Mr. Black retired（退休）five years ago, now he lives a happy life, he exercises in the morning, he plays with his grandchildren on weekends, sometimes he goes to parties.

    One Sunday evening, after Mr. Black had dinner, he went out for a walk with his granddaughter Jane, they saw three beggars（乞丐）outside the park.

    "Why do they beg in the street?" asked the little girl. "Because they're poor," answered Mr. Black.

    "Why don't they find any work?" "Because they're lazy." "Do you know who is the laziest of them?" "That's easy," said Mr. Black, he came up to them, took out five dollars and said, "I'll give the money to the laziest of you. Tell me who he is."

    "I lost my job a year ago," the first beggar stood up quickly and said, "of course I am!"

    "I haven't done any work for two years," the second beggar sat up and said, "give me the money."

    The third beggar went on lying on the ground and said, "Come over here, sir, put the money into my bag!"

Misunderstandings

    A man, wearing dirty clothes, with dirty hair and only 35 cents in his pocket, got on a bus and headed straight for the restroom. He thought that if he hid in the restroom, he could ride to New York without paying. But a passenger at the back of the bus saw him. She tapped(拍)the person in front of her on the shoulder and said, "There's a bum in the restroom. Tell the bus driver. "That passenger tapped the person sitting in front of him. "Tell the bus driver there's a bum in the restroom," he said.

    The message was passed from person to person until it reached the front of the bus. But somewhere along the way, the message changed. By the time it reached the bus driver, it was not "There's a bum in the restroom" but "There's a bomb(炸弹)in the restroom. "The driver pulled over to the side of the highway(高速公路)at once and called the police. When the police arrived, they told the passengers to get off the bus and stay far away. Then they closed the highway. That soon caused a 15-mile-long traffic jam. With the help of a dog, the police searched the bus for two hours. Of course, they found no bomb.

    Two similar-sounding English words also caused trouble for a man who wanted to fly from Los Angeles to Oakland, California. His problems began at the airport in Los Angeles. He thought he heard his flight announced, so he walked to the gate, showed his ticket, and got on the plane. Twenty minutes after take-off, the man began to worry. Oakland was north of Los Angeles, but the plane seemed to be heading west, and when he looked out his window all he could see was ocean. "Is this plane going to Oakland? "he asked the flight attendant. "No, "she said. "We're going to Auckland-Auckland, New Zealand."

    Because so many English words sound similar, misunderstandings among English-speaking people are not uncommon. Most misunderstandings are much less serious. Every day, people speaking English ask one another questions like these: "Did you say seventy or seventeen?" "Did you say that you can come or that you can't?"

    Similar-sounding words can be especially confusing（混淆）for people who speak English as a second language. When a Korean woman who lives in the United States arrived at work one morning, her boss asked her, "Did you get a plate?" "No." she answered, wondering what in the world he meant. She worked in an office. Why did the boss ask her about a plate? All day she wondered about her boss's strange question, but she was too embarrassed to ask him about it. At five o'clock, when she was getting ready to go home, her boss said, "Please be on time tomorrow.

You were 15 minutes late this morning." "Sorry," she said. "My car wouldn't start, and…"

    Suddenly she stopped talking and began to smile. Now she understood. Her boss hadn't asked her, "Did you get a plate?" He had asked her, "Did you get up late?"

    Auckland and Oakland. "A plate" and" up late". When similar-sounding words cause a misunderstanding, probably the best thing to do is just to laugh and learn from the mistake. Of course, sometimes it's hard to laugh. The man who traveled to Auckland instead of Oakland didn't feel like laughing. But even that misunderstanding turned out all right in the end. The airline paid for the man's hotel room and meals in New Zealand and for his flight back to California. "Oh well, "the man later said. "I always wanted to see New Zealand."

    Alan comes from New York, and now he is having a great time visiting his aunt in China. Today is Sunday. It's his eleventh birthday. He gets up early and wants to make a cake for his birthday party in the afternoon.

    When he comes out of his bedroom, he sees a big bowl of noodles on the table. It's a bowl of tomato and egg noodles. Alan usually has bread and milk for breakfast in America. Alan likes the tomato and egg noodles, but he still wants to know why his aunt cooks noodles this morning

    "It's your birthday today," his aunt says, *in China, many people eat very long noodles on their birthdays. It's a symbol of long life. We never cut up the noodles, and we call the long noodles changshou noodles.”

    "Thanks. I think it's my first special gift I get for my birthday," says Alan.