Match the words up with their meaning and give the Russian translation
| come across | defamed, slandered |
| bogside | competing in an unfair or immoral way in order to get an advantage over other people |
| odd | separated from the body |
| defecate | always or almost always |
| slightly | happening again several times |
| woolly | bathroom |
| lefty | relating to the physical world, and not to spiritual or emotional states |
| maligned [mə'lain] | to get rid of solid waste from your body at the toilet |
| cut-throat competition | to meet someone or find something by chance |
| disembodied | lacking the other member of a pair or other numbers of a set |
| corporeal | not very much, only a little |
| recurring | confused and not clear |
| invariably | left-wing |
Exercises
A. Fill in the blanks with the suitable words and expressions.
Defecate, slightly, come across, disembodied, odd
- What was that strange word you _____________ in the book the other day?
- He’s not picking up the phone. – That’s _____ . I know he’s at home.
- A cat is supposed to ______________ once a day.
- His tome was ____________ insolent. I didn’t like it.
- I heard a ______________ voice in this dark room a month ago. It was probably a ghost.
B. Answer the questions using the following words and expressions:
Lefty, invariably, maligned, cut-throat competition, recurring
- What is your political affiliation?
- Do you believe every accused person really committed the crime?
- Do you see yourself as an owner of a business?
- What qualities would you like to change in yourself?
- What do you do every August?
MATCH UP DIALOGUE PARTS
PART 1 (first sentence)
| There a good description of Roman attire I came across in this book. | Do you think he’s crazy? | Doctor, I have this recurring dream of killing myself. | Does he read in the bathroom? |
| I didn’t see her at the party. | Hyenas are a much-maligned species. | Guess how my parents react to my begging to buy me a motorcycle? | I was falling asleep when I heard a disembodied voice of my dead wife. |
| You can’t communicate with a baby much till they are at least a year old. | Do you think he’ll survive in the cut-throat competition of today? | Do you think he’ll vote for the Conservative Party? | I want to know how the universe works. So I’m gonna study religion and philosophy. |
PART 2 (reply, reaction)
|
|
|
| He does. His bogside literary preference is books by Poe. | They invariably say “when you are older”, right? | Well, as long as you don’t try it in reality, you are OK. | If you want corporeal world explained, you better take physics. |
| Well, they are so ugly! | Is there picture, too? | He never will. He’s a lefty. | True. All they do is eating, peeing and defecating. |
| Well, he’s slightly mad, no doubt about that, but he’s harmless. | That’s odd. She told me she was going. | Don’t worry. The guy was born to be a business shark. | It was probably a dream, there’s no such thing as ghosts. |
RULES OF PLAY PA RT II
Reading Rules
The English love of words features, in some form, on a large proportion of the lists of our ‘national characteristics’ that I came across during the research for this book. And the fact that there are so many of these lists only reinforces the point: our response to insecurities about our national identity is to make lists about it – to throw words at the problem.
Our passion for word games and verbal puzzles is well known, but it is also worth nothing that every one of the non-verbal hobbies and pastimes that occupy our leisure time – such as fishing, stamp-collecting, train-spotting, bird-watching, walking, sports, pets, flower-arranging, knitting and pigeon-fancying – has at least one, if not many more specialist magazines devoted to it.
The Rules of Bogside Reading
We read compulsively, anytime, anywhere. In many English homes, you will find what I call ‘bogside reading’: piles of books and magazines placed next to the loo, or even neatly arranged in a special rack or bookcase for reading while sitting on the loo. I have occasionally come across the odd book or magazine in loos in other countries, but bogside reading does not seem to be a firmly established custom or tradition elsewhere in the way that it is in England. There are many English people – particularly males – who find it very hard to defecate at all unless they have something to read. If there is no proper bogside reading, they will read the instructions on the soap-dispenser or the list of ingredients on the spray-can of air-freshener.
|
|
|
Bogside reading, like pretty much everything else in an English home, is a useful class-indicator:
- Working-class bogside reading tends to be mostly humorous, light entertainment or sports-related – books of jokes, cartoons, maybe the occasional puzzle-book or quiz-book, and perhaps a few glossy-gossip or sports magazines.
- Lower-middles and middle-middles are not so keen on bogside reading: they may well take a book or newspaper into the loo with them, but do not like to advertise this habit by having a permanent bogside collection, which they think might look vulgar. Females of these classes may be reluctant to admit to reading on the loo at all.
- Upper-middles are generally much less prudish about such things, and often have mini-libraries in their loos. Some upper-middle bogside collections are a bit pretentious, with books and magazines that appear to have been selected to impress, rather than to entertain, but many are genuinely eclectic, and so amusing that guests often get engrossed in them and have to be shouted at to come to the dinner table.
- Upper-class bogside reading is usually closer to working-class tastes, consisting mainly of sport and humour, although the sporting magazines are more likely to be of the hunting/shooting/ fishing sort than, say, football.
Newspaper Rules
When I say, in support of my claims about the English love of words, that over 80 per cent of us read a national daily newspaper, some of those unfamiliar with English culture may mistakenly imagine a nation of super-literate highbrows, engrossed in the solemn analyses of politics and current affairs in the pages of The Times, the Guardian or another big, serious-looking paper. In fact, although we have four of them to choose from, only about 16 per cent of us read the so-called ‘quality’ national daily papers.
These are also known as ‘broadsheets’, because of their large format.
Broadsheets also serve, to some extent, as signals of political affiliation. Both The Times and the Daily Telegraph are somewhat to the right of centre – although the Telegraph, also known as the Torygraph, is regarded as more right-wing than The Times. The Independent and the Guardian balance things out neatly by being somewhat to the left of centre – again with one, the Guardian, being seen as slightly more left-wing than the other. The term ‘Guardian-reader’ is often used as shorthand for a woolly, lefty, politically correct, knit-your-own-tofu sort of person. This is England, though, so none of these political positions is in any way extreme; indeed, the differences may be hard to discern unless you are English and familiar with all the subtle nuances.
|
|
|
As a paid-up member of the broadsheet-reading classes, I will probably be regarded as a traitor for saying anything nice about the tabloids, but I think that in some respects they are unfairly maligned. Yes, I get fed up with their sensationalism and scare-mongering, but the so-called ‘quality’ Press is often just as guilty of these sins. We have no less than eight main national daily papers – four tabloids, four broadsheets – in cut-throat competition for a relatively small market, and all of them sometimes feel obliged to mislead or exaggerate in their efforts to attract our attention. But leaving the moral issues to one side, the quality of the writing on both broadsheets and tabloids is generally excellent.
Cyberspace Rules
In recent times, the English have found a new and perfect excuse to stay at home, pull up the imaginary drawbridge and avoid the traumas of face-to-face social interaction: the Internet. Email, chatrooms, surfing, messaging – the whole thing could have been invented for the insular, socially handicapped, word-loving English.
In cyberspace, we are in our element: a world of disembodied words. No need to worry about what to wear, whether to make eye contact, whether to shake hands or kiss cheeks or just smile. No awkward pauses or embarrassing false starts; no need to fill uncomfortable silences with weather-speak; no polite procrastinating or tea-making or other displacement activity; no need for the usual prolonged goodbyes. Nothing physical, no actual corporeal human beings to deal with at all. Just written words. Our favourite thing.
|
|
|
In my focus groups and interviews with English Internet users, the disinhibiting effect of online communication is a constantly recurring theme. Without exception, participants say that they express themselves more freely, with less reserve, in cyberspace than in what they invariably call ‘real life’ encounters: ‘I say things in emails that I would never dare to say in real life.’ ‘That’s right, you lose your inhibitions when you’re online – it’s almost like being a bit drunk.’
WRITE A COMPOSITION WITH THE WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS BELOW.
TOPIC: A BOSS FROM HELL
slightly
come across
disembodied
odd
lefty
invariably
maligned
cut-throat competition
recurring
Дата добавления: 2019-02-26; просмотров: 215; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!