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The future of written English will owe more to Hollywood films than Dickens or Shakespeare, if the findings of a study into children’s writing are anything to go by. 如果一项对儿童作文的研究结果可靠的话，那么比起狄更斯或莎士比亚等英国文坛巨匠，书面英语的未来受好莱坞电影的影响会更大。 The analysis of 74,000 short stories found that their written work was littered with Americanisms, exclamation marks and references to celebrities. 对74000篇儿童短文的分析发现，这些文字作品中俨然处处可见美式英语、感叹号和明星姓名。 Researchers who looked at the entries to a national competition found they were increasingly using American words such as garbage, trash can, sidewalk, candy, sneakers, soda, cranky and flashlight. 研究人员阅读了全国作文比赛的参赛作品后发现，，孩子们正越来越多地使用一些美式英语词汇，比如：garbage（垃圾）, trash can（垃圾桶）， sidewalk（人行道）, candy（糖果）, sneakers（胶底运动鞋）, soda（苏打水）, cranky（暴躁的） and flashlight（手电筒）。 The stories, written by pupils aged seven to 13, show how fairy cakes are referred to as cupcakes and a dinner jacket has become a tuxedo. ‘Smart’ is now often used for ‘clever’ and ‘cranky’ for ‘irritable’. 这些短篇作文出自7-13岁孩子们之手，小学生们用纸杯蛋糕(cupcakes)来代替仙女蛋糕（fairy cakes），晚礼服(dinner jacket)则变成了无尾礼服(tuxedo)。常用美式英语还有‘smart’现在也替代了英式用词’clever’来表示聪明之意，而表达暴躁古怪之意的’cranky’也取代了’irritable’。 | 
