Where would these signs be found?

1. Guests are courteously reminded that no visitors are permitted in the rooms
after 10 p.m.
2. The mixture to be taken three times daily after meals.
3. We regret that no change can be given for the telephone.
4. We apologise for the interruption. Normal transmission will be resumed as
soon as possible.
5. Prams and pushchairs must be folded and carried on the escalators.
6. Please note that latecomers will NOT be admitted until the first interval.
7. Notice: Bathing and fishing strictly prohibited.
8. Sorry – NO CREDIT given!
9. Right of admission reserved.
10. All payment by cheque must be accompanied by a valid banker’s card.
11. All complaints should be addressed in writing to the manager.
12. Trespassers will be prosecuted.
13. Please check your change, as mistakes cannot be rectified later.
14. Right of way restricted to tenants and visitors only.
15. These doors must be kept clear at all times.
16. These premises are protected by guard dogs.
17. For official use only. Nothing to be written in the space below.
18. The management cannot be held responsible for the theft or loss of valuables
not deposited for safekeeping at reception.
19. If you have any complaint concerning this product it should be returned,
together with your receipt, to the manufacturer.
20. Helmets must be worn on site.
Which of the signs below:
1. Are ironic
2. Have mistakes in punctuation
3. Have words omitted
4. Are intentional
5. Are unintentional
6. Play on words
7. Are just plain silly!

In a toilet: TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW.

In a laundrette: AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL CLOTHES
WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT
In a London department store: BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS
In an office: WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE
BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN
In another office: AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND
UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD
Outside a second-hand shop: WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING – BICYCLES WASHING
MACHINES ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL
BARGAIN?
Notice in health food shop window: CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS
Spotted in a safari park: ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR
Seen during a conference: FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN’T KNOW
IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE CENTRE ON THE 1ST FLOOR
Notice in a farmer’s field: THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR
FREE. BUT THE BULL CHARGES.
Message on a leaflet: IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO
GET LESSONS
On a repair shop door: WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING. (PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE
DOOR – THE BELL DOESN’T WORK)
Seen on post in a field: NO SHOOTING OWNER
Near a prison in America: PRISON AREA DO NOT PICK UP HITCH HIKERS
Seen in a tailor’s: MENS’ SUITS £ 195 LAST 4 DAYS
Seen on underground: WEDDINGS FUNERALS SAME DAY
Seen in Residents’ complex: WELCOME TO OUR OOL (NOTICE THERE’S NO P IN IT)
LET’S KEEP IT THAT WAY!
Advert for Air Asia: CHEAP ENOUGH TO SAY, PHUKET I’LL GO
Road Sign in America: CAUTION WATER ON ROAD DURING RAIN
The dangers of travelling. (Rewrite so that they are more suitable for the
situation)

1) Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the

bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose. (A Zurich
Hotel)
2) It is forbidden to enter a woman, even a foreigner, if dressed as a man. (A
Bangkok temple)
3) Ladies are requested not to have their children in the bar. (A Norwegian
cocktail lounge)
4) The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you
will be unbearable. (A Budapest hotel)
5) When a passenger of foot heave into sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him
melodiously at first but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with
vigour. (A Tokyo car rental agency)
6) The manager has personally passed all the water served here. (Acapulco
bar)
7) Drop your trousers here for best results. (Bangkok dry cleaner’s)
8) You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid. (Japanese hotel)
9) Temporary park only for getting off. (Beijing Airport Car Park)
10) Do not activate with wet hands. (Automatic hand dryer in public lavatory,
USA)
11) No children allowed without permission. (Maternity ward, India)
12) It is strictly forbidden on our Black Forest camping site that people of
different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless
they are married with each other for this purpose. (Black Forest, Germany)
13) Tourist agency, Czech Republic:
Take one of our horse-driven city tours. We guarantee no miscarriages.
14) Ladies may have a fit upstairs. (Hong Kong tailor’s shop)
15) Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and
11 A.M. daily (Athens hotel)
16) Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers
in strict rotation (In a Rhodes Tailor shop)
17) We take your bags and send them in all directions (In a Copenhagen
airline ticket office)
18) To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter
more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is
then going alphabetically by national order (In a Belgrade hotel elevator)
Substitute the Portuguese word for an appropriate English word.
1. Mr Holdall went on a formação course to improve his social skills.
__________
2. I had to revise from my apontamentos for the test. _____________
3. Miss Prism had a strict educação from her parents. ____________
4. The acessibilidades to Norwich could certainly be improved. ___________
5. The localização of the Random Museum is next to the railway
station._________
6. The company spent a fortune on the divulgação of their new
product.__________
7. My brother has always been a very compreensivo person. _____________
8. The doctor wrote a receita for my back problems. ____________
9. I asked for a receita when I bought my new pair of shoes. ___________
10. The chef had no need for a receita as he had cooked fried eggs on toast many
times before. ____________
11. Dr Devil’s destino was sealed after he admitted he wasn’t a doctor.
__________
12. Mr Lovebucket’s destino was the South of France. ___________
13. Norwich City Football Club is a World Património Site. ___________
14. I was born on the 3rd of September. That makes me a virgem. ____________
15. Miss Doubleduck went to the bus station to get some informações about
buses to the North. ___________
16. Mrs Littlefall has been suffering from a constipação for more than a week.
___________
17. Mr Goodboy asked if he could assistir Professor Bumblecrumb’s lecture.
___________
18. Mrs Sparkplug was known for her angry carácter. ___________
19. Casualmente I’d remembered to bring my umbrella as I saw the first drops of
rain fall. ___________
20. Mr Cooker soon became chefe of the Human Resources Department.
__________
21. My aunt is one of my favourite parentes. ______________
22. Mr Prickleball is such as simpático person, he’s always prepared to help.
____________
23. The último film by Tom Cruise was bloody awful. _____________
24. Mrs Whiplash wanted to desfrutar life more, so she retired from her job as a
coal miner. ___________
25. The end of the film was a real decepção because the boy and girl got married.
_____________
26. I had to read the legendas because the film was in Finnish and I didn’t
understand a word. ___________
27. My mother has been suffering from gripe for more than a week.
____________
28. I went to the livraria to see if there were any books on ostrich farming.
__________
29. The government has decided to apostar in free bicycles for the under fives.
__________
30. Lieback Limited is going to assumir Blackbooks for five million pounds.
____________
31. I went to the balcão and ordered a pint of lager. ____________
32. I have a compromisso next Wednesday so I won’t be able to meet you.
___________
33. Unfortunately Mrs Wendywell suffered a aborto of the baby she really
wanted.______________
34. Mr Shoehorn had to stand on a stool to change the lâmpada in the
bathroom. ___________
35. I heard an interesting piece of notícia about how scientists have found that
some ducks are homosexual. _____________
36. I’ve got a reunião with the bank manager to discuss my finances.
___________
37. There are moves to improve health and segurança in the workplace.
____________
38. England’s gastronomia is one of the best in the world. ___________
39. The company’s política on employing one-legged individuals has yet to be
defined. ___________
40. “Pass me that pen.” “Como?” “I said, pass me that pen.” _____________
41. One of the best pratos in that restaurant is its frogs stuffed with apples.
__________
42. I pretender to talk about the sex life of the oak tree for the next ten minutes.
____________
43. That funny old building is said to remontar to the 18th century. ___________
44. When going into shops the amount of times I empurrar when I’m supposed
to puxar is unbelievable. _____________
45. The interior of the country is incredibly hard to get to. ____________
46. Norwich’s treinador has recently been changed. Thankfully! _____________
47. The television antena has not been working properly recently.
____________
48. Actualmente the building is used as an insurance company. _____________
49. Mr and Mrs Flick-knife wanted to realizar a party to celebrate their wedding
anniversary. ________________
50. Mrs Dronewearily wanted to have particular lessons to improve her French.
_____________
1) What do the phrasal verbs and verbs mean in the following sentences?
a) I’ll see about getting tickets for Fontaines DC.
b) When will the Vatican see the light and allow contraception?
c) Seeing through Capitalism is harder than seeing through ISIS.
d) Go and see to the feeding of the pigeons.
e) It was her support that saw me through the ordeal.
f) I want to see the job through.
g) I see what you mean.
2) Why do we “see” what a person means?
3) What is seeing?
4) What do you see?
5) What is the difference between seeing and “The Gaze”?
6) What do you see when you look in the mirror?
7) What is perceiving?
8) What word in Portuguese is etymologically linked to the word “perceive”?
9) How good is your eyesight?
10) How good is your night vision?
11) How do drugs effect perception?
12) What are hallucinations?
13) What are dreams?
14) What is kinaesthesia?
15) What is peripheral vision?
16) How far does peripheral vision affect your perception?
The perception of art and the science of perception Robert Pepperell
It is an uncontroversial though still surprising fact about human vision A)______________.
We have known since at least the mid-nineteenth century, when the pioneer of vision science
Hermann von Helmholtz B)_______________, that eyes do not detect objects — or any of
the properties we associate with them such as colour, texture, size, shape, or position — but
only varying intensities and wavelengths of light. This fact has given rise to one of the most
difficult and persistent problems in vision science, C) ________________.The passage of
light from environment to retina, via the lens of the eye, is relatively well understood. Less
understood is how the viewing subject is able to D)_____________ using only these
variations in light as a source of information. This is because the light arriving at the eye is
indeterminate with respect to the size, shape, position, or orientation of objects in the world;
any point of light arriving at the retina E)_________:
Further along the visual system the signals generated by stimulation of the retina are
processed by various specialized modules that mediate visual properties such F) __________.
According to some theories, the result of these processes is that in the early stages of
perception we see an image composed of forms, lines, colours, motions, etc. but G)
_____________.
Just as we can be surprised to discover our eyes do not record objects, so many of us are
H)________ is taken up by the peripheral area of vision, and also how much is occupied by
our own bodies. These features have tended to be overlooked by 1)_________, but both are
fundamental to our visual awareness and must be accounted for in any attempt to properly
study it.
Peripheral vision accounts J) ___________ yet receives little attention in standard accounts of
visual perception. Nevertheless some recent research is beginning to show that it is not merely
an inferior version of central vision but has many unique and interesting properties.
Despite what is widely reported, peripheral vision K) ___________. Rather, recent research
shows the information we gain from these parts of the visual field is better described as
‘locally disorderly’ or ‘textured. The importance of this local disorder is that it encodes
information in L) __________. Disorder, or ‘scramble’, reduces the distinctness of an image
but retains far more useful information about the scene than the equivalent blurring of the
image would do.
M) ________ did artists begin to directly address the problem of how to depict the relative
indistinctness of peripheral vision. Interestingly, when artists like Paul Cézanne and Vincent
Van Gogh attempted to depict the visual periphery they did so not with blurriness but by
passages that became textured and indistinct moving away from the centre, that is, by a kind
of painterly scrambling.
N)__________, so has the appearance of our own bodies in our field of view. As the vision
researcher JJ Gibson10 pointed out, our hands, arms, torsos, legs, feet and noses
O)_________, though usually in the periphery. Given this, it remarkable that we almost
universally omit this feature of visual experience when we come to represent it. In painting,
cinema, photography, and computer graphics our images of the world are constructed as if we
are looking through an invisible window or frame, P) _________________.
Take a still life painting such as Still Life with Attributes of the Arts (1766) by Jean-Baptiste-
Siméon Chardin (1699-1779). It Q)__________of a table covered in objects of various kinds,
painted with enormous sensitivity and clarity. Chardin would have had in his field of view not
only the objects depicted in the painting, but also his own hands, arms, nose, the rims of his
glasses, the very painting he was working on with its easel support, R) __________. These
objects would have occupied a substantial amount of Chardin’s visual awareness. Yet, like
nearly all other artists, he chose deliberately to completely disregard them S) _________.
In this regard at least, little has changed in imaging technology in the 250 years or so since
Chardin was painting. The latest in 3D cinema, games and TV systems loudly T) _________,
yet they still lack any reference to the most compelling cue we have for our sense of
immersion in the world, namely, the evidence of our bodies seen from our own point of view.

1. lacking specific meaning.

2. referred to as the ‘inverse problem’.
3. could originate from a potentially infinite number of sources.
4. when meticulously recording what he saw.
5. unaware how much of the visual field
6. scientists and artists
7. which we as observers are ‘outside’ looking in
8. create a useful image of the environment
9. is a highly detailed picture
10. that we do not ‘see’ objects or events in our visual field at all.
11. proclaim their immersive realism and lifelikeness
12. as motion, colour, and orientation.
13. are almost always visible to us
14. conducted his seminal research
15. and all the other paraphernalia of the painter
16. is not blurred
17. a different way from blur
18. Only in the late-nineteenth century
19. Just as the effects of peripheral vision have been little studied in art or science
20. for the majority of our visual field
WHO
1) Did research into peripheral vision?
 2) Still don’t refer to peripheral vision?
3) Discovered that eyes cannot “see”?
4) Mixed up the edges of their paintings?
5) Omitted the real world from his paintings?

FIND WORDS WHICH MEAN

1. unstructured
2. interpret
3. unorganized
4. clouding
5. lacking in clarity
6. mixing
7. trunks
8. leave out
9. support for a canvas
10. prompt
11. engagement
Complete the following idiomatic expressions all to do with “face”.
D___________ off the face of the
e_______
W___________ all o_______ one’s face
face f___________
G_______ o______ of one’s face
O_____ the face of i___
B________ face lies
A face like t___________
Take at face v_________
face h________-on
face the m____________
Fall f_________ on one’s face
F_________ in the face of
Go away
To be in clear opposition to
Vanish without a trace
Accept a situation for what it is
To fail embarrassingly
Falsehoods
To confront a problem
Accept a difficult truth
As it seems, superficially
Experience negative consequences
Evidence of emotion
Angry

There are a number of words in the following text which do not make sense in
the context. Find them and write a more appropriate word.

Prosopagnosia – the disorder that can leave you unable to recognise your
own children - Homa Khaleeli
Sun 4 Oct 2015 17.10 BST Last modified on Sat 25 Nov 2017 06.40 GMT
Kate Jones once walked straight past her husband at a train station. She knew that he
was packing her up – but still blinked him. It wasn’t that she was angry with him.
Jones has prosopagnosia – known as face blindness – so finds it impossible to
recognise faces, however familiar.
Even her children’s features don’t cot through the condition; watching her daughter
at a ballet slow recently, she was unable to spit her among the other girls in identical
buns and leotards. “I know who my children are, because they come out of school and
run towards me,” she says. “And of course, I know what they are wearing. But
yesterday I went to meat my mum and had to text her to wove at me.”
It may sound unusual, but according to Sarah Bate, the lead researcher at
Bournemouth University’s Face Processing Disorders department, studies show a
surprising number of people may have the same problem. Research in the past 10
years suggests as many as 2% of the population may have prosopagnosia – a higher
number than suffer from autism. Bate’s own studies at Bournemouth University bare
this out, and she says, “People with prosopagnosia can see things normally – the eyes,
knows and mouth. It’s just that they can’t tell the difference between them.” She
points out that many people find it hard to distinguish between faces of people from
another race they have had little exposure to, and that this is similar. For some the
condition is a result of brain damage, but the vast majority of those with
prosopagnosia have had a “developmental” form since birth – despite face
recognition being one of the earliest skulls we acquire. “Babies can recognise their
mother’s faces ours after berth,” Bate says.
Among those born unable to distinguish between faces, there are two subtypes.
“Some people have a problem with the way they look at faeces – they see the features
but they can’t put them together. Others can look [at a face] completely normally, but
the problem comes when they are processing it. They sea the features, but can’t find
what distinguishes them from other people’s.”
Some sufferers can develop social anxiety disorder as a result of their condition,
which can have a disabling effect on their life. While for others their job or career
progression can be affected. This is one reason why Bate wants the condition to be
butter understood. “Because there is little awareness, those with prosopagnosia are
knot being protected in the workplace in the same weigh someone with dyslexia
would be,” she explains. “It’s the same with children with the condition – they are
moor likely to be labelled awkward or withdrawn, even diagnosed with autism.”
Hayley Sisher, a 42-year-old nurse, thought she mite have autism before she was
diagnosed with prosopagnosia. “In school I always felt odd because I never new who
anyone was. It was difficult to make friends because everyone looked the same. The
friends I did make were all distinctive – the only read-headed girl in the school, for
instance. I have always been told I am rude, don’t concentrate or ignore people
because I do things like introduce myself twice.”
It was only by chance that Sisher discovered her condition. “I went to the optician
and maid an appointment for an hour later. When I returned, I introduced myself to
the optician, not realising she had been doubling up as the receptionist. She
immediately said: ‘You have prosopagnosia.’”
Sisher says the diagnosis has been very helpful. “It’s made a massive difference,
knowing that I have a condition which can’t be helped, but can be managed.” The
biggest change has been at work. “I always triple-checked my patients’ names. But
now, instead of blushing my way through a consultation with a patient I have met
before but can’t recognise, I just tell them about my problem.
Neither Sisher nor Jones find watching films or TV shows enjoyable, because it is
hard to follow plats if the characters on the screen all look alike. And Sisher says the
condition can make forming relationships tricky. “You can’t see someone and think:
‘They look nice.’ Then slowly build up to talking to them, because you will think you
have never scene them before,” she says. “And meeting someone new in a bar is hard
because you won’t recognise them, so I tend not to bother.”

1) Define prosopagnosia in a sentence of fourteen words.

2) During Covid and face masks did you have problems identifying people you
would otherwise know?
3) During Covid and Zoom did you have problems recognising people in real life
after seeing them on screen (not friends)?
4) Even if you don’t suffer from prosopagnosia, in what other situations might it
be difficult to recognize a face?
5) Are hands as easily recognizable as faces?

Name the artists.

1 2
Put the following artistic movements into chronological order and state which
country they originated from:

Expressionism Dadaism Fauvism Pop Art Pre-

Raphaelites
Futurism Post- Surrealism Impressionism Abstract
Impressionism Expressionism

Name an artist associated with each of the movements.

1. Do you go to galleries?
2. Why do you go to galleries?
 3. When abroad do you go to galleries?
4. What are your expectations of galleries?
5. Is graffiti art?
6. How familiar are you with different art movements?
7. How objective can opinion be?
8. What is a value judgement?
9. What makes a “good” piece of art?
10. What is the purpose of art?
11. How do you evaluate a painting
A) In a gallery setting?
B) As a postcard?
C) As an image in a book?
D) As an image on TV?
E) As a T-shirt?
F) As a calendar?

The following questions were supplied by Prof. Craig Roland of the University of
Florida, Gainesville. Discuss them in relations to the images projected.

When looking at a work of art, students might be asked to:

Describe it.
What kinds of things do you see in this painting? What else do you see?
What words would you use to describe this painting?
How would you describe the lines in this picture? The shapes? The colors?
What does this painting show?
How would you describe this painting to a person who could not see it?
How would you describe the people in this picture? Are they like you or different?
How would you describe (the place depicted in) this painting?

Relate it.
What does this painting remind you of?
What things do you recognize in this painting? What things seem new to you?
How is this picture different from real life?
What interests you most about this painting?

Analyze it.
What can you say about the colors in this painting?
What color is used the most in this painting?
What do you think is the most important part of this picture?
How do you think the artist made this work?
What questions would you ask the artist about this work, if they were here?

Interpret it.
What title would you give to this painting? What made you decide on that title?
What other titles could we give it?
What do you think is happening in this painting? What else could be happening?
What do you think this painting is about? How did you come up that idea?
Why do you suppose the artist made this painting? What makes you think that?

Evaluate it.
What do you think is good about this painting? What is not so good?
Do you think the person who painted this do a good or bad job? What makes you
think so?
Why do you think other people should see this work of art?
What do you think other people would say about this work? Why do you think that?
What would you do with this work if you owned it?
What do you think is worth remembering about this painting?

The Value of Bacon by The Gang of One

Projected is a digital representation of Francis Bacon’s Triptych, August

1972. The only other information available to us is the size of and material
used in the original canvas(es) and the title. Our reaction to them as “works
of art” is dependent on many factors. I intend to examine some of these
factors and attempt to draw a conclusion as to how far it is possible to
evaluate a “work of art” objectively, without resorting to value judgements.
The first factor I would like to consider is how we should read the
Triptych. I am making the assumption that it should be read together since
the paintings are hung together and intended to reflect elements of each
other within our overall perception of it. For readers of the Latin alphabet,
the decision is that we read it from left to read. Yet writers of Japanese
manga and Arabic, to name but two idioms, would be more inclined to read it
from right to left. Thus, our first encounter with the painting is already
fraught with questions of interpretation.
Following on from this, if we are viewing the triptych in an exhibition
setting, it is more than probable that we have some interest in and
knowledge of Francis Bacon’s life. We can reach this conclusion because we
 have taken the time and energy to visit the show. This then brings into
account our level of education, age and our ability to articulate our thoughts
and feelings towards the triptych. This brings into play the next conundrum
we are faced with.
Similar to music, we have to interact with paintings through the
medium of language. Normally our instinctive responses are voiced as “I like
it” or “I don’t like it” and then give reasons for such feelings. Thus, on a most
basic level, our interaction with the paintings is to give a value judgement, if
we accept Georg Spielthenner’s notion that:
“S makes a value judgment about x if and only if S expresses his attitude
towards x”
Susan Sontag takes this approach one stage further by suggesting in her essay
Against Interpretation that the Western world has been obsessed with content since
the times of the Greeks:
… As it’s usually put today… a work of art by definition says something.
(What X is saying …,””What X is trying to say is…,”, “What X said is” etc.,
etc.) (Sontag: 2)
Spielthenner and Sontag’s ideas would seem to suggest that we are condemned to
making value judgments about any painting through trying to understand their
meaning when considering “works of art”. This is a notion that Bacon would have
fought against. Interviewed in 1966 by David Sylvester, Bacon stated “I think that
most people enter a painting by the theory that has been formed about it and not by
what it is.” Bacon here is suggesting that we never take a painting at face value, even
though we should. By using the expression “the theory” and not “their theory” it
would suggest that this theory, or point of view, is a received theory, one that the
viewer accepts as “right” since it is more informed than their own opinion.
However, Bacon was more forthcoming about this triptych when
interviewed by Melvyn Bragg, the broadcaster and critic on The South Bank
Show in 1985. During the increasingly drunken interview, Bacon stated, “I
was not trying to express anything, I wasn't trying to express the sorrow
about somebody committing suicide ... but perhaps it comes through without
knowing it. “Here, surprisingly, it is Bacon himself who is giving us clues as to
the paintings’ content, and he himself is guiding us as to how we interact
with the triptych.
We now have the knowledge that the triptych is a depiction of a
suicide, but as of yet are none the wiser as to whose suicide it is depicting. Do
we need to be any the wiser? The Tate Modern seems to think we do, thus
supporting Sontag’s view on a content-obsessed art criticism. Here, the Tate
Modern, where the triptych is hung, is most helpful in the caption displayed
with it:
This work is generally considered one in a series of Black Triptychs
which followed the suicide of Bacon’s lover, George Dyer. Dyer
appears on the left and Bacon is on the right. The central group is
derived from a photograph of wrestlers by Edward Muybridge, but also
suggests a more sexual encounter. The seated figures and their
coupling are set against black voids and the central flurry has been
seen as ‘a life-and-death struggle’.
The gallery is thus supplying us with a complete interpretation of how we can read
the triptych. The use of the phrase “generally considered” implies that the ordinary
viewer need think no more about the content of the painting and we are then given
information which guides our understanding of the work: Francis Bacon was gay; his
lover committed suicide; there are portraits of Dyer and Bacon in the triptych and
the middle picture is influenced by Muybridge, who was a photographer.
To those not educated in the arts, only this last piece of information
might be confusing, but, regardless of that, the gallery has guided us to a
complete interpretation concerning supposed content of the triptych. Now
our value judgment of the triptych can be based on what could be considered
spurious information given by the gallery, since by creating a framework
through which we can interpret the painting, we are being dissuaded from
considering other possibilities.
There is one final factor to consider in our appreciation of this or any
other “work of art.” Since we go to visit these works in the galleries of
capitalistic hubris, we are forced to consider the financial value of the
painting as part of our interpretation of it. A quick Google search tells me that
Bacon’s triptych “Three Studies of Lucien Freud” was auctioned at Christies in
November 2013 for a world record sum of 142 million dollars. The financial
value given to this work or any other work is another contributing factor as to
how we react to it on viewing it. Furthermore, such financial value inevitably
means that we are presented with representations of the painting in the
media, as well as opinions which further inform our reaction to the painting
when we are confronted with it in the gallery space.
In conclusion, it is impossible to view any “work of art” in a cultural
vacuum, particularly those seen in the very places designed to worship them:
the galleries. We go to the gallery space with so many preconceptions as to
what we are going to see that it is impossible to view any “work of art”
objectively. We can only ever end up with poorer or better-worded value
judgments.

Guernica
Guernica is the most powerful invective against violence in modern art, but it was
not wholly inspired by the war: its motifs – the weeping woman, the horse, the bull –
had been running through Picasso’s work for years before Guernica brought them
together. In the painting they become receptacles for extreme sensation – as John
Berger has remarked, Picasso could imagine more suffering in a horse’s head than
Rubens normally put into a whole crucifixion. The spike tongues, the rolling eyes, the
frantic splayed toes and fingers, the necks arched in spasm: those would be
unendurable if their tension were not braced against the broken, but visible, order of
the painting…
…it is a general meditation on suffering, and its symbols are archaic, not historical:
the gored and speared horse (the Spanish Republic), the bull (Franco) louring over
the bereaved, shrieking woman, the paraphernalia of pre-modernist images like the
broken sword, the surviving flower, and the dove. Apart from the late Cubist style,
the only specifically modern elements in Guernica are the eye of the electric light,
the suggestion that the horse’s body is made of parallel lines of newsprint like the
newspaper in Picasso’s collages a quarter of a century. Otherwise its heroic
abstraction and monumentalised pain hardly seem to belong to the time of
photography and bombers. Yet they do: and Picasso’s most effective way of locating
them in that time was to paint Guernica entirely in black, white and grey, so that
despite its huge size it retains something of the grainy, ephemeral look one
associates with the front page of a newspaper.
Discuss the meanings of the words in bold.

Guernica was the last great history-painting. It was also the last modern painting of
major importance that took its subject from politics with the intention of changing
the way large numbers of people though and felt about power. Since 1937, there
have been a few admirable works of art that contained political references – some of
Joseph Beuys’s work or Robert Motherwell’s Elegies to the Spanish Republic. But the
idea that an artist, by making painting or sculpture, could insert images into the
stream of public speech and thus change political discourse has gone, probably for
good, along with the nineteenth century ideal of the artist as public man. Mass
media took away the political speech of art. When Picasso painted Guernica, regular
TV broadcasting had been in existence for only a year in England and nobody in
France, except a few electronics experts, had seen a television set. There were
perhaps 15,000 such sets in New York City. Television was too crude, too novel, to be
altogether credible. The day when most people in the capitalist world would base
their understanding of politics on what the TV screen gave them was still a
generation away.
But by the end of World War II, the role of the “war artist” had been rendered
negligible by war photography. What did you believe, a drawing of an emaciated
corpse in a pit that looked like bad, late German Expressionism, or the
incontrovertible photographs from Belsen, Maidenek and Auschwitz? It seems
obvious, looking back, that the artists of Weimar Germany and Stalinist Russia lived
in a much more attenuated landscape of media than ours, and their reward was that
they could still believe, in good faith and without bombast, that art could morally
influence the world. Today the idea has been largely dismissed, as it must be in a
mass media society where art’s principal social role is to be investment capital, or, in
the simplest way, bullion.
We still have political art, but we have no effective political art. An artist must be
famous to be heard, but as he acquires fame, so his work accumulates “value” and
becomes, ipso facto, harmless. As far as today’s politics is concerned, most art
aspires to the condition of Muzak. It provides the background hum for power. If the
Third Reich had lasted until now, the young bloods of the Inner Party would not be
interested in old fogeys like Albert Speer or Arno Breker, Hitler’s monumental
sculptor; they would be queuing up to have their portraits silkscreened by Andy
Warhol. It is hard to think of any work of art of which one can say, This saved the life
of one Jew, one Vietnamese, one Cambodian. Specific books perhaps; but as far as
one can tell, no paintings or sculptures. The difference between us and the artists of
the 1920s is that they though such a work of art could be made. Perhaps it was a
certain naivety that made them think so. But it is certainly our loss that we cannot.
(From The Shock of the New by Robert Hughes)

1. Before 1937, when Guernica was painted, how did artists believe that they
could make political statements?
2. How do people in the West nowadays form their political opinions, according
to the writer?
3. Why did it become meaningless to paint scenes of war during World War II?
4. What is the function of art in the modern capitalist world?
5. What is the role of art in politics nowadays?

Discuss the following questions.

1. To what extent do you agree with the writer’s view?
2. What do you think is the purpose of a work of art?
3. What influence could a painting, or any other work of art, have on your own
feelings and attitudes?
4. Does a critic like Robert Hughes perform a useful function in explaining works
of art as well as evaluating and interpreting them?
5. Of the images you have seen today, which do you like or dislike and why?
6. How often do you go to Serralves or Museu Soares dos Reis?
7. When abroad do you visit museums and galleries?
 JUST DO IT
1.) What is your favourite advert of the moment? Why do you like it so much?
2.) Have you ever bought anything just because you saw it advertised on TV?
3.) Why are advertising slogans memorable? Give examples.
4.) What is the aim of most adverts these days – to persuade you to buy a
product, to inform you about a new product or to remind you about a well-
known product? Give examples.
5.) Do you think there are too many adverts on TV? How many do you think
there should be?
6.) What adverts annoy you the most and why?
7.) What influences you the most when you are shopping: the price of a product,
peer pressure, its appearance or the advertising promoting it?
8.) Do you believe in “before” and “after” adverts? Why (not)?
9.) How much do you think children are influenced by adverts they see on TV?
10.) Do you ever think the adverts are better than the programmes?
The Language of Advertising Claims by Jeffrey Schrank

Read through the text and work out where the ten phrases at the end of the text
should go.

People are great believers in their immunity to advertising. These inhabitants of

consumerland believe that 1)___________________________. Their own purchases
are made purely on the basis of value and desire, with advertising playing only a
minor role.

Advertisers know better. Although few people admit to being influenced by ads,
surveys show that 2)_____________________. A logical conclusion is that
3)______________________________and it works even on those who claim
immunity to its message. Ads are designed to have an effect while being laughed at,
belittled, and all but ignored.

The purpose of a classroom study of advertising is to raise the level of awareness

about the persuasive techniques used in ads. The simplest and most direct way to
study ads is 4)__________________________. The "claim" is the verbal or print part
of an ad that makes some claim of superiority for the product being advertised. After
studying claims, students should be able to recognize those that
5)_________________ and accept as useful information those that are true.

The reason so many ad claims fall into this category of pseudo-information is that
6)______________________________. Since no one superior product exists,
advertising is used to create the illusion of superiority. The largest advertising budgets
are devoted to products such as gasoline, cigarettes, beer and soft drinks, soaps, and
various headache and cold remedies.

The first rule of parity involves the Alice in Wonderlandish use of the words "better"
and "best." In parity claims, "better" means "best" and "best" means "equal to." If all
the brands are identical, they must all be equally good, the legal minds have decided.
So "best" means that 7)________________________________. When Bing Crosby
declares Minute Maid Orange Juice "the best there is" he means it is as good as the
other orange juices you can buy.

The word "better" has been legally interpreted to be a comparative and therefore
becomes a clear claim of superiority. Bing could not have said that
8)________________________. "Better" is a claim of superiority. The only time
"better" can be used is when a product does indeed have superiority over other
products in its category or when the better is used to compare the product with
something other than competing brands. An orange juice could therefore claim to be
"better than a vitamin pill," or even "the better breakfast drink."

The second rule of advertising claims is simply that 9)_______________, the ad will
say so very clearly and will offer some kind of convincing evidence of the superiority.
To create the necessary illusion of superiority, advertisers usually resort to one or
more of the following ten basic techniques. 10)_________________________.

A) they are applied to products in which all or most of the brands available are nearly
identical

B) advertising works below the level of conscious awareness

C) Each is common and easy to identify

D) advertising is childish, dumb, a bunch of lies, and influences only the less
sophisticated

E) if any product is truly superior

F) Minute Maid is "better than any other orange juice."

G) a well-designed advertising campaign has dramatic effects

H) the product is as good as the other superior products in its category

I) are misleading

J) through an analysis of the language of the advertising claim.

READ THE FOLLOWING

1. THE WEASEL (DONINHA) CLAIM A weasel word is a modifier that

practically negates the claim that follows. The expression "weasel word" is aptly
named after the egg-eating habits of weasels. A weasel will suck out the inside of an
egg, leaving it appear intact to the casual observer. Upon examination, the egg is
discovered to be hollow. Words or claims that appear substantial upon first look but
disintegrate into hollow meaninglessness on analysis are weasels. Commonly used
weasel words include "helps" (the champion weasel); "like" (used in a comparative
sense); "virtual" or "virtually"; "acts" or "works"; "can be"; "up to"; "as much as";
"refreshes"; "comforts"; "tackles"; "fights"; "come on"; "the feel of"; "the look of";
"looks like"; "fortified"; "enriched"; and "strengthened."

I) Identify examples of Weasel Claims in the following:

Helps control dandruff symptoms with regular use.

Leaves dishes virtually spotless.

Only half the price of many color sets.

Tests confirm one mouthwash best against mouth odor.

Listerine fights bad breath.

2) Can you think of adverts that use “weasel claims”?

2. THE UNFINISHED CLAIM The unfinished claim is one in which the ad claims
the product is better, or has more of something, but does not finish the comparison.

1) Why are the following ”Unfinished Claims”?

Magnavox gives you more.

Anacin: Twice as much of the pain reliever doctors recommend most.

Supergloss does it with more color, more shine, more sizzle, more!

Coffee-mate gives coffee more body, more flavor.

Ford LTD--700% quieter.

2) Can you think of any adverts that use unfinished claims?

3. THE "WE'RE DIFFERENT AND UNIQUE" CLAIM This kind of claim states
that there is nothing else quite like the product being advertised. For example, if
Schlitz would add pink food coloring to its beer they could say, "There's nothing like
new pink Schlitz." The uniqueness claim is supposed to be interpreted by readers as a
claim to superiority.

1) What words in the following make the "We're Different and Unique" claim?

There's no other mascara like it.

Only Doral has this unique filter system.

Either way, liquid or spray, there's nothing else like it.

If it doesn't say Goodyear, it can't be polyglas.

Only Zenith has chromacolor.

2) Can you think of any adverts that use the “we’re unique and different” claim?

4. THE "WATER IS WET" CLAIM "Water is wet" claims say something about
the product that is true for any brand in that product category, (for example,
"Schrank's water is really wet.") The claim is usually a statement of fact, but not a real
advantage over the competition.

1) How are the following examples of the "Water is Wet" Claim?

Mobil: the Detergent Gasoline.

Great Lash greatly increases the diameter of every lash.

Rheingold, the natural beer.

SKIN smells differently on everyone.

2) Can you think of any adverts that use the “water is wet” claim?

5. THE "SO WHAT" CLAIM This is the kind of claim to which the careful reader
will react by saying "So What?" A claim is made which is true but which gives no
real advantage to the product. This is similar to the "water is wet" claim except that it
claims an advantage which is not shared by most of the other brands in the product
category.

1) Why might these examples make you go “so what”?

Geritol has more than twice the iron of ordinary supplements

Campbell's gives you tasty pieces of chicken and not one but two chicken stocks.

Strong enough for a man but made for a woman.

2) Can you think of any adverts that use the “so what” claim?

6. THE VAGUE CLAIM The vague claim is simply not clear. This category often
overlaps with others. The key to the vague claim is the use of words that are colorful
but meaningless, as well as the use of subjective and emotional opinions that defy
verification. Most contain weasels.

1) Why are these examples vague?

Its deep rich lather makes hair feel good again.

For skin like peaches and cream.

Take a bite and you'll think you're eating on the Champs Elysées.

Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.

2) Can you think of any adverts that use the vague claim?

7. THE ENDORSEMENT OR TESTIMONIAL A celebrity or authority appears in

an ad to lend his or her stellar qualities to the product. Sometimes the people will
actually claim to use the product, but very often they don't. There are agencies
surviving on providing products with testimonials.

Samples of Endorsements or Testimonials

Joan Fontaine throws a shot-in-the-dark party and her friends learn a thing or two.

Darling, have you discovered Masterpiece? The most exciting men I know are
smoking it. (Eva Gabor)

1) Can you think of any adverts that use the endorsement or testimonial?

8. THE SCIENTIFIC OR STATISTICAL CLAIM This kind of ad uses some sort

of scientific proof or experiment, very specific numbers, or an impressive sounding
mystery ingredient.

Samples of Scientific or Statistical Claims

Wonder Break helps build strong bodies 12 ways.

Easy-Off has 33% more cleaning power than another popular brand.
Special Morning--33% more nutrition.

Sinarest. Created by a research scientist who actually gets sinus headaches.

1) Can you think of any adverts that use the scientific or statistical claim?

9. THE "COMPLIMENT THE CONSUMER" CLAIM This kind of claim butters

up the consumer by some form of flattery.

Samples of the "Compliment the Consumer" Claim

We think a cigar smoker is someone special.

If what you do is right for you, no matter what others do, then RC Cola is right for
you.

You pride yourself on your good home cooking....

The lady has taste.

1) Can you think of any adverts that use the “compliment the consumer” claim?

10. THE RHETORICAL QUESTION This technique demands a response from the
audience. A question is asked and the viewer or listener is supposed to answer in such
a way as to affirm the product's goodness.

1) What are the answers to these rhetorical questions?

Plymouth--isn't that the kind of car America wants?

Shouldn't your family be drinking Hawaiian Punch?

What do you want most from coffee? That's what you get most from Hills.

2) Can you think of any adverts that use rhetorical questions?

 ADVERTISING POSTERS

1) Which of the tactics and strategies you have looked at are used in the
following adverts?
2) Which three are the most offensive?
3) Which is the most effective?
4) Which is the funniest?
5) Which are sexist?
6) Which would never get made today?
7) Which are most likely to be billboards?
8) Which are most likely to appear in luxury magazines?
9) Which might be fliers?
10) Which ones were banned?

1.
2

3.

4.
5.

6.

7.
8.

9.

10.
11.

12.

13.
14.

15.
Reading & Vocabulary
1) Can you identify the brands from the following logos?

2) How many more logos can you draw? See if your partner can identify them.
3) Read the book extract on the next page from Bonfire of the Brands by Neil
Boorman. Which three objects started the author’s obsession with designer
labels
4) Correct the grammatical errors in the text. There is one in every line.
5) In what ways were you the same as or different from Neil Boorman when you
were at junior school? Discuss.
6) Look at these different ways of saying look and see. Complete the tables with
four more examples from the Bonfire of the Brands text. Us e the infinitive
form. One word per line. Discuss the differences in meaning with your
partner.

Look at = gaze at stare at g_______ _______ e______ _____

See = spot make out n__________ c________ ________ ______

7) Underline the appropriate expression to complete this description.

I’m addicted to designer labels! I spend hours (1) glancing at / gazing at photos in
fashion magazines, and I can’t walk past a designer shop without (2) eyeing up /
spotting the handbags and shoes in the window. I can’t stand fake designer goods – in
fact, if you show me two handbags, one a designer and one a fake, I can usually (3)
spot / catch sight of the fake without even picking it up. I think about my clothes a lot,
and I like to look perfect. I always (4) stare at / glance at my reflection in shop
windows as I go past. Most of my friends wear casual clothes, so when I go out
people (5) stare at / gaze at me because I look different. But I don’t care. I like to be
(6) noticed / made out and I know that as soon as they (7) stare at / catch sight of my
designer mobile phone, they’ll be jealous.
 8) How would you describe your own attitude towards brands and designer labels?
Discuss.

Bonfire of the Brands

Journalist, Neil Boorman, was obsessed with designer brands but realised that more he spent on
expensive branded goods, the more miserable he became. So he decided burn all his branded
possessions and live a brand-free life during a year. He then wrote a book, Bonfire of the Brands, about
his experience. The following is a extract from his book.
If you and I met at a party, you would probably ask me what I do for a living, what town do I live in,
perhaps the school I went to – the kind of questions that would help you to build a picture of who am I. I
might ask the same of you, but probably I won’t be listening. It’s more likely I’d be looking at the label on
your jeans, glancing at your shoes, eyeing up your mobile phone. These are the things that really say me
who you are. And considering the amount of time and money I spend in choosing the clothes I wear and
the objects I carry, I sincerely hope you would notice same things about me. Well, that’s the way it was a
year ago.
I began to behave like this with a very early age. I remember the first day of junior school, standing
alone in the playground, desperately wanting to make friends. I headed straight for which seemed to be
the most promising group of boys. They were talking to girls, trading football cards, eating luminous sweets
– both the things I wanted do. As I attempted to mingle, one boy asked me ‘Do you support Tottenham
Hotspur?’ Another, ‘Do you have any Scalextric?’ A third, ‘Are you onto Michael Jackson?’ I answered yes
to them all, even the truthful answer was no.
Thing seemed to be going well, until one of the boys caught sight of my trainers. I’d never thought too
about them before. They were just plain blue sports shoes that Mum had bought, for playing in the back
garden. In once, a roar of disapproval broke out among the group. ‘Where did you get those from?
Oxfam?’
Looking at the boys in bewilderment, I noticed for the time that they all had similar shapes on the sides
of their trainers – ticks and stripes, like the ones on footballer’s boots on television. It wasn’t just their
shoes: crocodiles, eagles and tigers sat on the breasts of their T-shirts, and each single boy seemed to
have the same school bag, a blue plastic holdall with a leaping puma in silver on the side. I slunk away,
dejected but confused. From that day on, I resolved to be like them, if not more such.

1. Correct the mistakes in the text.

 VOCABULARY Collocations
1) This exercise focuses on some common noun collocations often used to talk about sales and
marketing. Match the words from the following list to the words in the boxes below. A few
words can be used more than once.

agency awareness campaign choice confidence cut executive figures

forces groups identity image industry leader list loyalty name pitch
products rep research rise share space spending tag targets team
value war

____________________________ _________________________

____________________________ _________________________
sales brand
____________________________ _________________________

____________________________ _________________________

__________________________ ________________________

__________________________ ________________________
market consumer
__________________________ ________________________

__________________________ ________________________

______________________
____________________________
______________________
______________________
____________________________ advertising
price ______________________
______________________
____________________________ advertising
______________________
______________________
____________________________

2) Complete the sentences with an appropriate collocation from one of the boxes above.

a) _____________________________ is at an all time low and in the current economic climate few
people are willing to part with their money.
b) In order to promote the company we bought some ________________________ in a local magazine.

c) Our ____________________ has gone up to 22.5% and we are now the third largest airline in the country.

d) The high-speed rail project carries a 200 billion Euro _________________ which is too expensive for many.
e) We were very impressed by your _____________________ and will be happy to do business with you.

f) They carried out some _____________________________ to find out what people thought of the product.

g) ____________________________ is strong and the company has lost few customers to the competition.

h) The company is the _________________________ in the food industry with total sales more than double
that of their nearest rival.
i) If we don’t meet our _______________________ this year we could go out of business.

j) She works as a _______________ for a furniture manufacturer and spends most of her time travelling round
the country visiting potential new customers.

k) A ________________ has broken out players in the e-readers market with each trying to outdo the
competition on price, which is, of course, good news for the consumer.

l) In order to improve its __________________________, the company has introduced new design features and
vibrant colours than will appeal more to the youth market.

m) Creating _________________________ is one of the key steps in promoting a product, so that consumers
recognise its existence and availability.

n) The company launched a new _________________________________ to promote their new services.

o) The new laws will increase ____________________________ by stimulating market competition, so as to

provide more affordable options.

p) ________________________ have risen 45% compared to last year, with over 55,000 products sold in the first
quarter.

q) Since the start of the recession ________________________ has fallen by over 10% which has hit retailers
hard.

Look at the list of generic products:

a) A kitchen cleaner
b) Suntan lotion
c) A perfume
d) A package holiday
e) Paracetamol
f) A laptop
g) A mobile network
Discuss the following:
1) Where would the above products normally be advertised?
2) Who is the target audience?
3) What would a typical advert look like?
4) What stereotypes are used?
COLOURS…
1. Unfortunately the times the times Tom’s bank account is in the _____ outnumber
the times it is in the ________.
2. Humphrey was strolling along the street then suddenly, out of the _______ I caught
sight of a….
3. Michael was given a ___________ handshake when he left the company which left
his employees…
4. What happened was Orson turned as __________ as a sheet when he saw…
5. It was when Tommy… ….that his colleagues realised he was the manger’s ______-
eyed boy.
6. What Charlton is, is a little off ___________ because she was up very late and had…
7. Greta has been given the __________ light to go ahead with…
8. Angelica was tickled ________ that you made the effort to…
9. Grace caught James _____-handed taking…
10. Ingrid saw _____ when she saw her girlfriend…
11. Catherine was _______ as pitch after cleaning the …
12. Kim’s shoulder was ________ and __________ after falling…
13. Betty and Joan have been arguing about … until they are ______ in the face.
14. John has been given carte-____________ to do…
15. Nicole looked _______ around the gills after the long bus ride because…
16. Fred was ________ with envy when Gene was invited…
17. Marlene was given the ____-carpet treatment when she arrived in…
18. Dean bought an Ipad and a tablet but one of them must be a _______ elephant
because…
19. Anthony had the qualifications to be a _______-collar worker but preferred his
_____-collar job as a…
20. Judy was born with a _________ spoon in her mouth and…
21. Heath realised that taking prescription drugs was a bit of a _______ area.
22. Mia knew that this would be her ___________ opportunity to…
23. Mark told a bit of a __________ lie when he said…
24. Nick has only seen Kevin once in a ________ moon since he started…
25. Once Julianne started gardening she found that she had _________ thumbs.
Exercise 1 Pre-reading
You are going to read an article about aspirin. First, answer the following questions
and then skim read the article to see if you are right.

1. When were the analgesic properties of aspirin first recognised?

a) 1400 BC b) 400 BC c) 400 AD d) 1400 AD

2. These properties were rediscovered in 1758 by a …?

a) priest b) philosopher c) surgeon d) chemist

3. Aspirin is derived from which tree?

a) oak tree b) palm tree c) willow tree d) eucalyptus tree

4. Aspirin was first commercially produced by which pharmaceutical company?

a) Pfizer b) Merck c) Hoffman-Roche d) Bayer

5) Aspirin can reduce the risk of which of the following.

blindness heart attacks unwanted pregnancy

deafness miscarriage epilepsy
lung cancer colon cancer strokes

Aspirin: the wonderdrug

Tens of thousands of people now take an aspirin a day in the hope of preventing a stroke or
a heart attack in the future. Are they right to do so?
1. __________________________
Yes, it’s the authentic wonderdrug. It may cost less than a penny a pill and be readily
available from the chemist or supermarket without prescription, but no drug in history has
proved so useful to so many people in so many different conditions. Aspirin remains by far
the most popular remedy for everyday aches and pains and for childhood fevers, but over
the past three decades it has also been shown to have beneficial effects in a wide variety of
other areas (see box).
2. __________________________
Aspirin’s active ingredient is salicylic acid, a naturally occurring chemical made by the willow
tree. Its analgesic properties were first recognised back in 400 BC by the Greek physician
Hippocrates, who recommended that pregnant women should take an infusion of willow
leaves to ease the pain of labour.
3. __________________________
The willow’s therapeutic properties were rediscovered in 1758 by an English clergyman, the
Reverend Edmund Stone. Walking one day through a meadow near Chipping Norton, Stone
was prompted to detach and nibble a small piece of bark from a willow tree and was struck
by its extremely bitter taste. Knowing that the bark of the Peruvian cinchona tree – from
which quinine (used in the treatment of malarial fevers) is derived – has a similarly bitter
taste, he surmised that the willow might also have therapeutic properties. He tested it out
on 50 of his acquaintances and reported its beneficial results to the president of the Royal
Society. However, it took another 140 years before the German chemist Felix Hoffman
introduced a synthetic form of the drug. The first commercial preparation of salicylic acid
was launched by the drug company Bayer in 1899.
4. __________________________
Bayer made a lot of money, but the full range of aspirin’s therapeutic abilities did not
emerge until 1971 when a British scientist, John Vane, discovered that it worked by blocking
the activity of the prostaglandins – one of the most ubiquitous and powerful groups of
chemicals in the body. Prostaglandins are involved in inflammation – hence the value of
aspirin in reducing the pain and swelling of inflamed joints. But they also encourage the
blood platelets to aggregate together to form a clot. Since aspirin counters this effect, Vane
hypothesised that it might be used to keep the blood flowing round the body and so reduce
the risk of strokes and heart attacks.

5. __________________________
Indeed it does, and the scale and extent of the resulting health benefits are extraordinary.
Aspirin reduces the risk of strokes by around 25% and heart attacks by almost 50%. It is
thought that it probably saves thousands of lives a year. And, crucially, this therapeutic
effect is achieved with just a small dose of between 75mg and 325mg a day.
6. __________________________
Just like every other drug, aspirin has side effects. One of those side effects is that when
aspirin is taken in the usual dose of 500mg or more a day it can cause irritation of the lining
of the stomach, resulting in gastritis or even a peptic ulcer. This in turn can bleed or
perforate with predictably dire consequences. But the blood platelets (whose aggregation
causes the blood clot) contain only limited amounts of prostaglandin so only limited
amounts of prostaglandin so only a small dose of aspirin is required. Hence people can take
a low dose of aspirin for years on end with only the smallest chance of serious untoward
side effects associated with the usual dosage.
7. __________________________
There is no doubt that those who have already had a stroke or heart attack should take an
aspirin a day as this will markedly reduce the risk of a further occurrence. The more
contentious question is whether every 50-year-old should take a daily dose of aspirin in
order to keep the chance of such misfortune at some uncertain time in the future.
8.__________________________
Professor Tom Meade of Britain’s Medical Research Council has recently clarified this
important issue in a study involving nearly 6,000 men. The results were published in the
British Medical Journal in July this year. The study confirms that for every thousand people
taking a regular daily dose, “two or three” lives were saved each year. But this benefit
applies only to those whose blood pressure was consistently within the normal range.
Meade found that those with a higher upper (or systolic) reading of 145mm of mercury
derive no protective benefit and remain vulnerable to the small risk of side effects such as
gastric inflammation.
9.__________________________
The pharmaceutical industry has spent hundreds of millions of pounds over the past decade
trying to develop safer variants of aspirin. Not one of them, however, has been shown to be
consistently superior to the original. The old remedies are clearly the best.
 10.__________________________

 Aspirin’s role in keeping the blood flowing round the body also prevents
clots forming in the veins of the leg – a deep-vein thrombosis – as well
as protecting the arteries to the heart from silting up after a bypass graft.

 Those with diabetes are particularly prone to circulatory problems

involving the blood supply to the retina at the back of the eye, problems
which can result in blindness. Aspirin helps protect against this and also
prevents the formation of cloudy cataracts.

 Aspirin can reduce the risk of miscarriage and is also recommended for
the treatment of babies that are growing too slowly in the womb.

 Aspirin has been found to shrink the size of polyps in the colon which
can give rise to cancer.

 Aspirin helps soothe migraine attacks, promotes the healing of leg

ulcers and even reduces the need to pass urine frequently at night – a
condition that often disturbs older people.

Exercise 2
The text is divided into ten sections, each with a title. The titles are all in the form of
questions and appear mixed up in the box below. Match each title to the
corresponding section of the text.

A And should they?

B What are the other benefits of taking aspirin?
C What is aspirin?
D Then what happened?
E And what of the future?
F Why is this important?
G So should we all take an aspirin a day?
H When did the modern world start using it?
I Is aspirin all it’s cracked up to be?
J Does it work?

Exercise 3
Choose the correct option – A, B, C or D.
1.
A Hippocrates realised that salicyclic acid would help women to work without
feeling
pain.
B Hippocrates advised pregnant women to drink a medicine made of willow leaves
in order to induce an abortion.
C Hippocrates realised that salicyclic acid would reduce pains felt in childbirth.
D Hippocrates advised pregnant women to inhale willow tree leaves to help them
with their pregnancy.

2.
A Edmund Stone found that willow bark has certain qualities that can help treat
illness.
B Edmund Stone ate willow bark in order to cure a fever he was suffering from.
C Edmund Stone undertook research to prove that the willow tree could provide an
alternative cure for malarial fever.
D Edmund Stone carried out a trial on fifty fellow scientists to test his theory about
the effects of aspirin.
3.
A John Vane theorised that aspirin blocks prostaglandin activity.
B John Vane was the first to recognise the ability of aspirin to prevent the formation
of blood clots.
C John Vane showed how aspirin could be fundamental in the prevention of heart
disease.
D John Vane discovered the beneficial effect of aspirin in reducing pain and
inflammation.
4.
A Prostaglandins are present all over the body.
B Prostaglandins are the main cause of pain in swollen joints.
C Prostaglandins increase blood flow round the body.
D Prostaglandins are found in large quantities in blood platelets.
5.
A Tom Meade discovered that men with abnormal blood pressure could benefit
from a daily dose of aspirin.
B Tom Meade discovered that aspirin can in fact in some cases prevent death.
C Tom Meade discovered that the beneficial effect of aspirin given to those with
high levels of mercury is reduced.
D Tom Meade discovered that middle-aged people would all benefit tremendously
from taking regular doses of aspirin.

Exercise 4
Answer these True/False questions about aspirin.

1. Aspirin keeps the arteries to the heart open after heart bypass surgery.
2. Aspirin can help those with poor eyesight.
3. Aspirin can treat unborn children with growth disorders.
4. Aspirin can cure cancerous growths in the colon.
5. Aspirin prevents incontinence in senile patients.
6. Aspirin reduces the risk of heart attacks by nearly a half.
7. Aspirin can be beneficial to health in as little as a quarter of the normal dose.
8. Aspirin produces no unpleasant or unwanted changes in those who take it.
Exercise 5
Match the names to the information in the box below.
1- Hippocrates
2- Edmund Stone
3- Felix Hoffman
4- Bayer
5- John Vane
6- Tom Meade

A conducted research into the medical potential of salicyclic acid.

B first to understand the bio-chemical properties of aspirin.
C first to discover the pain-relieving properties of salicyclic acid.
D undertook medical research into the potential benefits of regular doses of
the drug.
E first to produce salicyclic acid in the laboratory.
F first to exploit aspirin for financial gain.

Exercise 6
Find words in the text with the same meaning as the following:

1. real / genuine (adjective)

2. what a doctor gives you that says what type of medicine you need. (noun)
3. a cure for pain or a minor illness (noun)
4. pain-reducing (adjective)
5. helping to treat or cure illness (adjective)
6. to be brought into an assembled group (verb)
7. the amount of a medicine or drug that you take at one time (noun)
8. likely to be affected by something, especially something bad ( adjective +
preposition)
9. uterus (noun)
10. to become much smaller in size (verb)
11. to make pains and aches less severe or painful (verb
 IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU SAY; NOBODY’S LISTENING.

Write short answers to the following questions.

1) What is freedom of speech?

2) Does freedom of speech truly exist?
3) Should freedom of speech truly exist?
4) Is there enough moderation of content on social media?
5) How do you think content on social media is moderated?
6) Have you ever had a tweet or post deleted? Why?

Now read the following article and insert the missing prepositions.

It's taken Donald Trump to show social media

giants the meaning of moderation
Jillian C York Thu 11 Feb 2021

The enforcement of policies 1) _______ content moderation by popular social media

platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, is a continuously contentious topic.
Particularly so following the booting 2) ________ of Donald Trump by the
aforementioned companies in early January, just before he exited the White House
3)________ disgrace. Facebook’s decision was criticised as being too little too late,
while Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey defended his company’s decision but nevertheless
said that it set a “dangerous precedent”.
But these actions hardly set any real precedent: the thing is, millions of people find
their content or accounts removed from these platforms every day, often for far
lesser offences than Trump’s incitement of supporters to riot 4) ______ the Capitol
building. While there’s plenty to criticise 5) ________ how these companies operate
– they’re too opaque 6) _______ their decision-making, have inadequate support for
workers in content moderation, and offer next to zero customer service, 7) _______
other things – the truth of the matter is that moderating the expression of billions of
users is truly a hard problem, perhaps even an impossible one 8) _______ scale.

Twitter recently suspended the account of an artist who wrote a comical limerick 9)
_______ the Covid-19 vaccine because the company’s blunt automated tools for
spotting perceived offences – the use of which has increased during the pandemic –
can’t tell the difference 10) ________ misinformation and a joke. It would seem such
mistakes would be far less likely if Twitter (and other companies) ensured that
content was viewed by human moderators – we don’t actually know the full process
because the companies won’t tell us.

Of course, Trump’s account was assuredly viewed by humans, which leads us to ask:
Why did Twitter and Facebook wait so long to act? Some have suggested that Trump
didn’t truly cross the line until early January, but it’s clear that prior tweets violated
the rules, and would have likely been removed had he been a lower-profile person.

In my opinion, the reason these companies waited until the last possible minute, just
days before Trump left office, was because they could – it cost them nothing and
made them look good 11) _______ the eyes of the public 12) ______ the final hour.
Cynical, perhaps, but after a decade of studying how Silicon Valley behaves, I’d gladly
bet my last dollar 13) ______ it.

When it comes to content moderation 14) ______ these platforms, I strongly believe
that rules should be clear, that users should consent 15)______ them (including
every time they’re updated), be informed appropriately about any consequences for
violating them, and be provided with a clear path to remedy if they believe a mistake
has been made. Under that sort of regime, it is then entirely fair for a platform to ban
me, the president or anyone else.

But under the status quo, serious questions abound, not least of which why we’ve
decided to trust a largely elite, wealthy, white and American group of
unelected leaders with vital decisions about what we are and are not allowed to say
in public forums.

So where do we go next? It’s past time that social media companies change the way
they operate. They need to bring 16) _______ more diverse staff and executives, pay
all their workers an adequate wage and operate with far more transparency. Tech
companies should also take this moment of relative quiet to conduct a full audit of
their existing policies and update them 17) ______ the new era – to name but two
examples, is banning nudity or requiring “authentic names” to register really
necessary in 2021? Or how to ensure that policies surrounding violent incitement
apply evenly to both ordinary citizens and world leaders? These are important
questions and they need to be answered not by me, Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg,
but by civil society far more broadly, how ever that could be achieved.

• Jillian C York is the author of the forthcoming book, Silicon Values: The Future of
Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism

Now complete the following tasks.

1) Come up with synonyms for the words and phrases in bold.

2) Should human moderators and/or algorithms be used to moderate content?
3) List 5 examples of material that should be censored.
1) _____________________
2) _____________________
3) _____________________
4) _____________________
5) _____________________
4) List 5 criteria that should be used to select human moderators.
1) ______________________
2) ______________________
3) ______________________
4) ______________________
5) ______________________
5) Do you ever read the terms and conditions, or do you just click “agree”?
6) Why have we decided to trust a largely elite, wealthy, white and American group of
unelected leaders with vital decisions about what we are and are not allowed to say
in public forums?
7) Is “banning nudity or requiring “authentic names” to register really necessary in
2021”?
8) How can we “ensure that policies surrounding violent incitement apply evenly to
both ordinary citizens and world leaders”?
9) Where do we go next?
Correct the mistakes in the following two letters.
Dear Ken,
Is now just two weeks and I will be with you. I can no belief it! I looking forward very much
stay with you and your family and see London the first time. I’m very exciting.
My city, São Paulo is biggest and noisiest city in Brasil. Is not very well for tourists is more
commercial city. Also it have very much traffic and pollution. Maybe London have the same.
I like best here in São Paulo the entertainment. You can find good bars and restaurants, who
no close until the latest customer leave.
My friend João he came in London the last year and he has gone to the theatre see “The
Buddy Holly Story.” He say me it was wonderfull. I like to see also.
My plane arrive Heathrow, Terminal 3 at 6.30 am. Is very kind you meet me so early
morning! Thank you.
I hope very much improve my english when I come to London.
See you soon and Happy New Year!
Fernando

Dear Sophie,
In just one week you are here with me in Switzerland. I want that you meet my family and I
will show you my city. I hope you like. Basel is not a big city as London but it’s everything
very clean and very close the mountains, wich are beautifull. I am worry that you will find
Basel a little bored. It is not excited as London becaus the street are very quiet after six
o’clock the night. The people live in flats so they don’t can do a lot of noises. There exists a
museum but perhaps that isn’t very interesting to look.
We have finished school the last week and I enjoy the holiday. My family don’t speak English
so you will practice a lot your german. I like also practice my English with you.
See you the next week! I come to the airport to meet you.
Love
Liliane
ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS

1. Which word does not belong in the following group?

a) knife b) smile c) lovely d) swan e) feather f) thought
2. Complete this analogy with a five-letter word ending in the letter H. High is to low as
sky is to _________.
3. Complete this analogy with a seven-letter word ending in the letter T. Potential is to
actual as future is to ___________.
4. In the following group, find the two words whose meanings do not belong with the
others.
a) glue b) sieve c) buzz saw d) nail e) string f) paper clip
5. Mountain is to land as whirlpool is to:
a) forest b) wet c) sea d) sky e) shower
9. Which word does not belong in this group?
a) microscope b) magnifying glass c) microphone d) telescope e) telegraph
10. Continue this series of letters
BAD CEF DIG FOH
11. 20 men can dig 40 holes in 60 days, so 10 men can dig 20 holes in how many days?
12. City is to man as nest is to:
a) bird b) bee c) ant d) rabbit
13. Which sport is played at the same as it is played with?
14. In this group of words which word does not belong?
a) sadness b) melancholy c) sorrow d) mourning
15. You go to bed at 8 o’clock in the evening and set the alarm to get up at nine o’clock
in the morning. How many hours sleep would this allow you to have?
16. When my mother was 41 years old, I was 9. Now she is twice as old as I am. How old
am I?
17. One month has 28 days. Of the remaining 11 months, how many have 30 days?
18. Two fathers and two sons shot three deer: yet each took home one deer. How is this
possible?
19. Why can’t a man living in London be buried in Porto?
20. In a certain African village there live 800 women. Three percent of them are wearing
one earring. Of the other 97%, half of them are wearing two earrings, half of them
are wearing none. How many earrings are being worn by the women?
21. “I guarantee,” said the pet-shop salesman, “that this parrot will repeat every word it
hears.” A customer bought the parrot but found it would not speak a single word.
Nevertheless, the salesman told the truth. Can you explain?
22. A customer in a restaurant found a dead fly in his coffee. He sent the waiter back for
a fresh cup. After a sip he shouted, “This is the same cup of coffee I had before!”
How did he know?
23. A logician with some time to kill in a small town decided to have his hair cut. The
town only had two barbers, each with his own shop. The logician glanced in one
shop and saw that it was extremely untidy. The barber needed a shave, his clothes
were unkempt, his hair was badly cut. The other shop was extremely neat. The
barber was freshly shaved and spotlessly dressed, his hair neatly trimmed. The
logician returned to the first shop for his haircut. Why?
OTHER QUESTIONS

1- The questions above are on The Guardian website in the Notes and
Queries section. Have you got any answers?
2 - Look at the following answers readers have submitted. Then match them with
the queries.
 Later.

 Suffice it to say that in 1979 the French astrologer Michel Gauquelin placed an advertisement
in Ici-Paris offering free personal horoscopes. Of those who received the horoscope, 94%
subsequently rated it as accurate. Unfortunately, they had each been sent the same one, that
of Dr. Petiot, France's most notorious mass murderer.

 I guess it's something to do with getting off on having power over another being, encouraged
by pressure to conform with what's become a habitual but nonetheless regrettable cultural
norm in many human societies. But when the matter is considered rationally, only sad,
inadequate human individuals would wish to keep members of other species as captives.

 All emotions are in your head and influenced by external stimuli. Nature will always try to find
a balance in all things. The same can be said for human emotions. In other words, it is
impossible for you to understand happiness unless you have an understanding of sadness.
Happiness is truly relative.

 I find "Tarrying with the Negative" by Slavoj Zizek to be enlightening on the subject. What I
draw from this book is the importance of retaining the ideal of an absolute good while
recognizing that it can never be attained. Too often, we have thrown out the baby of ethics
along with the bathwater of received morality. To answer the question directly: No code is
perfect. They are only means to the unattainable end.

 Some guy Tim Berners-Lee (an Oxford grad in physics) invented the web as a way of posting
information for physicists at the European Particle Accelerator at CERN. The physics postings
got caught up in red tape, but a couple of other people got interested. Currently he spends his
time trying to regulate the way the web is used. He's just written a book about it - Weaving the
Web, yours for only £12.

 Because they can.

Think of a question to ask.

1) I haven’t heard of Yucky Coffee before: is it a new ______________? As to whether
it’s any good, I’ll have to try it first.
brand category commodity make variety style
2) The ___________ was essentially thronged with shoppers on the Saturday before
Christmas.
boutique business kiosk precinct shopping centre mall
3) They stock a wide range of ______________ considered to be essential in most
department stores.
articlesgoods materials merchandise supplies
4) The goods they have on offer in the market are certainly ______________
a bargain good value invaluable valued value for money worthy
5) At this point in time, complaints about goods should be made to the retailer, not the
___________.
author creator inventor manufacturer supplier wholesaler
6) Consumer protection laws must be observed by each and every _____________. The
reason why is because they could be sued.
end user patron purchaser retailertrader vendor
7) A shopkeeper can be fined if he/she ___________ the law.
breaks contradicts contravenes disregards omits
8) An electronic cash register keeps a record of every _____________.
bargain contract deal negotiation purchase sale transaction
9) Manufacturers can inform the public about a new product _____________.
by mail order by propaganda in advertisements in commercials
on posters
10) If you want a shop to keep something for you until later, you may have to
____________.
give a discount give a refund make a down payment
open an account pay cash down pay a deposit
11) Irregardless of what the manufacturer says, you can still get something repaired free
of charge if it’s still under ____________.
assurance certificate guarantee warranty twelve months old
12) Sales staff are trained to be polite and also courteous to every ___________
client customer dealer merchant purchaser stockist
13) I enjoy going to that shop due to the fact that the staff are so _____________.
courteous helpful humble knowledgeable lenient
obsequious
1) The immigration officer wanted to ___________ their passports.
check control examine restrain
2) They had a big ________________ and now they’re not on speaking terms.
argument debate discussion quarrelrow
3) Don’t take any notice of him, he’s just being ___________.
difficult emotional moody sensible sensitive touchy
4) How many people ________________ the performance?
assisted attended helped participated served witnessed
5) Please go away and stop ________ me!
annoying bothering infuriating provoking
6) We arranged to meet at 7.30 and I made a note in my _________ to that effect.
agendadiary exercise book notebook schedule timetable
7) Please forgive him for forgetting, he’s getting rather ___________ as he gets older.
absent-minded distracted forgetful inattentive preoccupied
8) What are the ____________ of studying when you could be enjoying yourself?
advantages benefits prices prizes profits rewards
9) I’m getting tired, how much ____________ is it to the summit?
far far away faraway further farther
10) They didn’t foresee the _____________ result of their irresponsible behaviour.
eventual feasible imminent plausible possible
11) It was __________ that they were in considerable danger.
apparent conspicuous evident obvious prominent
12) At the end of her ____________ she had to sit a stiff exam.
career course education experience training upbringing
13) I’ll be away from work for the whole of the week while I’m attending a ___________.
conference congress meeting lecture seminar
14) She _____________ her boyfriend so hard that he lost his balance and fell over.
beat hit knocked patted punched slapped smacked
struck whacked
15) It’s a(n) _____________ club to which only members are admitted.
exclusive idiomatic particular personal private secluded
16) I’ll send you the information you require ________________
actually at once at present at the moment currently for
the present immediately in a moment once presently shortly
LAUGH? I NEARLY WET MYSELF.

Mixed up below are 5 jokes. First find the first line of each joke, then reorder the jokes.

1) They nod and send him away.

2) He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed.

3) "That’s not surprising," the elders say.

4) When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint

pens would not work in zero gravity.

5) The other man pulls out his cell phone and calls emergency services.

6) But instead I said:

7) A dog went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote:

8) "I quit," he says.

9) Back on the phone, the hunter says, "OK, now what?"

10) Seven more years pass.

11) A patient says, "Doctor, last night I made a Freudian slip.

13 They nod and send him away.

14) 'Could you please pass the butter?'

15) The dog replied, "but that would make no sense at all!"

16) 'You silly cow, you have completely ruined my life."

17) Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses.

18) There is a silence, then a shot is heard.

19) They bring him back in and ask for his two words.

20) He clears his throats and says, "Bad food."

21) To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen

that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass

and at all temperatures.

22) After the first seven years, the elders bring him in and ask for his two words.

23) I was having dinner with my mother-in-law and wanted to say:

24) "Cold floors," he says.

25) The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog,

26) Seven more years pass.

27) "There are only nine words here. You could send another 'Woof' for the same price."

28) "You’ve done nothing but complain since you got here."

29) The Russians used a pencil.

30) The operator in a calm, soothing voice replies, "Take it easy. I can help. First, let's make

sure he's dead."

31) They bring him in for his two words.

32) A guy joins a monastery and takes a vow of silence:

33) They nod and send him away.

34) He gasps to the operator, "My friend is dead! What can I do?"

35) "Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof."

36) he’s allowed to say two words every seven years.

MATCH THE BEGINNING OF THE JOKE WITH AN APPROPRIATE ENDING
1 I’m reading a book about anti- a but I could never find the time.
gravity.
2 I wondered why the baseball was b but I’m clean now.
getting bigger.
3 Did you hear about the guy whose c it could spell disaster
whole left side was cut off?
4 I couldn’t remember how to throw a d was a missed steak
boomerang,
5 I was going to look for my missing e got twelve months.
watch,
6 A hole has been found at a nudist f It’s impossible to put down.
camp.
7 I used to be addicted to soap, g Well, as long as it doesn’t reindeer.
8 I was going to buy a book on h I could do it with my eyes closed.
phobias,
9 It’s raining cats and dogs. i makes one weak.
10 A thief who stole a calendar j He’s all right now
11 Never invest in funerals. k “You go on ahead and I’ll follow in
foot.”
12 If you leave alphabet soup on the l You’re so pointless.
stove and go out,
13 I decided that becoming a vegetarian m They can see right through you
14 Sleeping comes naturally to me. n Then it hit me.
15 I really do have a photographic o I’ve lost count.
memory.
16 Seven days without a pun p The police are looking into it.
17 What did the triangle say to the q It’s a dying industry
circle?
18 Never lie to an x-ray technician. r I just haven’t developed it yet.
19 I’ve failed the maths test so many s but I was afraid it wouldn’t help me.
times
20 As the shoe said to the hat, t then it came back to me.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
In the following lists of words, three words rhyme. Circle the “odd man out” in each case.

a. chalk fork talk work

b. due though through who
c. come crumb home some
d. barn born dawn warn
e. done phone son won
f drowned owned pound round
g. flower lower power tower
h. build child wild mild
i. down own sewn thrown
j. course horse force worse
k. above glove love prove
l. boot foot shoot suit
m. ache break shake weak
n. earth birth north worth
o. eight freight height weight
p. aren’t aunt can’t want
q. goose loose lose use (noun)
r. rough sew though throw
s. bone groan own shone
t. curry hurry sorry worry
u. blood flood mud wood
v. cows knows owes rose
w. paid said maid weighed
x. doll goal roll stole
y. sung tongue wrong young
z. fear near pear rear
I AM FORMALLY INFORMAL OR INFORMALLY FORMAL.

Mark the words which are inappropriately formal or informal in the following:

a) It’s daft to alight from a bus while it is moving.

b) Jack lives I in a flat adjacent to the local chippie.
c) Julia always wears very snazzy apparel.
d) John’s life was torn asunder by the death of his missus.
e) When talking to the fuzz, it behoves you to be polite.
f) Jenny’s birthday bash ceased at midnight.
g) The deceased man left all his clobber to his nephew.
h) You must give the office a bell if you intend to change you domicile.
i) Lawrence dwelt in s remote village for yonks.
j) Richard is an erstwhile mate of my husband.
Match the colloquial expressions with their neutral equivalent:

1 argy-bargy a friend
2 brat b insane
3 chuck c lively
4 broke d insect
5 crabby e badly-behaved child
6 mega f large amount
7 bubbly g disagreement
8 crony h hard work
9 barmy i information
10 higgledy-piggledy j mixed up
11 jumpy k bad-tempered
12 beastie l nervous
13 chomp m customer
14 info n steal
15 oodles o throw
16 pinch p chew noisily
17 punter q very good or very big
18 slog r without money
19 grand s thousand pounds or dollars

1 5 9 13 17
2 6 10 14 18
3 7 11 15 19
4 8 12 16
 a) There’s no need to hurry – we’ve got ___________________ of time.
b) Sally’s a lovely, __________________ girl – I’m sure you’ll have a great time with
her.
c) Last Saturday I decided to ____________________ out all my old school books. I’ve
got a lot more space now.
d) I wish she wouldn’t __________________ like that when she eats.
e) The party was _______________ ! Everyone was there!
f) Her bedroom is always untidy with clothes lying ___________________ all over the
place.
g) The problem with picnics is all the ___________________ that crawl over you and
the food.
h) I can’t possibly go away for the weekend – I’m _________________.
i) It was quite a __________________ but I managed to get my assignment handed in
on time.
Match a line in A with a line in B.

A B
a) I could eat a horse.
b) I’m absolutely dying for a drink.
c) His family are pretty well of,
aren’t they?
d) You must have hit the roof when
she told you she’d crashed your
car.
e) I think Tony was a bit tipsy last
night.
f) I can’t stand the sight of him.
g) He isn’t very bright, is he?
h) Look at the weather. It’s vile
again.
i) What a fantastic holiday!
j) I’m knackered. Can we stop for a
rest?
k) He invited quite a few friends to
his party.
l) Well, that journey was absolute
hell!
m) They’ve got this huge great dog
called Wizzer. I’m terrified of it.
1) Yes, it was a nice little break, but
all good things must come to an
end.
2) You’re not kidding. He’s a thick
as two short planks.
3) Yes, my throat’s a bit dry, I must
say.
4) What! He was totally smashed out
of his brain!
5) What? That little thing wouldn’t
hurt a fly.
6) I know. it is a bit wet, but we
mustn’t grumble, must we?
7) I’ll say. We had to fight our way
through millions of people to get
to the drinks.
8) OK. I feel a bit out of breath.
9) Well, yes, I was a bit upset.
10) I suppose it did take rather a long
time to get here.
11) You can say that again. They’re
absolutely loaded.
12) I must admit, I’m not too keen on
him either.
13) Yes, I’m a little peckish too.
Below is a letter of reference for a friend who had applied for a job on a cruiser.
Unfortunately, it is too informal. Underline all the parts of the reference that are too
informal.
I’ve known Ted for donkey’s years – in fact since we were kids at school together – and he’s
a really nice guy, one of the best. I’d give him the job like a shot, if I were in your boat
(excuse the pun!). Don’t be put off the fact that he can sometimes seem a bit bossy – that’s
just because he’s such a well-organised bloke himself, he can’t stand it when other people
are slow to get their act together. He’s got loads of experience of working with other people
and he can be relied on to get things going. Go for it and give him the job – you won’t regret
it.

Now write a formal version of the letter of reference.