John: Welcome to this week’s edition of Round Table’s Word of the Week. I’m John Artman

ZHY: 大家好，我是赫扬，又到了一周一次的英语词汇小百科板块了。这个礼拜我们要聊一聊jaywalking, “jaywalking”中文应该叫“中国式过马路”，我觉得这个把意义传达的非常的直接。

John: Right, so Chinese crossing the street. In English, “jaywalking” is the illegal or reckless pedestrian crossing of a roadway. So, for example, people crossing between intersections without yielding to drivers or starting to cross at a crosswalk at a signal intersection without waiting for a permissive indication to be displayed.

ZHY: Well, that’s nicely put. 几乎每天都会发生，我们看到在路上不看红绿灯直接闯马路，而且还有一个很有中国特色的一点就是一大窝峰的人一起过马路。

John: And interestingly enough, the earliest use of the word “jaywalker” in print was in the Chicago Tribune in 1909 whereas the earliest citation was in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1917. And, so it was actually originally used as part of a deliberate effort by people trying to automobiles to redefine streets as places where pedestrians do not belong.

ZHY: 我们可以看到这个词的背景。

John: So, actually, the word “jaywalk,” that’s J-A-Y-W-A-L-K, is actually a compound word derived from the word “jay,” which in this case means an inexperienced person, and the word, of course, “walk.”

ZHY: Ah, OK. “jay”这个词看来还有表达没有经验的人的意思，虽然对于我们的中国听众来说，很多时候一说到 “jay”，我首先想到的就是周杰伦，或者是Modern Family 里面的那个老爷爷，他也叫Jay, 不过这里还有其他的含义。

John: Yes, exactly. So “Jay” is actually a very old word that’s not used in at least American English. I’m not quite sure about in theUK, but Looking at jaywalking in other countries, so in theUnited Statesusually state laws require that drivers yield to pedestrians at crosswalks and at many other locations. However, there are sometimes when pedestrians are supposed to yield to cars.

ZHY: When you say yield, you mean by giving way to the other party. Yes. 但是在中国的话，车子给人让路的这种情况还是比较少的，所以从某种含义上讲，也可以说中国式过马路就是因为车子都不让人，那人又过去，怎么办呢？只好寻求互相的帮助然后一起冲过去。

John: Interestingly enough, in theUnited Kingdomand many other countries do legally recognize jaywalking. They do not actually have any formal regulations for drivers and pedestrians, except for Zebra, Pelican, and Puffin crossings.

ZHY: 本周的英语词汇小百科就到这啦，这周你学会了这个新词 “jaywalking” 了吗？