Heavily tattooed American Matt Gone poses at the opening of a five-day tattoo exhibition in Venezuela. Photo: Juan Barreto / AFP / Getty Images
The pattern of black and white squares on a chessboard is described as being 'chequered' in British English and 'checkered' in American English. The squares themselves are known as 'cheques' or 'checks' respectively. But the verb 'to check' is spelled the same in both places.
棋盤上的黑白格子在英式英語中被描述為 'chequered'. 在美式英語中則是 'checkered'（注意兩種不同的單詞拼寫）。在英語中方形的格子叫 'cheques' （英）或 'checks'（美）。不過在使用動詞 'to check' 的時候拼寫是統(tǒng)一的。
今日短語
'Checkmate' 出自國際象棋，漢語中說“將！”。在一方把關(guān)鍵的一個棋子放到致對方于死地的時候說一聲“將軍！”不過現(xiàn)在這個短語也用來表達“一次徹底的勝利”。
例句
The rebels surrounded the president's palace. He had no option but to agree to their demands: it was checkmate.
Unless we make some serious changes around this business, our competition will catch up and it will be checkmate.
It can also be used as a verb:
Garry Kasparov checkmated the chess computer after a fine series of moves.
請注意
Stalemate 僵局和 checkmate 的意思正好相反，stalemate 表示一種雙方僵持不下的局面。
I could only afford ￡150,000 for the house but the seller would go no lower than ￡155,000. We reached a stalemate and called the deal off.
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