A: Hello! This is Word Wise on Language Tips. I’m Marc.
B: Hello! This is Meggie.
A: Meggie, do you have any plan to get married on the opening day of the Beijing Olympics?
B: August 8? It is a good day, but I don’t think I will compete with thousands of couples for that.
A: Oh! That would be a bad news for those scalpers.
B: Scalpers? What does that mean?
A: Scalpers refer to those who buy something and resell it at a price far above the initial cost.
B: 那不就是黃牛黨嗎？可他們跟奧運開幕那天結婚有什么關系啊？
A: Well, just like what you’ve said, many people would like to get married on that special day, then they would surely need a place to hold their wedding banquet, and so many wedding banquets on that day …
B: ??！我明白了。你是說那天辦婚宴的人太多，會有很多人訂不到場地，對吧？
A: Definitely. So here comes the wedding banquet scalper.
B: 婚宴黃牛黨。這些人可真會賺錢。They will surely make a lot of money.
A: But it is risky too.
B: Risky?
A: Yes. They have to pay a deposit of 3,000 to 4,000 yuan to reserve a wedding banquet space, if they are unable to sell the space later, that money is gone.
A: Right! A ticket scalper is someone who buys ticket for an event like the Olympics and resells it at a price far above the initial cost. For example, the police cracked down on the ticket scalpers outside the soccer ground.
B: 倒賣高價票的黃牛黨真是太可惡了，他們就應該得到懲罰。
A: Hmm, I will never buy tickets from a scalper. That is the word today, scalper, and wedding banquet scalper, and ticket scalper.
B: 我們今天說的就是黃牛黨這個詞，scalper。
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