William: Hello, I'm William Kremer and this is Authentic Real English.

Wang Fei: 大家好，我是王飞。William, can I choose the word for today's programme?

William: Well, actually, Wang Fei, I've got lots of really good words to talk about.

Wang Fei: Oh go on, please!

William: OK, go on then.

Wang Fei: Thanks. I was reading a newspaper and I found this word: Climategate. Climate 意思是气候，那 Climategate 是什么意思呢？

William: Ah. That's a little bit complicated. Basically, the word gate is used after another word to indicate that something is a scandal.
那有点复杂，gate这个词通常用在其他词之后，表示一些丑闻。

Wang Fei: A scandal 丑闻。

William: And possibly the biggest scandal in American history was the Watergate scandal.
美国历史上最大的丑闻就是“水门事件”。

Wang Fei: Watergate… that was why President Nixon had to resign, wasn't it?
那是尼克松总统必须辞职的原因，对吧？

William: Yes, you know your history!
你很了解历史。

Wang Fei: Yes. Was it a scandal about water?
是的，那是与水有关的丑闻吗？

William: No, no. The word Watergate was actually the name of a building but it came to be used to refer to the whole scandal. And it is because Watergate was such a big scandal that nowadays, whenever there is any kind of scandal, the media likes to use the word –gate as a suffix.
Watergate实际上一个建筑的名称，但是它被用来指代整个丑闻。水门事件影响巨大，以至于当今出现什么样的丑闻，媒体都喜欢加上一个“门”做后缀字。

Wang Fei: A suffix 后缀。So Climategate is a scandal about the climate?
"气候门"是与气候有关的丑闻？

William: That's right! It happened a couple of years ago now. It was when some emails and other documents from a university in England led to people asking questions about the way that scientists researched climate change.

Wang Fei: Climategate 也就是气候门事件，那是几年前的一个新闻事件。当时一些泄漏的电子邮件和文件，导致了人们对那些研究气候变化科学家们的质疑。

William: Let me give you another example from last year. Gordon Brown, who was Prime Minister at the time, was overheard calling an old lady a "bigot".
Gordon Brown那时是首先，被偶然听到管一个老妇人叫“老顽固”。

Wang Fei: A bigot 老顽固。Wow, William, that's not a very good word.

William: No, it's a very strong word. Unsurprisingly this was a bit of a scandal and it came to be known in the media as 'bigotgate'.
是的，那是个贬义很强的词。这也难怪成为一个小丑闻，媒体称之为“bigotgate”

Wang Fei: Bigotgate. 听起来很滑稽，是不是？

William: I think you're right. I think using –gate on the end of a word can make it seem a little bit humorous. And it is possible to use this word –gate in normal conversation to make a joke. Listen to this:

Example

Man A: Have you seen Mark recently?
你最近见过Mark吗？

Man B: Mark – he hasn't spoken to me since beergate!
Mark从啤酒门事件后就不和我说了。

Man A: Beergate? What do you mean?
啤酒门？那是什么意思？

Man B: We had a big argument because I said Mark never bought a round of beer in the pub! He got very upset and went home.
我们争吵了一场因为我说Mark从未在酒馆里请大家喝过酒。他很愤怒，就回家。
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了Wang Fei: 在刚才的例句中，说话者造了一个词，beergate 意思是说关于在酒吧买啤酒引起的争执！I wonder, could there ever be an Authentic Real Englishgate?

William: Ooh, I hope not. I can't really imagine what that could be!

Wang Fei: No, neither can I. 好了，别忘了登录我们的网站，学习更多的地道英语表达。我们的网址是： www.bbcukchina.com. 再见！

William: Bye bye.