Revision. Text interpretation
Exercise 1. Analyse the vocabulary of the following; indicate the type and function of stylistically coloured units.
1. "What the hell made you take on a job like that?" "A regrettable necessity for cash. I can assure you it doesn't suit my temperament." Jimmy grinned. "Never a hog for regular work, were you?" (Ch.)
2. "You'll probably see me at a loss for one to-night." "I bet. But you'll stick to me, won't you?"
"Like a bloody leech, man." (K. A.)
3. "Now take fried, crocked, squiffed, loaded, plastered, blotto, tiddled, soaked, boiled, stinko, oiled, polluted." "Yes," I said.
"That's the next set of words I am decreasing my vocabulary by," said Atherton. "Tossing them all out in favor of – " "Intoxicated," I supplied.
"I favor drunk," said Atherton. "It's shorter and monosyllabic, even though it may sound a little harsher to the squeamish-minded."
"But there are degrees of difference," I objected.
"Just being tiddled isn't the same as being blotto, or – "
"When you get into the vocabulary-decreasing business," he interrupted, "you don't bother with technicalities. You throw out the whole kit and caboodle – I mean the whole bunch," he hastily corrected himself. (P.G.W.)
4. I repented having tried this second entrance, and was almost inclined to slip away before he finished cursing, but ere I could execute this intention, he ordered me in, and shut and refastened the door. There was a great fire, and that was all the light in the huge apartment, whose floor had grown a uniform grey; and the once brilliant pewter dishes, which used to attract my gaze when I was a girl, partook of a similar obscurity, created by tarnish and dust. I inquired whether I might call the maid, and be conducted to a bedroom. Mr. Earnshaw vouchsafed no answer. (E. Br.)
Exercise 2. Pick out lexical stylistic devices, comment on their use.
1. This is the most vital, amazing, stirring, goofy, thrilling country in the world, and I care about it in a Big Way. (E.F.)
2. He leaned his elbows on the porch ledge and stood looking down through the screens at the familiar scene of the barracks square laid out below with the tiers of porches dark in the faces of the three-story concrete barracks fronting on the square. He was feeling, a half-sheepish affection for his vantage point that he was leaving.
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Below him under the blows of the February Hawaiian sun the quadrangle gasped defencelessly, like an exhausted fighter. Through the heat haze and the thin midmorning film of the parched red dust came up a muted orchestra of sounds: the clanking of steel-wheeled carts bouncing over brick, the slappings of oiled leather sling-straps, the shuffling beat of scorched shoesoles, the hoarse expletive of irritated noncoms. (J.)
3. He might almost have been some other man dreaming recurrently that he was an electrical engineer. On the other side of the edge, waiting for him to peer into it late at night or whenever he was alone and 'the show of work had stopped, was illimitable unpopulated darkness, a green-land night; and only his continuing heart beats kept him from disappearing into it. Moving along this edge, doing whatever the day demanded, or the night offered, grimly observant (for he was not without fortitude), he noticed much that has escaped him before. He found he was attending a comedy, a show that would have been very funny indeed if there had been life outside the theatre instead of darkness and dissolution. (P.)
4. From that day on, thundering trains loomed in his dreams, hurtling, sleek, black monsters whose stack pipes belched gobs of serpentine smoke, whose seething fireboxes coughed out clouds of pink sparks, whose pushing pistons sprayed jets of hissing steam, panting trains that roared yammeringly over farflung, gleaming rails only to come to limp and convulsive halts-—long, fearful trains that were hauled brutally forward by red-eyed locomotives that you loved watching as they (and you trembling) crashed past (and you longing to run but finding your feet strangely glued to the ground...) (Wr.)
5. I spent the next three days there, in Margaret's house, oscillating between a temperature and a temper. When my temperature came down, my temper rose. This was partly due to the fact that I objected to staying in bed. But the nurse they installed had something to do with it. She may have been a good nurse, but as a companion she was poison. She was a large red-haired woman with a lot of teeth and freckles, and she treated me as if I was a spoilt darling about ten years old. With the least encouragement she'd have read some jolly tale for the bairns to me. She tried to stop me smoking but I won the Battle. But with the help of Margaret, she did prevent anybody getting in there to see me and offer me a little adult conversation. Then, again, Margaret was now just the doctor in charge of the case. So when the temperature came down, I thrashed about and growled, and was told not to be naughty by that red-headed monster. (P.)
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6. Gopher Prairie was digging in for the winter. Through late November and all December it snowed daily; the thermometer was at a zero and might drop to twenty below, or thirty. Winter is not a season in North Middle-west; it is an industry. Storm sheds were erected at every door. In every block the householders, Sam Clark, the wealthy Mr. Dawson, all save asthmatic Ezra Stowbody, who extravagantly hired a boy, were seen perilously staggering up ladders, carrying storm windows and screwing them to second-story jambs. While Kennicott put up his windows Carol danced inside the bedrooms and begged him not to swallow the screws, which he held in his mouth like an extraordinary set of false teeth.
The universal sign of winter was the town handyman – Miles Bjornstam, a tall, thick, red-moustached bachelor, opinionated atheist, general-store arguer, cynical Santa Claus. Children loved him, and he sneaked away from work to tell them improbable stories of sea-faring and horse-trading and bears. The children's parents either laughed at him or hated him. He was the one democrat in town. (S. L.)
Exercise 3. Pick out syntactical stylistic devices, comment on their use.
1. What with the dust and the oil, and the darkness, and the clanking of the rails and the spitting of the sparks and the muffled screams above, it was enough to drive a man crazy. (B. N.)
2. … their owners went away, after many remarks how they had never spent such a delightful evening, and how they marvelled to find it so late, and how they wished that Mr. and Mrs. Kenwigs had a wedding-day once a week, and how they wondered bу what hidden agency Mrs. Kenwigs could possibly have managed so well. (D.)
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3. Badgworthy was in seventh heaven. A murder! At Chimneys! Inspector Badgworthy in charge of the case. The police have a clue. Sensational arrest. Promotion and Kudos for the aforementioned Inspector. (Ch.)
4. Daily she determined, "But I must have a stated amount—be business-like. System. I must do something about it." And daily she didn't do anything about it. (S. L.)
5. "Give me an example," I said quietly. "Of something that means something. In your opinion." (Т. С.)
6. I see what you mean. And I want the money. Must have it. (P.)
7. "Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling, scrambling fool parrot! Sit down!" (D).
8. His forehead was narrow, his face wide, his head large, and his nose all on one side (D.)
9. He came to us, you see, about three months ago. A skilled and experienced waiter. Has given complete satisfaction. He has been in England about five years. (Ch.)
10. She merely looked at him weakly. The wonder of him! The beauty of love! Her desire toward him! (Dr.)
11. A solemn silence: Mr. Pickwick humorous, the old lady serious, the fat gentleman cautious and Mr. Miller timorous. (D.)
12. She stopped, and seemed to catch the distant sound of knocking. Abandoning the traveller, she hurried towards the parlour, in the passage she assuredly did hear knocking, angry and impatient knocking, the knocking of someone who thinks he has knocked too long. (A. B.)
13. From the offers of marriage that fell to her, Dona Clara deliberately chose the one that required her removal to Spain. So to Spain she went. (Th. W.)
14. When he blinks, a parrot-like look appears, the look of some heavily blinking tropical bird. (A.M.)
15. I am proud of this free and happy country. My form dilates, my eye glistens, my breast heaves, my heart swells, my bosom burns, when I call to mind her greatness and her glory. (D.)
16. He, and the falling light and the dying fire, the time-worn room, the solitude, the wasted life, and gloom, – were all in fellowship. Ashes, and dust, and ruin! (D.)
17. In manner, close and dry. In voice, husky and low. In face, watchful behind a blind. (D.)
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18. Passage after passage did he explore; room after room did he peep into; at length he opened the door of the identical room in which he had spent the evening (D.)
19. … it was not the monotonous days uncheckered by variety and uncheered by pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary evenings or the long solitary nights, it was not the absence of every slight and easy pleasure for which young hearts beat high or the knowing nothing of childhood but its weakness and its easily wounded spirit, that had wrung such tears from Nell. (D.)
20. If it had not been for these things, I might have lived out my life, talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full can we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man, as now we do by an accident. Our words – our lives – our pains – nothing! The taking of our lives – lives of a good shoe-maker and a poor fish-peddler – all! That last moment belongs to us – that agony is our triumph! (H.R.)
21. However, there was no time to think more about the matter, for the fiddles and harp began in real earnest. Away went Mr. Pickwick – hands across, down the middle to the very end of the room, and halfway up the chimney, back again to the door – poussette everywhere – loud stamp on the ground – ready for the next couple – off again – all the figure over once more – another stamp to beat out the time – next couple, and the next, and the next again – never was such going! (D.)
22. An Englishman, needing a pair of striped trousers in a hurry for the New Year festivities, goes to his tailor who takes his measurements.
"That's the lot. Come back in four days, I'll have it ready." Good. Four days later.
"So sorry, come back in a week, I've made a mess of the seat." Good. That's all right, a neat seat can be very ticklish. A week later. "Frightfully sorry, come back in ten days, I've made a hash of the crutch." Good, can't be helped, a snug crutch is always a teaser. Ten days later. "Dreadfully sorry, come back in a fortnight. I've made a balls of the fly." Good, at a pinch, a smart fly is a good proposition... Well, to make it short, the bluebells are blowing and he ballockses the buttonholes. "God damn you to hell, Sir, it's indecent, there are limits! In six days do you hear me, six days, God made the world. Yes, Sir, mo less, Sir, the world! And you are not bloody well capable of making me a pair of trousers in three months!"
"But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look – (disgustedly) – at the world (pause) – and look – (loving gesture, proudly) – at my trousers!" (S. B.)
23. Colonel Bulder, in full military uniform, on horseback, galloping first to one place and then to another, and backing his horse among the people, and prancing, and curvetting, and shouting in a most alarming manner, and making himself very hoarse in the voice, and very red in the face, without any assignable cause or reason whatever. (D.)
Exercise 4. Fulfill the complex stylistic analysis of the following extracts.
1. In Arthur Calgary's fatigued brain the word seemed to dance on the wall. Money! Money! Money! Like a motif in an opera, he thought. Mrs. Argyle's money! Money put into trust! Money put into an annuity! Residual estate left to her husband! Money got from the bank! Money in the bureau drawer! Hester rushing out to her car with no money in her purse... Money found on Jacko, money that he swore his mother had given him. (Ch.)
2. In her father's desk at the store was a revolver – a large, firm, squarish mechanism which as she had heard him say, fired eight shots. It was so heavy, so blue, so cold. She had seen it, touched it, lifted it once – but with a kind of terror really. It was always so identified with death, anger – not life – but now – supposing, if she desired to punish Edward and herself – or just herself alone. But no, that was not the way. What was the way, anyhow? What was the way? (Dr.)
3. You look out of the window, twilight is falling, agony; you are shut in. The air is cool, smells sweet. You are shut in. You are shut in and your heart is shut in and it tries to get out and it stifles you and grows, it grows, and your being is dissolved, it dissolves in longing, you do not know what is happening to your life, you think of the others around you, the man who walks to and fro in his cell from the time he is shut in at night till the door is opened again in the morning, whose silence you have never heard, who cannot bear it: of the men in the trenches, and you want to be free with them, for air, sweet air and the sky overhead; you hear tapping in the walls, it is the men who are talking to each other, who have to talk to each other, to tell each other itheir names, their age, who have learned this complicated code to communicate nonsense to each other because the silence is unbearable to them; then you think of the men on bread and water and in darkness because somehow they are always in trouble, because they cannot help fighting, questioning every authority, and suddenly your misery, your utter frustration fades, the vibration ceases; you are calm. (J. Rod.)
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