时髦英语口语词汇讲解第25期:Laters! 回见!

Laters. That's the word 'later' with an 's' at the end.
Laters（回见），是由单词later加s构成的。

It's a shortened form of 'see you later', really. Ciao. TTFN - ta ta for now!
实际上，这个词是“see you later ”的简称，相当于ciao (再见)，或是 TTFN-tata for now （再见）。

It's unusual though, to add an 's' to a word like that, isn't it?
像这样在单词词尾加上s的现象并不常见不是吗？

It's not the first time it's happened, but it usually happens with reference to names of people or names of relatives - pet names.
这种构词现象并不是首次出现，只是以前通常是跟人名有关--只在亲人的名字或是宠物的名字后加s。

You know, instead of saying 'mum', you might say 'mums' or 'mummsie'. Instead of saying 'pop', you might say 'pops', 'gramps' for 'grandpa'.
叫妈妈的时候，你可能不会用mum而是mums或者mummsie。提到爷爷的时候，你也许不会用grandpa而是pops，和gramps。

And proper names too, I mean, Will becomes Wills - a member of the royal family is sometimes referred to as Wills, for instance, or Babs for Barbara.
专有名词（如人名）也可能出现这种情况，例如，Will变成了Wills--皇室里有时候喜欢用Wills来唤Will， 用Babs来唤Babara。

So there are some uses where you add an 's' to make something nice and friendly, but it's unusual to see it before a kind of general phrase like 'see you later' or 'later', and thus - laters.
也就是说我们有时候可以在单词后面加上s使之变成昵称从而更亲切平易近人，但是，很少会有见到像这样在later（see you later的简称）后面加上s使之变成laters的情况。

Notice by the way, that that phrase 'see you later' has changed its meaning in English in recent times.
但是顺便说一下，要注意，see you later的意思这些年来已经有所变化。

If somebody says 'see you later', it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to see you later today.
要是某人说“see you later (等会见)”，他不一定是真的在说当天迟些时候会再跟你见面。

In my day, that's certainly what it would have meant - 'see you later' means 'I'll see you before the day is out'.
在我们那个年代，see you later真的是在说当天晚些时候再见。

But somebody left on an aeroplane the other day and I heard them say to the people they'd left behind, 'see you later!' But the person would certainly not be seeing them later, not for months, perhaps.
有天在机场听到上飞机的人对着送行的人说see you later，但是这是绝对不可能的，他们不可能当天还能见面过，他们甚至可能数月都不会见面。

So if you say 'laters', it's a kind of modern colloquialism in a way.
在某种程度上，laters--再见，是个现代口语。

It has a cool, slang sort of sense around it.
听起来很酷还带点俚语的味道在里面。

If you say 'laters' instead of 'goodbye', then you probably wouldn't say 'hello' - you'd probably say 'hey' or 'hi'!
如果你喜欢用laters而不是goodbye，那你肯定不喜欢说hello而是说hey或者hi。