Americans use many expressions with the word dog. People in the United States love their dogs and treat them well. They take their dogs for walks, let them play outside and give them good food and medical care. 【小题1】The expression, to lead a dog’s life, describes a person who has an unhappy existence.

Some people say we live in a dog-eat-dog world.【小题2】They say that to be successful, a person has to work like a dog. This means they have to work very, very hard. Such hard work can make people dog-tired. And, the situation would be even worse if they became sick as a dog.

Still, people say every dog has its day. This means that every person enjoys a successful period during his or her life. To be successful, people often have to learn new skills. Yet, some people say that you can never teach an old dog new tricks. 【小题3】

Some people are compared to dogs in bad ways. People who are unkind or uncaring can be described as meaner than a junkyard dog. Husbands and wives use this doghouse term when they are angry at each other. For example, a woman might get angry at her husband for coming home late or forgetting their wedding anniversary. She might tell him that he is in the doghouse.【小题4】

However, the husband may decide that it is best to leave things alone and not create more problems. He might decide to let sleeping dogs lie.

【小题5】The dog days of summer are the hottest days of the year. A rainstorm may cool the weather. But we do not want it to rain too hard. We do not want it to rain cats and dogs.

French writer Frantz Fanon once said: “To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.” Since the world changes every day, so does our language.

More than 300 new words and phrases have recently made it into the online Oxford Dictionary, and in one way or another they are all reflections of today’s changing world.

After a year that was politically unstable, it’s not hard to understand the fact that people’s political views are one of the main drives of our expanding vocabulary. One example is “clicktivism”, a compound of “click” and “activism”. It refers to “armchair activists” — people who support a political or social cause, but only show their support from behind a computer or smartphone. And “otherize” is a verb for “other” that means to alienate (使疏远) people who are different from ourselves — whether that be different skin color, religious belief or sexuality.

Lifestyle is also changing our language. For example, “fitspiration” — a compound of fit and inspiration — refers to a person or thing that encourages one to exercise and stay fit and healthy.

The phrase “climate refugee” — someone who is forced to leave their home due to climate change — reflects people’s concern for the environment.

According to Stevenson, social media was the main source for the new expressions. “People feel much freer to coin their own words these days,” he said.

But still, not all newly-invented words get the chance to make their way into a mainstream (主流的) dictionary. If you want to create your own hit words, Angus Stevenson, Oxford Dictionaries head of content development, suggests that you should not only make sure that they are expressive (有表现力的) and meaningful, but also have an attractive sound so that people will enjoy saying them out loud.

See if you can understand these words that have won an award for the funniest joke at a UK arts and culture festival: “I’m not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change.”

Did you get it? The UK started to use new one pound coins that year, so the joke contains a pun (一语双关) on the word “change”.

Britain is known for its dry sense of humour, so this is a classic British joke where you have to think about it to understand it.

When a British person tells a joke, they’ll probably say it without a laugh, or even a smile, and it’ll probably be said when you least expect it.

Americans, on the other hand, enjoy being more straightforward. In a country filled with people from so many backgrounds, jokes in the US tend to be about cultural, racial and gender differences. In the US, humour can be a way to help people overcome their differences.

A great example of this comes from an American comedian, Chris Rock, who once said, “You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese.” His words prove a point about stereotypes. After all, when it comes to humour, the best jokes are the ones where we can laugh at ourselves.