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  • Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 64. The weird origin today is clunker.

  • Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. A clunker is a very old and poorly

  • maintained piece of machinery, especially a car. By extension so you know , even

  • though we mostly use it for cars but sometimes by extension we can use it for

  • other things. By extension it could also be used for anything that is not

  • successful. Okay. Let's continue. The origin is believed to come from the

  • sounds some old machinery may make when in use. The word clunk by itself is the

  • sound made by one heavy object hitting something else. So you know, with a car,

  • especially if it's driving down the road, you might hear clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk,

  • clunk. So that's where the word ...this was the origin really came from that they

  • referred to this old car that's not maintained well. As a clunker. Okay, Let's

  • continue. The term seemed to appear in the late 1930s and 1940s which was

  • towards the end of the Depression and wartime. Money was tight and many

  • people probably did not have much money to maintain one's car properly. If they

  • could afford a car or if they could afford one at all. Okay. Let's continue.

  • Other words used for an old car in poor condition are jalopy. Yeah. They used

  • jalopy, lemon. Lemon well lemon doesn't always have to be very old. It

  • just means that a car that breaks down a lot. But usually that is an old car. A

  • beater you know, it's beating along. Rattletrap.

  • Yeah. It could like the car shaking around like different parts of the car

  • shaking a lot. It's like rattling, a rattling noise. So kind of a similar idea.

  • Rust bucket. Okay. Yeah. When the car is really old especially if it's in

  • northern part of the country, a lot of the metal on the you know,

  • outside surface of the car may start to rust. So sometimes they could be called a

  • rust bucket too. Okay , good. Anyway here are several examples. Example

  • number one. When he picked me up for a date. I couldn't believe he was driving a

  • clunker. Yeah so there's always some jokes about this. Where you know, some

  • girl maybe she doesn't want to get in the car if the car is too terrible

  • looking. All right. Number two. When are you going to bring that clunker to the

  • junkyard and get a new car . Yeah. Maybe some coworkers are teasing him. Or number

  • three. During the Obama administration, he tried to stimulate the car industry by

  • having a program called 'cash for clunkers' It was supposed to help, indirectly

  • help the environment too, I think as you know getting rid of older cars that had

  • poor gas mileage and buying newer cars that had better gas mileage. I don't know

  • how well but it was questionable how well it really worked out. But that was

  • the idea behind it but he kind of really brought back the word clunker again

  • everybody was used to the word clunker during that time. Let's continue. Okay and

  • here's the one use where we're not really talking about either a car or

  • machine. You could say that movie turned out to be a real clunker. Clunker because

  • remember I said here you know by extension it could be used for other

  • things that's not successful as well. Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope it was clear. I hope

  • it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 64. The weird origin today is clunker.

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英語導師Nick P單詞起源(64)Clunker (English Tutor Nick P Word Origins (64) Clunker)

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    anitawu12 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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