為什么美國人數(shù)秒時(shí)習(xí)慣說One Mississippi？
如果你喜歡看美劇，你會(huì)經(jīng)常看到當(dāng)一個(gè)人希望穩(wěn)定一下情緒，過幾秒再做下一個(gè)動(dòng)作的時(shí)候，會(huì)習(xí)慣地在1、2、3后加上一個(gè)詞“Mississippi”，其實(shí)這在許多美國人的生活中已經(jīng)形成了一個(gè)約定俗成的習(xí)慣。
我們很難能找到它的起源，不過大部分人認(rèn)為這是美國人在童年時(shí)候的就已經(jīng)學(xué)到的一種數(shù)秒的方法，因?yàn)樽xMississippi這個(gè)單詞剛好大約需要一秒鐘時(shí)間，One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi...雨天的時(shí)候孩子們看到閃電，父母和老師便讓他們用這種方法開始數(shù)秒，等雷聲響起的時(shí)候孩子們就可以根據(jù)數(shù)到的秒數(shù)來計(jì)算閃電發(fā)生的地方距離自己有多遠(yuǎn)了(the speed of sound is about 1/5 of a mile per second)，這大概是美國基礎(chǔ)教育中的一種很簡便很實(shí)用的物理教學(xué)方法。
為什么不用其他的單詞而一定要用Mississippi呢?很多人認(rèn)為這是因?yàn)镸ississippi這個(gè)詞是小孩學(xué)習(xí)拼寫時(shí)最開始遇到的比較復(fù)雜的單詞之一，“It's one of the first "hard" words most of us learn to spell.”于是人們用的多了，便成為一個(gè)沿用下來的說法。
當(dāng)然，有時(shí)候你還可以聽到其他類似的說法，例如，ONE steam boat, TWO steam boat...我們還可以把加的詞放在數(shù)字前面，如 Mississippi One, Mississippi two...或 one thousand-one, one thousand-two...等等。
One Mississippi是美國人的數(shù)秒方法，如果你來到其他英語國家，可能聽到的就不再會(huì)是Mississippi(密西西比)了，比如英國人小時(shí)候首先學(xué)到的詞不可能是Mississippi。關(guān)于這一點(diǎn)我們還有一個(gè)笑話，大家不妨看看能不能理解：
A Canadian was observing teaching methods in schools in several African countries.
In one, she found the children doing a science lesson, timing the swing of a pendulum(鐘擺). The lesson had evidently been prepared in the US as the children were counting "Mississippi one, Mississippi two, Mississippi three ..."
After the lesson the Canadian gave a talk and mentioned that if children in her country were doing this experiment, they would probably use a Canadian word like "Saskatchewan"(加拿大的薩斯喀徹溫省，注意它的最后一個(gè)音節(jié)) to do the timing.
The next day, the Canadian happened to drop in on the class and found them still timing the pendulum's swing, but today they were counting "Saskatche one, Saskatche two ..."
