回答问题(四) 亲情故事+打喷嚏风俗+词典历史
A [2019·门头沟期末]
Every year on my birthday, from the time I turned 12, a white gardenia(栀子花) was sent to my house. No card came with it. Calls to the flower shops were not helpful at all. After a while I stopped trying to discover the sender’s name and was just very pleased with the beautiful white flower in soft pink paper.
But I never stopped imagining who the giver might be. Some of my happiest moments were spent daydreaming about the sender. My mother encouraged this imagining. She’d ask me if there was someone for whom I had done a special kindness. Perhaps it was the old man whom I looked after when he was ill. As a girl, I had more fun imagining that it might be a boy.
One month before my graduation, my father died. I felt very sad and didn’t want to go to the coming graduation dance at all. And I didn’t care whether I had a new dress or not. But my mother, in her own sadness, would not let me miss any of those things. She wanted her children to feel loved and lovable. In truth, my mother wanted her children to see themselves much like the gardenia—lovely, strong and perfect with perhaps a bit of mystery.
My mother died ten days after I got married. I was 22. That was the year the gardenia stopped coming.
1. What color was the flowers the writer received?
2. How did the writer feel when she daydreamed about the giver?
3. Why didn’t the writer want to go to the graduation dance?
4. How old was the writer when she got married?
5. Who sent the flowers to the writer every year on her birthday?
B [2019·怀柔一模]
Superstition about Sneezing
It’s a Western custom to say “bless you” after someone sneezes.
“Achoo!”
“Bless you.”
This is a common exchange in English-speaking countries. When you hear someone else sneeze, it is polite to say “bless you”, to which they should reply with “thank you”. But where does this odd custom come from?
In fact, it dates back to medieval(中世纪的) Europe, specifically, the time of the bubonic plague(黑死病). The plague killed nearly one-third of Europe’s population within three years (1347—1350). The first symptom of the bubonic plague was sneezing. At that time, people believed that if you sneezed, your soul might leave your body.
People didn’t know how to cure the bubonic plague. They were simply encouraged to say “God bless you” and do other superstitious(迷信的) things, hoping the soul would go back into the body. And over time, “God bless you” was shortened to “bless you”.
Of course, in modern times, we know that sneezing has nothing to do with the soul or any other superstitious thing. But just like so many other customs from the past, saying “bless you” has stayed with us for hundreds of years.
But you may be wondering—what if someone sneezes more than once? Well, you don’t have to keep saying “bless you”. In fact, if someone sneezes more than twice, or sneezes especially loudly, you may want to ask them if they’re OK, or if they would like a tissue(纸巾).
