Name: _________________

Mind Your Language

Season 1 – Episode
“Kill or Cure”
23 February 1978

Plot
The episode starts with Miss Courtney getting what she suspects1 is an obscene2 phone call,
but it actually belongs to Mr. Brown who trying to explain that he's in bed with the flu, and
cannot come to teach. While no one is around to take the class, the students are dancing until
Miss Courtney approaches3 them. She takes over the class and asks a few questions. She
sends Giovanni, Ali, and Max home for giving stupid answers and then leaves Anna in
charge of the class. The rest also give stupid answers, so when Miss Courtney returns, she
finds that Anna has sent them all home.
After leaving the school, the students decide to visit Mr. Brown at his flat. when they knock
on the door, he first tells them to leave, but Jamila, Danielle, Giovanni, and Max do not hear
the response4. Instead, they try to enter through the rear5 door because the front door has not
been opened. Then, Mr. Brown opens the front door, but it is too late as there's no one until
Ali arrives. While he and Ali are talking in the corridor, the other four are already inside and
lock the door to prevent burglars6 from breaking in. When Mr. Brown notices this, he and Ali
think there are burglars in the flat and he and Max see each other's eyes when they both look
through the peephole7. As Mr. Brown charges8 toward the door and tries to break it down,
Giovanni opens it and Mr. Brown lands on his bed, which folds back up into the wall.
Danielle spills some milk on her dress, so Mr. Brown tells her to sponge it off9 in the
bathroom, and she comes out to ask him where she can hang her dress right as Miss
Courtney arrives to collect the students' homework.
All of Mr. Brown's students bring treatments and medicine when they visit him, some of
which are more helpful to him than others. When Juan, Ranjeet, and Taro arrive, Juan gives
him some Spanish brandy10 and Taro gives him some sake11, and Ali, Danielle, Max, and
Giovanni return a little later with bottles of Jamaican rum12, French wine, Greek ouzo13, and
Italian grappa14. Jamila goes to the school with Miss Courtney and explains why Danielle
was in her undergarments15 in Mr. Brown's flat. When Miss Courtney realizes that Mr.
Brown did nothing wrong and goes back to his flat to apologize to him, she finds him
dancing the conga16 with his students and advises them to leave immediately. As she warns
Mr. Brown that any other incidents of this sort will get him terminated17, he loses his
balance, grabs hold of her, and falls into his bed, which folds up into the wall with both of them
in it
Questions
1. What’s wrong with Mr. Brown? Why he cannot come to teach his students? Who takes over his class?
2. Miss Cortney says, “The Celts were a race of people.” The word race refers to:
a. A competition b. a group of people
3. What’s wrong with Giovani, Max, and Ali? Why does Miss Courtney send them home?
4. What does Giovanni bring Mr. Brown on his first visit?
5. What is the right way to use the medicine that Anna gives to Mr. Brown?
6. Why does Miss Courtney return to Mr. Brown’s flat?
7. What happens at the end of the movie?
Vocabulary
1. Contradict (v) to state the opposite of what someone else has said, or (of one fact or statement) to be so
different from another fact or statement that one of them must be wrong
 He didn’t dare to contradict his parents
2. Persist (v) to do or continue doing or saying something in a determined but often unreasonable way
 Why do you persist in denying that it was your fault?
3. Utter (v) to say something or to make a sound with your voice
 They followed her without uttering a single word of protest.
4. Supplant (v) to replace something or someone
 In most offices, the typewriter has now been supplanted by the computer.
5. Take charge of = to take over
6. Stand for (phrasal verb) to be willing to accept something that someone does
7. Nonsense (adj) an idea, something said or written, or behavior that is silly, stupid, or unreasonable.
 Do you believe the nonsense about ghosts?
8. Groggy (adj) weak and unable to think clearly or walk correctly, usually because of tiredness or illness
 I felt a bit groggy for a couple of days after the operation.
9. Freeze (v) If you freeze something, you lower its temperature below 0°C, causing it to become cold and
often hard, and if something freezes, its temperature goes below 0°C
 Water freezes to ice at a temperature of 0°C.
10. Vein (n) one of the tubes in your body that carry blood to your heart. A tube that carries blood away
from your heart is an artery.
11. Hang up (phrasal verb) to end a telephone conversation
 Let me speak to Melanie before you hang up.
12. Shrink (v) to become smaller in size.
13. Tuck in/into (transitive phrasal verb) to make someone comfortable in their bed, especially a child, by
arranging the covers around them
 Daddy, if I go to bed now will you tuck me in? He fed the children and tucked them into bed.
to start eating something eagerly because you like it or because you are hungry.
 There's plenty of food, so please tuck in.
 Judging by the way they tucked into their dinner, they must have been very hungry
14. Poison (v) to kill someone or make them very ill by giving them poison
 He was suspected of poisoning his wife.
15. Priest (n) a person, usually a man, who has been trained to perform religious duties in the Christian
Church, especially the Roman Catholic Church, or a person with particular duties in some other religions
16. Undertaker (n) a person whose job is to prepare dead bodies that are going to be buried or cremated (=
burned) and to organize funerals
17. Under the weather (phrase) if a person is under the weather, they do not feel well.
 I'm feeling a bit under the weather - I think I've caught a cold.
18. White (adj) very pale in the face because you are frightened, angry, or ill.
 She suddenly turned deathly white and fainted.
19. Bottoms up (phrase) used for expressing good wishes before drinking an alcoholic drink. The
more usual word is cheers.
20. Geisha (n) a Japanese woman whose job is to entertain men by singing, dancing, playing music,
and making conversation
21. Acupuncture (v) a medical treatment from China that involves putting special needles into particular
parts of the body
22. Ancestor (n) someone who is related to you who lived a long time ago
23. Misjudge (v) to make a wrong judgment about a person or situation
 I thought he wasn't going to support me, but I misjudged him.
24. Disgraceful (adj) very bad
 She thought that their attitude was absolutely disgraceful.