Quote:
"Have you ever, on a cloudless night, looked down from a passing aircraft flying over Canada? Endless, glowing strings of cities, towns, and homesteads. Stretching on and on, one province to the next. With only the stars in the distance." — Paul Martin
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prefix
used to show that someone is no longer what they were:
ex-prisoners
ex-policemen
my ex-husband
my ex-girlfriend
A Company (ex-Japan) 可能表示 Other Than Japan
ex Show phonetics
noun [C] INFORMAL
Someone's ex is a person who was their wife, husband or lover in the past:
Is she still in touch with her ex?
exclude Show phonetics
verb [T]
to keep out or omit something or someone:
Women are still excluded from the club.
Microbes must, as far as possible, be excluded from the room during an operation.
Tom has been excluded from school (= he is not allowed to go to school) for bad behaviour.
The price excludes local taxes.
We can't exclude the possibility that he is dead.
Compare include.
excluding Show phonetics
preposition
not including:
The aircraft carries 461 people excluding the crew and cabin staff.
exclusion Show phonetics
noun [C or U]
when someone or something is not allowed to take part in an activity or to enter a place:
her exclusion from the list of Oscar nominees
the exclusion of disruptive pupils from school
exclusive Show phonetics
adjective
1 exclusive of sth not including something:
Is the total exclusive of service charges?
2 mutually exclusive not possible at the same time:
Some people think that uncontrolled economic growth and environmental stability are mutually exclusive.
See also exclusive.
homestead
n.
- A house, especially a farmhouse, with adjoining buildings and land.
- Law. Property designated by a householder as the householder's home and protected by law from forced sale to meet debts.
- Land claimed by a settler or squatter, especially under the Homestead Act.
- The place where one's home is.
v., -stead·ed, -stead·ing, -steads. v.intr.
To settle and farm land, especially under the Homestead Act.
v.tr.
To claim and settle (land) as a homestead.
homesteader home'stead'er n.
patchwork Show phonetics
noun
1 [U] cloth which is made by sewing together a lot of smaller usually square pieces of cloth with different patterns and colours, or the activity of doing this:
a patchwork quilt/jacket
The old lady sat in the corner doing patchwork.
2 [S] a mixture of different things:
We looked out of the aircraft window down onto the patchwork of fields below.
什麼叫 patchwork family 呢?從下文的報導可知 它指"單親家庭或父母未結婚的家庭".....
Society | 29.11.2007
Traditional Families Ever Less Common in Germany
Only 39 percent of Germany's population lived in a traditional family in 2006, compared to 43 percent in 1996. Meanwhile, the number of patchwork families is increasing -- especially in the eastern states.
According to a new survey carried out by the Federal Statistics Office, Germany has experienced a major shift in family structures over the last 10 years.
The results show that the number of families with at least one child under 18 dropped by 7 percent to 8.8 million between 1996 and 2006, with the steepest decline -- a 28 percent drop -- in the eastern part of the country. While the highest share of the country's people living in traditional families (42 percent) are in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany, the lowest concentration is in Saxony in the east, home to only 31 percent.
"This tells us that we need to take better care of families," said Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen in Berlin on Wednesday, Nov. 28.
Spreading patchwork
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Berlin has the highest number of a single-parent families
Another noticeable change over the last 10 years has been a 30-percent increase in the number of single parents and non-married parents to 2.3 million -- again with a concentration of 42 percent in eastern Germany compared to 22 in the west.
"This results in a shift in family structures," said Walter Radermacher, president of the federal statistics office.
The highest density is in the capital, where at 47 percent, almost half of the city's 330,000 families are "patchwork." In Baden-Württemberg, meanwhile, four of five families consist of married parents.
Economic factors
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Families with more than one child are becoming less common in Germany
The number of children per family is also falling, with the trend to smaller families showing no sign of abating.
Most families (53 percent) have one child, 36 percent have two and a mere 11 percent have three children or more. The average German family now has 1.61 children compared to 1.65 10 years ago.
Possible reasons for this development include financial worries in regions where unemployment is high, and the ongoing exodus of young women from eastern Germany.
"It's now up to the politicians to find the causes behind this disintegration of the family model and come up with new ways of countering the trend," said Radermacher. "The statisticians are only responsible for the numbers."
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