Neil: Hello, welcome to Real English from BBC Learning¹ English, I’m Neil.

Feifei: 大家好，我是冯菲菲。

Neil: In Real English we look at words and phrases people use all the time which you might not find in your dictionary.

Feifei: 地道英语中介绍的一些英语表达， 你可能在英语课堂上学不到，但是它们在生活中却会经常出现。So Neil, are you ready to start the programme?

Neil: Hang on. I just need to get my papers together (sound of rustling² papers). Could you just pass me that, erm, ah, that whatchamacallit over there?

Feifei: A what?

Neil: You know, one of those whatchamacallits for holding papers together.

Feifei: A paperclip? Neil 说他要一个曲别针 paperclip 把我们节目要用的稿子整理好，可是他一时忘了那个词怎么说，他就把它叫做 a whatchamacallit.

Neil: Yeah, a paperclip, thanks. I couldn’t remember the name for a second. In English, if there’s something we can’t remember the name of, we can call it a ‘whatchamacallit’. It comes from the words ‘what do you call it’ said very quickly.

Feifei: 这个词是这样拼写的 W-H-A-T-C-H-A-M-A-C-A-L-L-I-T，当我们把 What do you call it 这句话很快的说出来时，就变成了whatchamacallit。

Insert

A: I’ve just bought this tin of beans for dinner but I haven’t got a… ah, whatchamacallit to open it.

B: A tin-opener?

A: Yeah, I don’t have a tin-opener.

Neil: How do you say ‘whatchamacallit’ in Chinese?

Feifei: 那个，就是那个什么来着；通常我们一时间忘了一样东西的名称时常说，那个什么来着，whatchamacallit.

Neil: There are other ways of saying it too.

Feifei: Tell me.

Neil: You can say thingmejig, or thingmebob!

Feifei: Thingmejig and thingmebob 是另一种表示那个，那个东西的词儿。

Neil: But I think we’ll stick to just whatchamacallit for now.

Feifei: 如果大家想学到更多英式英语的新词汇新表达，都可以登陆我们的网站 www.bbcchina.com.cn.See you next time.

Neil: Bye.