The Linguistic Habits of a New Generation

       In the year of 1914 a young girl named Monica Baldwin entered a convent（女修道院）,remaining there until 1941 when she returned to the outer world. During these twenty-eight years wars and revolutions had come and gone in Europe. Her uncle, Stanley Baldwin, had led his country for some time. Technical developments had changed the conditions of everyday life almost beyond recognitions, but all these events had left as a matter of fact untouched the small religious community to which she had belonged. In 1949 Miss Baldwin published her impressions of those bewildering（令人困惑的）years of her return to a world in which the motorcar had replaced the horse and carriage and where respectable women showed their legs and painted their faces.

       Yet it was not only these odd sights that surprised her, for she was more puzzled by what she heard. During a railway journey the term “l(fā)uggage in advance” meant nothing to her, so in desperation she asked the porter to do as he thought best. Reading the newspapers made her feel very stupid, because the writers of reviews and leading articles used words and phrases such as Jazz, Hollywood, Cocktail and Isolationism. These and many others were quite incomprehensible to Miss Baldwin, who was really bewildered when friends said: “It’s your funeral or Believe it or not.” This is a rare and valuable reminder to the rest of us that the English language does not stand still. All language changes over a period of time for reasons which are imperfectly understood. Or rather since speech is really a form of human activity, it is more exact to say that each successive generation behaves linguistically in a slightly different manner from its predecessors（前輩，祖先）. In his teens the young man likes to show how up-to-date he is by the use of the latest slang（俚語）, but as the years go by some of his slang becomes standard usage and in any case he slowly grows less receptive（樂于接受的）to linguistic novelties（新穎，新奇）,so that by the time he reaches his forties he will probably be unware that some of the expressions and pronunciations now being used were frowned upon by his own parents. In this respect language is a little like fashions in people’s dress. The informal clothes of one generation become the everyday wear of the next, and just as young doctors and bank clerks nowadays go about their business in sports jackets, they are allowed into their normal vocabulary expressions which were once limited to slang and familiar conversation.

1．Miss Baldwin found the world totally changed because          .

       A．she had worked for a religious community for a long time

       B．she had been cut off from the rest of the world for many years

       C．the community where she lived had been in war for many years

       D．there had been too many technical developments

2．During a railway journey Miss Baldwin          .

       A．found the porter’s words hard to understand

       B．found her luggage too heavy to carry

       C．did not know how to talk with the porter

       D．had to ask the porter to look after her luggage

3．Young people like to use the latest slang because          .

       A．they feel it is easier to use

       B．they believe it will soon become standard usage

       C．they want to show they have caught up with the time

       D．they find it more powerful in expressing feelings

4．Miss Baldwin’s experience shows us that          .

       A．the English language has not changed much

       B．the English language has entirely changed

       C．language doesn’t change at all in the religious world

       D．language changes with the passage of time

5．By the time a man is forty, he will          .

       A．be speaking the same language as his parents do

       B．have changed his way of speaking

       C．not use the slang he liked to use when young

       D．be using less new slang in speech and writing

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