阅读简答题专项训练·附详解(02)

Baloney is a kind of sausage that many Americans eat often. The word also has another meaning in English. It is used to describe something—usually something someone says—that is false or wrong or foolish.

Baloney sausage comes from the name of the Italian city, Bologna. The city is famous for its sausage, a mixture of smoked, spiced meat from cows and pigs. But, boloney sausage does not taste the same as beef or pork alone.

Some language experts think this different taste is responsible for the birth of the expression baloney. Baloney is an idea or statement that is nothing like the truth...in the same way that baloney sausage tastes nothing like the meat that is used to make it.

Baloney is a word often used by politicians to describe the ideas of their opponents.

The expression has been used for years. Fifty years ago, a former governor of New York State, Alfred Smith, criticized some claims by President Franklin Roosevelt about the successes of the Roosevelt administration. Smith said, “No matter how thin you slice it, it is still baloney.”

A similar word has almost the same meaning as baloney. It even sounds almost the same. The word is blarney. It began in Ireland about 1600.

The lord of Blarney castle, near Cork, agreed to surrender the castle to British troops. But he kept making excuses for postponing the surrender. And, he made them sound like very good excuses, “this is just more of the same blarney.”

The Irish castle now is famous for its Blarney stone. Kissing the stone is thought to give a person special powers of speech. One who has kissed the Blarney stone, so the story goes, can speak words of praise so smoothly and sweetly that you believe them, even when you know they are false.

73. Find in the passage a word closest in meaning to the underlined word “baloney”.

74. according to Americans, what does baloney refer to? (回答词数不超过8个)

75. What do you know about the lord of Blarney castle, near Cork?  (回答词数不超过6个)

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