自从电视普及以来,人们往往会把一些电视广告里特别吸引人的词句用到日常生活中去。几年前在美国,有一个快餐店在电视上做广告,广告里是一个老太太在另一家快餐店里买了一个汉堡宝。她打开一看里面只有小小的一块肉。她既惊奇,又生气地问: "Where's the beef?"
Beef 就是牛肉,where's the beef?也就是:牛肉在哪里?意思就是:这个汉堡包里的牛肉太少。几乎在一夜之间,人们就把这个电视广告里的问句用到日常生活中去了。连民主党总统候选人蒙代尔在1984年总统竞选时都用这句话来攻击他的对手里根总统。里根当时已经担任了四年总统,正在竞选连任。蒙代尔认为里根在任职四年期间没有取得实质性的成就,所以他在竞选演说问了这样一句话:
例句-1: "Where's the beef,Mr. President -- where's the beef?"
例句-2: "Our history teacher is a good talker but there isn't much real meat about history in what he says. I'd like to ask him, 'Where's the beef?' because we sure don't learn much from him."
例句-3: "The man is so incompetent we'd like to fire him. But he has good political connections so we sent him to our turkey farm out in Denver where he can't cause much damage."
例句-4: "There is a secretary in my office who tries to do as little as possible. I have warned her several times. If she continues to behave that way, one day I am going to send her to the turkey farm."