BBC地道英语:To Nick 偷窃和逮捕

Helen: 大家好，欢迎收听地道英语。我是 Helen.

Rob: And I'm Rob.

Helen: 我刚才看到你在找你的耳机，后来你找到了吗？

Rob: No, you know, I looked for them everywhere. Someone must have nicked them.

Helen: Nicked them?

Rob: Oh, sorry, what I meant is that someone stole my headphones. To nick something means to steal something.

Helen: Nicked 被人偷走了。That's terrible. 这个词是怎么拼写的呢？

Rob: It's spelt N.I.C.K. nick. To nick something.

Helen: 哎呀，我儿子的好朋友就叫 Nick, 怎么这么巧。好多人都叫 Nick, 是不是很久以前叫 Nick 的人经常偷东西？才会有现在这个解释呢？

Rob: No, not at all, Nick is a great name. But this is different. Here the word 'nick' is a verb and it's British slang too.

Helen: 那就让我们来听两个例子吧，你能听出来什么东西被偷掉了吗？

Example

Man: Someone nicked my bike this morning.

Lady: Oh, no. Did you report it to the police?

Man: Yes, I did.

Man 1: Where are the chocolate biscuits I was saving? I am sure I saw them yesterday.

Man 2: Sorry, I don't know. Blame Dave, he's always nicking things.

Rob: So, one of them lost a bike and the other one lost his chocolate biscuits.

She's been nicked!

Helen: 自行车和巧克力饼干都被偷了，真倒霉。该请警察们出动破案了。

Rob: Yes. The police can definitely help them by nicking those petty thieves.

Helen: This is confusing. 你说警察也能 nick? 他们能偷东西？这不大可能吧？

Rob: No, no, no, no. The police can't nick things from people. But when they arrest someone, we can say the person is nicked. It means they're arrested by the police.

Example

Woman: Have you heard from Inspector James?

Man: No. He's working on a big case. I think they have just nicked the main suspect!

Helen: 我明白了，如果警察抓住了犯罪分子， 那么我们就可以用 nick 这个词来表示警察逮捕了某人。所以 nick 这个词即可以是指东西被偷了，也可以指警察抓住坏人了。

Rob: Helen, you've got it. Just remember it's not a formal expression.

Helen: Thanks. I'll keep that in mind. 我记住了 nick 是地道的英国口语。谢谢收听。 Bye for now.

Rob: Bye!