It's not only rocket scientists and journalists who are following the course of "ShenzhouV", or "Divine ship/ vessel V". There are also lexicographers(字典编纂者 ), or dictionary compilers.The flight of the spacecraft recently might help put .some new words into orbit.
One of them is a western media coinage used to refer to the Chinese astronauts. It is a combination of the Chinese pinyin "taikong", meaning space, and the English "astronaut", from classical Greek: "star sailor/navigator", for people who was going into space as a career.In the Reuters and AP reports of October 15, "taikonaut" was used as a proper noun. Forexample:
The long March 2F rocket carrying "taikonaut" Yang Liwei lifted off into a clear blue sky over theGobi desert at 9 a.m. and entered its orbit 10 minutes later.
A Long March 2F rocket called the Shenzhou V—"divine ship" in Chinese --carried a single"taikonaut" named Yang Liwei, 38, following Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and American Alan Shepard in 1961.
The word "taikonaut" is not a newly coined term. It first emerged in November, 1999, when Chinalaunched its first unmanned "Shenzhou 1" spacecraft.
At that time, .some English news media predicted(推测) that China would soon launch a manned space flight and created the word "taikonaut" for the Chinese astronauts. It was then borrowed by the German media.
But it was left out of mainstream dictionaries, such as the Merriam-Webster Dictionary andCambridge Advanced English Learner's Dictionary.
However, the launch of the "Shenzhou V" will most likely help boost its status since there isalready a word referring specifically to Russian astronauts in the dictionary entry.
An astronaut of Russian(or the former Soviet Union) is called a "cosmonaut", from the Russian"kosmonaut". The word was derived from classical Greek. "kosmonaut" (universal) and "nautes". One might argue that "cosmonaut" is a Russian variation on the earlier word astronaut .
On March 14, 1995, US astronaut Norman Thagard became the first American to ride into spaceon-board, a Russian launch vehicle, arguably making him the first American cosmonaut.
And if this trend of coinage continues, more English variations for astronaut will appear as morecountries are able to send their own astronauts into outer space, what would Western journalists callan astronaut from India or Africa? We' 11 have to wait to see.
1. Which of the following best suits the passage as a title?
A. Why to Create the Word "Astronaut"?
B. Why to Make a Lot of Variations for "Taikonaut"?
C. How to Tell a “Taikonaut “ from an Astronaut?
D. How to Call Astronauts from Different Countries?
2. Which is the right statement in the following sentence?
A. The word "taikonaut" was born with the launch of "Shenzhou V" spacecraft.
B. Yang Liwei, Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard are all excellent taikonauts.
C. The American newspapers such as Reuters coined the word "taikonaut".
D. Some new words have widely been put into use with the launch of the "Shenzhou V"
spacecraft.
3 From the writer's point of view', __________ .
A. lexicographers or dictionary compilers have aim done a lot of things to help launch Shenzhou V"
B. the American astronaut Norman Thagard is not a cosmonaut
C. the words coined or to be coined for astronauts of different countries usually have something to do with the name(s) of their countries
D. the reason why there will be more variations for the word astronauts is that more and more countries will be able to send their own astronauts into space
4. What does the underlined word "coinage" mean in the passage?
A. System of coins in use. B. Invention of word.
C. New meaning of a word. D. Discovery of an old word.