clerk

A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service counters, screening callers, and other administrative tasks.

The word clerk is derived from the Latin clericus meaning "cleric" or "clergyman", which is the latinisation [拉丁化] of the Greek κληρικός (klērikos) from a word meaning a "lot" (in the sense of drawing lots [抽签]) and hence an "apportionment [不是appointment]" or "area of land".

apportion: decide how sth should be shared between various people. portion: 部分。portion也可以做动词。

The association derived from mediaeval courts, where writing was mainly entrusted to clergy because most laymen could not read. In this context, the word clerk meant "scholar". Even today, the term clerk regular designates a type of cleric [教士; 牧师] (one living life [谋生job] according to a rule). The cognate [同源的] terms in some languages, e.g., Klerk in Dutch, became – at the end of the nineteenth century – restricted to a specific, fairly low rank in the administrative hierarchy.

An automated teller [出纳员] machine (ATM) (=cashpoint) a machine outside a bank that you use to get money from your account.

Clerical workers are the largest occupational group in the United States. In 2004, there were 3.1 million general office clerks, 1.5 million office administrative supervisors and 4.1 million secretaries. Clerical occupations often do not require a college degree, though some college education or 1 to 2 years in vocational programs are common qualifications. Familiarity with office equipment and certain software programs is also often required. Employers may provide clerical training.

In 2006, the median salary for clerks was $23,000, while the national median income for workers age 25 or older was $33,000. Median salaries ranged from $22,770 for general office clerks to $34,970 for secretaries and $41,030 for administrative supervisors. Clerical workers are considered working class by American sociologists as they perform highly routinized tasks with relatively little autonomy. Sociologist Dennis Gilbert argues [state, giving clear reasons, that sth is true, should be done etc] that the white and blue collar divide [n. 分水岭] has shifted to a divide between professionals, including some semi-professionals, and routinized white collar workers. White collar office supervisors may be considered lower middle class with some secretaries being located in that part of the socio-economic [社会-经济] strata where the working and middle classes overlap.

strata是stratum [层; (社会)阶层]的复数。class: group of people at the same social or economic level 阶级; 阶层; 社会等级。

semi- half; partially 半; 部分。quasi-: like sth else or trying to be sth else. a quasi-official body: 半官方团体; a quasi-scientific explanation: 类似科学的解释; a quasi-scholar 似学者的人。

做形容词时median和medium:

median:

1. Situated in the middle; central, intermediate.
2. (anatomy, botany [解剖学，植物学]) In the middle of an organ, structure etc.; towards the median plane of an organ or limb.
3. (statistics [统计学]) Having the median [中位数] as its value.

medium:

1. (obsolete [不再使用. deprecate: 不赞成]) Arithmetically average.
2. Of intermediate size, degree, amount etc.
3. Of meat, cooked to a point greater than rare but less than well done; typically, so the meat is still red in the centre.

In statistics, the mode [众数] is the value that appears most often in a set of data. 词源可能是：from Old French mode and directly from Latin modus "measure, extent, quantity; proper measure, rhythm[a regular repeated pattern (of sounds or movements)]...

六级/考研单词: clerk, conduct, wholesale, administer, derive, clergy, entrust, layman, scholar, regulate, designate, accord, rank, hierarchy, automate, teller, unite, million, supervise, seldom, educate, vocation, equip, hardware, nationwide, sociology, collar, overlap, medium, situate, intermediate, botany, limb, arithmetic, data, rhythm