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“单词背后的故事”是一个电台节目，通过讲故事和举例子，让英语学习者更系统地了解到英语习语的意思与用法。当然，要学以致用才能真正掌握这些习语哦。袋子（bag）恐怕是世界上最简单、最有用的物品之一，过去塑料袋可谓泛滥成灾，如今随着人们环保意识的提高，环保袋（eco bag）正逐渐走入大众的生活。但有关“bag”的表达可不简单，这期咱们就来探索一下“袋子”里的秘密！
The bag is one of the most simple and useful things in the world. It is a 1)container made of paper or cloth. It has given the world many strange expressions that are not very simple. Some of them are used in the United States today.
One is 2)bagman. It describes a 3)go-between. The go-between sees to it that money is passed—often 4)illegally—from one person to another.
Another widely-used expression is 5)to let the cat out of the bag. It is used when someone tells something that was supposed to be secret. No one can explain how the cat got into the bag. But there is an old story about it.
Long ago tradesmen sold things in large cloth bags. One day a woman asked for a pig. The tradesman held up a cloth bag with something moving inside it. He said it was a live pig. The woman asked to see it. When the dishonest tradesman opened the bag, out jumped a cat—not a pig. The tradesman’s secret was out. He was trying to 6)trick her. And now everybody knew it.
The phrase 7)to be left holding the bag is as widely used as the expression to let the cat out of the bag.
This expression makes the person left holding the bag responsible for an action, often a crime or 8)misdeed. That person is the one who is punished. The others involved in the act escape.
Where the expression came from is not clear. Some say that General George Washington used it during the American Revolutionary War.
One of Washington’s officers, Royall Tyler, used the expression in a play about Daniel Shays’s rebellion. The play was in 1787, after Tyler helped to 9)put down Shays’s rebellion.
Shays led a thousand war 10)veterans in an attack on a federal building in Springfield,
Massachusetts. Guns were in the building. Some of the 11)protesters were farmers who had no money to buy seed. Some had been put in prison for not paying their debts. They were men who fought one war against the king of England, and were now prepared to fight against their own government. Most of the 12)rebels were captured. Shays and some of his officers escaped.
In his play, Tyler describes Shays as disappearing, giving others “the bag to hold.”
A bag is useful in many ways. Just be careful not to let the cat out of the bag, or someone may leave you holding the bag.
The bag is one of the most simple and useful things in the world. It is a 1)container made of paper or cloth. It has given the world many strange expressions that are not very simple. Some of them are used in the United States today.
One is 2)bagman. It describes a 3)go-between. The go-between sees to it that money is passed—often 4)illegally—from one person to another.
Another widely-used expression is 5)to let the cat out of the bag. It is used when someone tells something that was supposed to be secret. No one can explain how the cat got into the bag. But there is an old story about it.
Long ago tradesmen sold things in large cloth bags. One day a woman asked for a pig. The tradesman held up a cloth bag with something moving inside it. He said it was a live pig. The woman asked to see it. When the dishonest tradesman opened the bag, out jumped a cat—not a pig. The tradesman’s secret was out. He was trying to 6)trick her. And now everybody knew it.
The phrase 7)to be left holding the bag is as widely used as the expression to let the cat out of the bag.
This expression makes the person left holding the bag responsible for an action, often a crime or 8)misdeed. That person is the one who is punished. The others involved in the act escape.
Where the expression came from is not clear. Some say that General George Washington used it during the American Revolutionary War.
One of Washington’s officers, Royall Tyler, used the expression in a play about Daniel Shays’s rebellion. The play was in 1787, after Tyler helped to 9)put down Shays’s rebellion.
Shays led a thousand war 10)veterans in an attack on a federal building in Springfield,
Massachusetts. Guns were in the building. Some of the 11)protesters were farmers who had no money to buy seed. Some had been put in prison for not paying their debts. They were men who fought one war against the king of England, and were now prepared to fight against their own government. Most of the 12)rebels were captured. Shays and some of his officers escaped.
In his play, Tyler describes Shays as disappearing, giving others “the bag to hold.”
A bag is useful in many ways. Just be careful not to let the cat out of the bag, or someone may leave you holding the bag.