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阅读理解
John Bull
In speaking of John Bull, an image immediately appears in our mind．He is short and fat, with a tall hat on his head and a pair of boots on his feet．It is the nickname for Britain, but where does it come from?
Originally, John Bull denoted generally Britain or any Englishman in the seventeenth century, just as Uncle Sam refers to the U．S．A．in the nineteenth century and became the symbol of America in 1961．In the eighteenth century, a Scottish writer named John Arbuthnot(1667-1735), who wrote a book called“The History of John Bull”, in which he bitterly and vividly depicted the frankness, uneasiness(不安)and funniness of a gentleman called John Bull．He described him so vividly and with such remarkable truth to life that the nickname spread far and wide, and has become a synonym for Britain which everybody knows．In the nineteenth century, cartoonists displayed him in caricatures(漫画)so everyone now has a visual(形象的)image of him．
“Ladies First”
“Ladies First”is also a British custom, though it is less observed today than it used to be．The reason seems to be the fact that women are the equals of men in having the vote, taking paid employment and receiving higher education, but there is still the feeling that they need protection．It is still considered polite to let a woman go first, to protect her from traffic, to help her get on and get off the bus and to do many other things for her．
Talking about the weather
When you meet a person in Britain and do not know how to start your conversation, you may say, “It's a nice day, isn't it?”or“It looks like rain”, or you might say, “I hope the rain lets up soon”, or something like that．Why do the Englishmen usually talk about the weather?There are probably two reasons．One is the uncertainty of the weather．Some people even say, “One can experience four seasons in the course of a single day!”So you may laugh when you see in London that the Englishmen are wearing raincoats or carrying umbrellas on a bright sunny day．Another reason is that talking about the weather, unlike discussing politics, seems a way of being friendly, without getting heated．The weather is a subject which is quite safe to talk about．
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