The Lego Group had a very low beginning in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen,a carpenter(木匠)from Denmark．Christiansen began creating wooden toys in 1932．Two years later, he came upon the Lego name by putting together the first two letters of the Danish words Leg and Godt,which mean“play well．”The name could be interpreted as “I put together” in Latin；it is also similar to the Greek verb meaning “gather” or“pick up”． In 1947, the company enlarged to making plastic toys．At first,the use of plastic for toy production was not highly regarded by salesmen and consumers of the time．Many of the Lego Group’s shipments were returned, following poor sales．However, Christiansen’s son,Godtfred Kirk Christiansen,saw the great potential(潜能)in Lego bricks to become a system for creative play-As the junior managing director of the Lego Group,he spent years trying to improve the “locking”ability of the bricks and made the bricks more versatile(多用途)．In 1958, the modem interlocking brick design was finally developed and patented(获得专利)． Today Lego is sold in more than 1 30 countries．Every minute 33,824 Lego bricks are made,and kids around the world spend 5 billion hours a year playing with Lego．There will be more than 400 million people playing with Lego bricks this year．On average,every person in the world owns 62 Lego bricks,and about seven Lego sets are sold every second． This year Lego fans all over the world are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the tiny building blocks．Though already 50 years old,Lego is still the same product it was in the 1950s． Bricks bought then are still compatible(兼容的)with present bricks and that is probably the reason the toy has never fallen out of favor． | 
