谁发明了乒乓球？

　　You may play ping-pong but perhaps you don't know who invented it. The story is that it started when two students at Cambridge University began knocking a cork(软木塞) to each other across a table, using old boxes. In about the year 1800 an American businessman of sports goods produced a game that he called Indoor Tennis. When the game didn't catch on(变得流行) in America, he shipped it to London and it soon became popular in Britain. The game was then played across dinning room tables or on the floor with the net strung between chairs. The players used a ball made of cork or rubber. A few years later a hollow(空的) ball, like the one we use today, was invented. Later, a man called Mr Wood from London had the idea of covering the bats(拍子) with rubber. The London businessmen who first sold the game in Britain now called it “ping-pong”; “ping” meant the sound of the bat hitting the ball, and “pong” was the sound of the ball hitting the table.