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1. lesson32

How Our Language Grows Many popular expressions in our language have interesting backgrounds. When we refer to a person's weak spot as his Achilles heel) we are recalling the story of the mighty Greek hero of the Trojan War, Achilles, a warrior of unusual strength and valor. The mother of Achilles, in whose veins flowed the blood of the gods, was warned at his birth that her son would die in battle. In great distress, she sought to save her son. In order to diminish his chances of being hurt and to give him maximum protection in combat, she dipped the infant in the river Styx. The magic waters touched every part of the child's body except the heel that she held in her hand. Thus it happened many years later that as Achilles started to flee from an attack, a poisoned arrow struck him in the heel, the only spot where he was vulnerable. Today, the meaning of Achilles heel is not confined to a weak spot in the body but it also signifies a weakness in the character of an individual, or in the defenses of a nation, or in the structure of a system. American politics, rather than mythology, provides the explanation for the word bunk. This word came into the language in 1820 when Felix Walker, the representative from Buncombe County, North Carolina, formed the habit of making long, unnecessary speeches in Congress. When his colleagues asked him why he was tormenting them so, he apologized by saying it was his patriotic duty to put those speeches in the record out of loyalty to his supporters at home. The word "Buncombe" was shortened to "bunk" and came to mean any thought that has little or no worth.
Protecting Our Health Pick an apple, a tomato, a peach-no worms in the harvest. We are familiar with the abundant use of pesticides by farmers, but today's chemists are becoming uneasy. They calculate that there are 45,000 different pesticides, and all of them can be absorbed by the fruit on which they are sprayed. The chemists estimate that every morsel we eat in the future may contain a deadly quota of pesticide. The tragedy* will come slowly but the threat is real. These government chemists do not suggest that we ban pesticides. They are cautious* and do not easily panic. What is needed, they say, are appropriate, budgeted* doses that will not pollute* our food.
Summer Travel If you are tired of making vague excuses for another dull summer at home, here is a thought to elevate your spirits. You do not need anything so radical as winning a lottery to finance a trip to Europe. A student identity card that can be obtained for a few dollars from the Council on International Educational Exchange entitles you to discount tickets on certain charter flights to London and Paris, as well as reduced admission to many museums, cinemas, and musical events. Once in Europe, you can stretch your budget by staying at approved youth hostels for about ten dollars a night. So don't discard your hopes of becoming an international traveler. Soon you can be soaring into the skies or skimming over the waves to new adventures that you will subsequently relate to your stationary friends.
Weight-watchers Judging from the popularity of books on dieting, one would think an epidemic of obesity is sweeping the nation. Although being fat is not contagious, it is a condition not to be sneered at since it affects one-fourth of all Americans. Without magnifying the problem, professionals concerned with the nation's health, from chiropractors to medical specialists, agree that being overweight is a major obstacle to good health. They point out that people will readily see the need to ventilate their homes for fresh air to get rid of vermin that may cause disease, but they jeopardize their health by eating the wrong foods or the wrong amount of foods. Coincidentally, a recent survey of employment agencies showed that obesity has a negative effect on a person's chances of landing a job. While the job-seeker is asking about salary and pensions, the employer is thinking about the worker's healthand weight is a vital consideration when it comes to injuries, disease, and absenteeism. Some municipal jobs, in fact, do require an applicant to be within normal weight range, and one New York bank insists on an oral understanding that applicants will take off excess weight. As the Wall Street journal put it, "Fat people often find slim pickings in the job market."

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