Match the words up with their meaning and give the Russian translation

in this spirit of	be suitable to be used as something
point out	a situation in which people act as if according to an arrangement by which you do something for someone who does the same thing for you
to come up with	a set of questions and answers, especially a formal way of teaching people about the Christian religion
premise ['premis]	to be able to understand something or solve a problem
keen	used for asking a question
figure out	to say something in a way that is not loud or clear enough so that your words are difficult to understand
interrogative	a principle or statement that you consider to be true, that you base other ideas and actions on
reciprocity	to tell someone something
mumble	very interested in an activity that you do often because you enjoy it
do as	to think of something such as an idea or a plan
catechism ['kætəֽkiz(ə)m]	the ideas, beliefs, and style of a particular period of time

 

congregation	something that helps a person to find a solution to a problem
mercy   have mercy upon us	changing often or not following a regular pattern, unpredictable
displacement	suddenly and unexpectedly changing your opinion or behaviour without any good reason
lull	warm and pleasant (when speaking about the weather or climate)
facilitator	to do the same thing for someone that they have done for you
capricious	a failure to follow a law or rule
erratic	careful to do things that other people ask or expect you to do
reciprocate	to speak slowly and seriously, without making your voice rise or fall
breach of	the group of people who regularly worship at a particular church
intone	the act of forgiving someone or not treating them severely
dutifully	the process of forcing something out of its position or space
mild	a quiet period in a conversation

 

conscious of	happening or done at the same time
in terms of	make oneself to do smth
quirk	to consider something when making a plan or calculation
invigorating	only if a particular thing happens or is done
tend	noticing that something exists or is happening and realizing that it is important
blatant	difficult to deal with or please, and causing problems
contradiction	a word or phrase used for referring to smth or describing smth
bring yourself to	said or explained in an extremely clear way, so that you cannot doubt what is meant
flat	a strange or annoying habit
allowing for	to usually do a particular thing
providing	done in an obvious way that shows you are not embarrassed or ashamed to be doing something bad or illegal
explicitly	a difference in two or more statements, ideas, stories etc that makes it impossible for both or all of them to be true
awkward	said directly and definitely
simultaneously	making you feel that you have more energy

 

conversation-fodder	relating to or suitable for a range or class of similar things
relieve us	to dislike something very much, often because you think it is immoral
‘white Christmas’ bets	something that people talk or write about
generic	A prolonged period of absence of rain
deplore	knowing about a situation or a fact
consecutive	something that you say to show what you are thinking or feeling, without saying it directly
fret	fraught with ill fate causing the end, death, or destruction
drought [draut]	risking an amount of money by saying whether there is snow on the ground on a Christmas Day
hose-pipe bans	to steal something from someone
doom-laden	following one after another in order and with nothing else in between
hint n.	to worry about something continuously
be aware of	an official order not to use hosepipes in gardens, because there is not enough water

 

monsoon	to do something illegal or morally wrong
blizzard	to say or think that someone or something is unimportant or not very good
offence	to be annoyed by something
commit	a storm with a lot of snow and strong winds
belittle	a period of heavy rain in India and Southeast Asia
do not take kindly to	the feeling of being angry, upset, or insulted, caused by something that someone says or does

 

Exercises

A. Fill in the blanks with the suitable words and expressions:

Quirk, invigorating, conscious of, in terms of bring yourself to, dutifully, tend, blatant,

contradiction, intone, mild

 

1. This priest is ________________ the sermon in such a bored voice that everybody’s half asleep.
2. The mother told him to start doing the homework and he _______________ did
3. I can’t come to work today. I am down with a ___________ case of flu.
4. I wasn’t ever ________________ her beauty because I’ve known her since kindergarten.
5. ____________ education he’s a very promising employee but because of that he ________ to be a little over-confident.
6. Everybody likes her for the ____________ of her character.
7. He told us he had been to Australia but it was a _____________ lie.
8. What a(n) ______________ weather! It’s frisky and sunny!
9. I know we should make up but I just can’t __________________ calling him!

B. Answer the questions using the following words and expressions:

Explicitly, awkward, conversation-fodder, deplore, s simultaneously, consecutive

 

1. How can one be clear when forbidding something to a child?

2. What social situations do you consider uncomfortable and why?

3. What activities can you combine?

4. What character traits do you not like and why?

5. How long does it usually take one to get a university degree?

6. What do you usually talk about when you don’t know the person but want to be polite?

 

C.  Translate using the following words and expressions:

Drought, be aware of, blizzard, do not take kindly to, offence, commit, doom-laden,

hint n.

 

1. В такую метель никто не хочет выходить из дома.

2. Я не знаю ответа. Хоть намекни!

3. Засуха длится уже 3 месяца.

4. Он мне сказал не предвещающим ничего хорошего тоном, что моего сына вызвали в школу.

5. Ты в курсе, что Мэри отказалась сюда ехать?

6. Слушай, без обид, но я бы сделал по-другому.

7. Если бы он не совершил этого преступления, его бы не посадили в тюрьму.

8. Его мать не слишком-то одобряет громкие игры.

 

D. Answer the questions using suitable words and expressions:

1. What drawbacks of listening to music over the earphones can you point out?
2. What solution can you come up with if you are allergic to cats yet have to live with one?
3. What activities are you keen on doing?
4. How does one figure out Fahrenheit out of Celsius?
5. What do people usually say to fill in a lull in a conversation?
6. What do you consider a serious breach of etiquette?
7. What kind of behavior do you consider erratic?
8. In what situation do you usually mumble?

 

GRAMMAR

 

1. Выражение KIND OF или SORT OF может переводиться, в зависимости от ситуации, как ЧТО-ТО ВРОДЕ, ТИПА (часто сокращаясь до KINDA, SORTA). Часто в таких случаях прибавляется LIKE, выделенное запятыми:

 

He’s kind of mad. – Он, типа, рассержен.

I kinda love him. - Я его, типа люблю.

John’s, like, kinda eccentric. – Ну, Джон, типа, странный.

 

TRANSLATE

 

English weather-speak rituals often sound rather like a kind of catechism.

 

I was sorta surprised to find him there.

 

‘The pink thing is sorta joke,’ explained a young female Goth with pink hair and pink gloves, ‘because pink is like totally against the whole Goth ideology.’

 

2. Конструкция WHATIS IT/IT IS ABOUT HIM/HER/THEM/YOU/… THAT … переводится как ЧТО ЖЕ В НЕМ/НЕЙ… ТАКОГО, ЧТО…

 

What is it about him that attracts you? – Что в нем такого, что тебя привлекает?

 

TRANSLATE

 

Many people try to figure out what it is about the English weather that is so fascinating.

 

3. Слово-заменитель существительных в английском языке – THAT (ед.ч.) или THOSE (мн.ч.). Если это предикативная часть сказуемого, то это ONE:

 

I prefer this tea to that of my mother’s. – Я предпочитаю этот чай чаю моей матери.

I listen to country songs rather than those favored by Jim. – Я слушаю песни кантри, а не песни, которые любит Джим.

You are not a king. But you can become one. – Ты не король. Но ты можешь им стать.

 

TRANSLATE

 

You may, however, express personal likes and dislikes that differ from those of your companions.

 

Like ‘dinner’, this word is not in itself a class indicator, but it becomes one when misapplied.

 

When asked to compare English working and business practices with those of other cultures, all of my foreign and immigrant informants commented on the English sense of fair play.

 

 

4. Дополнительная информация во фразе часто может выражаться герундием со своим собственным подлежащим, не совпадающим с подлежащим главного предложения:

 

I can’t do it with the weather being so unstable. – Я не могу это сделать, поскольку погода так переменчива.

 

With Mary having moved out, we have an extra room. – Поскольку Мэри выехала, у нас есть лишняя комната.

 

TRANSLATE

 

It is perfectly acceptable to contradict oneself when you talk about the weather, etiquette being far more important than logic.

 

MATCH UP DIALOGUE PARTS

PART 1 (first sentence)

You told me she doesn’t know how to dress. Why?	The war is about to break out.	I love the way Tibetan monks sing their prayers.	How do you like him?	I explicitly told her not to do it. What a strange person!
Do you know why this happened?	How come there are no new shows on TV?	Sergeant, what’s your opinion of the new recruits?	Did you notice that she never smiles?	Did you notice how awkward she became when she saw him?
Did you solve the equation?	Why did you fire him?	His response to her article was very passionate.	I like the cold! It’s invigorating!	I do not take to fools kindly
What did he say?	He asked her why she’d gotten divorced, can you believe this?	He doesn’t even know hot to say “thank you” properly.	Don’t fret, nothing will happen!

PART 2 (reply, reaction)

Yes, I think it’s better that he relieve our company of his presence. He’s an idiot.	Be patient with him, foreigners are frequently not conscious of certain rules of behavior foreign to them.	It’s summer! Thus the lull. Everything will start back in the fall.	I did, that’s a well-known quirk of her character.	Well, once I had to point out to her that red doesn’t go with green.
What a blatant breach of etiquette!	I did it because of his erratic behaviour.	I don’t but I came up with a theory.	Yes, I deplore people like that myself.	I didn’t hear, he was mumbling.
Actually, there is no melody, they intone them.	As for me, I can’t even bring myself to leave the house.	I will provide you slow down and buckle your seatbelt.	Well, at least they obey. They dutifully carry out whatever I order.	In terms of knowledge he’s very competent, but he’s hard to deal with.
No, I was not aware of it.	Yes, it was far from mild.	God have mercy upon us!	No, I can’t figure it out.

The Weather

 

Any discussion of English conversation, like any English conversation, must begin with The Weather. And in this spirit of observing traditional protocol, I shall, like every other writer on Englishness, quote Dr Johnson’s famous comment that ‘When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather’, and point out that this observation is as accurate now as it was over two hundred years ago.

This, however, is the point at which most commentators either stop, or try, and fail, to come up with a convincing explanation for the English ‘obsession’ with the weather. They fail because their premise is mistaken: they assume that our conversations about the weather are conversations about the weather. In other words, they assume that we talk about the weather because we have a keen (indeed pathological) interest in the subject. Most of them then try to figure out what it is about the English weather that is so fascinating.

Comments about the weather are phrased as questions (or with an interrogative intonation) because they require a response – but the reciprocity is the point, not the content. Any interrogative remark on the weather will do to initiate the process, and any mumbled confirmation (or even near-repetition, as in ‘Yes, isn’t it?’) will do as a response. English weather-speak rituals often sound rather like a kind of catechism, or the exchanges between priest and congregation in a church: ‘Lord, have mercy upon us’, ‘Christ, have mercy upon us’; ‘Cold, isn’t it?’, ‘Yes, isn’t it?, and so on.

 

The Context Rule

 

Weather-speak can be used:

• as a simple greeting
• as an ice-breaker leading to conversation on other matters
• as a ‘default’, ‘filler’ or ‘displacement’ subject, when conversation on other matters falters, and there is an awkward or uncomfortable lull.

The Agreement Rule

 

The English have clearly chosen a highly appropriate aspect of our own familiar natural world as a social facilitator: the capricious and erratic nature of our weather ensures that there is always something new to comment on, be surprised by, speculate about, moan about, or, perhaps most importantly, agree about.

 

We have already established that weather-speak greetings or openers such as ‘Cold, isn’t it?’ must be reciprocated, but etiquette also requires that the response express agreement, as in ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ or ‘Mmm, very cold’.

Failure to agree in this manner is a serious breach of etiquette. When the priest says ‘Lord, have mercy upon us’, you do not respond ‘Well, actually, why should he?’ You intone, dutifully, ‘Christ, have mercy upon us’. In the same way, it would be very rude to respond to ‘Ooh, isn’t it cold?’ with ‘No, actually, it’s quite mild’. If you listen carefully, as I have, to hundreds of English weather-conversations, you will find that such responses are extremely rare, almost unheard of. Nobody will tell you that there is a rule about this; they are not even conscious of following a rule: it just simply isn’t done.

 

Exceptions to the Agreement Rule

You may, however, express personal likes and dislikes that differ from those of your companions, or express your disagreement in terms of personal quirks or sensibilities.

An appropriate response to ‘Ooh, isn’t it cold?’, if you find you really cannot simply agree, would be ‘Yes, but I really rather like this sort of weather – quite invigorating, don’t you think?’ or ‘Yes, but you know I don’t tend to notice the cold much – this feels quite warm to me’. Note that both of these responses start with an expression of agreement, even though in the second case this is followed by a blatant self-contradiction: ‘Yes . . . this feels quite warm to me.’ It is perfectly acceptable to contradict oneself in this manner, etiquette being far more important than logic, but if you truly cannot bring yourself to start with the customary ‘Yes’, this may be replaced by a positive-sounding ‘Mmm’ accompanied by a nod – still an expression of agreement, but rather less emphatic.

The personal taste/sensitivity variation is really more of a modification than an exception to the agreement rule: flat contradiction of a ‘factual’ statement is still taboo, the basic principle of agreement still applies; it is merely softened by allowing for differences in taste or sensitivity, providing these are explicitly identified as such.

Snow and the Moderation Rule

Snow is also socially and conversationally a special and awkward case, as it is aesthetically pleasing, but practically inconvenient. It is always simultaneously exciting and worrying. Snow is thus always excellent conversation-fodder, but it is only universally welcomed if it falls at Christmas, which it almost never does. We continue to hope that it will, however, and every year the high-street bookmakers relieve us of thousands of pounds in ‘white Christmas’ bets.

The only conversational rule that can be applied with confidence to snow is a generic, and distinctively English, ‘moderation rule’: too much snow, like too much of anything, is to be deplored. Even warmth and sunshine are only acceptable in moderation: too many consecutive hot, sunny days and it is customary to start fretting about drought, muttering about hose-pipe bans and reminding each other, in doom-laden tones, of the summer of 1976.

The Weather-as-family Rule

While we may spend much of our time moaning about our weather, foreigners are not allowed to criticize it. In this respect, we treat the English weather like a member of our family: one can complain about the behaviour of one’s own children or parents, but any hint of censure from an outsider is unacceptable and very bad manners.

Although we are aware of the relatively undramatic nature of the English weather – the lack of extreme temperatures, monsoons, tempests, tornadoes and blizzards – we become extremely touchy and defensive at any suggestion that our weather is therefore inferior or uninteresting. The worst possible weather-speak offence is one mainly committed by foreigners, particularly Americans, and that is to belittle the English weather. When the summer temperature reaches the high twenties, and we moan, ‘Phew, isn’t it hot?, we do not take kindly to visiting Americans or Australians laughing and scoffing and saying ‘Call this hot? This is nothing. You should come to Texas [Brisbane] if you wanna see hot!’

WRITE A DIALOGUE WITH THE WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS BELOW. TOPIC: YOU AND YOUR FRIEND ARE DISCUSSING YOUR WEIRD ENGLISH TEACHER

 

quirk

invigorating

conscious of

in terms of

bring yourself to

dutifully

tend

blatant

contradiction

intone

mild

 

 

WRITE A COMPOSITION WITH THE WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS BELOW. 

TOPIC: THE BEST CONVERSATION-FODDER AT PARTIES

 

explicitly

awkward

conversation-fodder

deplore

simultaneously

consecutive

drought

be aware of

blizzard

do not take kindly to

offence

commit

doom-laden

a hint

CHAPTER 2

Grooming talk.  Part I

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