诸位英语学得都不错，但是您知道“眯缝眼”用英语怎么说吗？要是知道，或者不知道，都请您先看看下面这张拍摄于1986年10月的老照片。

话说这张拍摄于长城的照片上的两位，一位是不列颠的伊丽莎白女王，另一位就是女王的丈夫菲利普——别说菲利普王爷低调，他就是在这次到中国访问时出了一个风头。那是他在西安参观兵马俑的时候见到了英国爱丁堡大学在西安西北工业大学学习的英国学生，在场的有一位21岁的男生名叫Simon Kirby，当时他刚到中国6周，打算在这里学习一年。

菲利普王爷握着Simon的手，听说他还要在这待一年，于是盯着他的眼睛，眯起自己的眼睛，抖出一句英式幽默：

“By the time you go back home, you'll have slitty eyes（等你回国的时候，恐怕就变成眯缝眼了）”

说实话，我学会“眯缝眼”这个单词就是那会儿跟菲利普王爷学来的——slitty eyes。王爷的这番话见报之后，自然引起英国媒体的议论纷纷和诸多批评，以至于白金汉宫发言人不得不出来解释说王爷的话是明确的和一贯的，完全没有恶意（innocent）：

“If you go to America, you will come back with an American accent（好比您去美国，回来的时候就染上了美国口音）”

好在那时还没有互联网更没有微博，我外交部也没说中国人民被伤害了感情，所以这个slitty eyes风波很快就过去了。

没想到25年之后，英国广播公司BBC为今年6月10日菲利普王爷90岁大寿捧场，特意拍摄了一部记录片，回顾菲利普王爷一生的大小事，其中包括那次“眯缝眼”的失言。在片中，菲利普王爷对此事的回应是：

“I'd forgotten about it…what's more, the Chinese weren't worried about it, so why should anyone else?（我早忘了这件事…再说了，中国人都不在乎这事，其他人着的什么急呢？）”

也许是为了证明菲利普王爷对中国人确实没有成见，昨天英国《每日邮报》专门列出了一个单子，曾受到口无遮拦的菲利普王爷揶揄的不仅有中国人，还有印度人、澳大利亚土著人、匈牙利人、巴布亚新几内亚人、肯尼亚人……，甚至还有大不列颠人自己：

THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH: A ROYAL LIFE IN GAFFES

——He tells Indian businessman Atul Patel: 'There's a lot of your family in tonight,' at a 400-strong Buckingham Palace reception for British Indians in October 2009.

——Navy sea cadet instructor Elizabeth Rendle, 24, who works in a bar, was asked 'Is it a strip club?' by the Prince. She said: 'It was a joke and I didn't take any offence,' after the blunder in Exeter, Devon, in March last year.

——A Buckingham Palace guest with a goatee who told Prince Philip he was a designer, got the sharp response: ‘Well, you didn’t design your beard too well, did you?’ in 2009.

——Prince Philip surprised Aborigines in Australia by asking 'Do you still throw spears at each other?' during a state visit in March 2002. Cultural park manager William Brim replied: 'No, we don't do that any more.'

——A Scottish driving instructor was asked in 1995: 'How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?'

——When visiting Hungary in 1993 he said to a resident Briton: 'You can't have been here long - you haven't got a pot belly.'

——When visiting the Welsh Assembly he offended a group from the British Deaf Association in May 1999. He pointed to a band they were standing near and said: 'Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf.'

——He said to a student travelling across Papua New Guinea in 1998: 'You managed not to get eaten then?'

——As dole queues grew in 1981, he said: ‘Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed.’

——Once, he asked a Kenyan dancer during a state visit: ‘You are a woman, aren’t you?'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1392413/Prince-Philip-defends-infamous-slitty-eyed-gaffe.html#ixzz1NwU1dn3O