I) Guessing and explaining meaning of words.

I) Guessing and explaining meaning of words.

Additional material.

 

Inferring meaning from context

There are a number of clues which you may be able to use to help you work out the meaning of an unfamiliar word:

The context in which it is used

• Visual clues: a picture in a book or film footage in a TV news broadcast may help you.

• Your own background knowledge about a situation: for example, if you already know
that there has just been an earthquake in Los Angeles, then you will find it easy to
understand the word 'earthquake' when you hear a news broadcast about it.

• The immediate context (other words around the unfamiliar word): these may make the
meaning absolutely clear: 'Suzanna picked one tall yellow gladiolus to put in her new
crystal vase.' Even if you have never seen or heard the word 'gladiolus', it will probably
be obvious to you from the context that it is a type of flower.

• Grammatical clues in the context: it is not difficult to understand that 'superstitious'
must be an adjective in the sentence 'Marsha is very superstitious.' or that 'gingerly' is
an adverb in 'Jackie tiptoed gingerly down the stairs.'

Similarity to other words you already know in English

A large number of words in English are made up of combinations of other words. You may never have seen the word 'headscarf’, for example, but the meaning is easy to work out from its two components.

Structure

A prefix or suffix may give you a clue, for example.

Similarity to a word you know in your own (or some other) language

If your first language is of Latin or of Germanic origin, you will come across many words in English that resemble words in your own language. However, English has taken many words from many other languages too. So make use of any other languages you know. But remember that some words are false friends - they sound as if they mean the same but in fact they have a different meaning. (A good dictionary will give lists of false friends for a lot of European languages.)

 

Explaining unknown words

The following expressions can be useful when you are trying to explain what a word or

expression means:

It's (a bit) like (a chair)...

It's something you use for (painting pictures /cleaning the kitchen floor...)

It's a kind of (bird /musical instrument/ building…)

It must /could be...

It will not be possible to work out the meanings of all the unfamiliar words that you come across but remember that you do not need to understand every word in a text in order to understand the whole text. When it is crucial to know a meaning, use the clues suggested in this unit and make a guess before checking the dictionary.

 

 

Exercises

Look at the following text. Before you read it, see if you know what the underlined words

Mean.

A tortoise is a shelled reptile famed for its slowness and longevity. The Giant Tortoise of the Galapagos may attain over 1-5 metres in length and have a lifespan of more than 130 years. Smaller tortoises from Southern Europe and North Africa make popular pets. They need to be tended, carefully in cool climates and must have a warm place in which they can hibernate.

 

Which of the underlined words can you guess from the context or using any other clues?

 

2) Use the context to work out what the underlined words mean. Explain them using one or other of the expressions from the previous page.

 

1) Above the trees at the edge of the meadow, a buzzard hangs for a moment on the wind
before soaring towards the hills.

2) According to some sources, the water vole is one of the most rapidly declining creatures
in Britain and a new survey is now being carried out to determine how serious the
threat of extinction really is.

3) Using a large chisel the police broke through the front door and surprised the robbers.

4) We ate a delicious chicken and noodle soup from a big tureen and enjoyed several
bowls each.

5) When the soup is ready, ladle it into six warmed bowls.

6) We often used to walk up to the cliff top where we would clamber over the farmer's
gate and go right to the edge where the view was better.

7) Some people get really ratty when they haven't had enough sleep.

3) Use your knowledge of other basic English words to help you work out the meanings of the underlined words and expressions. Rewrite them using simpler words or explanations
for the underlined words and phrases.

1) It says on the can that this drink is sugar-free.

2) More and more shops now have their own special store cards and offer you a discount
if you use one of them.

3) I find Mo a very warm-hearted person.

4) I've been up to my eyes in work ever since I got back from holiday.

5) We walked down a tree-lined street towards the station.

6) The little boys were fascinated by the cement-mixer.

 

 

Exercises

 

III) Affixation. Prefixes.

Additional material

Prefixes are often used to give adjectives a negative or an opposite meaning. For example, comfortable/uncomfortable, convenient/inconvenient and similar/dissimilar are opposites. Other examples are 'unjust', 'inedible', 'disloyal'. Unfortunately, there is no easy way of knowing which prefix any adjective will use to form its opposite.

• in- becomes im- before a root beginning with 'm' or 'p', e.g. immature, impatient,impartial, improbable. Similarly in- becomes ir- before a word beginning with ‘r’, and il- before a word beginning with ‘l’, e.g. irreplaceable, irreversible, illegal, illegible, illiterate.

• The prefix in- (and its variations) does not always have a negative meaning - often it gives the idea of inside or into, e.g. internal, import, insert, income.

• The prefixes un- and dis- can also form the opposites of verbs, e.g. tie/untie, appear/disappear. These prefixes are used to reverse the action of the verb. Here are some more examples: disagree, disapprove, disbelieve, disconnect, discredit, dislike, dismount, disprove, disqualify, unbend, undo, undress, unfold, unload, unlock, unveil, unwrap, unzip.

 

Here are examples of other prefixes in English. Some of these words are used with a hyphen. Check in a dictionary if you're not sure.

prefix	meaning	examples
anti auto bi ex ex micro mis mono multi over post pre pro pseudo re semi sub under	against of or by oneself two, twice former out of small badly/wrongly one/single many too much after before in favour of false again or back half under not enough	anti-war, antisocial, antibiotic autograph, auto-pilot, autobiography bicycle, bilateral, biannual, bilingual ex-wife, ex-smoker, ex-boss extract, exhale, excommunicate micro-cassette, microwave, microscopic misunderstand, mistranslate, misinform monotonous, monologue, monogamous multi-national, multi-purpose, multi-media overdo, overtired, oversleep, overeat postwar, postgraduate, post-impressionist preconceived, pre-war, pre-judge pro-government, pro-revolutionary pseudo-scientific, pseudo-intellectual retype, reread, replace, rewind semicircular, semi-final, semi-detached subway, submarine, subdivision underworked, underused, undercooked

 

Exercises

 

1. Write the opposites of the words underlined. Not all the words you need are in the additional material above.

 

Example: He's a very honest man. dishonest

 

 

1 I'm sure she's discreet. 6 He's very efficient.

2 I always find him very sensitive. 7 I always find her responsible.

3 It's a convincing argument. 8 He seems grateful for our help.

4 That's a very relevant point. 9 I'm sure she's loyal to the firm.

5 She's always obedient. 10 He's a tolerant person.

 

2. Which negative adjective fits each of the following definitions?

 

1 …….................. means not having a husband or wife.

2 …….................. means impossible to eat.

3 …….................. means unable to read or write.

4 …….................. means not having a job.

5 …….................. means fair in giving judgement, not favouring one side.

6 …….................. means unable to be replaced.

IV) Affixation. Suffixes.

Additioanal material.

Common noun suffixes

- er is used for the person who does an activity, e.g. writer, painter, worker, shopper, teacher.

You can use - er with a wide range of verbs to make them into nouns. Sometimes the - er suffix is written as - or. It is worth making a special list of these as you meet them, e.g. actor, operator, sailor, supervisor. - er /- or are also used for things which do a particular job, e.g. pencil-sharpener, bottle-opener, grater, projector.

- er and - ее can contrast with each other meaning 'person who does something' (-er) and 'person who receives or experiences the action' (-ее) employer/employee, sender/addressee, payee (e.g. of a cheque).

-(t)ion /- sion /- ion are used to form nouns from verbs, e.g. complication pollution reduction alteration donation promotion admission.

- ist [a person] and - ism [an activity or ideology]: used for people's politics, beliefs and ideologies, and sometimes their profession (compare with -er/-or professions above), e.g. Buddhism, journalism, Marxist, typist, physicist, terrorist, - ist is also often used for people who play musical instruments, e.g. pianist, violinist, cellist.

- ness is used to make nouns from adjectives: goodness, readiness, forgetfulness, happiness, sadness, weakness. Note what happens to adjectives that end in -y.

 

Adjective suffixes

 

- able /- ible with verbs, means 'can be done':

drinkable washable readable forgivable edible [can be eaten] flexible [can be bent]

 

Verbs

- ise (or - ize) forms verbs from adjectives, e.g. modernise [make modern], commercialise, industrialise.

Other suffixes that can help you recognise the word-class

- ment: (nouns) excitement enjoyment replacement

- ity: (nouns) flexibility productivity scarcity

- hood: (abstract nouns especially family terms) childhood motherhood

- ive: (adjectives) passive productive active

- al (adjectives) brutal legal (nouns) refusal arrival

- ous: (adjectives) delicious outrageous furious

- ful: (adjectives) forgetful hopeful useful

- less: (adjectives) useless harmless homeless

- ify: (verbs) beautify purify terrify

Exercises

1. Use the –er/-or, -ее and -ist suffixes to make the names of the following. If you need to use
a dictionary, try looking up the words in bold.

2.

Example: A person who plays jazz on the piano. a jazz pianist

1 The thing that wipes rain off your car windscreen.

2 A person who plays classical violin.

3 A person who takes professional photographs. (N.B. pronunciation)

4 A person who acts in amateur theatre.

5 The person to whom a cheque is paid.

6 A machine for washing dishes.

7 A person who donates their organs upon their death.

8 The person to whom a letter is addressed.

 

2. Each picture is of an object ending in -er. Can you name them?

 

V) Conversion

Exercises

1. Find cases of conversion in the following sentences.

1. The clerk was eyeing him expectantly. 2. Under the cover of that protective din he was able to toy with a steaming dish which his waiter had brought. 3. An aggressive man battled his way to Stout's side. 4. Just a few yards from the front door of the bar there was an elderly woman comfortably seated on a chair, holding a hose linked to a tap and watering the pavement. 5. — What are you doing here? — I'm tidying your room. 6. My seat was in the middle of a row. I could not leave without inconveniencing a great many people, so I remained. 7. How on earth do you remember to milkthe cows and give pigs their dinner? 8. In a few minutes Papa stalked off, correctly booted and well mufflered. 9. "Then it's practically impossible to steal any diamonds?" asked Mrs Blair with as keen an air of disap-pointment as though she had been journeying there for the express purpose. 10. Ten minutes later I was speeding along in the direction of Cape Town. 11. Restaurants in all large cities have their ups and downs. 12. The upshot seemed to be that I was left to face life with the sum of £ 87 17s 4d. 13. "A man could be very happy in a house like this if he didn't have to poison his days with work,"said Jimmy. 14.I often heard that fellows after some great shock or loss have a habit, after they've been on the floor for a while won­dering what hit them, of picking themselves up and piecing themselves together.

 

 

VI) Compounding

Additional material

Compound nouns

A compound noun is a fixed expression which is made up of more than one word and functions as a noun. Such expressions are frequently combinations of two nouns, e.g. address book, human being [person], science fiction [fiction based on some kind of scientific fantasy].

If you understand both parts of the compound noun, the meaning will usually be clear. Compound nouns are usually written as two words, e.g. tin opener [an opener for tins], bank account [an account in a bank], pedestrian crossing [a place for people to cross a road], but sometimes they are written with a hyphen instead of a space between the words, e.g. pen-name [a false name used by a writer, a pseudonym], baby-sitter [someone who sits with a baby/child while parents are out]. Sometimes they may be written as one word, e.g. earring, trademark [the symbol of a product].

Usually the main stress is on the first part of the compound but sometimes it is on the second part. In the common compound nouns below, the word which contains the main stress is underlined.

alarm clock answering machine blood donor boo k token

burg lar alarm bus stop contact lens credit card

heart attack package holiday steerin g wheel shoe horn

tea-bag wind screen windscreen wiper youth hostel

 

Compound nouns may be countable, uncountable or only used in either the singular or the plural. The examples given above are all countable compound nouns. Here are some examples of common uncountable compound nouns.

air- traffic control birth control blood pressure computer technology

cotton wool data- processing food poisoning hay fever [allergy to pollen]

income tax junk food mail order pocket money

 

Here are some examples of common compound nouns used only in the singular.

arms race [countries wanting most powerful weapons]

brain drain [highly educated people leaving country to work abroad]

death penalty

generation gap global warming greenhouse effect

labour force mother -tongue

sound barrier welfare state

 

Here arc some examples of common compound nouns used only in the plural,
grass roots human rights kitchen scissors luxury goods

race relations road works sun glasses traffic lights

 

Compound adjectives

A compound adjective is made up of two parts. It is usually written with a hyphen, e.g. well-dressed, never-ending and shocking-pink. Its meaning is usually clear from the words it combines. The second part of the adjective is frequently a present or past participle.A large number of compound adjectives describe personal appearance.

Here is a rather far-fetched description of a person starting from the head down.

Tom was a curly-haired, sun-tanned, blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked, thin-lipped, broad-shouldered, left-handed, slim-hipped, long-legged, flat-footed young man, wearing an open-necked shirt, brand-new, tight-fitting jeans and open-toed sandals.

Other compound adjectives describe a person's character.

Melissa was absent-minded [forgetful], easy-going [relaxed], good-tempered [cheerful], warm-hearted [kind] and quick-witted [intelligent] if perhaps a little big-headed Iproud of herself], two-faced [hypocritical], self-centred [egotistical] and stuck-up [snobbish (colloquial)] at times.

Another special group of compound adjectives has a preposition in its second part.

The workers' declaration of an all-out strike forced management to improve conditions.]

Once there were fields here but now it's a totally built-up area.

That student's parents are very well-off but they don't give him much money and he is

always complaining of being hard-up.

I love these shoes and, although they're worn-out, I can't throw them away.

This area was once prosperous but it now looks very run-down.

Here are some other compound adjectives with typical nouns.

air-conditioned rooms; bullet-proof windows on the president's car; cut-price goods in the sales; duty-free cigarettes; hand-made clothes; interest-free credit; last-minute revision for an exam; long-distance lorry driver; long-standing relationship; off-peak train travel; part-time job; remote-controlled toy car; second-class ticket; so-called expert; sugar-free diet; time-consuming writing of reports; top-secret information; world-famous film star.

 

 

Exercises

 

1. In some cases more than one compound noun can be formed from one particular element. For example blood pressure and blood donor, air-traffic control, birth control and self-control. Complete the following compound nouns with a noun other than the one suggested opposite. Use your dictionary.

 

1............... token 4 blood.... 7...... tax 10 ……... lights

2 junk............. 5 tea..... 8..... processing 11……... food

3 sound....................... 6 mother..... 9..... crossing 12 …….. race

 

2. What are they talking about? In each case the answer is a compound noun from the previous pages.

 

EXAMPLE: I had it taken at the doctor's this morning and he said it was a little high for my age. blood pressure.

1 You really shouldn't cross the road at any other place.

2 It's partly caused by such things as hair sprays and old fridges.

3 She always has terrible sneezing fits in the early summer.

4 I can't understand why they spend so much on devising ways of killing people.

5 They say that working there is much more stressful than being a pilot.

6 The worst time was when I dropped one at the theatre and spent the interval searching
around on the floor. I couldn't see a thing without them.

7 I don't think it should ever be used whatever the crime.

8 It's much easier not to have To make your own travel arrangements.

9 It took my mother ages to get used to leaving a message on mine!

 

3. Here are some compound expressions you have worked with in this unit. Explain what the significance of the nouns used in the compound are.

 

EXAMPLE windscreen a screen that protects a driver from the wind
1 hook token 4 generation gap 7 luxury goods

2 burglar alarm 5 greenhouse effect 8 pocket money

3 food poisoning 6 kitchen scissors 9 welfare suite

 

4. List as many compound adjectives beginning with self, as you can. Mark them P or N for positive or negative characteristics, or write neutral.

 

5. Answer the questions by using a compound adjective which is opposite in meaning to the
adjective in the question. Note that the answer may or may not have the same second
element as the adjective in the question.

 

EXAMPLE Is he working full-time? No, part-time.

1 Isn't she rather short-sighted? 4 Are her shoes high-heeled?

2 Is your brother well-off? 5 Is this vase mass-produced?

3 Would you say the boy is well-behaved? 6 Do they live in south-east England?

 

6. Add a preposition from the list below to complete appropriate compound adjectives.

 

back up out off on of

1 She's done the same low-paid job for so long that she's really fed-.......... with it now.

2 The two cars were involved in a head-............... collision.

3 He has a very casual, laid-................. approach to life in general.

4 It'll never happen again. It's definitely a one-.............. situation.

5 He's a smash hit here but he's unheard-............... in my country.

6 She bought a cut-…………paper pattern and made her own dress.

 

X) Homonymy

Additional material

Homonyms can be subdivided into homographs and homophones. Homographs are words which are written in the same way but have different meanings and may be pronounced differently. Compare bow in 'he took a bow /bau/ at the end of the concert' and 'he was wearing a bow /bou/ tie'. Homophones are words with different meanings which are pronounced in the same way but are spelt differently, e.g. bow as in 'he took a bow' and bough, 'the bough of a tree'.

Here are some more examples of homographs with differing pronunciations.

I live in the north of England, /liv/

Your favourite rock group is singing live on TV tonight, /laiv/

I read in bed each night. /ri:d/

I read War and Peace last year, /red/

The lead singer in the group is great. /li:d/

Lead pipes are dangerous, /led/

The wind blew the tree down, /wind/

Wind the rope round this tree, /waind/

I wound my watch last night, /waund/

He suffered a terrible wound in the war. /wu:nd/

Some students at Oxford spend more time learning to row well than studying, /гou/

They shared a flat for ages until they had a row over money and split up. /rau/

They stood in a row and had their photo taken, /rou/

This book is called English Vocabulary in Use. /ju:s/

You must know how to use words as well as their meaning. /ju:z/

They lived in a large old house, /haus/

The buildings house a library and two concert halls as well as a theatre, /hauz/

The sow has five piglets, /sau/

The farmers sow the seeds in the spring, /sou/

Bathing the baby at night may help it to fall asleep. /ba:qih/

(On a sign at a beach) No bathing /bei¶ih/

 

Here are some other many examples of homophones inEnglish.

air/heir aloud/allowed break/brake fare/fair

faze/phase flu/flew grate/great groan/grown

hoarse/horse its/it's lays/laze mail/male

meat/meet mown/moan our/hour pale/pail

pane/pain pair/pear/pare peal/peel place/plaice

practise/practice pray/prey raise/rays read/reed

rein/rain right/rite/write sale/sail scene/seen

sight/site so/sew sole/soul some/sum

steak/stake tea/tee there/their/they're through/threw

tire/tyre toe/tow waist/waste wait/weight

weak/week weather/whether whine/winewould/wood

 

Exercises

1. Each underlined word rhymes with, or sounds similar to, one of the words in brackets;
choose the matching word.

1 The girl I live with knows a good pub with live music. (five/give)

2 The main house houses a collection of rare stamps. (mouse/browse)

3 It's no use. I can't use this gadget. (snooze/juice)

4 You sow the seeds while I feed the sow. (cow/go)

5 The violinist in the bow tie took a bow. (now/so)

6 He's the lead singer in the group ' Lead piping'. (head/deed)

7 What a row from the last house in the row! (plough/though)

8 Does he still suffer from his war wound? (found/tuned)

9 I wound the rope around the tree to strengthen it against the gale. (round/spooned)
10 It's quite hard to wind in the sails in this wind. (find/tinned)

2. Write the word in phonetic script in the correct spelling for the context.

 

EXAMPLE I really must do some more exercise or I'll never lose /weit/ weight

1 Watching TV game shows is such a /weist/ of time.

2 There is a hole in the /saul/ of my shoe.

3 He broke a /pein/ of glass in the kitchen window.

4 The eldest son of the monarch is the /e / to the throne.

5 You are not /a'laud/ to talk during the test.

6 Let's /'praktis/ our swimming together this evening.

7 He's going /qru:/ a rather difficult /feiz/ at the moment.

8Don't throw away that orange /pill/. I need it for a recipe.

 

3. Homophones and homographs are at the root of many jokes in English. Match the first
part of each of these children's jokes with the second part and then explain the play on
words involved in each.

 

1 What do you get if you cross a sheep and a kangaroo? Let's play draughts.

2 What did the south wind say to the north wind? A drum takes a lot of beating.

3 Why did the man take his pencil to bed? A woolly jumper.

4 Why is history the sweetest lesson? He wanted to draw the curtains.

5 What's the best birthday present? Because it's full of dates.

 

4. Find the homonyms in the following extracts. Classify them into homonyms proper, homographs and homo­phones.

 

1. "Mine is a long and a sad tale!" said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. "It is a long tail, certain­ly," said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; "but why do you call it sad?" 2. a) My seat was in the middle of a row. b) "I say, you haven't had a row with Corky, have you?" 3. a) Our Institute football team got a challenge to a match from the University team and we accepted it. b) Somebody struck a match so that we could see each other. 4. a) It was nearly Decem­ber but the California sun made a summer morning of the season, b) On the way home Crane no longer drove like a nervous old maid. 5. a) She loved to dance and had every right to expect the boy she was seeing almost every night in the week to take her dancing at least once on the weekend. b) "That's right," she said. 6. a) Do you always forget to wind up your watch? b) Crane had an old Ford without a top and it rattled so much and the wind made so much noise. 7. a) In Brittany there was once a knight called Eliduc. b) She looked up through the window at the night. 8. a) He had a funny round face. b) — How does your house face? — It faces the South. 9. a) So he didn't shake his hand because he didn't shake cowards' hands, see, and somebody else was elected captain. b) Mel's plane had been shot down into the sea. 10. a) He was a lean, wiry Yankee who knew which side his experimental bread was buttered on. b) He had a wife of excellent and influential family, as finely bred as she was faithful to him. 11. a) He was growing progressively deafer in the left ear. b) I saw that I was looking down into another cove similar to the one I had left. 12. a) Iron and lead are base metals. b) Where does the road lead? 13. Kikanius invited him and a couple of the other boys to join him for a drink, and while Hugo didn't drink, he went along for the company.

 

 

Exercises

1. How many idioms of the type verb + object can you find in this text? Underline each one. Use a dictionary if necessary, especially a good dictionary of idioms.

I always try to make the most of any opportunity to make new friends, such as a party or a social event. But it’s not always easy to break the ice, and when yu don’t know someone, it’s so easy to put your foot in it by saying something insensitive or something which unexpectedly rubs someone up the wrong way. But if you keep an eye on what you say, play it by ear and just try to act naturally, it can make all the difference and you may find you stand a good chance of making anew acquaintance or even a good friend.

 

State the function of slang in the following examples, also paying attention to the morphological and syntactical characteristics of slang units and semantic and structural changes some of them underwent to become a slang expression.

 

1. "I'm the first one saw her. Out at Santa Anita she's hanging around the track every day. I'm interested: pro­fessionally I find out she's some jock's regular, she's living with the shrimp, I get the jock told Drop it if he don't want conversation with the vice boys: see, the kid's fifteen. But stylish: she's okay, she comes across. Even when she's wearing glasses this thick; even when she opens her mouth and you don't know if she's a hillbilly or an Okie or what, I still don't. My guess, nobody'll ever know where she came from. (T. C.)

2. Bejees, if you think you can play me for an easy mark, you've come to the wrong house. No one ever played Harry Hope for a sucker! (O'N.)

3. A cove couldn't be too careful. (D. C.)

4. I've often thought you'd make a corking good actress.(Dr.)

5. "When he told me his name was Herbert I nearly burst out laughing. Fancy calling anyone Herbert. A scream, I call it." (S.M.)

6. I steered him into a side street where it was dark and propped him against a wall and gave him a frisk.(O'N.)

7."I live upstairs." The answer seemed to explain enough to relax him. "You got the same layout?" "Much smaller."He tapped ash on the floor. "This is a dump. This is un­believable. But the kid don't know how to live even when she's got the dough." (T. C.)

8. It is. But not so much the hope of booze, if you can believe that. I've got the blues and Hickey's a great one to make a joke of everything and cheer you up. (O'N.)

9. "George," she said, "you're a rotten liar... The part about the peace of Europe is all bosh." (Ch.)

10. She came in one night, plastered, with a sun-burned man, also plastered... (J. O'H.)

11. "Your friend got stinko and Fane had to send out for a bouncer." (J. O'H.)

12. "That guy just aint hep," Mazzi said decisively. "He's as unhep as a box, I can't stand people who aint hep." (J.)

 

 

2. Specify hackneyed vulgarisms and vulgarisms proper; determine the kind of emotion which had caused their usage.

 

1....a hyena crossed the open on his way around the hill. "That bastard crosses there every night," the man said.(H.)

2. Suddenly Percy snatched the letter... "Give it back to me, you rotten devil," Peter shouted. "You know damn well it doesn't say that. I'll kick your big fat belly. I swear I will." (J. Br.)

3. "Look at the son of a bitchdown there: pretending he's one of the boys today." (J.)

4. "How are you, Cartwright? This is the very devil of a business, you know. The very devil of a business." (Ch.)

5. "Poor son of a bitch," he said. "I feel sorry for him, and I'm sorry I was bastardly." (J.)

6. I'm no damned fool! I couldn't go on believing for­ever that gang was going to change the world by shoot­ing off their loud traps on soapboxes and sneaking around blowing up a lousy building or a bridge! I got wise, it was all a crazy pipe dream! (O'N.)

 

 

3. Differentiate professional and social jargonisms; classify them according to the narrow sphere of us­age, suggest a terminological equivalent where possible.

 

1. She came out of her sleep.in a nightmare struggle for breath, her eyes distended in horror, the strangling cough tearing her again and again... Bart gave her the needle. (D. C.)

2. I'm here quite often—taking patients to hospitals for majors and so on. (S. L.)

3. "I didn't know you knew each other," I said. "A long time ago it was," Jean said. "We did History Final together at Coll." (K. A.)

4. They have graduated from Ohio State together, him­self with an engineering degree. (J.)

5. The arrangement was to keep in touch by runners and by walkie-talkie. (St. H)

 

II) Stylistic devices

 

a) Epithet

 

Exercises

 

1. Discuss the structure of epithets.

 

1. "Can you tell me what lime thai game starts today?" The girl gave him a lipsticky smile. (S.)

2. The day was windless, unnaturally mild; since mor­ning the sun had tried to penetrate the cloud, and now above the Mall, the sky was still faintly luminous, col-oured like water over sand. (Hut.)

3.Silent early morning dogs parade majestically peck­ing and choosing judiciously whereon to pee. (St.)

4. The hard chairs were the newlywed-suit kind, often on show in the windows of shops. (K. A.)

5.... whispered the spinster aunt with true spinster-aunt-like envy... (D.)

6. I closed my eyes, smelling the goodness of her sweat and the sunshine-in-the-breakfast-room smell of her laven­der-water. (J. Br.)

7. Stark stared at him reflectively, that peculiar about to laugh, about to cry, about to sneer expression on his face. (J.)

8. Eden was an adept at bargaining, but somehow all his cunning left him as he faced this Gibraltar of a man.(E.D.B.)

9. At his full height he was only up to her shoulder,a little dried-up pippin of a man. (G.)

10. "Thief," Pilon shouted. "Dirty pig of an untrue friend." (St.)

11. An ugly gingerbread brute of a boy with a revolting grin and as far asI was able to ascertain, no redeeming qualities of any sort. (P G W.)..

12.A breeze... blew curtains in and out like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling. (Sc. F.)

 

 

b) Metonymy

 

Exercises

 

Exercises

Dependent

 

STUDENTS who want a bigger say in the running of universities will be reinforced in their view by the latest effort of the vice-chancellor of Liverpool University and some other academics.

Today these allegedly wise and learned individuals issue, under the patronage of the Right Wing Institute of Economic Affairs a statement of the "urgency of establish­ing an independent university".

By "independent" they mean one which is dependent on finance from rich private individuals and Big Business, instead of from the Government..

It is a monstrous misuse of the English language to claim that such a university would be independent. It would depend entirely on the good will of the rich, and would find its finances cut off immediately if it displeased them.

Universities already have to rely too much on Big Business sources of finance, including from US and other firms engaged in war preparations.

Whatever criticisms there may be about the Government's part in their finance at any rate there is some possi­bility of democratic control over the public money allocated to the universities.

There would be none if it all came as a result of board-room decisions.

 

 

Text 2

 

No to NED

 

SCOTTISH miners know from their own experience what Tory planning means. In the Scottish coalfield Gov­ernment planning aims to close pits employing 5,000 men.

This is a plan for poverty and the Scottish area of the National Union of Mineworkers is resisting it. It ought to be able to count on the Trades Union Congress for help.

But the T.U.C. leaders by a majority have decided to join Mr. Selwyn Lloyd's National Economic Development Council. They are thus to take part in the work of an organisation set up by the Tories to carry out Tory eco­nomic policy.

The T.U.C. chiefs say they will be able to criticize the Government's proposals. They can do so more effectively if they refrain from wedding NED.

By joining NED, the T.U.C. weakens the fight against Tory pay-pause policies and the Tory Government. Mr. Gaitskell will have a convenient excuse to soft-pedal La­bour's attack.

He will be able to trot out arguments against embar­rassing "our T.U.C. friends who are engaged in compli­cated and delicate discussions" and so forth.

The T.U.C. should be told to keep out of NED and help to smash the pay-pause instead.

 

 

Task: find all the peculiarities of this style.

 

 

c) The style of official documents

 

Text

 

I) Guessing and explaining meaning of words.

Additional material.