Interesting Words in the News 新闻里的有趣词汇

Dean

I read a piece of news at Yahoo today and found some interesting words to share with you. The news first:

Two truck drivers die as fuel protests spread across Europe

MADRID (AFP) - Two lorry drivers were killed on picket lines in Spain and Portugal on Tuesday as strikes by thousands of truckers over soaring fuel prices turned deadly.

Spanish police escorted petrol supply tankers into Barcelona on the second day of the stoppage that has caused food and fuel shortages and huge tailbacks on the Spanish-French border.
French railway workers began their own walkout, increasing the transport chaos.

In the news \"picket line\" is an intersting expression. It means

Picket line 罢工警戒线　　嗨！看没看过有关“罢工”的电影或新闻报道？镜头中，常常会有这样的场景：罢工人员组成一道“人墙”，围在肇事公司门前，以此阻碍非罢工人员进入公司……在外电报道中，这样的“人墙”常用“picket line”来形容。
　　Picket最早可追溯到17世纪，指“（栓牲口、作篱栅用的）尖木桩”。随后，picket逐渐成为军事用语，最早用来指“（保护驻地）的哨兵”，在此意义上，picket拥有了更多的延伸义：罢工纠察队员（n.）、设警戒线/派士兵守卫（v.）。
　　现代意义上的picket可和其它词组和生成军事常用语，如：picket airplane（巡逻机、哨机）；picket boat（哨艇、侦查艇、当值艇）；picket line（警戒线）。
　　看下面一个例句：Here has the cunning Frenchman been placing a picket directly in our path.（狡猾的法国佬在我们要通过的路上放着岗哨。）

Another word is \"tailbacks\":a queue of traffic stretching back from an obstruction.

The 25kn stretch of UAE's busiest highway from Abu Dhabi to Duby was closed for more than five hours, resulting in huge tailbacks during rush hours.

Another one is \"walkout \" which means \"strike\".

According to the newspapers the prime issue in the walkout is wages, which were eaten away by inflation. 据报纸报道，引起这次罢工的主要问题是工资问题，由于通货膨胀，工人们的工资受到了侵害。

It is good practice to read English news. When we read it we can get lastest information and learn some useful words and expressions at the same time. Reading news in English can improve our reading comprehension.

Dean

What a cool and sweet lady she is. I guess she might be an actress. Right?