Hello. This is a programme from the BBC Learning English Archive（档案馆）. It was first broadcast（广播） in February 2007 on the BBC Learning English website. We do hope you enjoy it. Hello. I'm Callum Robertson and this is London Life.

  They are something of a British institution（协会）. They have their own specialised vocabulary and there are over 6,000 of them in London alone. What am I talking about? Well, it's the good old pub, of course. The name of the pub is something that is quintessentially British. It's something that's part of our heritage（遗产）, our culture and it's an experience which isn't really the same anywhere else in the world.

  So first, what do we mean by a pub? The word pub is short for public house. A public house and a public house is a place where alcoholic（酒精的） drinks are sold for people to consume（消耗） on the premises（前提）. What makes a pub a pub and not simply（简单地） a bar is that pubs usually have some kind of homely（家常的） atmosphere（大气）. There might be lots of wood in the decor（装饰）, carpets on the floor and if you're lucky an open fire where you can sit with your drink and keep warm on a cold winter's night. Pubs are usually identified by a sign hanging（挂） outside.

  These signs were originally（ 最初） compulsory（必需做的） following a 14th century law which said that whoever（无论谁） was making beer to be sold had to hang（挂） out a sign. These days most pubs are still marked by a sign hanging outside and the names of pubs are also very traditional like the king's head, the rose（玫瑰） and crown（王冠） and the carpenter's arms. There's a lot of specific vocabulary associated（交往） with pubs and pub is not the only word they are known by. Booze, for example, is a slang（俚语） word for alcohol（酒精） and so the boozer is another name for the pub.