Xiaohua: Hello, welcome to Round Table’s Word of the Week. This week we are talking about English expressions that have other countries or peoples in them.
John: Yes. Let’s start with France. So there are the French kiss and the “pardon my French” or “excuse my French”. So a French kiss, basically, just means it’s a type of very romantic kiss where two tongues are touching. Slang synonyms include, this is kind of vulgar actually, “swapping spit” or “tonsil hockey”. Interestingly enough, a French kiss is called that because at the beginning of the 20th century, the French had a reputation for more adventurous and passionate sex practices.
Xiaohua: I see. French kiss法式深吻，大家都知道了。
John: “Pardon my French” is a common English language phrase used to disguise profanity as French. These days it is used a bit tongue in cheek as in, you know, hey we all know that I said about words, but I’m just kind of joking about it. But when it first came into use, people were, in fact, serious about that. It was a way to apologize for saying bad words.
Xiaohua: “Pardon my French”一般是用在说了一些不好听的话或一些脏话之后，然后请求对方的原谅。
John: Now we are going over to Mexico with the Mexican standoff. So it’s a confrontation among three armed opponents, usually the origin of the word list can armed with guns. So the problem is, NO.1, if you are in a duel, right the first person that shoots is at an advantage, because it’s only two people. But in a Mexican standoff, because there are three people, the first person you shoot is actually, at a disadvantage, because then the second person might shoot them, right? So the Mexican standoff, these days, has come to mean, basically, a confrontation or a situation where there is no tactical advantage in terms of first move. It’s also perhaps unsafe to try to withdraw from the confrontation.
Xiaohua: Mexican standoff, 我们在西部片里都看过类似的场景。三个牛仔在一起决斗，这个时候，第一个拔枪的人未必会占到先机，因为可能会被下一个人射倒。在现代英语中，Mexican standoff可能会指一个比较棘手的政治事件，在博弈当中最先出牌的人不见得会占到优势。
John: These days it just comes to mean a confrontation no one has a measurable advantage and it might not be very wise to try to withdraw from the standoff. All right, now we are going to Greece with the phrase “it’s all Greek to me” or “it’s Greek to me”. Basically, it just means that when you’re looking at something written down, maybe someone who is speaking to you, maybe some complicated math or diagram, you look at it or you hear it and you have no idea what it’s supposed to mean. It’s all very foreign, completely incomprehensible, so it’s all Greek to you.
Xiaohua: 希腊话是很难学的，那么当有人说话听上去像希腊话一样，那就是说完全听不懂。
John: And interestingly enough, some historians say this might be a direct translation from a similar phrase in Latin, which means it’s Greek, therefore it cannot be read. Now we are going over to the Netherlands with two different phrases “go Dutch” and “Dutch uncle”. I think everyone pretty much knows what “going Dutch” means, but it can actually be related to the farm doors on a Dutch barn house that are spit into two. But the “Dutch uncle” is someone who issues frank, harsh or severe comments and criticism to educate, encourage, or admonish someone.
Xiaohua: “go Dutch” 大家都知道是什么意思。我记得在以前的词汇小百科里，我们也解释过。那么“Dutch uncle”是指老是喜欢教育别人，说话不招人待见的人。
John: Then we are going to Russia with Russian roulette. Basically, you have a revolver which is a type of gun. A revolver has six different holes for six bullets. But in Russian roulette, you only put one bullet in one of the slots. You spin the barrel and then you play a game where each person has to put the gun to their head and pull the trigger.
Xiaohua: Yes. 俄罗斯轮盘赌可不是普通的赌博，而是真的在赌命，那么左轮手枪的转轮一转立刻就要决出生死。I think that’s the most stupid game I’ve ever seen.
John: Yeah, actually there is really no evidence to say that this actually comes from Russia at all. Instead, there was a short story by Georges Surdez in 1937, when he basically explained what he called the time Russian roulette. Now we are going to our favorite place in the entire world, China, to take a look at some words. So there are the Chinese wall and Chinese whispers. For Chinese wall, we usually don’t use these type of phrases in the United States any more. They are not considered to be politically correct. So a Chinese wall is basically just an information barrier or a communication wall between two different departments in the same organization. Usually, these days, we don’t call it a Chinese wall any more. We usually call it a fire wall.
Xiaohua: Chinese wall指的是难以逾越的障碍，那么也指的是在商业中两个部门的人员之间的隔离以避免内幕交易。
John: And then there is the Chinese whispers, which I never heard of until today actually. For Chinese whispers, in the United States, we call it telephone. And basically it’s a game where we have a long line of people and someone at the beginning of the line whispers something like a sentence or phrase to the next person; then it has to keep going on. And more than likely, when it gets to the last person, the message has changed substantially, sometimes even to a comedic effect.
Xiaohua: 不知道有些英语专业的人，你们的老师有没有给你们玩过Chinese whisper的游戏，在美国又叫telephone。