Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
现在是美国之音慢速英语词汇掌故节目。
Computer technology has become a major part of people's lives. This technology has its own special words. One example is the word mouse. A computer mouse is not a small animal that lives in buildings and open fields. It is a small device that you move around on a flat surface in front of a computer. The mouse moves the pointer, or cursor, on the computer screen.
计算机技术已经成为人们生活的重要组成部分，它有一些术语，例如鼠标（mouse）。电脑的鼠标可不是那种生活在建筑物或室外的小动物。它是一种在电脑前的桌面上移动的小装置，鼠标用于操作计算机屏幕上的指针或光标。
Computer expert Douglas Engelbart developed the idea for the mouse in the early nineteen-sixties. The first computer mouse was a carved block of wood with two metal wheels. It was called a mouse because it had a tail at one end. The tail was the wire that connected it to the computer.
十九世纪六十年代早期，计算机专家道格拉斯·恩格尔巴特（Douglas Engelbart）发明了全球第一个鼠标，这是一个有着两个金属轮子的木雕制品。因为它有个尾巴而被称为鼠标，这个尾巴就是连接计算机的数据线。
Using a computer takes some training. People who are experts are sometimes called hackers. A hacker is usually a person who writes software programs in a special computer language. But the word hacker is also used to describe a person who tries to steal information from computer systems.
使用计算机需要参加一些培训。计算机专家有时也被称为黑客（hackers）。黑客通常是指使用特殊计算机语言书写软件程序的人。但是，黑客一词也用于形容试图从计算机系统窃取信息的人。
Another well known computer word is Google, spelled g-o-o-g-l-e. It is the name of a popular "search engine" for the Internet. People use the search engine to find information about almost any subject on the Internet. The people who started the company named it Google because in mathematics, googol, spelled g-o-o-g-o-l, is an extremely large number. It is the number one followed by one-hundred zeros.
另一个众所周知的计算机词汇是Google（中文名谷歌），它是一个热门互联网“搜索引擎”的名称。人们使用这个搜索引擎在互联网上可以找到几乎任何主题的信息。公司创始人把它命名为Google，因为在数学上，googol是一个非常大的数字，即1后面跟了100个0（即10的100次方）。
When you "Google" a subject, you can get a large amount of information about it. Some people like to Google their friends or themselves to see how many times their name appears on the Internet.
当你搜索某个主题，你可以得到大量相关信息。有些人喜欢搜索朋友或自己的名字看看他们在互联网上出现了多少次。
51VOA注：Google在这里做动词用，类似国内的“百度一下”
If you Google someone, you might find that person's name on a blog. A blog is the shortened name for a Web log. A blog is a personal Web page. It may contain stories, comments, pictures and links to other Web sites. Some people add information to their blogs every day. People who have blogs are called bloggers.
如果你搜索某人，你可能会找到他的博客。博客(blog)是网络日志（Web log）的缩写。博客是一种个人网页，它可能包含一些经历，评论，图片和其他网站的链接。有些人会每天更新博客。有博客的人被称为博主（bloggers，也可译为博客）。
Blogs are not the same as spam. Spam is unwanted sales messages sent to your electronic mailbox. The name is based on a funny joke many years ago on a British television show, "Monty Python's Flying Circus." Some friends are at an eating place that only serves a processed meat product from the United States called SPAM. Every time the friends try to speak, another group of people starts singing the word SPAM very loudly. This interferes with the friends' discussion – just as unwanted sales messages interfere with communication over the Internet.
博客与垃圾邮件（spam）不同，垃圾邮件是指发往你的电子信箱的一些无用的销售信息。这个单词基于很多年前的英国电视秀节目《巨蟒剧团之飞翔的马戏团》上的一个有趣的笑话。朋友们来到到一个只提供斯帕姆午餐肉（SPAM)的餐馆，斯帕姆午餐肉是一种来自美国的预烹肉制品。每当这些朋友想要说话，另一批人就开始大声唱SPAM。这干扰了朋友们的讨论 - 就像垃圾邮件影响互联网交流。
51VOA注：《巨蟒剧团之飞翔的马戏团》，英式无厘头的始祖, BBC最伟大的电视节目第五名。(51VOA.COM对本文翻译保留全部权利，未经授权请勿转载，违者必究！)