【明報專訊】Eason is typing something into his computer. He looks suspicious. What is he doing?

“ Eason: It is so much fun to compose fake news! ”

“ Pat: Oh, it looks so cool. Let's try. ”

“ Pat: How come the phone is not charging? ”

“ Bill: I bought a lot of onions from market. May be you should try to use more onions! ”

“ Dr Panda: Hey, that's not real. Don't believe everything you read online. ”

“ MoMo: I hope you've learnt a lesson from this. ”

■English highway﹕Learn a lesson

''Learn a lesson'' means to learn what to do or not to do in the future from a bad experience.

e.g. I believe that he has already learnt a lesson.

I will never run in the rain again because I have learnt my lesson.

■Know more

The Internet is a sea of information. However, there is a lot of fake news. We should not easily believe anything we read online or receive from someone we know. For example, a 22-year-old British girl followed the instructions on a popular recipe website to boil eggs in the microwave. The site said that eggs would not explode if salt was added. However, the information was false and the eggs exploded. The girl was seriously injured.

False information may bring about accidents or even financial loss. Being smart Internet users, we should not blindly believe or spread online rumours but always find the truth by fact-checking. It is done by checking the information against reliable sites. The best thing to do is to find the original source.

■Glossary

suspicious (adj) 可疑的

rumour (n) 謠傳

reliable (adj) 可靠的

source (n) 出處

[Smarties' Power English 第257期]