Search This Blog

Monday, February 12, 2018

Bill Bryson - an eye on his language in his big world


    5 passages  language work      —— nuria p.


THU 25 January 43
43. A day at the seaside. (p. 206) - 1. Coming home (p. 15)

 TUE 30 January 
2. Help (p. 19) 3. Well, Dr, I was just trying to lie down (p. 23

 THU 1 Febr 
4. Take me out to the ball park. 27 - 5. Dumb and dumber. (p. 31) -

TUE 6 February 
6. Drug culture (p. 35) 7. Mail Call. (p. 39) -

 Attention to some expressions and a kind of summary from these five passages, 


00001   coming home

  • I HAVE BEEN QUIETLY, EVEN GAMELY, REASSESSING POINT NUMBER THREE.
  • AFTER SUCH AN ABSENCE IS A SURPRISINGLY UNSETTLING BUSINESS
  • MOVING HOME AFTER MANY YEARS AWAY IS LIKE THAT IN MOST RESPECTS, AN ODD BLEND OF THE COMFORTINGLY FAMILIAR AND ODDLY UNKNOWN.
  • REALLY, I COULD HARDLY HAVE FELT MORE FOREIGN IF I HAD STOOK THERE DRESSED IN LEDERHOSEN.
  • JUST BRING EXTRA MONEY FOR ROAD MAPS AND REMEMBER TO ASK FOR  SPACKLE.




COMING HOME

It talks that he read in a book things he could do in life and he chose one of them: go home.
He had been doing this lately.  A year ago he went from England to States with his family.
After nearly two decades, he found that everything had changed.

He had left as a youth and was returning in middle age.
He felt very strange, specially doing shopping.
In fact, although he was from America, he was very happy in Britain and he neves stopped thinking of America as home.  He thought he felt more like a native of his own country where he lived.

soon he enjoyed reencountering those things he had grown up with, but he had largely forgotten.

Then he admitted he had been wrong and he could go home again, just some thing has changed.





0004   take me out to the ball park

  • FULL OF DELICIOUSLY SCATTERED MICRO-MOMENTS OF REAL ACTION
  • I HAVE NEVER FELT ANYTHING SO STARTLINGLY NOT LIKE I EXPECTED IT TO FEEL
  • I WALKED AROUND FOR FOUR HOURS ON WOBBLY LEGS … AND VOWED NEVER AGAIN TO DO ANYTHING SO FOOLISH AND PAINFUL
  • YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A BRAIN SURGEON TO WORK OUT THAT IF…
  • IT IS ALL IMMENSELY COMPLICATED BUT ALWAYS IN THE END THEY DOGGEDLY MANAGE TO COME UP SHORT.
  • THEY HAVE BEEN DOING THIS, RELIABLE AND EFFICIENTLY, FOR OVER HALF A
  • CENTURY.
  • THERE IS NO ROOM FOR SENTIMENT IN SOMETHING AS WILDLY LUCRATIVE AS AN AMERICAN SPORT.    I HAVEN'T SPACE HERE TO ELUCIDATE ALL THE MISGUIDED THINGS THEY HAVE DONE TO MY BELOVED GAME IN THE PAST.
  • GENERALLY THESE WERE DANK AND CREAKY (BALL PARKS), BUT THEY HAD CHARACTER.
  • NOW THE OWNERS WANT TO TEAR IT DOWN AND BUILD A NEW STADIUM.




                           TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL PARK
Difference between baseball and cricket.
All are games which involves balls and bats.
He prefers baseball, because he played as a boy.
Once, when he was a boy, after watching football on TV he thought he could do it and he flicked the ball casually into the net with his head.   He had a big red circle and word mitre imprinted on his forehead.  It was painful.
Now the Worls Series has just started and it is the annual baseball contest between the champion of the American League and the champion of the National League.   So, it only involves two teams.
But they are not the two best teams in baseball, because each league is
divided into three divisions of various teams.
But every team (good or not) has the chance to go to the World Series.
But Chicago Cubs never manage to qualify even under a system as magnificently accommodatins as this.   
They haven't been in a World Serier since, he believes, 1938.
But all the great old stadiums have been replaced with big characterless, multi-purpose arenas.
There are only four of theses old parks left.   One is in New England, although the owners wanted to build a new one.   He thinks he won't go to the new stadium, but it is impossible because he is hopelessly addicted to the game.
On the other hand, Chicago Cubs continue to play at Wrigley Field and when it plays there is one of the great American experiences.
So, for all that he thinks that nobody deserves to go to the World Series more than the Chicago Cubs.  But they can't go because that would spoil their tradition of never going.
So he considers not easy being a baseball fan.
(note that always de conclusion or fact is written in the last last pharagraph)





000005 —dumb and dumber

  • I AM ALWAYS A LITTLE DUBIOUS ABOUT THESE SURVEYS
  • STILL, THERE IS A KIND OF EMPTINESS OF THOUGHT AT LARGE THESE DAYS THAT IS HARD TO OVERLOOK.
  • … THE EFFECTS HAVEN'T QUITE WORN OFF.
  • IT SOMETIMES FEELS AS IF NEARLY THE WHOLE NATION HAS TAKEN NYTOL AND THAT THE EFFECTS HAVEN'T QUITE WORN OFF.
  • I DON'T FOR A MOMENT GHINK THAT AMERICANS ARE INHERENTLY MORE STUPID OR
  • BRAIN-DEAD THAN ANYONE ELSE.
  • AMERICAN LIFE IS FULL OF THESE LITTLE CRUTCHES, SOMETIMES TO A QUITE ASTONISHING DEGREE.
  • IT WAS EXCRUCIATING, BUT HARDLY UNUSUAL.
  • THE GIRL WITH CLITIS GOES BY THEN CUCHKLINGLY EXPLAINED THAT…
  • I MEANT STATE IN THE RATHER BROADER SENSE OF NATION-STATE
  • BUT LET US FINISH WITH MY FAVOURITE INANITY OF THE MOMENT 
                                                                 DUMB AND DUMBER

After some organization tested American high school seniors they realised they didn't know anything about general culture.
He is always a little dubious about these surveys.    In general there is a kind of emptiness of thought at large these days that is hard to overlook.   This phenomenon is now widely
known as the Dumbing Down of America.
He explains that in documentaries the comments are stupid and it happens all the time.

He was recently on a flight and he read the airline magazine.   There was a "Letter from the President" explainign how they had just conducted a survey of their customers to find out
their needs.   In that case they wanted to arrived on time and with their luggage.
He found it funny.

Americans tends to specify the country as well as the city in datelines.  For example they use "London, England".
Even he refers to a politician (I think) he used a "strange" sentence in his campaign, although he was right: "It's about the future, because that's where we're going".

Everything has to be translated to a simply way / words.
(12 inches = 1 foot)



00006     DRUG CULTURE

  • TO COME IN A BLURRY FRAME OF MIND
  • …BUT YOU WOULD BE SMILING AGAIN, IF WANLY
  • …FINISH THE DAY HAVING THE TIME OF THIS LIFE AT A BOWLING ALLEY
  • THE DRIFT OF ALL THIS WAS…
  • …WHEREAS AMERICAANS WILL SETTLE FOR NOTHING LESS
  • A MAN GRIMACES AFTER A POOR SHOT AND MUTTERS TO HIS PARTNER
  • IN THE GLOVEBOX OF HIS CAR
  • … THAT LETS YOU GET OUT THERE
  • ANOTHER MORE RAKISHLY ASKS,…
  • THE IDEA IS THAT YOU READ THE ADVERT, THEN BADGET YOUR DOCTOR…
  

                                                                         DRUG CULTURE

He lives in US and he miss coming in from the pub about midnight in a blurry frame of mind and watching Open University on TV.
Now he would not find the same on TV.   He is not sure, but he would find a guy wearing an old-fashioned clothes and who is talking about something he had no idea.    Except once, he saw an unexpected diverting documentary.   The gist of the programme was that the same product had to be sold in entirely different ways in the two markets:  England
(cold relief) and US (instantaneous relief).
The drift of all this was that the British do not expect over-the-counter drugs to change their lives. 
  To conclude, he said that Americans expect to feel more or less perfect all the time. 

 Americans spends a lot on medicines of all types, but the really amazing change lately is that now even prescription drugs are advertised.
The idea with the adverts is that you read and then ask your doctor to prescribe it for you.
So readers are deciding what medications are best for them.   So it seems that Americans know a great deal about drugs.
He does not agree whether this obsession with health i worth it, but he thinks is better to achieve harmony drinking six pints of beer and watching Open University.




000007   MAIL CALL
  •  
  • …GRAND BUT NOT FLASHY,…
  • THE COUNTER STAFF ARE ALWAYS BRISKLY EFFICIENT AND PLEASED TO GIVE…
  • THE EMPLOYEES HAD HUNG UP BANNERS, PUT OUT A LONG TABLE WITH A NICE CHECKERED CLOTH…
  • … WHO SPED THEIR DAYS MANGLING LETTERS AND WHIMSICALLY SENDING MY ROYALTY CHEQUES TO…
  • I WAS WON OVER UTTERLY
  • … THAT AS I STROLLED HOME FROM MY ERRAND, WIPING CRUMBS FROM MY FACE, MY THOUGHTS TOWARDS AMERICAN LIFE IN GENERAL...
  • …WELL, AMONG ALL THIS CLUTTER AND DETRITUS WAS A FORLORN AND MANGLED LETTER…
  • MAT  és bústia???
  • … THAT SOME PUCKISH SOUL HAD ONCE SENT A LETTER ADDRESSED, WITH PLAYFUL AMBIGUITY, TO…
  • … TO SUGGEST A NEED FOR CAUTION WITH REGARD TO THE POSTAL SERVICE AND ITS
  • SLEUTHING ABILITIES.
  • NOW JUST TO GIVE THIS PLAINTIVE TALE A LITTLE HEARTWARMING PERSPECTIVE, LET ME TELL YOU THAT NOT LONG BEFORE I DEPARTED…





                                                                         MAIL CALL
Living in a smal, old-fashioned New England town you have a small, old-fashioned post office.
American post offices deal only with postal matters, not pensions, car tax,…
But here there are never any queues and you go quick.
Once a year every American post office has a Customer Appreciation Day, when the employees give pastries freely to customers.
He appreciates this gesture and he see the postal employees like highly trained individuals.
One day he received a letter which he had sent to a fiend in California forty-one days ago.
It indicated Insufficient Address.

He could not believe it because he had recently read an article in a magazine explaining that postal authorities in American had worked out that a letter had to be read different in order to find its receiver; in that case it was a letter with a poor and careless address  written on it.
He point out an example that before leaving Englanc, the Royal Mail had brought him, within 48 hours of its posting in London, a letter.
He complains that  the service won't help him out when he cannot remember a street name (that was what was left in his returned letter).
When you move form one country to anothers you have to accept that there are some things that are better and some things that are worse.
But he thinks about the day of the pastries and he feels happy because  a part from all what have happened he did get a free doughnut, so on balance he guesses he is happy.

what have happened he did get a free doughnut, so on balance he guesses he is happy.

No comments: