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: 那不就是黄牛党吗？可他们跟奥运开幕那天结婚有什么关系啊？

　　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: 啊！我明白了。你是说那天办婚宴的人太多，会有很多人订不到场地，对吧？

　　a: definitely. so here comes the wedding banquet scalper.

　　b: 婚宴黄牛党。这些人可真会赚钱。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.

　　b: 那倒是。花三、四千块钱订了饭店，转让不出去的话也够惨的。对了，marc，那我们平时在体育馆外面经常看到的票贩子就是ticket scalper吧？

　　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: 倒卖高价票的黄牛党真是太可恶了，他们就应该得到惩罚。

　　a: hmm, i will never buy tickets from a scalper. that is the word today, scalper, and wedding banquet scalper, and ticket scalper.

　　b: 我们今天说的就是黄牛党这个词，scalper。

　　a: for more word wise please log onto our web site at language.chinadaily.com.cn. see you next time!

　　b: bye! 再见。