Text transcription 1

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Arthur Nicholson
6 years ago
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1 Text transcription 1 Did you see Othello on television last night? The opera, you mean. No, I didn t. I was out. I saw it and quite enjoyed it. Did you? I thought you didn t approve of television. I don t as a regular thing, but I happened to be round at my sister s and she wanted to see it. So I watched it too. Have you thought any more about getting a set? No, I don t think I shall. Though there s a good deal of pressure, of course. From your family? From my daughter, in particular. All her school friends talk about it so much. I know. You d think they never did anything else but sit glued to the television screen. That s mostly what I object to, the time it wastes. It isn t the television that wastes the time. It s you. I know that. But I have a deep distrust of myself. So it s probably better to avoid the occasion of sin. Don t you think? We haven t got any boys in our group. How d you do. We gathered thyme on the banks of the Thames.

2 Text transcription 2 I rang the bell it was one of those old-fashioned ones that you pulled and I could hear it ringing through the house. I waited, but there was no sound of footsteps in the house. I waited, perhaps for two minutes, but still all was silent. But the house was occupied; there was smoke coming from the chimney (it was in December), and I recognised Anna s clean, bright curtains in the windows. I rang again, louder than before, and then, after another minute or so I heard footsteps slowly coming down the stairs. The door opened and I saw Anna. The moment she saw me her face lighted up with a smile. I threw my arms round her and said, Oh, Anna, how nice to see you again! There was no doubt about her joy at seeing me. She took me upstairs to her cosy room. The room was exactly as I had always known it except that Henry wasn t there. Oh, yes, and except for one other thing. On the table near Anna s chair was a big sand-glass. In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen. Professor Higgins sentence for practising the pronunciation of h in My Fair Lady. Many happy returns of the day! Did you see any ships on the Thames?

3 Text transcription 3 I say, Arthur. Seen anything of Jack Taylor recently? Naylor, did you say? No, Taylor. With a T. Who s that? Oh, you remember him. The man who gave you those driving lessons, just before your test. Oh, him! No, I haven t. I m afraid. Why d you ask? Well I was wondering if he d got any free time during the next few weeks. But you don t need more lessons, do you? I thought you passed your test. So I did, just after Christmas. No, I don t need lessons. My sister Janet does. Oh, but didn t you say your father was teaching her? He was. But he couldn t stand the pace. Couldn t stand the pace? How s that? Janet mustn t go faster than thirty, surely. She s a learner. Oh, but you don t know Janet! At least, not as a driver. She s got no idea of speed at all. You mean she really does drive too fast? I ll say she does! Every bit of practice, well it s more like an international car race. It just doesn t occur to her that going fast can be dangerous. Well, anyway, she sounds confident. Confident! That s putting it mildly. Use the thermometer to gauge the temperature. Sorry, but the thermometer is out of use. She used to love cats but one attacked her and she doesn't like them anymore. Can I give you some ham, Frank? To tell the truth, I d prefer ham-and-eggs.

4 Text transcription 4 And confidence not shared by father, I gather. Not one bit! Sometimes, after an hour s driving with her, he s come home petrified! And now he s refused to go out with her again? Yes, but not because of her speeding. Well, then, why did he cry off? Because when he got back from work yesterday the engine was in bits. Had Janet had an accident? No. She d merely decided to see how things work under the bonnet. Does she know anything about car engines? Not a thing! Dad was very upset, as you can imagine. Yes, he would be. It s his one real joy in life, that car of his, isn t it? Well, anyway, that was the last straw. No more use of the car for her till she d passed her test. And you d better start looking for another instructor, he said. And you thought of poor old Taylor. Let s hope his nerves ll stand it. And his insurance. Some like it hot, some like it cold, some like it in the pot nine days old. Courage is the quality of courageous men. Robin Hood lived as an outlaw in the woods of Nottinghamshire.

5 Text transcription 5 Once upon a time there was a mother pig who had three little pigs. The three little pigs grew so big that their mother said to them: You are too big to live here any longer. You must go and build houses for yourselves. But take care that the wolf does not catch you. The three little pigs set off. We will take care that the wolf does not catch us, they said. Soon they met a man who was carrying some straw. Please will you give me some straw? asked the first little pig. I want to build a house for myself. Yes, said the man and he gave the first little pig some straw. Then the first little pig built himself a house of straw. He was very pleased with his house. He said, Now the wolf won t catch me and eat me. I shall build a stronger house than yours, said the second little pig. Robert Burns was a Scottish poet. Norwich, Leicester, Worcester, West Bromwich, and Derby are English towns. She usually wears her hair in a plait.

6 Text transcription 6 Once upon a time, there was a poor boy who was called Dick Whittington. His mother and father were dead and he had no-one to care for him. Dick lived in a small village in the country. He tried to work for his living but he could not always find work to do. Dick was very poor. His clothes were thin and ragged and sometimes he had very little to eat. In those days, people did not often travel far from the village in which they lived. Dick s village was a long way from London. When the village people talked of London, they spoke of it as a wonderful place. They said that all the people in the city of London were rich. They even said that the streets of London were paved with gold. Dick listened to these tales and he longed to go to London. Dick thought that if he went to London, he would be able to pick up gold from the streets. Then he would become rich and need never feel cold or hungry again. Dick made up his mind to go to London, although he had no idea how far it was. He made his few clothes into a bundle and tied the bundle to the end of his stick. Then he set off to walk along the road to London. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norkay were the first to scale Mount Everest. Berkshire, Derbyshire, Durham, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire are names of shires in England that deviate from the pronunciation expected by foreign learners. In this region the occurrence of thyme is rare, it means that thyme occurs only sporadically.

7 Text transcription 7 As you walk through Oxford you seem to be living in history, so many things call up events and figures of the past. Here Queen Elizabeth I listened to Shakespeare s plays in a college hall, and made jokes with the professors in Latin and Greek! In Pembroke College you can see Dr. Johnson s blue and white tea-pot. In Oxford, Charles I held his Court at Christ Church while the colleges melted down all their silver dishes to help his cause during the Civil War. th th Here, Roger Bacon laid the foundations of experimental science, not in the 18 but in the 13 century; here, every night you can hear the sound of Great Tom, the big bell in Tom Tower, the tower that Wren designed for Christ Church. Every night at five minutes past nine the bell is rung 101 times in memory of the 101 students in Henry VIII s time. In the medieval library of Merton College you can see all the chained books and the old benches just as they th were in the 13 century. These reminders of the past are everywhere. The biblical name Magdalene and the modern first name Magdalene have different pronunciations from Magdalen College and Magdalen Bridge in Oxford and Magdalene College and Magdalene Street in Cambridge. When she spoke of ingredients, she often referred to Worcester sauce. Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Plymouth, Chichester, Winchester, Salisbury, Newbury, Reading, and Bath are towns in the South and the South-West of England.

8 Transcription text 8 I really don t see why you re so pessimistic. Don t you? I do. It was all very well in the past. The techniques of mass persuasion weren t so very highly developed. But nowadays, what with motivational research and subliminal perception, men s minds are so vulnerable. But they always have been vulnerable. There ve always been mob orators and professional persuaders. But they ve never been able to dominate all the people all the time. I agree with you. But the techniques available now seem to promise just that. I think you underestimate your fellow men. In my view, they ve got sufficient sense to see through these tricks. But it isn t a matter of sense. That s exactly my point. If things go on as they are we shan t even know we re being persuaded. It won t be an appeal to reason or sense. It ll be a direct influencing of the subconscious mind. But that s exactly what mob orators have always done. They ve always appealed to the subconscious mind. Never to reason. But even so, they haven t been able to lead the people by the nose for long. Long enough. And it was only intuition they were working by. Now it s on a scientific basis. So goodness knows what we can be persuaded to accept. And without even knowing we re being persuaded. Chester and Manchester lie to the south of the 54 th parallel, Lancaster, Scarborough, Middlesborough, and Keswick lie to the north. She was weeping bitterly, the tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn t know she d won the contest. Apples, pears, cherries and plums were the kinds of fruit that most often appeared in Czech gardens and orchards.

9 Text transcription 9 In Cambridge, the streets are narrow and crowded, and here and there among the modern shops and offices a quiet opening tempts one away from the rush of the shopping centre. There is a great deal of bicycle traffic, mainly undergraduates who race along thoughtless of safety, with long scarves (in various colours to denote their College) wound round their necks. The river flows behind the College buildings and curls about the town in the shape of a horseshoe. This narrow river (a good jumper could almost leap it) is the Granta, and a little farther on it changes its name to the Cam. It flows slowly and calmly. The Backs, as this part of the town behind the Colleges is called, have been described as the loveliest man-made view in England. It is indeed beautiful. To the left, across the stream, there are no buildings, merely meadows, College gardens and lines of tall trees. Everything is very green and peaceful. On the river-bank are willow trees with their branches bending into the water, and at intervals along the river, stone bridges cross the stream and lead into the Colleges which line the right bank. Their walls rise out of their own reflection in the water and their colour contrasts charmingly with glimpses of the many green lawns. Boatswain is the officer on a ship who is responsible for looking after the ship's equipment. There was a little girl who had a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good, But when she was bad, she was horrid. I keep my papers in the bottom drawer.

10 Text transcription 10 The Eisteddfod The Eisteddfod is one of the oldest of all Welsh customs; the first one of which we have any record was held th in the 6 century, and as early as A.D. 940 the prize for the winning bard (poet) was a chair or throne. And that is still the prize today. In medieval times every chieftain used to keep a bard, and there were other bards who wandered about the country singing songs and making poems. There must have been quite a lot of poor singing and bad poetry then, for Queen Elizabeth I ordered an Eisteddfod to be held every year with the object of raising the standard of music and getting rid of the lazy, worthless bards. The Welsh are a nation of singers. Anyone, says Mr. Evans, who has heard a crowd of 50,000 Welshmen before a Rugby match at Cardiff singing Land of my Fathers, will never forget it. You could hardly find a town in Wales, however small, that hasn t a choir. The choir will gather in a little chapel almost every night for practice for they are preparing for the Eisteddfod and the pieces set for competition (e.g., two difficult works by Bach and Brahms) need a lot of practice to bring them to perfection. The Welsh are probably the only people in the world whose only national festival is devoted to music and poetry. For that is what an Eisteddfod is. She held the child tightly to her bosom. Psychology is the scientific study of the way the human mind works and how it influences behaviour. Psychiatry is the part of medicine which studies mental illness. If you have a sword of Damocles hanging over your head, something bad seems very likely to happen to you.

Instant Words Group 1

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