring us to the end of our road and this episode of Words and Their Stories! Next time you take a drive, you'll be able to talk about your fellow drivers.
And with any hope, you won't run into any rage road. I'm Bryan Lynn.
And I'm Anna Matteo.
重点解析
1.it goes without saying that 不消说；自不待言；不言而喻
It goes without saying that he never believe you.
不言而喻，他永远不会相信你。
2.at best 充其量;顶多;至多
We can only finish half of it this afternoon at best.
今天下午我们充其量只能完成一半。
3.run into 遇到（问题、困难等）;陷入（困境）;偶遇;碰到;（车辆）意外撞上;（费用或数量）高达，达到
They agreed to sell last year after they ran into financial problems.
陷入财政困境以后，他们于去年同意出售。
参考译文
这里是VOA学英语《词汇掌故》节目。
美国是一个有许多许多道路的大国。很多美国人，即便不是大多数，都是依靠汽车（motor vehicles）出行。
不用说，当谈话或者写作的时候，美国人经常用到出自汽车界的很多单词表达。现在，让我们来研究几个和汽车部件相关的常见表达。
首先是保护汽车前后的一个部件——保险杠（the bumper）。保险杠是小事故中受损最严重的部分。
前面的保险杠两侧延伸至挡泥板（fender），这样能保护前轮。如果你的车撞了人并因此少量受损，我们称之为轻微事故（fender-bender）。
让我们继续聊单词保险杠。
美国交通记者经常用术语“bumper-to-bumper（汽车堵塞）”来形容交通堵塞（heavy traffic）。这意味着汽车移动得非常慢，几乎碰着彼此。
美国人将术语“bumper-to-bumper”用作形容词。如果你因为交通堵塞导致晚餐迟到，你可以和你的朋友说：“抱歉，我迟到了。但是路上太堵了。”他们会理解的。
另一个汽车部件是“tailgate（后拦板/尾门）”，主要存在于小型卡车和一些汽车模型上，指的是机动车辆后部的门或者出入口。如果你的汽车或者卡车有这个部件，你可以放下它并坐上去。
由大型客车（larger passenger vehicles）尾门产生了一个很美国的事物：车尾派对（tailgate party）。车尾派对经常会在至少有一辆这种类型的汽车存放的停车区域举办。这些车子的尾门是打开的，司机和乘客们会有食物和饮料供给。
在美国，车尾派对在有大型体育赛事或是音乐演出时会很常见。
如今，许多汽车没有尾门。这没什么要紧。如果你在一场摇滚演唱会或者大型比赛之前和你的朋友和其他人一起待在一个大型停车场，你也是在参与车尾派对。
这种形式的“tailgating”是很有趣的。但是当有人正尾随（tailgaing）你的车，那就不是好玩的事了。“tailgater（跟车很近的司机）”指的是离你车尾太近的汽车司机。如果这个司机没有惹你生气的话，这顶多（at best）算是一种痛苦。但尾随也是危险的，它是造成许多追尾事故（rear-end accidents）的原因。
其他行为也会导致交通事故的产生。
以“引颈旁观（rubber necking）”为例。“引颈旁观”指的是路上司机经过车祸（wreck）或是其他引人注目的事物时，将车辆减速以仔细观看的行为。
一些司机会往车窗外伸长脖子观看一起严重的车祸之类的事项。这正是这个术语的来源。但伸脖子的司机也会造成自己出事故。首先，他们减速车辆，会给其他司机带来麻烦并影响车流（flow of traffic）。但更重要的是，他们没有查看正前方的马路！
驾驶的第一条规则应该是保持看向正前方！另一个规则应该是保持镇定。
最危险的一种驾驶行为是路怒（road rage）。这是对其他司机生气或是实施暴力的一种行为。路怒在一些地区是一个非常严重的问题以致于当地政府制定了一些针对非法路怒的法规。
路霸（road hog）带来的痛苦多于危险。“hog sth”意思是占有太多某事物。那么，“road hog”则为占用了太多路面。路霸有时候占了两条车道（ lanes of traffic）。其他时候，他们也许不让其他机动车辆超过自己。
这就到了我们本期《词汇掌故》节目的尾声啦！下次你开车的时候，你就和你的车友们有话聊了。
希望你不会遇上路怒的人。我是布莱恩·林恩。
我是安娜·马特奥。
