Thematic English in Use: an educational manual 9786010408821

Citation preview

AL-FARABI KAZAKH NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

А. Zh. Zhaparova

THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE An educational manual

Almaty «Kazakh University» 2014

UDC 811. 111 (075.8) LBC 81. 2 англ - 923 Zh 97 Recommended for publication by the Science Committee of Faculty of Philology, Literary Studies and World Languages and Publishing Council of al-Farabi Kazakh National University

Reviewers:  Candidate of Philological science, docent M.A. Zhanabekova Candidate of Philological science, docent U.B. Serikbayeva Candidate of Philological science, docent Kh.A. Nurkhodzhayeva

Zh 97

Zhaparova A.Zh. Thematic English in Use: an educational manual/ A.Zh. Zhaparova. – Almaty: Kazakh University, 2014. – 140 p. ISBN 978-601-04-0882-1 An educational manual contains material which helps master and brighten the level of foreign language. This activity requires reading with understanding the core content of various texts, proverbs, riddles, set expressions, phrases. The fiction texts with a high content of special vocabulary are also presented here. This guide is written for students, undergraduates. It consists of the texts of informative character than communicative orientation. At the same time they are filled with new vocabulary, expanding vocabulary students.      The manual has a clear, distinct, coherent structure. Different tasks and exercises after the text are designed to test reading comprehension. This manual forms independent reading skills with a common understanding of the content and extract key information.

UDC 811. 111 (075.8) LBC 81. 2 англ - 923 ISBN 978-601-04-0882-1

© Zhaparova A.Zh., 2014 ©KazNU after al-Farabi, 2014

Introduction

I

n modern conditions, the purpose of education and at the same time the condition for the success of its achievements is the development of language learners’ ability to use a foreign language as a tool for communication in the dialogue of cultures and civilizations of the world. Mastering of a foreign language as a medium of communication has become a real requirement of time. It is necessary to learn to speak clearly and correctly, to express thoughts, but it is equally important to learn to read and understand the scientific and popular scientific literature. This manual is intended for students, undergraduates. The purpose of this tutorial is to teach students the use of a foreign language in their professional activities, it means to extract and process the resulting text of scientific information. The book consists of texts on a variety of topics with exercises to master the specialized vocabulary. In order to increase the vocabulary of the target language, proverbs, riddles are given here. According to the subjects a significant amount of vocabulary is presented that enriches the knowledge of a foreign language students. This guide can be used both in the classroom for assignments under the guidance of a teacher, and for the students’ as independent work. This material is educational and has methodological interest.

Animality

I. Amphibians: Caecilians; Frogs and toads (like American Bullfrog, American Toad, European Green Toad, Giant Marine Toad, Golden Mantella, Green-and-black Poison Dart Frog, Mountain Chicken, Panamanian Golden Frog, Plains Leopard Frog, Puerto Rican Crested Toad, Surinam Toad, Tomato Frog, Vietnamese Moss Frog, Waxy Tree Frog, White’s Tree Frog, Wyoming Toad); Salamanders and Newts (Alligator Newt, Blue-tailed Fire-bellied Newt, Emperor Newt, Fire Salamander, Hellbender, Iberian Ribbed Newt, Marbled Salamander, Mudpuppy, Three-toed Amphiuma, Tiger Salamander, Western Lesser Siren Text. Amphibians The Class Amphibia (or amphibians) includes three Orders: Anura (frogs and toads) – about 5,800 species Caudata or Urodela (newts and salamanders) – about 580 species Gymnophiona or Apoda (caecilians) – about 170 species Frogs and Toads

Newts and Salamanders

Caecilians

Most people are familiar with frogs, toads, newts and salamanders, but are less familiar with caecilians, which superficially resemble large

6

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

earthworms. Little is known about most caecilians as they mostly live hidden underground or underwater. All amphibians are cold-blooded animals and most metamorphose from a juvenile to an adult form. They cannot generate their own body heat, instead relying on the temperature of their environment to help them keep warm or cool enough to survive. There are over 6,500 species of amphibians, and they inhabit all continents except Antarctica, living in varied habitats such as rainforests, rivers and streams, deserts and alpine environments. Amphibians are important and beneficial in many ways: They play an important role in nature as both predator and prey, sustaining the delicate balance of nature. They eat pest insects, benefiting successful agriculture around the world and minimizing the spread of disease, including malaria. The skin of amphibians has substances that protect them from some microbes and viruses, offering possible medical cures for a variety of human diseases, including AIDS. Frogs have had a special place in various human cultures for centuries, cherished as agents of life and good luck. In addition, successful collaboration to save amphibians can help mankind to more confidently face and address other major environmental challenges. One-third to one-half of the world’s approximately 7,000 known amphibian species could go extinct in our lifetime. This would be the largest mass extinction since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. Amphibians are considered canaries in the coal mine: they are among the first species to be affected by environmental stressors, so when they show declines in the wild, it is a warning to other species, including humans. Their population declines and extinctions signal that changes are occurring in the environment that will also negatively impact humans. Amphibians are dying in alarming numbers. About 122 species are believed to have become extinct since 1980. About half of the world’s 6,000 species could become extinct within our lifetime with at least

Animality

500 species facing imminent extinction. This rate of extinction is unprecedented since the demise of the dinosaurs. Destruction of habitat, invasive species, pollution, global warming and other human influences threaten many species throughout the animal and plant kingdom. In addition to these challenges, amphibians are being attacked by a lethal disease that has caused unprecedented and unexpected losses, called chytrid fungus. Chytrid quickly and quietly destroys entire species when introduced to new populations in the wild. Chytrid fungus has now been identified in association with amphibian die-offs on every amphibian-inhabited continent. This disease has decimated or wiped out species that had not been considered critically endangered. It happens so quickly that species disappear before anyone realizes they are in trouble {1} Allamphibians: • Are vertebrates (which means they have a backbone or spine) • Are ectothermic. Also known as “cold-blooded,” ectothermic animals cannot regulate their own body heat, so they depend on warmth from sunlight to become warm and active. If they get too hot, they have to find shade or a burrow to help them cool down. • Breathethroughtheirskin. • Go through metamorphosis. Young amphibians hatch from eggs, but do not look like their parents. Astheydevelop, theirbodyshapechanges. {2} II. Arachnids: scorpion, spider, tarantula, harvestmen, ticks and mites Text.Arachnida Arachnids are spiders, harvestmen, mites and ticks, and their relatives like scorpions that don’t live in Michigan. All arachnids have eight legs, and unlike insects, they don’t have antennae. The bodies of arachnids are divided into two sections, the cephalothorax in front and the abdomen behind. Sometimes times small arachnids like mites and

7

8

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

harvestmen have the two sections fused close together so you can’t see the separation. No arachnids have wings, although some spiders can float on the wind using long strands of silk. Many arachnids use silk, either to catch prey or to help them reproduce. Arachnids lay eggs, and have simple development where babies look like small adults and just get bigger as they grow. Some arachnids, especially the mites, change a lot in different stages of their lives. Arachnids are part of a larger group called arthropods, which also includes insects, myriapods, and crustaceans. All arthropods have an exoskeleton and legs that are jointed (arthropod means “jointed foot”). In order to grow, arthropods must shed their whole exoskeleton all at once; this is called “molting.”

There are hundreds of thousands of species of arachnids. Arachnids are found in nearly all land habitats, and there are some in aquatic habitats as well. Most arachnids can only eat liquid food, not solid food, so they squirt digestive chemicals into their prey and suck out the juice. Arachnids are predators on insects and other invertebrates, except for many mites, which feed on all kinds of things, like fungus, plants, dead animals, bacteria, and other invertebrates. {3}

Animality

III. Birds Birds: eagle, albatross, blackbird, jackdaw, jay, duck, owl, falcon, pheasant, finch, flamingo, goose, vulture, hawk, rooster, canary, nuthatch, crow, cuckoo, biddy, kookaburra, swift, tit, gull, nightingale, parrot, pelican, peacock, penguin, piranha, raven, robin, swallow, swan, parakeet, sparrow, woodpecker, mallard, stork, ostrich, dove/pigeon, turkey, kestrel, wren, coat, crest, talon, beak.

9

10

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

Animality

Proverbs about birds As good be an addled egg as an idle bird. As the old birds sings, the young ones twitter. Bad bird, bad egg. Birds of prey do not sing. It is hard to catch birds with an empty hand. Old birds are hard to pluck. One bird in the dish is better than a hundred in the air. What bird so white as mine? says the crow. Birds of a feather flock together. One beats the bush, and another catches the bird. It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest. “I have” is a better bird than “If I had.” As the old birds sing, so the young ones twitter. One beats the bush, another catches the bird. As though a bird had flown up from under your feet. If the bird hadn’t sung, it wouldn’t have been shot. The caged bird dreams of clouds. If you have money, men think you are wise, handsome, and able to sing like a bird. A bird that you set free may be caught again, but a word that escapes your lips will not return. A good bird begins chirping while in the egg. A beautiful bird is the only kind we cage. A bird can roost but on one branch, a mouse can drink not more than its fill from a river. Clumsy birds have need of early flight. Dead songbirds make a sad meal. Don’t waste too many stones on one bird. It is the beautiful bird which gets caged. You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair. It is the beautiful bird that gets caged.

11

12

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

A bird does not sing because he has the answer to something, he sings because he has a song. A dead songbird gives us no meat. Dead song-birds make a sad meal. Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come. People live like birds in the woods: When the time comes, each must take flight. The prettiest birds are in a cage. If I keep a green bough in my heart, then the singing bird will come. Every bird likes his own nest best. A bird cannot roost but on one branch. a mouse can drink no more than its fill from a river. A bird in your hand is worth more than 100 in the forest. Living at a river, one comes to know the nature of the fish therein; Dwelling by a mountain, one learns to recognize the language of the birds thereupon. Early bird hops further. God knows why he has made the wings of some birds shorter. Slowly but surely, the bird builds its nest. Better one bird in the hand than ten in the sky. A bird never flew so high but it had to come to the ground for food. Cats don’t catch the old birds. One beats the bush, and another catches the bird. Fine feathers make fine birds. Better a bird in the hand than ten in the air. Better afield with the birds than hanging on lords. Better when birds sing than where irons ring. By slow degrees the bird builds his nest. Every bird sings as it is beaked. Every shot does not bring down a bird. God gives birds their food, but they must fly for it. Old birds are not caught with cats. One bird in the hand is better than two flying. Where the bird was hatched it haunts.

Animality

A bird in the hand’s worth two fleeing by. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Birds of a feather flock together. Fine feathers make fine birds. Flying a bird is not the gate to grip it. To frighten a bird is not the way to catch it. A bird in the hand is worth more than ten in the bush. Rather one bird in the hand, than ten in the woods. God gives every bird a worm, but he does not throw it into the nest. God gives every bird his worm, but he does not throw it into the nest. Thou are a bitter bird, said the raven to the starling. You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from passing over your head, but you can prevent them from nesting in your hair. He that will take the bird must not scare it. The noisy fowler catches no birds. Fine feathers make fine birds. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The early bird catches the worm. All clever men are birds of prey. Birds of a feather flock together. Early bird gets the worm. It’s the early bird that gets the worm. Kill two birds with one stone. The early bird gets the worm. The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. To kill twobirds with one stone. It’s an ill bird that fouls its own nest. The bird is known by his note, the man by his words. If every bird take back its own feathers, you’ll be naked. The nest of the blind bird is made by god. A little bird wants but a little nest. A bird that flies from the ground onto an anthill, does not know that it is still on the ground. Although the snake does not fly it has caught the bird whose home is in the sky.

13

14

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

Some birds avoid the water, ducks look for it. The bird flies high, but always returns to earth. It is little by little that a birdbuilds its nest. A bird does not change its feathers because the weather is bad. The bird that remembers its flockmates, never missed the way. The owl is the wisest of all birds because the more it sees, the less it talks. By coming and going, a bird constructs its nest. In the birds’ court, a cockroach never wins his case. The hunter who is tracking an elephant does not stop to throw stones at birds. A bird that flies off the earth and lands on an anthill is still on the ground. A bird doesn’t alert his fellow bird that a stone is coming. A bird doesn’t forget one who killed off his feathers during the rainseason {4} Idioms about birds with definitions an albatross (around someone’s neck) – a problem that prevents someone from succeeding or making progress. The man’s lack of a university degree is an albatross around his neck and it prevents him from being promoted.  as a duck takes to water – easily and naturally. When the boy learned to swim it wasjust as a duck takes to water. It was very easy.  as bald as a coot – completely bald. The man in the gas station is as bald as a coot.  as crazy as a loon – crazy. Our neighbor is as crazy as a loon.  as dead as a dodo – dead, no longer in existence. The dog was as dead as a dodo after the accident.  as easy as duck soup – very easy, requiring no effort. Convincing the man to buy the car was as easy as duck soup.  as free as a bird – completely free, carefree. I was as free as a bird when I finished my final school exam. 

Animality

as graceful as a swan – very graceful. The figure skater is as graceful as a swan.  as happy as a lark – very happy and cheerful. The boy was as happy as a lark when he received his birthday present.  as hoarse as a crow – very hoarse. The professor was as hoarse as a crow during the lecture.  as mad as a wet hen – angry. The nurse was as mad as a wet hen when the patient tried to bite her.  as naked as a jaybird – naked. The little boy was as naked as a jaybird when he finished his bath.  as proud as a peacock – very proud, haughty. The man is as proud as a peacock of his young son.  as scarce as hen’s teeth – very scarce or nonexistent. Cheap hotels in this city are as scarce as hen’s teeth.  as silly as a goose – very foolish, very silly. My aunt acted as silly as a goose last evening.  as soft as down – very soft to the touch (down is the soft and fine feathers from a goose or duck). The fur on the little dog is as soft as down.  as the crow flies – by the most direct way, along a straight line between two places. As the crow flies, it is about six kilometers between my house and downtown.  as wise as an owl – very wise. My grandfather is as wise as an owl and he seems to know everything.  a bat out of hell – very fast (bats are not birds but are mammals that can fly). The man left here like a bat out of hell. I do not know why he was in such a hurry.  bats in the belfry – crazy, eccentric (bats are not birds but are mammals that can fly). I think that my boss has bats in the belfry. His ideas are absolutely crazy.  bird brain – someone who you think is stupid. The man is a bird brain and he always makes mistakes at work.  a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush – something that is certain is better than something that is not certain. “You should keep

15

16

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

the prize money and not try to win more. Remember that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”  birds and the bees – the facts about birth and life, the facts of life. The boy learned about the birds and the bees in his health education class at school.  birds-eye view – a general view from above. “Let`s go up to the roof and get a birds-eye view of the surrounding area.”  birds of a feather flock together – people who are similar become friends or join together. “Do not complain about your friends. Remember, birds of a feather flock together. Your friends are just like you.”  chicken and egg situation – a situation where two things happen together and it is difficult to see which one of them caused the other, related to two factors – each of which causes or leads to the other. I do not know if I should buy a new computer so I can make some money with it or make some money first and then buy a new computer. It is a chicken and egg situation.  chicken feed – a small sum of money. The amount of money that I spent last night was chicken feed and I am not worried about it at all.  chicken-livered – cowardly, easily scared. The boy called his friend chicken-livered which made the friend very angry.  chicken out of (doing something) – to stop doing something because of fear. My friend was planning to come with us but he chickened out at the last moment.  chickens come home to roost – someone`s words or actions come back to cause trouble for him or her. The man is always unkind to other people. However, his chickens have come home to roost and people are now very unkind to him.  clip (someone`s) wings – to limit someone, to bring someone under control. We plan to clip the supervisor’s wings because he is becoming too aggressive when dealing with other people.  cock-and-bull story – a silly story that is not true. The student told her teacher a cock-and-bull story about why she was absent.  cock of the walk – someone who thinks that he or she is more important than others in a group. The supervisor thinks that he is cock of the walk. He thinks that he can do anything that he wants. 

Animality

cold turkey – immediate and complete withdrawal from something on which one has become dependent (used when someone stops taking addictive drugs or tries to stop a bad habit). The government program helped the drug addicts stop using heroin cold turkey. The man plans to quit smoking cold turkey.  cook (someone`s) goose – to damage someone’s plans, to damage or ruin someone. The woman cooked her goose when she fought against her company and lost.  count one`s chickens before they`re hatched – to depend or think that you will get something before you actually have it. “Don`t count your chickens before they`re hatched. Remember, you may not get the new job so you should not spend too much money.”  dead duck – someone in a hopeless situation or condition. The man is a dead duck. When the police catch him he will have to go to jail.  duck soup – a task that does not require much effort. The exam was duck soup. I am sure that I did very well.  eagle eye – an intently watchful eye. The boy has an eagle eye and he never misses anything.  early bird – someone who arrives someplace early or starts something early. I am an early bird and I like to arrive early at work every morning.  the early bird catches the worm – a person who gets up early in the morning has the best chance of success. “Let`s leave at six o`clock in the morning. Remember, the early bird catches the worm.”  eat crow – to admit that you are mistaken or defeated. Our boss was forced to eat crow when he discovered that he was totally wrong.  eat like a bird – to eat very little. The boy must be sick. He has been eating like a bird recently.  feather in one`s cap – something to be proud of, an honor. Winning the speech contest was a feather in the boy’s cap.  feather one`s nest – use one’s position for one`s own financial benefits – especially while holding public office. The politician was feathering his nest for many years until he lost the election. 

17

18

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

fly the coop – to escape, to leave (like a chicken escaping from a chicken coop). The two boys wanted to fly the coop when the school bell rang.  for the birds – not interesting, something that you do not like, worthless. The movie was for the birds so we left early and went to a restaurant.  foul one’s own nest – to harm one’s own interests, to bring discredit to one’s family. I do not want to foul my own nest so I try to be very honest in all of my dealings with others.  get one’s ducks in a row – to put one’s affairs in order. When I get my ducks in a row I will be able to make a decision about a new career.  go to bed with the chickens – to go to bed as the sun is setting, to go to bed very early. My grandfather always goes to bed with the chickens because he works on a farm.  a gone goose – someone or something that has departed or run away. The boy is a gone goose. He will not be returning today.  goose bumps – a prickly or bumpy feeling on one’s skin because of cold or fear or excitement (like the skin of a goose or a chicken). I got goose bumps as I watched the horror movie.  one’s goose is cooked – one has been discovered to have done something wrong and he or she is now in trouble, one is finished, one’s chances for something are ruined. My goose is cooked. Soon my friend will discover that I lost her bicycle.  in fine feather – in good humor. My friend is in fine feather today. He has been laughing all morning.  kill the goose that lays the golden egg – to spoil or destroy something that is beneficial or makes a lot of money. My friends sold part of their business but it is the most profitable part. I think that they have killed the goose that lays the golden egg.  kill two birds with one stone – to succeed in doing two things with only one action. “Let`s have the meeting when we come to town to go shopping so that we can kill two birds with one stone.”  lame duck – a politician who has only a little time left in office and therefore has little power. The politician is a lame-duck leader and he is not effective at all. 

Animality

lay an egg – to give a bad performance. The performer laid an egg at the concert last night.  like water off a duck`s back – without any effect, easily. Criticism falls away from my father like water off a duck`s back and he never worries about anything.  a little bird told me – something is learned from a mysterious and secret source who you do not want to name. A little bird told me that my friend will have a surprise birthday party for me next week.  look like the cat that swallowed the canary – to look very selfsatisfied, to look as if you have just had a great success. The boy looked like the cat that swallowed the canary after he won the relay race.  lovely weather for ducks – rainy weather. I commented to the wet letter carrier that it was lovely weather for ducks today.  neither fish nor fowl – something that does not belong to a definite group. The manager’s idea was neither fish nor fowl. Nobody knew what to do about it.  night owl – someone who likes to stay up very late at night. My friend is a night owl and he loves to stay up late at night.  no spring chicken – not young anymore. I do not know how old my aunt is but she is no spring chicken.  pecking order – the way that people are ranked in relation to each other. I have not worked at my company very long so I do not understand the pecking order yet.  play chicken – to do something dangerous in order to see who becomes frightened first and stops. The two boys were playing chicken in the schoolyard.  rare bird – someone who is unusual. The woman is a rare bird and has done many interesting things in her life.  ruffle its feathers – a bird points its feathers outward. The bird sat in the tree and ruffled its feathers.  ruffle (someone’s) feathers – to upset or annoy someone. I am usually very careful not to ruffle my supervisor’s feathers.  rule the roost – to be the boss or manager somewhere – often at home (a roost is a place where birds can perch or sit). My grandfather ruled the roost in his family. 

19

20

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

run around like a chicken with its head cut off – to run around frantically and with no aim or purpose. I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off all morning as I prepared for my trip.  scarcer than hen’s teeth – very scarce or nonexistent. People who know about computers are scarcer than hen’s teeth in our company.  sitting duck – an unsuspecting person who is easily fooled – as if waiting to be attacked. The soldier at the window was like a sitting duck for the enemy.  spread one’s wings – to begin to be independent and try new things. My uncle’s friend is beginning to spread his wings and try many new things.  swan song – the last work or performance by an artist before death or retirement. The actor’s swan song was his magnificent performance in his recent movie.  take (someone) under one’s wings – to begin to look after and care for someone. The teacher took the young boy under her wings when he came to the school.  talk turkey – to talk frankly, to talk business. I went to see my friend because I knew that it was time to talk turkey with him.  try out one’s wings – to try to do something that you have recently learned or become qualified to do. I plan to try out my wings at golfing now that my lessons have finished.  ugly duckling – an ugly or plain child (who grows up to be pretty). The girl was an ugly duckling when she was a child but now she is very beautiful.  under the wings of (someone) – to be under the care or control or protection of someone. The new teacher is now under the wings of the principal of the school.  watch (someone or something) like a hawk – to watch someone or something very carefully. The mother watched her young child like a hawk.  what’s good/sauce for the goose is good/sauce for the gander – what is good for one person should be good for another person as well. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander and if the food

Animality

is good enough for me, then it is good enough for the other members of our team.  wild goose chase – a chase that is futile or worthless. The motorcycle riders led the police on a wild goose chase.  wing it – to do the best in a situation that one is not prepared for. I forgot to study so I had to wing it on the test.  Exercise 1 Choose an idiom to replace the expression in the brackets: 1. The boy won the science contest which is (an achievement that he can be proud of). (a) a bat out of hell (b) a feather in his cap (c) a cold turkey (d) a lame duck 2. “This gathering is (boring and uninteresting). Let`s go home.”  (a) no spring chicken (b) chicken feed (c) for the birds (d) as the crow flies 3. The supervisor was beginning to act too powerful so we had to (bring her under control). (a) chicken out (b) cook her goose (c) eat like a bird (d) clip her wings 4. My friend was forced to (admit his mistake) when I phoned him.  (a) eat crow (b) feather his nest (c) kill two birds with one stone (d) clip his wings 5. The company made a big mistake by closing their small office. They (lost a chance to continue making a lot of money). (a) counted their chickens before they hatched (b) killed the goose that layed the golden egg (c) chickened out (d) cooked their goose 6. (Directly) it is not very far to my friend’s house, but because the river is between us it takes a long time. (a) Like water off a duck`s back (b) Like a bat out of hell (c) Like duck soup (d) As the crow flies 7. We climbed up to the top of the tower to get a (good view) of the new stadium. (a) cold turkey (b) birds-eye view (c) dead duck (d) lame duck

21

22

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

8. I was going to go on the canoe trip with my friends but finally I (became afraid and gave up). (a) killed two birds with one stone (b) feathered my nest (c) cooked my goose (d) chickened out 9. The woman left the dining room (in a big hurry).  (a) as the crow flies (b) cold turkey (c) like a bat out of hell (d) for the birds 10. My grandmother is (not so young) but still she likes to play tennis.  (a) a sitting duck (b) no spring chicken (c) an ugly duckling (d) chickenlivered Answers 1. (b) a feather in his cap 2. (c) for the birds 3. (d) clip her wings 4. (a) eat crow 5. (b) killed the goose that layed the golden egg 6. (d) As the crow flies 7. (b) birds-eyeview 8. (d) chickenedout 9. (c) like a bat out of hell 10. (b) nospringchicken {5}

Exercise 2 PARTS of a BIRD: Match the word to its description. a. beak

1.  it moves up and down and allows birds to fly

b.comb

2. a set of feathers on the top of the head

c.crest

3. a piece of skin that hangs from the head or neck 

d.feather

4. one of the sharp nails on the feet of birds that kill other animals for food

e.talon

5. a thin layer of skin between the toes

f.wattle

6. the hard curved or pointed part of the bird’s mouth

g.web

7. a piece of red flesh on the top of the head

h.wing

8. one of the narrow tubes with thin soft hairs on each side that cover a bird’s body

Animality

Answers 1.H 2.C 3.F 4.E 5.G 6.A 7.B 8.D Exercise 3 Write All, Most or Some to complete the sentences. a._____ birds have feather b._____ birds can fly c._____ birds can swim d._____ birds eat fish e._____ birds built nest f._____ birds eat insects g._____ birds lay eggs h._____ birds migrate i._____ acquactic birds have webbed feet j._____ birds have beaks Answers a.All b.Most c.Some d.Some e.Most f.Some g.All h.Some i.All j.All {6}

Poems about birds Seagull by Isaac McLellan (1806-1899) Sea-Bird, skimmer of the waves, Whither doth thy journey tend? Is it to some southern shore, Where the meadow-rushes bend, Where the orange-blossoms blow, Where the aloe and the palm Flourish, and magnolias glow, Filling all the air with balm? Rather is thy pilgrim wing Fleeting to some northern bar, Where the rocky reef juts out, And the sand-beach stretches far?

23

24

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

There in hot and silvery sand All the pearly eggs to lay, There to teach thy little brood O’er the tumbling surf to play. Haply sailing o’er the brine, Painted ‘gainst a lurid sky, On the gray horizon’s verge Thou dost even now descry Some lone bark with shatter’d mast, Bulwarks swept, and ragged sail, Fighting with the ocean-blast, Lost in shipwreck and in gale. Restless, roving, lonely bird, Wanderer of the pathless seas, Now where tropic woods are stirr’d, Now where floating icebergs freeze; Seldom doth the solid shore See thy wings expand no more. The Swallow by Anacreon (570-488 B.C.) translated by Thomas Stanley Gentle swallow, thou we know Every year dost come and go; In the spring thy nest thou mak’st; In the winter it forsak’st, And divert’st thyself awhile Near the Memphian towers, or Nile: But Love in my suffering breast Builds, and never quits his nest; First one Love’s hatch’d; when that flies,

Animality

In the shell another lies; Then a third is half expos’d; Then a whole brood is disclos’d, Which for meat still peeping cry, Whilst the others that can fly Do their callow brethren feed, And grown up, they young ones breed. What then will become of me Bound to pain incessantly, Whilst so many Loves conspire Of my heart by turns to tire? The Life of a Bird  by: Edith Matilda Thomas (1854-1925) Thou art clothed on with plumes, as with leaves, Frond-like, and lighter than air; Thy pinions are arrows in sheaves, That carry thee none knoweth where.   Thou fliest, and none gives pursuit, Thy realm both the earth and the sky; Thou hast in thy bosom a flute, The glance of a soul in thine eye.   Thou obeyest a sovereign power That sets thee on Summer’s track; Thou knowest the tide and the hour When to advance, or turn back.   Into the world thou art flung, Thou herald of rapture and light. Thou weavest a home for thy young-And none but thyself hath the sleight.  

25

26

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

Out of the world thou art gone, And who shall say where is thy rest? A rapture and light are withdrawn Into some Heaven-side nest.   For who of my kind hath beheld Where, stricken, were any of thine? Hast thou not been, from of old-A spirit unscathed and divine? {7} Parable about birds THE PARABLE OF THE BIRDS Once upon a time there was a man who looked upon Christmas as a lot of humbug. He wasn’t a Scrooge. He was a kind and decent person, generous to his family, upright in all his dealings with other men. But he didn’t believe all that stuff about Incarnation which churches proclaim at Christmas. And he was too honest to pretend that he did. “I am truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, who was a faithful churchgoer.  “But I simply cannot understand this claim that God becomes man. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”On Christmas Eve his wife and children went to church for the midnight service. He declined to accompany them.  “I’d feel like a hypocrite,”  he explained.  “I’d rather stay at home. But I’ll wait up for you.”Shortly after his family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window and watched the flurries getting heavier and heavier. “If we must have Christmas,” he thought, “it’s nice to have a white one.” He went back to his chair by the fireside and began to read his newspaper. A few minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. It was quickly followed by another, then another.He thought that someone must be throwing snowballs at his livingroom window. When he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the storm. They had been caught in the storm and in a desperate

Animality

search for shelter had tried to fly through his window.  “I can’t let these poor creatures lie there and freeze,” he thought. “But how can I help them?” Then he remembered the barn where the children’s pony was stabled. It would provide a warm shelter.He put on his coat and galoshes and tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the door wide and turned on a light. But the birds didn’t come in.  “Food will lure them in,”  he thought. So he hurried back to the house for bread crumbs, which he sprinkled on the snow to make a trail into the barn. To his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs and continued to flop around helplessly in the snow. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around and waving his arms. They scattered in every direction – except into the warm lighted barn.“They find me a strange and terrifying creature,” he said to himself, “and I can’t seem to think of any way to let them know they can trust me. If only I could be a bird myself for a few minutes, perhaps I could lead them to safety. . . .”Just at that moment the church bells began to ring. He stood silent for a while, listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. Then he sank to his knees in the snow. “Now I do understand,”he whispered. ˝Now I seewhyYouhadtodoit.˝ {8} IV. Butterflies Butterflies:Peacock Butterfly, Small Tortoiseshell, Orange Tip, Purple Emperor, Ringlet, Black-veined White, Map Butterfly, Queen of Spain Fritillary, Silver-washed Fritillary, Large White, Green-veined White, Small White, Cranberry Fritillary, Bog Fritillary, Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary, Green Hairstreak, Holly Blue, Small Pearlbordered Fritillary, Pearly Heath, Small Heath, Clouded Yellow, Mazarine Blue, Red Admiral, Painted Lady, Purple Hairstreak, Brimstone, Peacock Butterfly, Queen of Spain Fritillary, Wall Brown, Violet Copper, Purple-edged Copper, Small Copper, Sooty Copper, Meadow Brown, Heath Fritillary, Glanville Fritillary, Purple Hairstreak, Camberwell Beauty, Large Tortoiseshell, Large Skipper, Swallowtail, Speckled Wood, Large White, Green-veined White, Small

27

28

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

White, Comma, Common Blue, Mazarine Blue, Bog Fritillary, Grizzled Skipper, Purple Hairstreak, Essex Skipper, Small Skipper, Red Admiral, Painted Lady.

Texts about butterflies Butterflies belong to the order lepidoptera. There exist approximately 160,000 different species of butterflies in the world! They are an extremely diverse group when compared with the 2000 species of praying mantids, for example! Butterflies are found worldwide, even above the Arctic Circle, but they do not occur on Antarctica. Butterflies undergo complete metamorphosis; this means the early stages of life do not resemble the adult life stage at all. Butterflies are always born as caterpillars. Tiny caterpillars hatch from small eggs. Immediately after hatching they will start to eat leaves of specific plants (their host plants). The caterpillar will grow, but because it has a rigid outer skeleton (their skin provides rigidity, like our inner skeleton) it has

Animality

to shed its skin to be able to grow. Most species shed their skin four times when in their caterpillar stage. Each time the caterpillar sheds its skin it will grow, and sometimes it will also have different colors after its molt. When the caterpillar reaches its final caterpillar life stage, it will make a cocoon with silk that it produces with its mouth. It will completely cover itself in this silk, making a protective cocoon. Inside this cocoon the caterpillar will shed its skin again, changing into a pupa. Inside the pupa the caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. When it is finished, the butterfly will open the cocoon and sit close to it to inflate its wings. The butterfly will first pump body fluids through its flat wings, making them expand. Then it will replace the fluid with air and lets its wings dry. After that, the butterfly is ready to fly off! Like any insect species, the adult butterfly has six legs, two antennae, two wings, a head, a thorax and an abdomen. Caterpillars have a head, followed by a section with six legs and then a section with ten prolegs (some species have less prolegs or none at all). The six legs are its ‘true’ legs: later when the caterpillar becomes a butterfly it will have these same legs. These six legs are pointy and designed to get a hold on the edge of leaves and such. The prolegs only occur on caterpillars and will be disappear when the caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. These legs have suction pads and are especially designed to adhere to flat and smooth surfaces, like smooth leaves. Butterflies have all the sense we have (sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste), but they rely mostly on smell, touch and taste. Their sense of smell is not located in their nose (they do not have one), but is located in their antennae and even their feet! Butterflies also taste with their feet, stepping on nector or host plants to taste if this is appropriate food for them or their offspring. The other senses of a butterfly are not well developed but serve specific functions very well (e.g. sight = escape from predators and finding of flowers, but no detail and no stereo-vision).Caterpillars also have all senses, but they probably have them even less developed than butterflies. This is because a caterpillar generally can not do more than eat and walk at a very slow pace. Excellent senses will not help it to perform better. They use their sense of smell to identify food plants. {9}

29

30

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

Quotations about butterflies • The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. Rabindranath Tagore • May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun And find your shoulder to light on, To bring you luck, happiness and riches Today, tomorrow and beyond. Irish Blessing • Butterflies are self propelled flowers. R.H. Heinlein • If nothing ever changed, there’d be no butterflies. Author Unknown • The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity. Attributed to George Carlin • What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls abutterfly. Richard Bach • But these are flowers that fly and all but sing: And now from having ridden out desire They lie closed over in the wind and cling Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire. Robert Frost, “Blue-Butterfly Day” • I saw a poet chase a butterfly in a meadow.  He put his net on a bench where a boy sat reading a book.  It’s a misfortune that it is usually the other wayround. Karl Kraus • Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life. And everyone deserves a little sunshine. Jeffrey Glassberg • The butterfly is a flying flower, The flower a tethered butterfly. Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun • Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. Nathaniel Hawthorne • There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly. Richard Buckminster Fuller • They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods. Edith Wharton

Animality

• • • • • •

• • • •

With the rose the butterfly’s deep in love, A thousand times hovering round; But round himself, all tender like gold, The sun’s sweet ray is hovering found. Heinrich Heine, “New Spring” ”Just living is not enough,” said the butterfly, “one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.” Hans Christian Andersen Love is like a butterfly:  It goes where it pleases and it pleases wherever it goes. Author Unknown I’ve watched you now a full half-hour; Self-poised upon that yellow flower And, little Butterfly!  Indeed I know not if you sleep or feed. How motionless! – not frozen seas More motionless! and then What joy awaits you, when the breeze Hath found you out among the trees, And calls you forth again! William Wordsworth, “To a Butterfly” I only ask to be free.  The butterflies are free. Charles Dickens The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors andsymmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign. Primo Levi And what’s a butterfly? At best, He’s but a caterpillar, at rest. John Grey Flowers and butterflies drift in color, illuminating spring.  Author Unknown We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.  Carl Sagan This great purple butterfly, In the prison of my hands,

31

32

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• • • • • • • • • • •

Has a learning in his eye Not a poor fool understands. William Butler Yeats, “Another Song of a Fool” Not quite birds, as they were not quite flowers, mysterious and fascinating as are all indeterminate creatures.  Elizabeth Goudge The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight. Robert Graves, “Flying Crooked” The green grass and the happy skiescourt the fluttering butterflies. Terri Guillemets Know thyself! A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly.  Whoever observes himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who wanted to know itself well would never become a butterfly.  Andre Gide Do you not comprehend that we are worms, Born to bring forth the angelic butterfly That flieth unto judgment without screen? Dante Alighieri Bees sip honey from flowers and hum their thanks when they leave. The gaudy butterfly is sure that the flowers owe thanks to him. Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. Author Unknown Go on, hitch a ride on the back of a butterfly.  There’s no better way to fly. Pat Monahan, Scott Michael Underwood, and James W. Stafford, “Get To Me” The fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can effect climate changes on the other side of the planet. Paul Erlich And the case of butterflies so rich it looks As if all summer settled there and died. Philip Larkin, “Autumn” Once I read a story about a butterfly in the subway, and today, I saw one.  It got on at 42nd, and off at 59th, where, I assume it was going to Bloomingdales to buy a hat that will turn out to be

Animality

• • • • • • • • •

a mistake – as almost all hats are. Nikolaus Laszlo, Nora Ephron, and Delia Ephron, You’ve Got Mail A million butterflies rose up from South America, All together, and flew in a gold storm toward Spain... Winfield Townley Scott, “Annual Legend” In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly.  But with humans it is the other way around:  a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar. Anton Chekhov Gray sail against the sky, Gray butterfly! Have you a dream for going. Or are you the blind wind’s blowing? Dana Burnet, “A Sail at Twilight” The paired butterflies are already yellow with August Over the grass in the West garden; They hurt me.  I grow older. Li Po This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man will never on his heap of mud keep still.  Joseph Conrad Just like the butterfly, I too will awaken in my own time.  Deborah Chaskin Moss covered paths between scarlet peonies, Pale jade mountains fill your rustic windows. I envy you, drunk with flowers, Butterflies swirling in your dreams. Ch’ienCh’i, translated by Kenneth Rexroth Women, don’t get a tattoo.  That butterfly looks great on your breast when you’re twenty or thirty, but when you get to seventy, it stretches into a condor. Billy Elmer Where have those flowers and butterflies all gone That science may have staked the future on? He seems to say the reason why so much Should come to nothing must be fairly faced. Robert Frost, “Pod of the Milkweed”

33

34

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive of one’s attending upon you; but to question the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists. Marianne Moore, “To a Steam Roller” • We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are.  We adults, on the other hand, have outgrown them and have to lower ourselves to stoop down to them.  It seems to me that the grass hates us when we confess our love for it. Whoever would partake of all good things must understand how to be small at times.  Friedrich Nietzsche • The tulip and the butterfly Appear in gayer coats than I: Let me be dressed fine as I will, Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still. Isaac Watts • We are closer to the ants than to butterflies.  Very few people can endure much leisure. Gerald Brenan • Nerves and butterflies are fine – they’re a physical sign that you’re mentally ready and eager. You have to get the butterflies to fly in formation, that’s the trick. Steve Bull • The least thing upset him on the links.  He missed short putts because of the uproar of butterflies in the adjoining meadows.  P.G. Wodehouse • Grown-ups love figures. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, “What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?” Instead, they demand: “How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?” Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,  The Little Prince,1943, translated from French • It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.  How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?  For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is

Animality

gone.  That is where the writer scores over his fellows:  he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Vita Sackville-West • I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.  Chuang Tzu {10} Parables about butterflies a) Read these 3 parables b) What is the main idea and message in each of them? c) Which one do you like most and why? THE PARABLE OF THE BUTTERFLY Years ago I heard the Lord tell me I was going to go through a process of change, similar to that of a butterfly. At that time, He quickened a children’s book to my ears. Upon reading it the processes of a butterfly’s growth were quickened to me. The Lord is bringing all His people through these changes, so it behooves us to understand the metamorphosis of the butterfly and compare the spiritual parables of how they match our lives. The butterfly begins as a small egg. It grows into a little caterpillar who does nothing but eat, growing bigger and Bigger and BIGGER. Then it spins a cocoon away from the view of the world, and slowly is transformed. Suddenly it emerges with wings to fly. The life cycle of the butterfly is called metamorphosis, which means change or transformation. I am thinking about the Monarch (king) butterfly, in particular, but all butterflies go through 4 separate stages in their life cycle: the egg, caterpillar, pupa (chrysalis), and the butterfly. The next few postings will search out these stages as to their spiritual parables. It is my prayer that we will be given greater understanding of where we are in our growth in the Lord through these postings, and thus be better equipped to face the day with increasing faith and inner strength. {11}

35

36

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

Struggle is Good! I Want to Fly! Once a little boy was playing outdoors and found a fascinating caterpillar. He carefully picked it up and took it home to show his mother. He asked his mother if he could keep it, and she said he could if he would take good care of it. The little boy got a large jar from his mother and put plants to eat, and a stick to climb on, in the jar. Every day he watched the caterpillar and brought it new plants to eat. One day the caterpillar climbed up the stick and started acting strangely. The boy worriedly called his mother who came and understood that the caterpillar was creating a cocoon. The mother explained to the boy how the caterpillar was going to go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly. The little boy was thrilled to hear about the changes his caterpillar would go through. He watched every day, waiting for the butterfly to emerge. One day it happened, a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come out. At first the boy was excited, but soon he became concerned. The butterfly was struggling so hard to get out! It looked like it couldn’t break free! It looked desperate! It looked like it was making no progress! The boy was so concerned he decided to help. He ran to get scissors, and then walked back (because he had learned not to run with scissors…). He snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged! As the butterfly came out the boy was surprised. It had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. He continued to watch the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand to support the swollen body. He knew that in time the body would shrink and the butterfly’s wings would expand. But neither happened! The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly… As the boy tried to figure out what had gone wrong his mother took him to talk to a scientist from a local college. He learned that the butterfly was supposed to struggle. In fact, the butterfly’s struggle to

Animality

push its way through the tiny opening of the cocoon pushes the fluid out of its body and into its wings. Without the struggle, the butterfly would never, ever fly. The boy’s good intentions hurt the butterfly. As you go through school, and life, keep in mind that struggling is an important part of any growth experience. In fact, it is the struggle that causes you to develop your ability to fly. As instructors our gift to you is stronger wings… {12} Butterfly and the Tree Spiritual Story by Guy Finley Once there was a little creature resting on the branch of a mighty Oak that was Father of the forest. The little creature was sitting there sighing, and from time to time crying a little bit - its tiny body almost buckling under some unseen weight. Finally the great old Oak could listen no longer. In a voice belonging to a giant, but that was also as gentle as a breeze, the mighty Oak spoke out: “Little creature, what is wrong with you?” The little creature was surprised to feel such concern coming from anyone, let alone the tree in which it was perched. But sensing the overwhelming kindness that came along with the question, it answered as best it knew to do. The words came fairly spilling out its mouth, as if a pent-up stream of water waiting had been waiting to be released. «Don’t you see, that’s just it... I mean... I’m not sure. Well, that’s not entirely true.» «Whoa, slow down there little one,» the Oak spoke in measured tones attempting to quiet the creature. «No need to be in a hurry telling me what you will. I’ve been standing here for centuries, so I’m not going anywhere. Can you be a little more specific about what’ you’re suffering over and maybe then we can get to the why?’ part of it?» Somewhat becalmed by these words, the creature started over. «Well, no matter how I look at it, nothing makes sense. I mean... I was sure it would be different than this.»

37

38

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

The Oak considered this comment for a moment and asked the only question it could at that point: «What exactly was it that you thought would be so different?» The little creature came out of its own thoughts for a moment as it realized the tree couldn’t see what was so obvious to it. «Why... being a butterfly, of course. When I used to think about becoming a butterfly, I thought to myself my problems would be left behind me – beneath me, if you will... but everything still irritates me. And,» the little creature lowered its voice somewhat so as to be sure no one else would hear its next comment, «I’m afraid a lot of the time. I figured that after I had become a butterfly, I just wouldn’t have the fears that I used to have, but I still do! And that’s not all... the past – it bothers me! I was sure that as a butterfly my former life wouldn’t be a problem for me anymore.» The tall Oak tree looked at the little creature and knew instantly what was wrong. «Yes, I see; what you’ve said makes a lot of sense now. But, let me ask you a couple more questions. We both need to get to the bottom of this problem if we’re going to solve this mystery for you.» And the little creature said, «Oh, thanks so much!» The Oak continued, «Do you find yourself getting tripped up quite often?» The little creature thought for a minute and said, «You know what? I do get tripped up. Yes! I trip quite often as a matter of fact!» «And how about this?» the tree followed up. «Do you spend a lot of time chewing over things?» «Yes. I spend a lot of time chewing over things.» «And are there times when it takes you a long time to get out of your own way?» The little creature was amazed at the accuracy of the tree’s questions. «You’ve tagged it for me! All these things you said about me are true.» «Well,» the great Oak spoke again. «I think I’ve figured out the mystery here. Are you sure you want to know the answer?» «Of course I do,» said the creature, somewhat surprised at the question. «Please go ahead.»

Animality

«All right then,» said the tree, carefully measuring out the medicine it knew would be bitter to the little creature clinging to its branch. «Here’s the reason for your continuing confusion about why life isn’t to your liking: You aren’t a butterfly yet; you’re still a caterpillar.” {13} V. Fish and Marine Animals Fish and marine animals: eel, barbel, perch, trout, shrimp, goldfish, shark, pike, halibut, lobster, cod, scallop, carp, crab, salmon, shell, jellyfish, ray, sawfish, haddock, plaice, swordfish, manatee, seahorse, starfish, sturgeon, squid, tuna (fish), catfish, gill, muzzle, dorsal fin, scales, tail fin.

39

40

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

Text about fish A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups. Most fish are ectothermic (“cold-blooded”), allowing their body tempe-ratures to vary as ambient temperatures change, though some of the large active swimmers like white shark and tuna can hold a higher core temperature. Fish are abundant in most bodies of water. They can be found in nearly all aquatic environments, from high mountain streams (e.g., char and gudgeon) to the abyssal and even hadal depths of the deepest oceans (e.g., gulpers and anglerfish). At 32,000

Animality

species, fish exhibit greater species diversity than any other group of vertebrates. Fish are an important resource for humans worldwide, especially as food. Commercial and subsistence fishers hunt fish in wild fisheries (see fishing) or farm them in ponds or in cages in the ocean (see aquaculture). They are also caught by recreational fishers, kept as pets, raised by fishkeepers, and exhibited in public aquaria. Fish have had a role in culture through the ages, serving as deities, religious symbols, and as the subjects of art, books and movies. Because the term “fish” is defined negatively, and excludes the tetrapods (i.e., the amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) which descend from within the same ancestry, it is paraphyletic, and is not considered a proper grouping in systematic biology. The traditional term pisces (also ichthyes) is considered a typological, but not a phylogenetic classification. The earliest organisms that can be classified as fish were softbodied chordates that first appeared during the Cambrian period. Although they lacked a true spine, they possessed notochords which allowed them to be more agile than their invertebrate counterparts. Fish would continue to evolve through the Paleozoic era, diversifying into a wide variety of forms. Many fish of the Paleozoic developed external armor that protected them from predators. The first fish with jaws appeared in the Silurian period, after which many (such as sharks) became formidable marine predators rather than just the prey of arthropods. {14} Some facts about fish • Fish are vertebrate animals that live in the water. Vertebrate • • • •

means they have a spinal cord surrounded by bone or cartilage. Fish have gills that extract oxygen from the water around them. There are over 30000 known species of fish. Some flatfish use camouflage to hide themselves on the ocean floor. Tuna can swim at speeds of up to 70 kph (43 mph).

41

42

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• Relative to their body size, fish have small brains compared to

most other animals.

• Fish are covered in scales which are often covered in a layer of

slime to help their movement through water.

• Cleaner fish help out other fish by removing parasites and dead

skin from their scales.

• Although jellyfish and crayfish have the word ‘fish’ in their

name, they aren’t actually fish.

• Over 1000 fish species are threatened by extinction. • Mermaids are mythological creatures with the tail of a fish and

the upper half of a woman. {15}

Proverbs about fish a) Read all these proverbs b) Choose any 5 and make up situations with them A monk in his cloister, a fish in the water, a thief in the gallows. Don’t cry fish before they’re caught. Fish begin to stink at the head. Great fish are caught in great waters. Little fishes make the pike big. The fish lead a pleasant life, they drink when they like. Eat your fish while it is still fresh and marry the girl while she is still young. The bait tastes first the fish. Women and fishes are best in the middle. A fish gets bigger when it gets away. He who burns his mouth on the soup will blow on a cold fish dish. Where there is fish, there is water. The friendship of water and fish. He who eats globefish soup is a fool; so is he who does not. It is better to go home and make your net than to gaze longingly at the fish in the deep pool.

Animality

One cannot always find a fish under a willow. The intimacy of water and fish. Big fish do not live in small ponds. Boat-swalling fish do not live in brooks. The jellyfish never dances with the shrimp. One who waits patiently will catch a big fish. The net of the sleeper catches fish. If you cannot catch a fish, do not blame the sea. The best fish hook cannot catch limp cheese. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life. If you want happiness for an hour -- take a nap. If you want happiness for a day -- go fishing. If you want happiness for a month -- get married. If you want happiness for a year -- inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime -- help someone else. All rotten fish taste the same. Don’t climb a tree to catch a fish. Fuel is not sold in a forest, nor fish on a lake. Govern a family as you would cook a small fish -- very gently. He who sees heaven in the water sees the fishes in the trees. If you are not a fish, how can you know if the fish are happy? It is no good going to the river just wanting to catch a fish; you have to take a net as well. Life is like a candle in the wind; like frost on the roof; like the wriggling of the fish in the pan. The fish you cannot catch is always a big one. There are people that fish and those who just disturb the water. There is a time to fish and a time to dry the nets. To climb a tree to catch a fish is talking much and doing nothing. Water can do without fishes, fishes cannot do without water. All cats love fish but fear to wet their paws. Don’t stand by the water and long for fish; go home and weave a net. Looking for fish? Don’t climb a tree. Seeking fish? Don’t dive in the pond; go home and get a net.

43

44

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

To talk much and arrive nowhere is the same as climbing a tree to catch a fish. Weaving a net is better than praying for fish at the edge of the water. As a snipe and a clam are entangled in a fight, a fisherman catch them both. Fish a needle in the sea. Fish cannot survive in absolutely clear water. Fish for the moon in the water. Fish in muddled water. Forget the fishing gear as soon as the fish is caught. Give one fish and he’s fed for only a day. Teach one how to fish and he’ll be free from hunger all his life. It is better to start weaving your fishing nets than merely coveting fish at the water. Living at a river, one comes to know the nature of the fish therein; Dwelling by a mountain, one learns to recognize the language of the birds thereupon. Pass off a fish eye for a pearl. Seek fish on a tree. Go home and make a net if you desire to get fishes. The company of the wicked is like living in a fish market; one becomes used to the foul odor. Guest and fish stinks at third day. Even small fish are fish. The fish does not go after the hook, but after the bait. A guest, like a fish, stinks the third day. All is fish that comes to the net. Big fish devour the little ones. Big fish eat little fish. Big fish spring out of the kettle. Great fishes break the net. He thinks to catch shell-fish in the trees. Stock-fish are made tender by much beating. To fish behind the net. Butter with the fish.

Animality

Little fish are sweet. It is good fishing in troubled waters. “We have rowed well,” said the flea as the fishing boat arrives at its mooring. Every fisher loves best the trout that is of his own tickling. It is ill fishing if the hook is bare. The gravest fish is an oyster; the gravest bird’s an ool; the gravest beast’s an ass; and the gravest man’s a fool. Neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring. That’s for that as butter for fish. {16} Idioms about fish big fish in a small pond – an important person in a small place. The man was not so important in the city but in the small town he was a big fish in a small pond.  blue around the gills – to be looking sick. I was looking blue around the gills during my illness.  cold fish – a person who is unfriendly or does not mix with others. The man is a cold fish and he has very few friends.  drink like a fish – to drink alcohol to excessive amounts. The man drank like a fish at the party and he had to go home by taxi.  a fine kettle of fish – a situation that is not satisfactory, a mess. “This is a fine kettle of fish. I am going to be late for the meeting.”  fish for a compliment – to try to get someone to say something nice about you. The man is fishing for a compliment about his new Italian suit.  fish for (something) – to try to get information from someone. The lawyer was fishing for information from the woman.  fish in troubled waters – to involve oneself in a difficult or confused or dangerous situation in order to get something. The woman was fishing in troubled waters when she began to ask questions about the crime. 

45

46

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

fish or cut bait – to either do what you are supposed to do or quit and let someone else do it. It was time to fish or cut bait so I decided to let someone else handle the problem.  a fish out of water – someone who does not fit in, an uncomfortable or awkward feeling. The woman felt like a fish out of water when she went to the party in her formal dress while everyone else was wearing jeans.  fishy – to be suspicious or unlikely. “Something is fishy with these numbers. There are too many people on this list.”  go on a fishing expedition – to attempt to discover information. The lawyer went on a fishing expedition to try and discover the facts of the case.  green around the gills – to be looking sick. The girl looked green around the gills when she left the nurse’s office.  have other/bigger fish to fry – to have other more important things to do, to have other opportunities. I have other fish to fry and I do not plan to spend any more time talking about my friend’s problems.  Holy mackeral! – an expression used to express a strong feeling of surprise. “Holy mackeral! Look at the size of that motorcycle.”  like shooting fish in a barrel – one side in a competition is so weak that they have no chance of winning. The contest was like shooting fish in a barrel. It was very easy to win.  live in a fish bowl – to live where many people know about your life and personal business. The small town was like living in a fish bowl. Everybody knew what I was doing.  neither fish nor fowl – something that does not belong to a definite group or category. I do not know what you should call the strange food. It is neither fish nor fowl.  packed in like sardines – packed very tightly, very crowded. We were packed in like sardines during the morning commute in the train.  pale around the gills – to be looking sick. The man looked pale around the gills when he left the boat.  red herring – some information or a suggestion that is used to draw attention away from the real facts of a situation (orginally used

Animality

as a strong fish smell from a smoked fish that was used to confuse hunting dogs when they were hunting and following something). The tax issue was a red herring and it is not what the news reporters wanted the government to talk about.  a shark – a ruthless or dishonest person. “The salesman is a shark. Don’t do business with him.”  small fry – unimportant people, children (small fry are young newly-hatched fish). The police were only able to catch some of the small fry in the organized crime gang.  there are plenty of other fish in the sea – there are other choices, there are other people to choose from. There are plenty of other fish in the sea and when my sister lost her boyfriend she did not worry too much.  Exercise 4 Choose an idiom to replace the expression in the brackets:  1. My friend was (surprised) when I gave him his birthday present.  (a) a snake in the grass (b) loused up (c) bug-eyed (d) as mad as a hornet 2. The man looked like (someone who does not fit in) when I saw him at the tennis club last Saturday. (a) a fish out of water (b) a kettle of fish (c) a snail`s pace (d) a fly in the ointment 3. When I entered the room the girl (stopped talking). (a) rose to the bait (b) had a bee in her bonnet (c) made a beeline for me (d) clammed up 4. We went to the (secondhand market) on Sunday to look for a table.  (a) snake oil salesman (b) flea market (c) birds and bees (d) can of worms 5. The painter (made a mess of) the room that he was trying to paint.  (a) wormed his way out of (b) clammed up (c) loused up (d) fished for 6. The cars moved at a (slow speed) after the traffic accident. (a) snail`s pace (b) fish out of water (c) hive of activity (d) big fish in a small pond 7. Our supervisor (made a lot of people angry) when she mentioned the new contract changes. (a) had a bug in her ear (b) had butterflies in her stomach (c) had crocodile tears (d) stirred up a hornet`s nest

47

48

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

8. The boy had (much anxiety) before the swimming competition. (a) a can of worms (b) butterflies in his stomach (c) a fly in the ointment (d) a red herring 9. The little boy was sitting in the office with (nervous excitement). (a) ants in his pants (b) a snail`s pace (c) the world as his oyster (d) a cold fish 10. The man is (an unfriendly person) and never talks to others. (a) a fish out of water (b) a kettle of fish (c) a cold fish (d) a small fry Answers 1. (c) bug-eyed 2. (a) a fish out of water 3. (d) clammed up 4. (b) flea market 5. (c) loused up

6. (a) snail`s pace 7. (d) stirred up a hornet`s nest 8. (b) butterflies in his stomach  9. (a) ants in his pants 10. (c) a cold fish {17}

5 Common Fishing Idioms Ah, summertime, it makes you think of beaches, picnics, and fishing. Many commonly used English phrases come from fishing– let’s take a look at their original meanings. 1. Off the hook Fishing meaning – This refers to the fish that got off the hook before it could be reeled in; the fish that got away. How we use this in everyday English – “To let someone off the hook” means that you are not going to hold him (or her) responsible for something. Example: Bob offered to drive me to the airport, so you’re off the hook for Sunday. 2. Open a can of worms Fishing meaning – Originally, bait shops sold worms for fishing in cans, which were easy to open but difficult to close (because the worms kept wiggling out). How we use this everyday English – When someone makes a comment or does something that seems to be simple but then causes problems. Example: I asked her about her boyfriend,

Animality

which really opened a can of worms because it turned out that they had just broken up. 3. Hook, line, and sinker Fishing meaning – Parts of a fishing rod. The hook catches the fish, the line is the string and the sinker is the weight attached to keep the line under water. When a fish takes the hook, part of the line, and the sinker, it is completely trapped. How we use this in everyday English – “To fall hook, line, and sinker” for something means to be tricked into believing something completely. Example: I told my boss I was sick and she fell for the excuse hook, line, and sinker. 4. Hooked on Fishing meaning – To be caught on a hook. How we use this in everyday English – There are two ways you can use “hooked on”. One meaning is that someone is completely captivated by something. The other meaning is that someone is addicted to drugs. Example: I am completely hooked on this new TV show. I can’t wait until the next episode! 5. Reel in Fishing meaning – To bring in a fish attached to a line by turning a reel. How we use this in everyday English – To attract someone to something. Example: The smell of freshly baked bread coming from the bakery never fails to reel in the customers. {18} Fish and Other Ocean Creature Jokes and Riddles What’s the difference between a piano and a fish? (You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish!) What do you get when you cross a shark and a snowman? (Frostbite!) What did the fish say when he swam into the concrete wall? (Dam!)

49

50

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

Which part of a fish weighs the most? (The scales!) What’s the most musical part of a fish? (The scales!) Which fish is the most famous? (The star fish!) How do you confuse a fish? (Put it in a round fishbowl and tell it to go to the corner!) Where do fish keep their money? (In a river-bank!) Why did the shark spit out the clown? (Because he tasted funny!) Two goldfish are in a tank. One says to the other, “Do you know how to drive this thing? What do you call a fish without an eye? (fsh!) How do oysters call their friends? (On shell phones!) Why don’t oysters share their pearls? (Because they’re shellfish!) What do you get when you cross an octopus and a cow? (An animal that can milk itself!) What’s that gooey stuff in between a shark’s teeth? (Slow swimmers!)

Animality

What is the strongest creature in the sea? (A mussel!) Where do fish sleep? (On a seabed!) What do fish and maps have in common? (They both have scales!) {19} VI. Mammals Mammals a) Armadillo: Nine-banded Armadillo b) Bats: Big Brown Bat, Brazilian Free-tailed Bat, Eastern Pipistrelle, Hoary Bat, Little Brown Bat, Townsend’s Big-eared Bat с) Carnivores: American Badger, American Marten, Arctic Fox, Black Bear, Black-footed Ferret, Bobcat, Cat, Cheetah, Common Gray Fox, Common Hog-nosed Skunk, Common Raccoon, Coyote, Dog, Fisher, Giant Panda, Gray Wolf, Grizzly Bear, Jaguar, Kit Fox, Least Weasel, Lion, Long-tailed Weasel, Lynx, Meerkat, Mink, Mountain Lion, Northern River Otter, Ocelot, Polar Bear, Red Fox, Red Wolf, Ringtail, Sea Otter, Striped Skunk, Tiger, Western Spotted Skunk, White-nosed Coati, Wolverine d) Hoofed Mammals: African Elephant, American Bison, Bighorn Sheep, Black Rhinoceros, Caribou, Collared Peccary, Dall’s Sheep, Elk, Giraffe, Hippopotamus, Moose, Mountain Goat, Mule Deer, Muskox, Pronghorn, White-tailed Deer, Wild Horse, Zebras e) Marine Mammals: Blue Whale, Bottle-nosed Dolphin, California Sea Lion, Gray Seal, Gray Whale, Harbor Seal, Humpback Whale, Killer Whale, Manatee, Northern Elephant Seal, Northern Fur Seal, Northern Right Whale, Pacific White-sided Dolphin, Saddle-backed Dolphin, Short-finned Pilot Whale, Sperm Whale, Steller Sea Lion f) Pouched Mammals: Matschie’s Tree Kangaroo, Opossum, Red Kangaroo, Tammar Wallaby, Koala, Red Kangaroo, Red-necked Wallaby, Virginia Opossum

51

52

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

g) Primates: Baboons, Chimpanzee, Gibbons, Gorilla, Lemurs, Mandrill, Orangutan, Patas Monkey, Slow Lorises, Squirrel Monkeys, Lemurs, Monkeys, Apes, Allen’s Swamp Monkey, Black and White Colobus Monkey, Black and White Ruffed Lemur, Black Lemur, Blackhanded Spider Monkey, Chimpanzee, Coquerel’s Sifaka, Cottontop Tamarin, Francois Langur, Goeldi’s Monkey, Golden Lion Tamarin, Liontailed Macaque, Mongoose Lemur, Ring-tailed Lemur, Spectacled Langur, Sumatran Orangutan, Western Lowland Gorilla, White-faced Saki h) Rabbits: Antelope Jackrabbit, Black-tailed Jackrabbit, Eastern Cottontail, Snowshoe Hare, White-tailed Jackrabbit

Animality

i) Rodents and Moles: Abert’s Squirrel, American Beaver, Blacktailed Prairie Dog, Common Muskrat, Common Porcupine, Deer Mouse, Eastern Chipmunk, Eastern Gray Squirrel, Eastern Mole, House Mouse, Meadow Vole, Norway Rat, Nutria, Ord’s Kangaroo Rat, Red Squirrel, Southern Flying Squirrel, Star-nosed Mole, Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel, Woodchuck, Yellow-pine Chipmunk {20} Text about mammals Mammals (class  Mammalia) are a  clade  of  endothermic  amniotes  distinguished from the  reptiles  and the  birds  by the possession of hair, three middle ear bones, mammary glands in females, and a neocortex (a region of the brain). The mammalian brain regulates body temperature and the circulatory system, including the fourchambered  heart. The mammals include the largest animals on the planet, the rorquals and some other whales, as well as some of the most intelligent, such as elephants, some primates and some cetaceans. The basic body type is a fourlegged land-borne animal, but some mammals are adapted for life at sea, in the air, in the trees, or on two legs. The largest group of mammals, the placentals, have a placenta which feeds the offspring during pregnancy. Mammals range in size from the 3040 mm (1.2–1.6 in) bumblebee bat to the 33-meter (108 ft) blue whale. The word “mammal” is modern, from the scientific name  Mammalia coined by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, derived from the  Latin mamma (“teat, pap”). All  female mammals  nurse their young with milk, which is secreted from special glands, the mammary glands. According to Mammal Species of the World, 5,416 species were known in 2006. These were grouped in 1,229 genera, 153 familiesand 29 orders. In 2008 the IUCN completed a five-year, 1,700-scientist Global Mammal Assessment for its IUCN Red List, which counted 5,488 accepted species at the end of that period. In some classifications, the mammals are divided into two subclasses (not counting fossils): the Prototheria (order of Monotremata) and the Theria, the latter composed of the infraclasses Metatheriaand EutheriaThe marsupials constitute

53

54

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

the  crown group  of the Metatheria and therefore include all living metatherians as well as many extinct ones; the placentals likewise constitute the crown group of the Eutheria. Except for the five species of monotremes (egg-laying mammals), all modern mammals give birth to live young. Most mammals, including the six most species-rich orders, belong to the placental group. The three largest orders, in descending order, are Rodentia (mice, rats, porcupines, beavers, capybaras, and other gnawing mammals), Chiroptera (bats), and Soricomorpha (shrews,  moles and solenodons). The next three largest orders, depending on the  classification scheme  used, are the  primates, to which the  human  species belongs, the  Cetartiodactyla  (including the  eventoed hoofed mammals  and the  whales), and the Carnivora  (cats,  dogs,  weasels,  bears,  seals, and their relatives). While the classification of mammals at the family level has been relatively stable, different treatments at higher levels-subclass, infraclass, and order-appear in contemporaneous literature, especially for the marsupials. Much recent change has reflected the results of cladistic analysis  and  molecular genetics. Results from molecular genetics, for example, have led to the adoption of new groups such as the  Afrotheria  and the abandonment of traditional groups such as the Insectivora. The early  synapsid  mammalian ancestors were  sphenacodont pelycosaurs, a group that also included  Dimetrodon. At the end of the Carboniferous period, this group diverged from the sauropsid line that led to today’s reptiles and birds. Preceded by many diverse groups of non-mammalian synapsids (sometimes referred to as mammal-like reptiles), the first mammals appeared in the early Mesozoic era. The modern mammalian orders arose in the Paleogene and Neogene periods of the Cenozoic era, after theextinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. {21} Ten Facts about Mammals 1. Most mammals are covered with hair or fur, and most have specialized teeth that help them to cut or chew their food. 2. The most successful mammals in this environment are ruminants-hoofed species such as buffaloes and antelopes, which

Animality

have a highly specialized digestive system that has evolved to break down cellulose, a tough substance that forms the walls of plant cells. 3. Placental mammals are one of three major groups of living mammals. 4. Mammals themselves are part of a larger tetrapod group called the Synapsida. 5. Mammal is an animal that feeds its young on the mother’s milk. 6. Mammals are important not only to people but also to the whole system of life on the earth. 7. Mammals that eat flesh, which is easy to digest, have a fairly simple stomach and short intestines. 8. Phylogenetically, the Mammalia are defined as the last common ancestor of monotremes (e.g., echidnas) and therian mammals (e.g., hedgehogs), and all of this last common ancestor’s descendants. 9. Mammals have integumentary systems made up of three layers: the outermost epidermis, the dermis, and the hypodermis. 10. No other animal has hair in the same form as mammals, and all mammals have some hair at least at the beginning of their lives – baby whales and dolphins are born with a moustache. {20} Proverbs about animals • “By trying often, the monkey learns to jump from the tree.” – Cameroonian Proverb • “Even monkeys sometimes fall from trees.” (Even Homer sometimes nods.) – Japanese Proverb • “Call the bear ‘Uncle’ till you are safe across the bridge.” – Turkish Proverb • “In time, even a bear can be taught to dance.” – Yiddish Saying • “Bulls make money and bears make money, but hogs just get slaughtered.” – American Proverb

55

56

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• • • •

“You never know how a cow catches a rabbit.” – Dutch Proverb “If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.” – proverb (unknown) “You come with a cat and call it a rabbit.” – Cameroonian Proverb “He who hunts two hares leaves one and loses the other.” – Japanese Proverb • «When a camel is at the foot of a mountain then judge of his height.» – Hindu Proverb • «If you want to keep camels, have a big enough door.» – Afghan Proverb • «Trust in Allah, but tie your camel.» – Old Muslim Proverb • «If the camel once get his nose in a tent, the body will soon follow.» – Saudi Proverb • «Little by little, the camel goes into the couscous.» – Moroccan Proverb • «One camel does not make fun of another camel’s hump.»  –  Ghanaian Proverb • «It is easier to make a camel jump a ditch than to make a fool listen to reason.» – Kurdish Proverb • «Death is a black camel that lies down at every door. Sooner or later you must ride the camel.» – Saudi Arabian Proverb • «The cat which did not reach the sausage said: Anyhow it is Friday.» – Georgian Proverb • «Cats don’t catch mice to please God.» – Afghan Proverb • «A hero only appears once the tiger is dead.» – Burmese Proverb • «The child of a tiger is a tiger.» – Haitian Proverb • «Where there are no tigers, a wildcat is very self-important.»  –  Korean Proverb • «Those who dislike cats will be carried to the cemetery in the rain.» – Dutch Proverb • «The child of a tiger is a tiger.» – Haitian Proverb • «Flatters, like cats, lick and then scratch.» – German Proverb • «If you play with a cat, you must not mind her scratch.» – Yiddish Proverb • «To live long, eat like a cat, drink like a dog.» – German Proverb

Animality

• «In a cat’s eyes, all things belong to cats.» – English Proverb • «When the mouse laughs at the cat there’s a hole nearby.»  –  Nigerian Proverb • «Wherever the mice laugh at the cat, there you will find a hole.» – Portugal Proverb • «All cats are bad in May.» – French Proverb • «A cat has nine lives. For three he plays, for three he strays, and for the last three he stays.» – English and American Proverb • «A cat with a straw tail keeps away from fire.» – English Proverb • «After dark all cats are leopards.»  –  Native American Proverb (Zuni) • «An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.» – Arab Proverb • «What the cat is not home, the mice will jump on the table.» – Dutch Jewish Saying • «If stretching were wealth, the cat would be rich.»  –  African Proverb • «One should not send a cat to deliver cream» – Yiddish saying • «The cat-moon eats the gray mice of night.»  –  Western Europe Proverb • «An old cat will never learn to dance.»  –  Moroccan Jewish Saying • «If a cat washes her face in front of several persons, the first person she looks at will be the first to get married.»  –  Early American saying • «In a cat’s eyes all things belong to cats.» – English saying • «When spiders unite they can tie down a lion.»  –  Ethiopian Proverb • «When the cat’s away, the mice will play.»  –  Western Europe Proverb • «If a girl treads on a cat’s tail, she will not find a husband before a year is out.» – French proverb • «Books and cats and fair-haired little girls make the best furnishings for a room.» – French proverb

57

58

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• «You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats.» – Colonial American Proverb • Whenever the cat of the house is black  • The lasses of lovers will have no lack. – Old English proverb • «In a cat’s eyes, all things belong to the cat.» – English Proverb • «Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.» – African Proverb • «The whisper of a pretty girl can be heard further than the roar of a lion.» – Arab Proverb • «Handsome cats and fat dung heaps are the sign of a good farmer.» – French proverb • «Beware of people who dislike cats.» – Irish proverb • «Who cares well for cats will marry as happily as he or she could ever wish.» – French proverb • «If you want to know what a tiger is like, look at a cat.» – Hindu proverb • «A roaring lion kills no game.» – African Proverb • «The cat’s a saint when there are no mice about.»  –  Japanese proverb • «The cat is a lion to the mouse.» – Albanian proverb • «A house without either a cat or a dog is the house of a scoundrel.» – Portuguese Proverb • «Where there are no tigers, a wildcat is very self-important.» –  Korean Proverb • «He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.»  –  Traditional Proverb • «A tiger does not have to proclaim its tigritude.» – Nigerian Proverb • «Don’t strike a flea on a tiger’s head.» – Chinese Proverb • «You come with a cat and call it a rabbit.»  –  Cameroonian Proverb • «A cat goes to a monastery, but she still remains a cat.» – Congolese Proverb • «The kind man feeds his cat before sitting down to dinner.» – Hebrew Proverb

Animality

• «An old cat will not learn how to dance.» – Moroccan Proverb • «A cat will teach her young ones all the tricks, except how to jump backwards.» – Netherlands Antillean Proverb • «When the mouse laughs at the cat, there’s a hole nearby.» – Nigerian Proverb • «Who rides a tiger cannot dismount.» – Chinese Proverb • «The goat that stayed with a deer learned farting» – Ethiopian Proverb • «A prudent man does not make the goat his gardener.» – Hungarian Proverb • «Young pigs grunt as as old pigs grunted before them.» – Danish Proverb • «Give to a pig when it grunts and a child when it cries, and you will have a fine pig and a bad child.» – Danish Proverb • «When a miser dies, the heirs feel as happy as when they kill a pig.» – Maltese Proverb • «If you are buying a cow, make sure that the price of the tail is included.» – Tamil Proverb • «You never know how a cow catches a rabbit.» – Dutch Proverb • «Milk the cow, but do not pull off the udder.» – Greek Proverb • «Her horns are not heavy for a cow» – Ethiopian Proverb • «Before you milk a cow tie it up.» – South African Proverb • «The good cow gets sold in its own country.» – Maltese Proverb • «Two farmers each claimed to own a certain cow. While one pulled on its head and the other pulled on its tail, meanwhile the cow was milked by a lawyer.» – Jewish Parable • «A noisy cow gives little milk.» – Polish Proverb • «Settling a dispute through the law is like losing a cow for the sake of a cat.» – Chinese Proverb • «Bulls make money and bears make money, but hogs just get slaughtered.» – American Proverb • «The fool who owns an ox is seldom recognized as a fool.» – South African Proverb • «An ox with long horns, even if he does not butt, will be accused of butting.» – Malay Proverb

59

60

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• «Cross in a crowd and the crocodile won’t eat you.»  –  Malagasy Proverb • «Only when you have crossed the river can you say the crocodile has a lump on his snout.» – Ghanaian Proverb • «Don’t call alligator long mouth till you pass him.» – Jamaican Proverb • «Don’t think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm.»  – Malayan Proverb • «If you call one wolf, you invite the pack.» – Bulgarian Proverb • «A hyena intrudes through a gap a dog opened.»  –  Ethiopian Proverb • «Oh hyena, don’t give me excuse to eat me» – Ethiopian Proverb • «The sheep has no choice when in the jaws of the wolf.» – Chinese proverb • «Live with wolves, and you learn to howl.» – Spanish Proverb • «Do not give a hyena meat to look after.» – African Proverb • «It is a hard winter when one wolf eats another.» – French Proverb • «Hunger will lead a fox out of the forest.» – Polish Proverb • «When the fox preaches, look to your geese.» – German Proverb • «Let every fox take care of his own tail.» – Italian Proverb • «Giving advice to a stupid man is like giving salt to a squirrel.»  – Kashmiri Proverb • «He who would deceive the fox must rise early.» –  French Proverb • «I am a prince and you are a prince; who will lead the donkeys?» – Saudi Arabian Proverb • «An ass is but an ass, though laden with gold.»  –  Romanian Proverb • «Honey is not sweet for a donkey» – Ethiopian Proverb • «Misfortunes come on horseback and depart on foot.» – French Proverb • «No one sees a fly on a trotting horse.» Meaning: Don’t sweat the details, because people won’t notice them in the big scheme of things. – Polish Saying

Animality

• “It is not the horse that draws the cart, but the oats.” – Russian proverb • “Judge not the horse by his saddle.” – Chinese Proverb • “If wishes were horses, beggars might ride.” – English Proverb • “Hay is more acceptable to an ass than gold.” – Latin Proverb • “If three people say you are an ass, put on a bridle.”  –  Spanish Proverb • “Don’t change horses while crossing a stream.”  –  American Proverb • “When you go to a donkey’s house, don’t talk about ears.” – Jamaican Proverb • “A donkey always says thank you with a kick.” – Kenyan Proverb • “Whoever plows with a team of donkeys must have patience.”  – Zimbabwean Proverb • “It’s the same donkey, but with a new saddle.” – Afghan Proverb • “Fools worship mules that carry gold.” – French Proverb • It is not enough for a man to know how to ride; he must know how to fall. – Mexican Proverb • The wagon rests in winter, the sleigh in summer, the horse never. – Yiddish Proverb • Good people get cheated, just as good horses get ridden. – Chinese Proverb • «Cats don’t catch mice to please God.» – Afghan Proverb • «When the mouse laughs at the cat there’s a hole nearby.» – Nigerian Proverb • «Better a mouse in the pot than no meat at all.»  –  Romanian Proverb • «Wherever the mice laugh at the cat, there you will find a hole.»  – Portugal Proverb • «What the cat is not home, the mice will jump on the table.» – Dutch Jewish Saying • «The cat--moon eats the gray mice of night.»  –  Western Europe Proverb • «When the cat’s away, the mice will play.» – Western Europe Proverb

61

62

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• «The cat’s a saint when there are no mice about.»  –  Japanese proverb • «The cat is a lion to the mouse.» – Albanian proverb • «It’s not the fault of the mouse, but of the one who offers him the cheese.» – Mexican Proverb • «You never know how a cow catches a rabbit.» – Dutch Proverb • «He who hunts two hares leaves one and loses the other.» – Japanese Proverb • «When the snake is in the house, one need not discuss the matter at length.» – African Proverb • «Use your enemy’s hand to catch a snake.» – Persian Proverb • «A kind word can attract even the snake from his nest.» – Saudi Arabian Proverb • «The turtle lays thousands of eggs without anyone knowing, but when the hen lays an egg, the whole country is informed.» – Malaysian Proverb • «When spiders unite they can tie down a lion.»  –  Ethiopian Proverb • «Do not walk into a snake pit with your eyes open.»  –  Somali Proverb • «A snake deserves no pity.» – Yiddish Proverb • «If a rich man ate a snake, they would say it was because of his wisdom; if a poor man ate it, they would say it was because of his stupidity.» – Saudi Arabian Proverb • «Without a shepherd, sheep are not a flock.» – Russian Proverb • «The sheep has no choice when in the jaws of the wolf.» – Chinese proverb • «It is the part of a good shepherd to shear his flock, not to skin it.» – Latin Proverb {22}

Animality

Exercise 5 Baby Animals. Complete each of the following sentences with the correct word.  Example: A baby dog is called a puppy. 1. A baby cat is called a 2. A baby deer is called a 3. A bay sheep is called a 4. A baby chicken is called a 5. A baby duck is called a 6. A baby bear is called s 7. A baby goat is called a 8. A baby pig is called a 9. A baby cow is called a Answers: 1. kitten 2. fawn 3. lamb 4. chick 5. duckling

6. 7. 8. 9.

cub kid piglet calf {23}

Pet & Animal Superstitions We know that in ancient times people believed in different and diverse superstitions. But personally I do not confide in them at all. Albatross In the days of sail, an albatross flying round a ship in mid-ocean was an omen of wind and bad weather to come. It was considered very unlucky to kill the albatross as it was thought to embody the restless soul of some dead mariner. An example of this were heard in July 1959 when the cargo liner, Calpean Star, docked at Liverpool with engine trouble, after a voyage from the Antarctic that had been dogged by many misfortunes. The crew blamed these on the presence on board of an albatross destined for a zoo. Fifty of the crew staged a sit-down strike because they were unwilling to continue their unlucky voyage.

63

64

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

The captain is reported as saying that it had required some courage on his part to bring the albatross on board in the first place. And most of his crew still believed that the bird would bring bad weather or misfortune, or that it was connected with the souls of the dead. Bats A bat means long life and happiness, a good omen, to the Chinese and Poles. If a bat lands on your head, you should hope the Cricket sees rain coming because the bat won’t get off until it hears thunder. When you see a bat, you might also be seeing the Devil, a witch, a ghost, or  Dracula. Bats have always had a connection with witches, and can have good or bad connotations, depending on the tradition. One particular tradition is that if a bat flies three times around a house, it is a death omen. Also, when bats come out early and fly about playfully, it is a sign of good weather to come. Bees  There are many superstitions abou the bee such as if a bee enters your home, it’s a sign that you will soon have a visitor. If you kill the bee, you will have bad luck, or the visitor will be unpleasant.The Bee has often been regarded as wise or even holy, having previous knowledge as well as knowledge of many secret matters. In foremore times they were sometimes divine messengers, and their constant humming was believed to be a hymn of praise. Because of their status it is still considered unlucky in some places to kill a bee. If a bee flies into the house it is a sign of good luck, or of the arrival of a stranger; however, the luck will only hold if the bee is allowed to either stay or to fly out of the house of its own accord. A bee landing on someone’s hand is believed to foretell money to come, while if the bee settles on someone’s head it means that person will rise to greatness. They were once considered to deliberately sting those who swore in front of them, and also to attack those who were considered unfaithful or untrue; it was once held to be a sure sign that a girl was a virgin if she could walk through a swarm of bees without being stung. Bee-stings

Animality

were once thought to prevent rheumatism, and in some places a beesting was also thought to cure it. Birds A bird that flies into a house, foretells an important message. A white bird foretells death. A bird call from the north means tragedy; from the south is good for crops; from the west is good luck; from the east, good love. Butterfly  If the first butterfly you see in the year is white, you will have good luck all year. Calf An Icelandic folk tale is that the first calf born during the winter is white, the winter will be a bad one. Cat It is believed that if a black cat crosses your path, satan was playng attention to you. A black cat is lucky or unlucky, depending on where you live.Cats were sacred to the goddess, Isis in Egyptian mythology. Bast or Pasht, the daughter of Isis, was represented with the face of a cat. Anyone who killed a cat was put to death. Archaeologists in Egypt found cat cemeteries from which a shipment of embalmed cats was taken to England. In Egypt it was believed that a black cat crossing one’s path brought good luck. In East Anglia, England, they used to mummify cats and place them in the walls of their homes to ward off evil spirits. If a black cat walks towards you, it brings good fortune, but if it walks away, it takes the good luck with it. Keep cats away from babies because they “suck the breath” of the child. A cat onboard a ship is considered to bring luck. Cattle  Cattle were highly regarded by the Celts, being the most important animal for their sustenance and welfare and also a basis for wealth

65

66

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

and prestige. Cattle were believed to have close ties with their owners and to be aware of their activities and festivals. In some places it was thought that cattle should be informed of any deaths in their owners’ household, or the cows, sensing that something was wrong, would become sick and most likely die. During medieval times the superstition arose that cattle would kneel at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve. In some parts of Europe they were also believed to gain the ability to speak on this night, although it was considered dangerous for any human to hear their speech as misfortune would befall anyone who overheard them. In England, Ireland and Wales the cow was believed to be a fairy cow that gave never-ending milk until their generosity was abused by some greedy human, causing a loss of the cow or her powers. These cows were usually white with red ears. It was considered unlucky if any offer was made to purchase cattle which was not for sale, leading to their illness and perhaps death. In some parts it was also considered unlucky to strike cattle with a human hand, a stick would be used to drive the cattle from place to place, and would be thrown away once the destination was reached. Cattle who stand close together in low ground, and feed hard together, are said to be foretelling rain, but if they stand on high ground the weather will be fair. Cows  If a plow kills a daddy long legs the cows will go dry. An Icealandic folk tale is that if you see nine cows in a shed with a gray bull next to the door, and all of them lie on the same side, you are in luck, because you will be granted one wish. Cricket  A cricket is a lucky house spirit that takes it’s luck away when it leaves. A cricket can tell of oncoming rain, death, and x-lovers. Daddy Long Legs  If a plow kills a daddy long legs the cows will go dry.

Animality

Dogs  Greeks thought dogs could foresee evil. Howling dogs meant the wind god had summoned death, and the spirits of the dead will be taken. Also a howling dog at night was meant to be bad luck or that somebody close to you would become very sick or worse. Dogs also have been credited with the power of sensing supernatural influences, and seeing ghosts, spirits, faeries or deities which are invisible to the human eye. When a dog howls in the silence of the night, it is said to be an omen of death, or at least of misfortune. If a dog howled outside the house of a sick person it was to be an omen that they would die, especially if the dog was driven away and returned to howl again. A dog which gives a single howl, or three howls, and then falls silent is said to be marking a death that has just occurred nearby. Donkeys  Christians believed that donkeys originally had unmarked hides, and that it was only after Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey that they received the dark cross on their backs. One old saying says that no-one ever sees a dead donkey, however, there is also a tradition that to see a dead donkey means great good fortune. Elephants  In Siam, white elephants were rare and not made to work for their upkeep. Fish  Throw back the first fish you catch then you’ll be lucky the whole day fishing. A superstition held by some fsherman it that it’s bad luck to get married when the fish aren’t biting. A fish should always be eaten from the head toward the tail. To dream of fish was meant to mean that someone you know is pregnant. If you count the number of fish you caught, you will catch no more that day. It’s bad luck to say the word “pig” while fishing at sea.

67

68

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

Frogs  Frogs, like toads, were once used by witches. A well known country cure for thrush was to hold a live frog with its head in the patient’s mouth. As it breathed, so it drew the disease away and into itself. Warts could also be cured by rubbing a frog across them. The dried body of a frog worn in a silk bag around the neck averted epilepsy and other fits. Frogs were also used in love-magic.A frog brings good luck to the house it enters. Hens  A hen which crows is considered to be unlucky, as is a hen with tail-feathers like those of a rooster. Hens which roost in the morning are said to be foretelling a death. A hen which enters the house is an omen that a visitor will arrive, and this is also the case if a rooster crows near the door or comes inside. Horses  A white horse could warn of danger, and lived longer than a dark horse. Spotted horses are considered magical. Grey horses and horses with four white socks are considered to be unlucky. In some places it is lucky to meet a white horse in others it might be the opposite either way, tradition states that upon meeting a white horse one should spit and make a wish, or cross one’s fingers until a dog is seen. In many places it is lucky to lead a horse through the house as it was believed this may stem from the association of horses with fertility and crops, which has lasted in form of hobby-horses which were originally part of Beltane (May Day) revels. Horseshoes  A circular ring made from an iron horseshoe nail gives the same protection against evil as the horseshoe itself. The horseshoe or crescent moon shape was seen as a sign of good fortune and fertility.

Animality

The horseshoe must be hung with the points up to keep the luck from spilling out. A horseshoe, hung above the doorway, will bring good luck to a home. In most of Europe protective horseshoes are placed in a downward facing position, but in some parts of Ireland and Britain people believe that the shoes must be turned upward or “the luck will run out.” A horseshoe hung in the bedroom will keep nightmares away. Jaybirds  Jaybirds go down to the devil’s house on Fridays to tell all the bad things that have happened during the week. Jaybirds who remain on Friday are checking up on what people are doing. Ladybug  The bright scarlet ladybug is a luck-bringer, probably because it is traditionally associated by its color with fire. It is a sign of good fortune if one lands on a person’s hand or dress. It must, however, be allowed to fly away of its own accord, and must not be brushed off. It is permissible to speed it onwards by a gentle puff, and by the recitation of the rhyme which runs, Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children are gone. The deeper the ladybird’s color, the better luck it brings. The number of spots on its back are also important. The more spots...the better the luck! If a young girl catches a ladybug and then releases it, the direction in which it flies away will be the direction from which her future husband will come. Moth A big black moth in the house means a deceased one is just visiting reincarnated through that moth. Mouse  If somebody throws away a dead mouse, the wind will soon start to blow from that direction.

69

70

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

Owls  The ancient Greeks revered owls and believed them sacred to Athena. Affiliated with the goddess of wisdom and learning, the owl was considered wise and kind. Later on somewhere in time, the owl’s reputation plummeted and hearing the hoot of an owl is now associated with bad luck. To counter evil owls people put irons in their fires. Or threw salt, hot peppers or vinegar into the fire, in doing so the owl will get a sore tongue, hoot no more, and no one close to you will be in trouble. When you hear an owl, take off your clothes, turn them inside out and put them back on. You might not want to do this if you are in public. Another superstition is that any man who eats roasted owl will be obedient and a slave to his wife. Peacocks  A peacock feather has an evil eye at the end. Argus, the Greek legend, says a hundred eyed monster was turned into a peacock with all it’s eyes in it’s tail. Pigs  One superstition to get rid of warts involves rubbing a peeled apple and giving it to a pig. Pet & Animal Poetry a)Read these poems b)Choose one of them to recite c)What myths, riddles and fairy tales do you know in your native language? All Things Bright and Beauteous by Cecil Frances Alexander All things bright and beauteous,  All creatures great and small,  All things wise and wondrous,  The LORD GOD made them all.

Animality

Each little flower that opens,  Each little bird that sings,  He made their glowing colours,  He made their tiny wings. The rich man in his castle,  The poor man at his gate,  GOD made them, high or lowly,  And ordered their estate. The purple-headed mountain,  The river running by,  The sunset, and the morning,  That brightens up the sky, The cold wind in the winter,  The pleasant summer sun,  The ripe fruits in the garden,  He made them every one. The tall trees in the greenwood,  The meadows where we play,  The rushes by the water,  We gather every day;-He gave us eyes to see them,  And lips that we might tell,  How great is GOD Almighty,  Who has made all things well. I Had A Little Cow – Traditional I had a little cow: to save her, I turned her into the meadow to graze her; There came a heavy storm of rain, And drove the little cow home again. The church doors they stood open, And there the little cow cropen; The bell ropes they were made of hay, And the little cow ate them all away; The sexton came to toll the bell,

71

72

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

And pushed the little cow into the well! Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar I know what the caged bird feels, alas! When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; When the wind stirs soft through the springing glass, And the river flows like a stream of glass; When the first bird sings and the first bud opes, And the faint perfume from its chalice steals-I know what the caged bird feels! I know why the caged bird beats his wing Till its blood is red on the cruel bars; For he must fly back to his perch and cling When he fain would be on the bough a-swing; And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars And they pulse again with a keener sting-I know why he beats his wing! I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,-When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings-I know why the caged bird sings! {22} Animal idioms act as a guinea pig – to allow some kind of test to be performed on someone. I was not happy to act as a guinea pig for the new training material.  ahead of the pack – to be more successful than other people who are doing the same thing as you (a pack is a group of animals like dogs or wolves who live together). The girl studied hard all summer and was ahead of the pack when she returned to school in the autumn. 

Animality

alley cat – a stray cat. I began to feed the alley cat and now it comes to my house every day.  as awkward as a cow on roller skates – very awkward. The little girl was as awkward as a cow on roller skates when she first began riding her bicycle.  as blind as a bat – blind. The man is as blind as a bat and cannot see more than a small distance ahead.  as busy as a beaver – very busy. I have been as busy as a beaver all morning.  as clean as a hound’s tooth – very clean. The classroom was as clean as a hound’s tooth when the students finished cleaning it.  as conceited as a barber’s cat – very conceited, vain. My friend became as conceited as a barber’s cat after she won the award at school.  as crooked as a dog’s hind leg – dishonest. The politician is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg and nobody trusts him.  as drunk as a skunk – very drunk. The man was as drunk as a skunk when he walked into the restaurant.  as fat as a pig – very fat. The woman in the supermarket was as fat as a pig.  as gentle as a lamb – very gentle. The girl is as gentle as a lamb when she is with her little sister.  as gruff as a bear – gruff, unsociable. Our neighbor is as gruff as a bear when we meet him in the morning.  as hungry as a bear – very hungry. I was as hungry as a bear when I arrived home from work.  as innocent as a lamb – having no guilt, naïve. The little girl is as innocent as a lamb and everybody loves her.  as meek as a lamb – quiet, docile, meek. The secretary was as meek as a lamb when she went to ask her boss for a salary increase.  as nervous as a cat – very nervous. The man was as nervous as a cat when he talked to the woman.  as poor as a church mouse – very poor. My cousin is as poor as a church mouse and never has any money to spend.  as quiet as a mouse – very quiet, shy. I was as quiet as a mouse when I left my house early this morning. 

73

74

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

as scared as a rabbit – very scared. I was as scared as a rabbit when I entered the empty room.  as sick as a dog – very sick. My friend was as sick as a dog when he left the restaurant last night.  as sly as a fox – smart and clever. The manager of our apartment is as sly as a fox.  as strong as a horse/ox – very strong. The man was as strong as an ox and easily helped us move the sofa.  as stubborn as a mule – very stubborn. My friend is as stubborn as a mule and you can never make her change her mind.  as weak as a kitten – weak, sickly. The girl is as weak as a kitten and cannot carry the books.  as wild as a tiger – very wild. The little boy was as wild as a tiger when we were trying to look after him.  back the wrong horse – to support someone or something that cannot or does not win or succeed. We backed the wrong horse when we supported the candidate for mayor.  badger (someone) – to get someone to do something by repeated questions or by bothering them. I always have to badger my friend in order to make him return my computer games.  one’s bark is worse than one’s bite – one’s words are worse than one’s actions. You should not worry about the secretary. Her bark is worse than her bite and she is really a very nice person.  bark up the wrong tree – to choose the wrong course of action, to ask the wrong person (a hunting dog may make a mistake when chasing an animal and bark up the wrong tree). My boss is barking up the wrong tree. I did not cause the computer problem.  beat a dead horse – to continue fighting a battle that has been won, to continue to argue a point that has been settled. I was beating a dead horse when I was arguing with my boss.  the best-laid plans of mice and men – the best thought-out plans that anyone can make. The best-laid plans of mice and men could not prevent our travel problems. 

Animality

bet on the wrong horse – to misread the future, to not choose the winning person or solution. The man is betting on the wrong horse if he supports the other city in their bid for the Olympic games.  better to be a live dog than a dead lion – it is better to be a live coward than a dead hero (this is from Ecclesiastes in the Bible). It is better to be a live dog than a dead lion so I walked away and did not try and fight with the man.  better to be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion – it is better to be the leader of a small group than a follower of a bigger one. The young athlete always played for his hometown team rather than moving to a larger city with a bigger team. He thought that it was better to be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion.  the black sheep of the family – the worst or the most unpopular or disliked member of a family. My cousin is the black sheep of the family and nobody likes to talk about him.  bright-eyed and bushy-tailed – to be very cheerful and eager (like a squirrel with bright eyes and a bushy tail). The children were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when they woke up in the morning.  a bull in a china shop – a tactless person who upsets others or upsets plans, a very clumsy person. The boy is like a bull in a china shop so you should be careful if you invite him to your house.  buy a pig in a poke – to buy something without seeing it or knowing anything about it. You can buy the used computer but it will be like buying a pig in a poke if you do not look at it first.  by shank’s mare – by foot. I came to the meeting by shank’s mare.  call the dogs off or call off the dogs - to stop threatening or chasing or hounding someone. The police decided to call the dogs off and stop hunting for the man.  a cash cow – a product or service that makes much money. Our new business is a cash cow. We are making much money now.  cast pearls before swine – to waste something on someone who will not be thankful or care about it. Giving the jewellery to the woman will be casting pearls before swine. She will not appreciate it at all. 

75

76

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

cat burglar – a burglar who enters a building by climbing a wall etc. A cat burglar entered our apartment and stole our television.  cat gets one`s tongue – one cannot speak because of shyness. The cat got the woman’s tongue and she could not say anything at all.  a cat has nine lives – cats can survive accidents that would kill most animals. The boy never becomes injured. He is like a cat with nine lives.  a cat in gloves catches no mice – if you are too careful and polite you may not get what you want. A cat in gloves catches no mice and I advised my friend that he should be more aggressive at work or he will not be successful.  a cat nap – a short sleep taken during the day. I had a cat nap in the afternoon so that I would feel refreshed in the evening.  a cat on a hot tin roof – full of lively activity. The boy was jumping around like a cat on a hot tin roof and we could not make him be quiet.  champ/chomp at the bit – to be ready and anxious to do something (a bit is put into a horse’s mouth for control of the horse). Everyone was chomping at the bit to get started on their holiday.  change horses in midstream – to make new plans or choose a new leader in an activity that has already begun. They have decided to change lawyers but I told them that they should not change horses in midstream.  a cock-and-bull story – a silly story that is not true. Our neighbor gave us a cock-and-bull story about how our window was broken.  a copycat – someone who copies another person`s work etc. The boy is a copycat and often copies the other students’ work.  cry wolf – to give a false alarm, to warn of a danger that is not there. The man is crying wolf. There is no danger from the electrical system.  curiosity killed the cat – being too nosy or curious may get a person into trouble. “You should not worry about what your friend is doing. Remember, curiosity killed the cat.”  a dark horse – a candidate who is little known to the general public. The candidate for mayor was a dark horse until he gave some good speeches on TV. 

Animality

dog and pony show – something that you disapprove of because you think that it has only been organized to impress you (like a dog and pony show in a circus). We had serious questions about the project but we only got a dog and pony show when we questioned our business partners.  dog-eat-dog – ready or willing to fight and hurt others to get what one wants. It is a dog-eat-dog world in our company.  dog in the manger – someone who prevents others from doing what they themselves do not want to do (in Aesop’s Fables a dog that cannot eat hay lays in the hayrack and prevents the other animals from eating the hay). My friend always acts like a dog in the manger and often tries to prevent us from enjoying ourselves.  donkey’s years – a very long time. I was happy to see my friend because I had not seen her in donkey’s years.  a dumb bunny – a stupid or gullible person. “He really is a dumb bunny. He does such stupid things.”  eager beaver – a person who is always eager to work or do something extra. The woman is an eager beaver and will do very well in this company.  eat high on/off the hog – to eat good or expensive food. We were eating high off the hog during our ocean cruise.  eat like a horse – to eat a lot. My brother eats like a horse.  every dog has his day – everyone will have his chance or turn, everyone will get what he deserves. “Don`t worry about him. Every dog has his day and he will eventually suffer for all the bad things that he is doing.”  ferret (information or something) out of (someone) – to get something from someone by being persistent. I worked hard to ferret the location of the party out of my friend.  fight like cats and dogs – to argue and fight with someone (usually used for people who know each other). The two children were fighting like cats and dogs when we entered the room.  flog a dead horse – to continue fighting a battle that has been won, to continue to argue a point that has been settled. My friend was flogging

77

78

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

a dead horse when she would not stop arguing about the mistake on her paycheck.  a fraidy-cat – someone who is easily frightened (usually used by children). The little boy called his friend a fraidy-cat because his friend would not climb the tree.  get (someone`s) goat – to annoy someone. My friend is always complaining about the way that I do things which gets my goat.  get off one`s high horse – to begin to be humble and agreeable. I wish that my supervisor would get off her high horse and begin to think about how other people feel about things.  get on one`s high horse – to behave with arrogance. My friend is always getting on her high horse and telling people what to do.  go ape (over someone or something) – to become highly excited or angry about someone or something. Our teacher will go ape if you do not finish the work that was due today.  go hog-wild – to behave wildly. The soccer fans went hog-wild when they arrived in the city for the game.  go to the dogs – to deteriorate, to become bad. Many things in our city have gone to the dogs during the last ten years.  go whole hog – to do everything possible, to be extravagant. We went whole hog in our effort to make the convention a success.  grin like a Cheshire cat – to grin or smile broadly. The little boy was grinning like a Cheshire cat when he entered the room.  the hair of the dog that bit one – a drink of alcohol that one takes when recovering from a hangover. The man had the hair of the dog that bit him before he ate breakfast.  have a cow – to become very angry and upset about something. Our teacher had a cow when nobody prepared for the class.  have a tiger by the tail – to have a task or situation that you are not prepared for or which is a bigger challenge that you expected. The politician had a tiger by the tail as he tried to manage the large problem.  have a whale of a time – to have an exciting and interesting time. We had a whale of a time at the party last night. 

Animality

have bats in one’s belfry – to be a little bit crazy. I think that our neighbor has bats in her belfry.  hit the bulls-eye – to reach or focus on the main point of something. Our manager hit the bulls-eye when he talked about the problems in the company.  hold one`s horses – to wait, to be patient. “Hold your horses for a moment while I make a phone call.”  Holy cow – used to express strong feelings of astonishment or pleasure or anger. “Holy cow,” the man said when he saw the car that hit the street lamp.  hoof it – to walk or run (a hoof is the foot of a horse or sheep or cow etc.). I decided to hoof it when I came downtown this morning.  horse around – to play around (in a rough way). The teacher told the children not to horse around while they were getting ready for class.  a horse of a different color – another matter entirely, something else, something different than the subject that is being discussed. Changing locations is a horse of a different color and was never discussed in the meeting.  horse sense – common sense, practical thinking. The boy does not have any horse sense and often makes the wrong decision.  horse trade – to bargain in a hard and skillful way. We had to do some horse trading but finally we were able to buy the new house.  to hound (someone) – to pursue or chase someone, to harass someone. The manager is always hounding the younger members of her staff to make them work hard.  in a pig`s eye – unlikely, not so, never. Never in a pig`s eye will my friend be able to save enough money to go to Mexico for the winter.  in the doghouse – in disgrace or disfavor, in trouble. The man is in the doghouse with his wife because he came home late last night.  in two shakes of a lamb’s tail – very quickly. I promised that I would meet my friend in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.  kangaroo court – an illegal court formed by a group of people to settle a dispute among themselves. The military court in the small country was a kangaroo court that permitted the military to do whatever they wanted. 

79

80

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

keep the wolf from the door – to maintain oneself at the most basic level. My friend’s part-time job is enough for him to keep the wolf from the door.  keep the wolves at bay – to fight against some kind of trouble. Many people are angry about the new tax. The government has to work hard to keep the wolves at bay.  kill the fatted calf – to prepare an elaborate banquet for someone. We will kill the fatted calf and have a big feast for my parents.  lead a dog`s life – to lead a miserable life. The man is leading a dog`s life since he married the woman who everyone told him not to marry.  a leopard can’t change its spots – you cannot change someone’s basic human nature or bad qualities. The manager wrote a letter of apology to the customer but a leopard can’t change its spots. The manager has not changed and the letter does not mean anything.  let sleeping dogs lie – do not make trouble if you do not have to. You should let sleeping dogs lie and not ask our boss about the dispute.  let the cat out of the bag – to tell something that is supposed to be a secret. The teacher let the cat out of the bag when she began talking about the plans to close the school.  like a bat out of hell – with great speed and force. I ran like a bat out of hell to catch the bus.  like a deer caught in the headlights – like someone who is very confused and does not know what to do. The boy looked like a deer caught in the headlights when we discovered him in the locked room.  like lambs to the slaughter – quietly and without complaining about the dangers that may lie ahead. Our football team went like lambs to the slaughter to play against the best football team in the country.  lion’s share of (something) – the larger part or share of something. We found the lion’s share of the lost tickets but some are still missing.  a live dog is better than a dead lion – it is better to be a live coward than a dead hero (this is from Ecclesiastes in the Bible). A live dog is better than a dead lion and I told my friend not to get into a fight with the angry man in the restaurant. 

Animality

live high on/off the hog – to have the best of everything. My friend has been living high on the hog since he changed jobs.  loaded for bear – very angry. The man was loaded for bear when he went in to see the supervisor.  lock horns with (someone) – to get into an argument with someone. I locked horns with my neighbor yesterday morning.  lock the barn door after the horse is gone – to try to deal with something after it is too late. My friend wants to fix his house. However, it is like locking the barn door after the horse is gone. There was a flood and the damage is already done.  a lone wolf – someone who prefers to spend time alone and has few friends. The boy was a lone wolf and spent most of his time alone.  look a gift horse in the mouth – to complain if a gift is not perfect. The girl should not look a gift horse in the mouth. She should be happy that she received a present from her friends.  look like something the cat dragged in – to look tired or worn out or dirty. I was very tired and I looked like something the cat dragged in.  look like the cat that swallowed/ate the canary – to look smug and self-satisfied, to look as if you have just had a great success. “You look like the cat that swallowed the canary. What happened?”  make a monkey out of (someone) – to make someone look foolish. My friend made a monkey out of me when he started arguing with me in front of my boss.  make a mountain out of a molehill – to make something that is unimportant seem important. You are making a mountain out of a molehill when you talk about the mistake.  make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear – to create something of value from something of no value. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. There is no point in trying to teach that woman manners.  monkey around with (someone or something) – to play with or waste time with someone or something. The boy spent the morning monkeying around with the old radio.  monkey business – unethical or illegal activity, mischief. The boy should stop the monkey business and do the job correctly. 

81

82

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

a monkey on one’s back – a serious problem that stops someone from being successful at something. Seven games without scoring a goal was a monkey on the back of the famous soccer player.  monkey see, monkey do – someone copies something that someone else does. It is monkey see, monkey do for the boy. He copies everything that his friend does.  more fun than a barrel of monkeys – very funny, fun. The children love their teacher because he is more fun than a barrel of monkeys.  not enough room to swing a cat – not very much space. There was not enough room to swing a cat in the small apartment.  on horseback – on the back of a horse. We rode to the river on horseback.  a paper tiger – a person or organization that is supposed to have a lot of power but is actually very weak. The manager was a paper tiger and did not have any power in the company.  piggy bank – a small bank (sometimes in the shape of a pig) for saving money. The boy has been putting money into his piggy bank to save for a bicycle.  piggyback – sitting or being carried on someone`s back and shoulders. The boy was riding piggyback on his father`s shoulders.  play cat and mouse with (someone) – to tease or fool someone, to change between different types of behavior when dealing with someone. The man is playing cat and mouse with his company about his plans to quit or not.  play possum – to pretend to be inactive or asleep or dead. I think that the man is playing possum and is not really sleeping.  put on the dog – to dress or entertain in a luxurious and extravagant manner. We put on the dog for my parents when they came to visit us.  put one’s head in the lion’s mouth – to put oneself in a dangerous or difficult situation. I put my head in the lion’s mouth when I went to the meeting with my boss.  put (someone or something) out to pasture – to retire someone or something (just as you would put a horse that is too old to work out to pasture). We finally decided to put our old car out to pasture and buy a new one. 

Animality

put the cart before the horse – to do things in the wrong order. Buying a ticket before we make our holiday plans is putting the cart before the horse.  put the cat among the pigeons – to cause trouble. Sending the unpopular supervisor to talk to the angry workers was like putting the cat among the pigeons.  rain cats and dogs – to rain very hard. It has been raining cats and dogs all day.  rat on (someone) – to report someone’s bad behavior to someone. The little boy ratted on his friend at school.  rat out on (someone) – to desert or betray someone. The boy ratted out on his friends. Now they won`t talk to him.  rat race – a rushed and confusing way of living that does not seem to have a purpose. My uncle is tired of being in the rat race every day. He plans to quit his job soon and do something else.  ride herd on (someone) – to watch closely and strictly supervise someone (as a cowboy would supervise a herd of cattle). The manager has been riding herd on his employees so that they can finish the job quickly.  a road hog – a car driver who uses more than his share of the road. The person in front of me on the highway was a road hog but I tried not to get angry.  rub (someone/someone’s fur) the wrong way – to irritate someone (just as you would irritate a dog or cat if you rub their fur the wrong way). The woman who I work with always rubs me the wrong way.  a sacred cow. – a person or thing that is never criticized or changed even if it should be (from a cow which is sacred in India). The school lunch program is a sacred cow which they do not want to change.  a scaredy-cat – someone who is easily frightened (usually used by children). The children called their friend a scaredy-cat because she would not enter the empty house.  see a man about a dog – to leave for some unmentioned purpose (often to go to the washroom). I left our table in the restaurant to go and see a man about a dog. 

83

84

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

separate the sheep from the goats – to divide people into two groups. We had to separate the sheep from the goats when we began to make selections for the school choir.  serve as a guinea pig – to allow some kind of test to be performed on someone. I was not happy that I had to serve as a guinea pig for the new training material.  a shaggy dog story – a long and often pointless story that is told as a joke and often ends in a very silly or unexpected way. My friend told me a shaggy dog story about how he lost his bicycle.  smell a rat – to be suspicious of someone or something, to feel that something is wrong. I smell a rat. There is something wrong with the free credit card offer.  squirrel away (something) or squirrel (something) away – to hide or store something. My niece likes to squirrel away as much money as possible from her part-time job.  straight from the horse`s mouth – directly from the person who said something, directly from a dependable source. I heard it straight from the horse`s mouth that our supervisor will be leaving the company next week.  the straw that broke the camel`s back – a small final trouble or problem which follows other troubles and causes everything to collapse or something to happen. The mistake on the bill was the straw that broke the camel`s back. We finally fired the new accounting clerk.  one’s tail between one`s legs – feeling beaten or humiliated (like a frightened or defeated dog as it walks away). The manager left the meeting with his tail between his legs after he was criticized by the company president.  the tail wagging the dog – a situation where a small part controls the whole thing. The tail is wagging the dog. The receptionist controls everything in the office.  take the bull by the horns – to take decisive and direct action. My aunt decided to take the bull by the horns and begin preparations for the family reunion.  there is more than one way to skin a cat – there is more than one way to do something. I knew that there was more than one way

Animality

to skin a cat so I did not worry about the rules and time limit of my project.  throw (someone) to the lions – to permit someone to be blamed or criticized for something without trying to help or protect him or her. The company threw the manager to the lions and made him take responsibility for the problem.  throw (someone) to the wolves – to send someone into danger without protection, to sacrifice someone. The salesman decided to throw his coworker to the wolves when he asked him to meet the angry customer.  top dog – the most important person in an organization. My uncle is the top dog in his company.  turn tail – to run away from trouble or danger. We decided to turn tail and leave the restaurant before there was an argument.  until the cows come home – until very late, for a long time. We can talk until the cows come home this evening.  weasel out of (something) – to not have to do something (like a weasel which can move through small openings). My friend was able to weasel out of going to the store for his mother.  when the cat’s away, the mice will play – when you are not watching someone they may get into trouble, when a person with authority is absent then those below him or her can do whatever they want. When the cat’s away, the mice will play and when the teacher left the classroom the students began to play.  a white elephant – something that is not useful and costs a lot of money to maintain. The airport is a white elephant and nobody liked to use it.  wild horses could not drag (someone away) – there is nothing that will force someone to go somewhere or do something. Wild horses could not drag me away from my favorite TV show last night.  a wildcat strike – a strike spontaneously arranged by a group of workers. There was a wildcat strike at the factory and the workers stopped work.  wolf down (something) – to gulp down something, to eat something quickly. I wolfed down my dinner and left the house for the movie. 

85

86

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

a wolf in sheep`s clothing – a person who pretends to be good but really is bad. “Be careful of that man. He is a wolf in sheep`s clothing.”  work like a dog – to work very hard. The boy worked like a dog on his school project.  work like a horse – to work very hard. My grandfather worked like a horse when he was a young man.  you can lead a horse to water (but you can’t make it drink) – you can give someone the opportunity to do something but you cannot force him or her to do it if they do not want to. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink and no matter how hard we try to help my cousin get a job he will not make any effort to find one.  you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. – it is difficult for older people to learn new things. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks and I do not think that my father will ever change his eating habits.  Exercise 6 Idiom Quizzes – Animals Choose an idiom to replace the expression in the brackets:  1. ”Please stop that (mischief) and do some serious work.”  (a) dog and pony show (b) monkey business (c) piggyback (d) road hog 2. The little boy asked many questions until his mother finally said that (asking too many questions will get him into trouble).  (a) the cat had got his tongue (b) you can’t teach an old dog new tricks (c) curiosity killed the cat (d) there is more than one way to skin a cat 3. The little boy asked many questions until his mother finally said that (asking too many questions will get him into trouble).  (a) the cat had got his tongue (b) you can’t teach an old dog new tricks (c) curiosity killed the cat (d) there is more than one way to skin a cat 4. The new product is (a good source of money) for our company.  (a) a cash cow (b) as strong as an ox (c) a horse of a different color (d) a dark horse 5. The new product is (a good source of money) for our company.  (a) a cash cow (b) as strong as an ox (c) a horse of a different color (d) a dark horse

Animality

6. Our supervisor has a reputation for (watching and controlling) the workers.  (a) living high off the hog on (b) riding herd on (c) horsing around with (d) going ape with 7. When the police arrived the two men looked frightened and suddenly (ran away).  (a) hit the bull`s eye (b) let the cat out of the bag (c) turned tail (d) cried wolf 8. I heard about the plans for the new magazine article (directly from the person responsible).  (a) off his high horse (b) straight from the horse`s mouth (c) in two shakes of a lamb’s tail (d) in a pig`s eye 9. The car engine stopping while driving on the freeway was the (thing that finally made me decide to do something) so I finally sold the car.  (a) straw that broke the camel`s back (b) black sheep of the family (c) cat on a hot tin roof (d) wolf in sheep`s clothing 10. The businessman really (misjudged his chance of success) when he found an unreliable partner for his business.  (a) led a dog`s life (b) bet on the wrong horse (c) cast pearl`s before swine (d) made a mountain out of a molehole 11. He is the (most important person) in his company.  (a) holy cow (b) dog in the manger (c) alley cat (d) top dog 12. I had not seen my cousin for a long time so when we finally met we talked (for a long time).  (a) in the dog house (b) as busy as a beaver (c) until the cows came home (d) like lambs to the slaughter 13. “You should (not worry about the problems from before). It is too late to do anything about them.”  (a) lock the barn door after the horse is gone (b) let sleeping dogs lie (c) buy a pig in a poke (d) bark up the wrong tree 14. “Do not be afraid of your new neighbor. Her (words are worse than her actions).”  (a) tail is wagging the dog (b) tail is between her legs (c) looks are like something the cat dragged in (d) bark is worse than her bite 15. My grandfather moved to the country to get away from the (busyness and confusion) in the city.  (a) white elephant (b) horse trading (c) rat race (d) horse sense

87

88

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

16. The young boy (pretended to be asleep) when his friend came into the room.  (a) went to the dogs (b) put on the dog (c) served as a guinea pig (d) played possum 17. The man who owns the store is (very dishonest).  (a) as crooked as a dog’s hind leg (b) as clean as a hound’s tooth (c) as stubborn as a mule (d) bright-eyed and bushy-tailed 18. We had (an exciting and interesting time) at the conference.  (a) a cock-and-bull story (b) a whale of a time (c) the best-laid plans of mice and men (d) a bull in a china shop 19. My supervisor is always angry so I do not like to (get into an argument with) her.  (a) lock horns with (b) monkey around with (c) go hog-wild with (d) make a monkey out of 20. We were (supporting someone who could not win) but still we continued to support our candidate in the election.  (a) killing the fatted calf (b) making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear (c) backing the wrong horse (d) separating the sheep from the goats Answers 1. (b) monkey business 2. (c) curiosity killed the cat 3. (d) hold your horses 4. (a) a cash cow 5. (d) a scaredy-cat 6. (b) riding herd on 7.   (c) turned tail 8. (b) straight from the horse`s mouth 9. (a) straw that broke the camel`s back 10. (b) bet on the wrong horse 11. (d) top dog 12. (c) until the cows came home 13. (b) let sleeping dogs lie  14. (d) bark is worse than her bite 15. (c) rat race 16.   (d) played possum 17. (a) as crooked as a dog’s hind leg  18. (b) a whale of a time 19. (a) lock horns with 20. (c) backing the wrong horse {24}

Musical instruments

I. Musical instruments a) Stringed Instruments Plucked Stringed: Harp, Guitar, Bass Guitar, Mandolin, Banjo, Dobro, Pedal Steel Guitar, Lap Steel Guitar, Lute Bowed Stringed: Violin (Fiddle), Viola, Cello, Double Bass (Acoustic, Upright, Standup) b)Wind Instruments Woodwinds: Flutes, Piccolo Flute, Recorder (English Flute), Single Reed, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Saxophone, Double Reed, Oboe, English Horn, Bassoon, Contrabassoon, Free Reed, Accordion, Melodica, Harmonica, Pitch Pipes Brasswinds: Trumpet, French Horn, Trombone, Euphonium, Tuba c) Percussion Instruments Definite Pitch Percussion: Timpani, Glockenspiel, Celesta, Xylophone, Marimba, Chimes Vibraphone Indefinite Pitch Percussion: Drum Set, Bass Drum, Tom Toms, Snare Drum, Cymbals, Tambourine, Triangle, Gong, Bongos, Congas d) Keyboard Instruments Acoustic Keyboards: Harpsichord, Organ, Piano Electric Keyboards: Synthesizer, Electric Piano, Clavinet {25}

90

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

Text about musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be a musical instrument – it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have used for ritual: such as a trumpet to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications. The date and origin of the first device considered a musical instrument is disputed. The oldest object that some scholars refer to as a musical instrument, a simple flute, dates back as far as 67,000 years. Some consensus dates early flutes to about 37,000 years ago. However, most historians believe that determining a specific time of musical instrument invention is impossible due to the subjectivity of the defi-

Musical instruments

nition and the relative instability of materials used to make them. Many early musical instruments were made from animal skins, bone, wood, and other non-durable materials. Musical instruments developed independently in many populated regions of the world. However, contact among civilizations caused rapid spread and adaptation of most instruments in places far from their origin. By the Middle Ages, instruments from Mesopotamia were in Maritime Southeast Asia, and Europeans played instruments from North Africa. Development in the Americas occurred at a slower pace, but cultures of North, Central, and South America shared musical instruments. By 1400, musical instrument development slowed in many are as and was dominated by the Occident. Musical instrument classification is a discipline in its own right, and many systems of classification have been used over the years. Instruments can be classified by their effective range, their material composition, their size, etc. However, the most common academic method, Hornbostel-Sachs, uses the means by which they produce sound. The academic study of musical instruments is called organology. {26} Text about dombra a) Reat the following text b) Translate it into Kazakh or Russian languages c) Retell the text The dombra (домбыра or dombyra in Kazakh, dambura, dambura, in Uzbekistan, dumbyra in Tatar and Bashkir, tumbyra in Siberian Tatar, danbura in Hazaragi,) is a long-necked lute and a musical string instrument.The instrument shares some of its characteristics with the komuz and dutar.The instrument differs slightly in different regions. The Kazakh dombra has frets and is played by strumming with the hand or plucking each string individually, with an occasional tap on the main surface of the instrument. While the strings are traditionally made of sinew, modern dombras are usually produced using nylon strings. One of the greatest dombra players is Kazakh folk musician

91

92

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

and composer Kurmangazy, which had a great influence on the development of the Kazakh musical culture, including – music for dombra, his musical composition “Adai” popular in Kazakhstan and abroad. In 2012 was created elektrodomra. The Turkestani and Badakhshani damburas are fretless with a body and neck carved from a single block of wood, usually mulberry or apricot. The dambura is played with much banging and scratching on the instrument to help give a percussive sound. The two strings are made of nylon (in modern times) or gut. They cross a short bridge to a pin at the other end of the body. There is a tiny sound hole in the back of the instrument, while the top is thick wood. It is not finished with any varnish, filing/sanding of any kind, and as with all other Afghan instruments there is some decoration. The Dumbura is the equivalent instrument of the Tatars and Bashkirs. A performer strikes all the strings at the same time. The upper string performs the bourdon tone and the lower string performs the melody. A dumbura is used as a solo as well as an ensemble instrument. The Kazakh poet Abay Qunanbayuli is often shown holding a dombra at rest and many hold it in high regard as a symbol of nationalism among the post-Soviet nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The dombra is played by Erzhan Alimbetov in the Ulytau band. From the 12th to the 18th century, the dumbura was used by Bashkir sasans to accompany their poetic legends and kubairs. It is mentioned in the epic poem “Zayatulyak and Hiuhiliu”. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, the dumbura was forgotten. The sasans were often the main ideologists of ethnic insurrections. So when the Russian administration put down an uprising, they punished the sasans and destroyed their dumburas. In the second half of the 20th century, several reconstructions were carried out. At present, the revivalist work continues. Among others, performer V. Shugayupov works on the revival of the dumbura. The modern wooden dumbura has a pearshaped or an oval form. The dambura is popular particularly among the Hazara people. Safdar Tawakoli and Rajab Ali Haidari are notable Afghan dambura

Musical instruments

players. This instrument has become a part of an Internet phenomenon after a video clip from SuperStar KZ, the Kazakh equivalent of the Idol series, was posted on YouTube. The video includes two contestants singing and a third one singing and playing the dombra (Ernar Kaldynov), which caused the popularity. The name of the original song is Freestailo by R.Lizer, a Kazakh man. Dombyra as an instrument is being popularized with mean of Dombyra Parties, a flash mob-like movement of Kazakh youth organized via social media. The videos of Dombyra Party activities are shared on YouTube, Facebook etc. {27} Quotations about Music • A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. Leopold Stokowski • Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Berthold Auerbach • All deep things are song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls! Thomas Carlyle • If the King loves music, it is well with the land. Mencius • Without music life would be a mistake. Friedrich Nietzsche • Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body. Oliver Wendell Holmes • If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. Gustav Mahler • Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass? Michael Torke And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares that infest the day Shall fold their tents like the Arabs And as silently steal away. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Day Is Done

93

94

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• He who sings scares away his woes. Cervantes • Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. Maya Angelou, Gather Together in My Name • Were it not for music, we might in these days say, the Beautiful is dead. Benjamin Disraeli • Music is what feelings sound like. Author Unknown • What feeling feels like over time. An attempt to screw up what feeling feels like over time. Heartbreak and a high C.... The often welcome melodic lie.... The soul’s undersong. The orchestration of randomness, a flirtation with the boundaries of silence and space.... a reminder that the self wants to disappear, be taken away from itself and returned. Stephen Dunn, about music • There’s music in the sighing of a reed; There’s music in the gushing of a rill; There’s music in all things, if men had ears: Their earth is but an echo of the spheres. Lord Byron • Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket. Henri Rabaud • Music is the poetry of the air. Richter • If I were to begin life again, I would devote it to music. It is the only cheap and unpunished rapture upon earth. Sydney Smith • There is nothing in the world so much like prayer as music is. William P. Merrill • If in the after life there is not music, we will have to import it. Domйnico Cieri Estrada • Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it. Henry David Thoreau • Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. Ludwig van Beethoven • I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have

Musical instruments

yours. But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love, belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality. H.A. Overstreet • My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us; the world is full of it, and you simply take as much as you require. Edward Elgar • Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them! Oliver Wendell Holmes • Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. Charlie Parker • Life can’t be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years. William F. Buckley, Jr. • Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself. Henry Ward Beecher • Play the music, not the instrument. Author Unknown • Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken. Ludwig van Beethoven • Music is the cup which holds the wine of silence. Robert Fripp • [An intellectual] is someone who can listen to the «William Tell Overture» without thinking of the Lone Ranger. John Chesson • Music’s the medicine of the mind. John A. Logan • You are the music while the music lasts. T.S. Eliot • Music is the universal language of mankind. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Outre-Mer • Music rots when it gets too far from the dance. Poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music. Ezra Pound • He who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once. Robert Browning

95

96

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

You can’t possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven’s Seventh and go slow. Oscar Levant, explaining his way out of a speeding ticket • The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scots as a joke, but the Scots haven’t got the joke yet. Oliver Herford • What we provide is an atmosphere... of orchestrated pulse which works on people in a subliminal way. Under its influence I’ve seen shy debs and severe dowagers kick off their shoes and raise some wholesome hell. Meyer Davis, about his orchestra • Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. Victor Hugo • ...where music dwells Lingering and wandering on as loth to die... William Wordsworth, “Within King’s College Chapel, Cambridge” • Music has been my playmate, my lover, and my crying towel. Buffy Sainte-Marie • Music is an outburst of the soul. Frederick Delius • Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory. Oscar Wilde • In music the passions enjoy themselves. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886 • Music is what life sounds like. Eric Olson • If this word “music” is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound. John Cage • Its language is a language which the soul alone understands, but which the soul can never translate. Arnold Bennett • All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song. Louis Armstrong • Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. Robert G. Ingersoll • Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends. Alphonse de Lamartine

Musical instruments

• If love played an instrument, I’ll bet it would be the piano. 88 keys, double infinity, and the ability to chop down trees with a sharpened mustache. Jarod Kintz, This Book Has No Title • There is in souls a sympathy with sounds: And as the mind is pitch’d the ear is pleased With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch’d within us, and the heart replies. William Cowper • When words leave off, music begins. Heinrich Heine • Truly to sing, that is a different breath. Rainer Maria Rilke • Music is the shorthand of emotion. Leo Tolstoy • Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together. Anaпs Nin • There is no truer truth obtainable By Man than comes of music. Robert Browning • Strong lager and some early Zep tunes. I ask thee, is there a better way to spend an evening? Author Unknown • Most people use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific. Aaron Copland • What passion cannot music raise and quell! John Dryden • The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial. Leonard Bernstein • Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die. Paul Simon • Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory Percy Bysshe Shelley • A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges. Benny Green • The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes ah, that is where the art resides! Artur Schnabel • T he pause is as important as the note. Truman Fisher • The city is built To music, therefore never built at all, And therefore built forever. Alfred Lord Tennyson

97

98

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• Silence is the fabric upon which the notes are woven. Lawrence Duncan • Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without. Confucius • Rock music in its lyrics often talks ahead of the time about what’s going on in the country. Edmund G. Brown • Music can noble hints impart, Engender fury, kindle love, With unsuspected eloquence can move, And manage all the man with secret art. Joseph Addison • My whole trick is to keep the tune well out in front. If I play Tchaikovsky, I play his melodies and skip his spiritual struggle. Liberace • Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes. Alfred Lord Tennyson • Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music. Ronald Reagan • The discovery of song and the creation of musical instruments both owed their origin to a human impulse which lies much deeper than conscious intention: the need for rhythm in life… the need is a deep one, transcending thought, and disregarded at our peril. Richard Baker • Jazz will endure just as long as people hear it through their feet instead of their brains. John Philip Sousa • Music is the medicine of the breaking heart. Leigh Hunt • Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune. Frank McKinney «Kin» Hubbard, Comments of Abe Martin and His Neighbors, 1923 • Country music is three chords and the truth. Harlan Howard • An artist, in giving a concert, should not demand an entrance fee but should ask the public to pay, just before leaving as much as they like. From the sum he would be able to judge what the world thinks of him and we would have fewer mediocre concerts. Kit Coleman, Kit Coleman: Queen of Hearts

Musical instruments

• I think sometimes could I only have music on my own terms, could I live in a great city, and know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves, that were a bath and a medicine. Ralph Waldo Emerson • Are we not formed, as notes of music are, For one another, though dissimilar? Percy Bysshe Shelley • Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies. Edward George Bulwer-Lytton • A song has a few rights the same as ordinary citizens... if it happens to feel like flying where humans cannot fly... to scale mountains that are not there, who shall stop it? Charles Ives • The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting unconsciously. Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz • A man’s screech should exceed his rasp, or what’s a violin for? Stuart Rogers • After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. Aldous Huxley, Music at Night and Other Essays • Music is love in search of a word. Sidney Lanier • It is incontestable that music induces in us a sense of the infinite and the contemplation of the invisible. Victor de LaPrade • Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life. Jean Paul Richter • All the shopping malls and restaurants and airports are riddled with low-fidelity loudspeakers, which apparently have developed the ability to reproduce by themselves; these are all connected to a special programming service called Music That Nobody Really Likes, and you cannot get away from it. Dave Barry • Music is a friend of labor for it lightens the task by refreshing the nerves and spirit of the worker. William Green • If anyone has conducted a Beethoven performance, and then doesn’t have to go to an osteopath, then there’s something wrong. Simon Rattle

99

100

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• Bach opens a vista to the universe. After experiencing him, people feel there is meaning to life after all. Helmut Walcha • Music is well said to be the speech of angels. Thomas Carlyle, “The Opera” • Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings. Robert Benchley • The taxpayers cannot be relied upon to support performing arts such as opera. As a taxpayer, I am forced to admit that I would rather undergo a vasectomy via Weed Whacker than attend an opera. Dave Barry • No good opera plot can be sensible:... people do not sing when they are feeling sensible. W.H. Auden, Time, 1961 December 29th {28} English Idioms & Idiomatic Expressions ring a bell

chime in

drum (sthg) into someone’s head as fit as a fiddle

If something rings a bell, it sounds familiar, but you don’t remember the exact details. John Bentley? The name rings a bell but I don’t remember him. If you chime in, you interrupt or join a conversation, especially to repeat or agree with something. While I was explaining to the bus driver what had happened, the other passengers chimed in and gave their version. If you teach something to someone through constant repetition, you drum it into their head. When we were kids at school, multiplication tables were drummed into our heads. A person who is as fit as a fiddle is in an excellent state of health or physical condition. My grandfather is nearly ninety but he’s as fit as a fiddle.

Musical instruments

If you play second fiddle to someone, you accept to be second in importance to that person, or have a lower position. When Charles became chairman of the family business, his brother declared that he would rather leave than play second fiddle to him. fiddling If you say that someone is fiddling while Rome while Rome burns, you mean that they are doing unimportant burns things while there are serious matters to be dealt with. His visit to the trade fair was «fiddling while Rome burns» according to the strikers. jazz If you jazz something up, you add something to try something up to improve it or make it more stylish. The dress needs a scarf or a necklace to jazz it up. This expression means ‘all that stuff’, ‘other similar all that jazz things’, or ‘everything of that kind’. Let’s get out the tinsel, the fairy lights and all that jazz to decorate the Christmas tree. music to To say that something is music to your ears means that one’s ears the information you receive makes you feel very happy. His compliments were music to my ear. face the When a person has to face the music, they have to music accept the unpleasant consequences of their actions. He was caught stealing. Now he has to face the music. strike a false If you strike a false note, you do something wrong note or inappropriate. He struck a wrong note when he arrived at the cocktail party wearing old jeans. strike (or hit) If you strike (or hit) the right note, you do the right note something suitable or appropriate. He struck the right note with his future mother-inlow when he brought her a book on gardening – her favourite hobby! play second fiddle

101

102

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

(sound) like a broken record

Someone who says the same thing again and again sounds like a broken record. Dad! Stop telling me to be careful when I drive. You sound like a broken record! go for a song If something goes for a song, it is sold at an unexpectedly low price. This is a humorous way of talking about playing the piano. tickle the My grandfather loves playing the piano. ivories He tickles the ivories whenever he gets the chance. call the tune The person who calls the tune makes all the important decisions and is in control of the situation. He shows a lot of authority but in fact it’s his wife who calls the tune. sing a If someone sings a different tune, they change their different tune opinion about something or their attitude towards something. He had no consideration for people out of work until he lost his own job; now he’s singing a different tune. Small changes to something to improve it or make it fine tuning work better are called fine-tuning. We are still fine tuning our new website and appreciate your patience. blow the If you report an illegal or socially-harmful activity whistle to the authorities, and give information about those responsible for it, you blow the whistle, or you are a whistle-blower. He refused to blow the whistle on his boss for fear of losing his job. clean as a Something as clean as a whistle is extremely clean. whistle This can also mean that a person’s criminal record is clean. Bob spent the afternoon washing and shining his car until it was as clean as a whistle. {29}

Musical instruments

Exercise 7 Fill in the blanks with a word from the exercise above, make sure to conjugate the verbs. 1. Don’t you think the Maestro ___________ the orchestra well? 2. He beat the _________ like a madman! 3. John Lenon _________ the lyrics to many of the Beatles’s best songs.

103

104

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

4. You can tell when Peter is in a good mood, she ________ one of her favorite tunes. 5. The most famous opera __________ by Mascagni was “Cavelleria Rusticana”. 6. Jazz musicians almost always ___________ their solos. 7. The ___________ always tune their instruments before they begin the concert. 8. I can remember the time when President Clinton got up on MTV to _______ his horn - the saxophone. 9. Would you please not tap your _______ in time to the music? 10. Some of the best rock singers don’t _________ their songs, they shout them! Answers Don’t you think the Maestro conducted the orchestra well? He beat the drums like a madman! John Lennon wrote the lyrics to many of the Beatles’s best songs. You can tell when Peter is in a good mood, he hums one of her favorite tunes. 5. The most famous opera composed by Mascagni was “Cavelleria Rusticana”. 6. Jazz musicians almost always improvise their solos. 7. Most professional musicians play their instruments up to five hours a day! 8. I can remember the time when President Clinton appeared on MTV to blow his horn – the saxophone. 9. Would you please not tap your foot in time to the music? 10. Some of the best rock singers don’t sing their songs, they shout them!

1. 2. 3. 4.

Exercise 8 Match the verb in the column on the left with the correct noun from the column on the right Music Vocabulary VERB compose conduct write play blow

NOUN tune drum horn instrument piece of music

Musical instruments

tap improvise sing hum beat

orchestra lyrics song solo foot

Answers compose piece of music conduct orchestra write lyrics play instrument blow horn tap foot improvise solo sing song hum tune beat drum

Exercise 9 Choose the correct musical vocabulary to match the definition, writing the words in the boxes. Album, single, top ten, number one, lyrics, vocals, melody, catchy, record, live, concert, backing track, collaborate, soundtrack, latest, airplay, instrumental 1. a public performance 2. a collection of songs 3. the words of a song 4. one song from a collection 5. a classification of the most popular songs 6. work on a project 7. not recorded 8. a song with no words 9. number of times a radio station plays a song 10. most recent 11. the singing in a song 12. easy to remember and sing 13. the music of a song 14. recorded music at a concert 15. the music for a film 16. copy music to disc or cassette 17. the most popular song in a classification

105

106

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

Answers 1. concert. 2. album. 3. lyrics. 4. single. 5. top ten. 6. collaborate. 7. live. 8. instrumental. 9. airplay. 10. latest. 11. vocals. 12. catchy. 13. melody. 14. backing track. 15. soundtrack. 16. record. 17. number one. {30}

Music Jokes and Riddles What’s yellow, weighs 1,000 pounds, and sings? (Two 500 pound canaries!) Why do hummingbirds hum? (Because they forgot the words!) Why is a piano so hard to open? (Because the keys are on the inside!) What’s the most musical bone? (The trom-bone!) What makes music on your hair? (A head band!) Why was the musician arrested? (Because she got in treble!) Where did the music teacher leave her keys? (In the piano!) What’s green and sings? (Elvis Parsley!)

Musical instruments

Why do fluorescent lights hum? (Because they forgot the words!) Why is slippery ice like music? (If you don’t C sharp - you’ll B flat!) Why was the result when a piano fell down a mine shaft? (A-flat minor!) Why are pirates great singers? (They can hit the high C’s!) What rock group has four guys who don’t sing? (Mount Rushmore!) What do you get if you cross a serpent and a trumpet? (A snake in the brass!) What was stolen from the music store? (The lute!) How do you make a band stand? (Take their chairs away!) What do little penguins sing when their father brings fish home for dinner? (Freeze a Jolly Good Fellow!) What type of music are balloons scared of? (Pop music!) What’s the most musical part of a turkey? (The drumstick!) What’s the most musical part of a fish? (The scales!) What’s the difference between a piano and a fish? (You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish!) What do you call a cow that plays a musical instrument? (A Moo-sician!) Why did the singer climb a ladder? (She wanted to reach the high notes!) What type of songs do the planets sing? (Nep-tunes!) What is a cat’s favorite song? (Three Blind Mice!)

107

108

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

What do you get if you cross a grizzly bear and a harp? (A bear-faced lyre!) What do you get if you cross a sweet potato and a jazz musician? (A yam session!) Knock knock! Who’s there? Little old lady? Little old lady who? Wow! I didn’t know you could yodel! {31}

Sports

Types of Sports Vocabulary Word List (98) A) Acrobatics, Aikido, Archery, Auto racing, Autocross B) Badminton, Baseball, Basketball, Biathlon, Bicycling, Bobsledding, Bowling, Boxing C) Calisthenics, Card games, Cricket, Croquet, Cross country skiing, Curling, Cycling D) Decathlon, Discus, Diving, Dog racing, Dressage E) Equestrian F) Fencing, Field hockey, Figure skating, Fishing, Football G) Go-carting, Golf H) Hammer throw, Hang gliding, High jumping, Hockey, Horseback riding, Horseshoes, Hunting, Hurling I) Ice dancing, Ice hockey J) Jacks, Jai alai, Javelin throw, Judo K) Karate, Kayaking L) Lacrosse, Lawn bowling, Luge M) Mah-Jong, Marathon, Motocross P) Poker, Pole vault, Power lifting R) Race walk, Racing, Racquetball, Road race, Roller sports, Rugby, Running S) Sailing, Shark diving, Shuffleboard, Skateboarding, Skeet shooting, Skiing, Slalom, Sled-dog racing, Sledding, Snowboarding, Soccer, Softball, Spinning, Squash, Stock-car racing, Sumo wrestling, Surfing, Swimming

110

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

T) Table tennis, Tae Kwon Do, Tennis, Tobogganing, Track, Track and field, Triathlon V) Vaulting, Volleyball W) Water polo, Water skiing, Weightlifting, Wrestling X) Xtreme sports

Sports

111

112

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

Text about sport Sport (or sports) is all forms of usually competitive physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing entertainment to participants, and in some cases, spectators.Hundreds of sports exist, from those requiring only two participants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. Sport is generally recognised as activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with the largest major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition, and other organisations such as the Council of Europe using definitions precluding activities without a physical element from classification as sports.However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognises both chess and bridge as bona fide sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports,[4][5] although limits the amount of mind games which can be admitted as sports. Sports are usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first, or by the determination of judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression. In organised sport, records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. In addition, sport is a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport drawing large crowds to venues, and reaching wider audiences through broadcasting. According to A.T. Kearney, a consultancy, the global sporting industry is worth up to $620 billion as of 2013. {32}

Sports

Inspirational sports quatitions • • • • •

• • • •

Skill and confidence are an unconquered army. George Herbert If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all? Joe Namath Victory belongs to the most persevering. Napoleon Bonaparte Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is. Vince Lombardi Maybe the day will come when I can sit back and be content.... But until that day comes, I intend to stay in the batter’s box – I don’t let the big guys push me out of there anymore – and keep hammering away. Hank Aaron You are the handicap you must face. You are the one who must choose your place. James Lane Allen Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence. George F. Will There are no gains without pains. Adlai Stevenson {33}

Quotations about Sports • I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people’s accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man’s failures. Earl Warren • Every sport pretends to a literature, but people don’t believe it of any other sport but their own. Alistair Cooke • If only Hitler and Mussolini could have a good game of bowls once a week at Geneva, I feel that Europe would not be as troubled as it is. R.G. Briscow • The difference between the old ballplayer and the new ballplayer is the jersey. The old ballplayer cared about the name on the front. The new ballplayer cares about the name on the back. Steve Garvey • Sports is human life in microcosm. Howard Cosell • Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a

113

114

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• •

•

• • • • • • • • •

thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him. Blaise Pascal The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for players to break. John Madden I don’t believe professional athletes should be role models. I believe parents should be role models.... It’s not like it was when I was growing up. My mom and my grandmother told me how it was going to be. If I didn’t like it, they said, “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.” Parents have to take better control. Charles Barkley I think my favorite sport in the Olympics is the one in which you make your way through the snow, you stop, you shoot a gun, and then you continue on. In most of the world, it is known as the biathlon, except in New York City, where it is known as winter. Michael Ventre, L.A. Daily News We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time. Vince Lombardi The trouble with referees is that they just don’t care which side wins. Tom Canterbury When we played, World Series checks meant something. Now all they do is screw up your taxes. Don Drysdale, 1978 With the money I’m making, I should be playing two positions. Pete Rose, 1977 Men forget everything; women remember everything. That’s why men need instant replays in sports. They’ve already forgotten what happened. Rita Rudner Andre Dawson has a bruised knee and is listed as day-to-day. Aren’t we all? Vin Scully To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there’s no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other. Jack Handey Prize fighters can sometimes read and write when they start – but they can’t when they finish. Martin H. Fischer October is not only a beautiful month but marks the precious yet

Sports

fleeting overlap of hockey, baseball, basketball, and football. Jason Love • I would have thought that the knowledge that you are going to be leapt upon by half-a-dozen congratulatory, but sweaty teammates would be inducement not to score a goal. Arthur Marshall • A player who conjugates a verb in the first person singular cannot be part of the squad, he has to conjugate the verb in the first person plural. We. We want to conquer. We are going to conquer. Using the word “I” when you’re in a group makes things complicated. Wanderley Luxemburgo, 1999 • One day of practice is like one day of clean living. It doesn’t do you any good. Abe Lemmons • The more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle. Author Unknown • I wanted to have a career in sports when I was young, but I had to give it up. I’m only six feet tall, so I couldn’t play basketball. I’m only 190 pounds, so I couldn’t play football. And I have 2020 vision, so I couldn’t be a referee. Jay Leno • To think of playing cricket for hard cash! Money and gentility would ruin any pastime under the sun. Mary Russell Mitford, 1823 • It is all very well to say that a man should play for the pure love of the game. Perhaps he ought, but to the working man it is impossible. J.J. Bentley • I know we’re meant to be these hard-headed, money-obsessed professionals but we’re still little boys at heart. Just ask our wives. Rob Lee, 1998 • Radio football is football reduced to its lowest common denominator. Shorn of the game’s aesthetic pleasures, or the comfort of a crowd that feels the same way as you, or the sense of security that you get when you see that your defenders and goalkeeper are more or less where they should be, all that is left is naked fear. Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch, 1992

115

116

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• • • • • •

• • • •

• • •

Playing polo is like trying to play golf during an earthquake. Sylvester Stallone, 1990 Professional wrestling’s most mysterious hold is on its audience. Luke Neely, 1953 As a manager, you always have a gun to your head. It’s a question of whether there is a bullet in the barrel. Kevin Keegan, 1995 The breakfast of champions is not cereal, it’s the opposition. Nick Seitz We are inclined that if we watch a football game or baseball game, we have taken part in it. John F. Kennedy, 1961 Most people are in a factory from nine till five. Their job may be to turn out 263 little circles. At the end of the week they’re three short and somebody has a go at them. On Saturday afternoons they deserve something to go and shout about. Rodney Marsh, 1969 I don’t think the discus will ever attract any interest until they let us start throwing them at one another. Al Oerter The umpire... is like the geyser in the bathroom; we cannot do without it, yet we notice it only when it is out of order. Neville Cardus Most games are lost, not won. Casey Stengel It is a noteworthy fact that kicking and beating have played so considerable a part in the habits which necessity has imposed on mankind in past ages that the only way of preventing civilized men from beating and kicking their wives is to organize games in which they can kick and beat balls. George Bernard Shaw It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf. H.L. Mencken The more I practice, the luckier I get. Jerry Barber, about golf Baseball and football are very different games. In a way, both of them are easy. Football is easy if you’re crazy as hell. Baseball is easy if you’ve got patience. They’d both be easier for me if I were a little more crazy – and a little more patient. Bo Jackson

Sports

• There isn’t a single professional sports season now that doesn’t go on at least a month too long. Baseball starts in football weather, and football in baseball weather, and basketball overlaps them both. James Reston • Sport is where an entire life can be compressed into a few hours, where the emotions of a lifetime can be felt on an acre or two of ground, where a person can suffer and die and rise again on six miles of trails through a New York City park. Sport is a theater where sinner can turn saint and a common man become an uncommon hero, where the past and the future can fuse with the present. Sport is singularly able to give us peak experiences where we feel completely one with the world and transcend all conflicts as we finally become our own potential. George A. Sheehan • I figure practice puts your brains in your muscles. Sam Snead, about golf • There’s nothing wrong with the Little League World Series that locking out the adults couldn’t cure. Mike Penner, Los Angeles Times • If you make every game a life-and-death thing, you’re going to have problems. You’ll be dead a lot. Dean Smith • I watched the Indy 500, and I was thinking that if they left earlier they wouldn’t have to go so fast. Steven Wright • Winning is overrated. The only time it is really important is in surgery and war. Al McGuire • I think you enjoy the game more if you don’t know the rules. Anyway you’re on the same wavelength as the referees. Jonathan Davies, 1995 • If the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn’t, it’s that girls should stick to girls’ sports, such as hot oil wrestling, foxy boxing, and such and such. Homer Simpson, The Simpsons • If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing your grandmother with her teeth out. George Brett, 1986 • Losing is the great American sin. Jerome Holtzman

117

118

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• The essence of sports is that while you’re doing it, nothing else matters, but after you stop, there is a place, generally not very important, where you would put it. Roger Bannister • If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score? Vince Lombardi • An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head. Emil Zatopek • It’s like going into a nuclear war with bows and arrows. Joe Kinnear, comparing finances and resources in high-dollar and low-dollar sports teams • I thought lacrosse was what you find in la church. Robin Williams, 1982 • Officials are the only guys who can rob you and then get a police escort out of the stadium. Ron Bolton • If you screw things up in tennis, it’s 15-love. If you screw up in boxing, it’s your ass. Randall “Tex” Cobb • I was called “Rembrandt” Hope in my boxing days, because I spent so much time on the canvas. Bob Hope • To dope the racer is as criminal, as sacrilegious, as trying to imitate God; it is stealing from God the privilege of the spark. Roland Barthes • Losing streaks are funny. If you lose at the beginning, you get off to a bad start. If you lose in the middle of the season, you’re in a slump. If you lose at the end, you’re choking. Gene Mauch • He has turned defensive boxing into a poetic art. Trouble is, nobody ever knocked anybody out with a poem. Eddie Shaw, referring to Herol “Bomber” Graham • It may be that all games are silly. But then, so are humans. Robert Lynd • In play there are two pleasures for your choosing – The one is winning, and the other losing. Lord Byron • People understand contests. You take a bunch of kids throwing rocks at random and people look askance, but if you go and hold a rock-throwing contest – people understand that. Don Murray

Sports

• All sports are games of inches. Dick Ritger • Sport strips away personality, letting the white bone of character shine through. Sport gives players an opportunity to know and test themselves. Rita Mae Brown • When it comes to sports I am not particularly interested. Generally speaking, I look upon them as dangerous and tiring activities performed by people with whom I share nothing except the right to trial by jury. Fran Lebowitz • I cannot for the life of me see why the umpires, the only two people on a cricket field who are not going to get grass stains on their knees, are the only two people allowed to wear dark trousers. Katharine Whitehorn • Many continentals think life is a game; the English think cricket is a game. George Mikes, How to Be an Alien, 1946 • Cricket – a game which the English, not being a spiritual people, have invented in order to give themselves some conception of eternity. Lord Mancroft • Oh God, if there be cricket in heaven, let there also be rain. Alec Douglas Home • Cricket is baseball on valium. Robin Williams • Life is simply a cricket match, with temptation as the bowler. Author Unknown • If horses can’t eat it, I won’t play on it. Dick Allen • Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever. Vince McKewin, from the movie The Replacements • Pain is nothing compared to what it feels like to quit. Author Unknown • Losers quit when they’re tired. Winners quit when they’ve won. Author Unknown • You’re playing worse every day and right now you’re playing like the middle of next week. • The ball is man’s most disastrous invention, not excluding the wheel. Robert Morley, 1965 • Every day you guys look worse and worse. And today you played like tomorrow. John Mariucci

119

120

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• The Russians have a weapon that can wipe out two hundred eighty thousand Americans. That puts them exactly ten years behind Howard Cosell. Red Smith • Motor racing’s less of a sport these days than a commercial break doing 150 mph. Peter Dunne, 1992 • Sport is a preserver of health. Hippocrates • It is not how big you are, it’s how big you play. Author Unknown • A tough day at the office is even tougher when your office contains spectator seating. Nik Posa • The key is not the “will to win” – everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important. Bobby Knight • You have to be able to center yourself, to let all of your emotions go. Don’t ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar • All a manager has to do is keep eleven players happy – the eleven in the reserves. The first team are happy because they are in the first team. Rodney Marsh, 1979 • The Rock knew his wrestling career was over when he looked across the ring and saw his opponent... THE PAPER. Jerry Thomas • Unlike any other business in the United States, sports must preserve an illusion of perfect innocence. The mounting of this illusion defines the purpose and accounts for the immense wealth of American sports. It is the ceremony of innocence that the fans pay to see – not the game or the match or the bout, but the ritual portrayal of a world in which time stops and all hope remains plausible, in which everybody present can recover the blameless expectations of a child, where the forces of light always triumph over the powers of darkness. Lewis H. Lapham, Money and Class in America, 1988 • One of the advantages bowling has over golf is that you seldom lose a bowling ball. Don Carter The bowling alley is the poor man’s country club. Sanford Hansell • [T]he finish line is sometimes merely the symbol of victory. All

Sports

• • • • •

• • • • • •

sorts of personal triumphs take place before that point, and the outcome of the race may actually be decided long before the end. Laurence Malone It’s not whether you win or lose – but whether I win or lose. Sandy Lyle There’s more to boxing than hitting. There’s not getting hit, for instance. George Foreman I’m fanatical about sport: there seems to me something almost religious about the fact that human beings can organise play, the spirit of play. Simon Gray, 1995 Squash is boxing with racquets. Jonah Barrington Crystallizing my feelings about the game, I find that squash is less frustrating than golf, less fickle than tennis. It is easier than badminton, cheaper than polo. It is better exercise than bowls, quicker than cricket, less boring than jogging, drier than swimming, safer than hang gliding. John Hopkins, Squash: A Joyful Game, 1980 My only feeling about superstition is that it’s unlucky to be behind at the end of the game. Duffy Daugherty If I lose at play, I blaspheme; if my fellow loses, he blasphemes. So, God is always the loser. John Donne, 1623 American professional athletes are bilingual; they speak English and profanity. Gordie Howe, 1975 We have forty-four defenses for him, but he has forty-five ways to score. Al Attles, on Nate Archibald Winning is overrated, because winning and losing are both your acceptance of being rated. Carrie Latet Sports are too much with us. Late and soon, sitting and watching – mostly watching on television – we lay waste our powers of identification and enthusiasm and, in time, attention as more and more closing rallies and crucial putts and late field goals and final playoffs and sudden deaths and world records and world championships unreel themselves ceaselessly before our halflidded eyes. Roger Angell

121

122

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

• Fans are the only ones who really care. There are no free-agent fans. Dick Young • When cerebral processes enter into sports, you start screwing up. It’s like the Constitution, which says separate church and state. You have to separate mind and body. Bill Lee • These are my new shoes. They’re good shoes. They won’t make you rich like me, they won’t make you rebound like me, they definitely won’t make you handsome like me. They’ll only make you have shoes like me. That’s it. From a Charles Barkley commercial for basketball shoes,1993 • Finish last in your league and they call you Idiot. Finish last in medical school and they call you Doctor. Abe Lemons • I will not permit thirty men to travel four hundred miles to agitate a bag of wind. Andrew Dickson White • Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words, it is war minus the shooting... there are quite enough real causes of trouble already, and we need not add to them by encouraging young men to kick each other on the shins amid the roars of infuriated spectators. George Orwell • We can’t win at home and we can’t win on the road. My problem as general manager is I can’t think of another place to play. Pat Williams {34}

Exercise 10 a) Read and translate the text b) Express your view on this point: What is your attitude to the sports? c) Do you know any other ways to live longer?

Sports

Benefits of Sports Physical exercise is good for mind, body, and spirit. Furthermore, team sports are good for learning accountability, dedication, and leadership; among many other traits. Putting it all together by playing a sport is a winning combination. Many athletes do better academically. Playing a sport requires a lot of time and energy. Some may think this would distract studentathletes from school work. However, the opposite is true. Sports require memorization, repetition, and learning, skill-sets that are directly relevant to class work. Also, the determination and goal-setting skills sports require can be transferred to the class -room. Sports teach team-work and help achieve goals. Fighting for a common goal with a host of other players, coaches, managers, and community members teaches you how to build a collective team synergy and effectively communicate the best way to solve problems en route to a victory. This will be very helpful in life when encountering problems in the work force, at the home-front, or in any arena. Sports offer many health benefits, some less obvious. Clearly, sports will improve your fitness and weight goals. However, they also encourage healthy decisions such as not smoking or drinking and offer hidden health benefits such as a lower chance of getting osteoporosis or breast cancer later in life. Also, for some the team counting on you to show up and work hard is plenty of motivation for you to get to the gym day in and day out. Sports boost self-esteem. Watching your hard work pay off and achieving your dreams brings about tons of self-confidence. If you can achieve something in a sport or with a fitness goal, then you know you can achieve any other goal you set. This is a very rewarding and exiting process. Playing a sport cuts down on pressure and stress. Exercising is a natural way to loosen up and let go of stress. Also, you will most likely make many new friends on the team who can be there for you as a support system. When you find you are having a lot of stress, you can call up team mates and head to the gym to talk it out and play it out.

123

124

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

For all of these reasons, it is always a great decision to get involved in the sports arena. {35} Sports Vocabulary Word

Example sentence

Meaning

arena

The arena was full of excited spectators cheering on their team.

a level area for holding sports events, surrounded by seats for spectators

amateur

The Olympic Games were originally for amateur athletes only.

engaged in something, like playing sports, without payment; non-professional

athlete

Most professional athletes spend hours every day in training.

a person who trains for and competes in a sport

athletics

There are some very good ‘track and field’ events of runners on our athletics team. running, jumping, throwing, etc.

award

All the members of the to give someone something as winning team were awarded a a reward for high achievement gold medal.

beat

Italy beat France to win the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

to defeat someone in a game or a competition

captain

The captain usually leads his or her team onto the field.

the leader of a team

catch

A wicketkeeper in cricket must to grab and hold something be very good at catching the ball. that has been thrown

champion

The boxer Muhammad Ali was World Heavyweight Champion three times.

a top-rated, highly successful player

cheer on

The fans made a lot of noise cheering on their team.

to shout encouragement to a team or a player

coach

Players should carry out their coach’s instructions during a game.

a person who trains and directs an athlete or a sports team

compete

Over 10,000 athletes will compete in the Olympic Games.

to take part in a contest or a competition

Sports

competition

The English Premiership League is one of the world’s top football competitions.

an organized event in which people compete to win

competitor

Each competitor in a golf tournament must record his or her own score.

a person who takes part in a competition or a sporting contest

contest

Do you know who won this year’s figure skating contest?

a game or event in which people compete to win

court

The tennis courts at a quadrangular area on which Wimbledon in London have a ball games are played, such as grass surface. tennis or basketball

course

A golf course usually has eighteen holes.

cup

After they won the final game, a cup-shaped trophy, awarded the winners were awarded the as a prize in a contest Championship Cup.

defeat

Our players were very happy after they defeated their opponents in the final game.

defend

The team attacked and scored to protect one’s goal rather two goals, then spent the rest than attempt to score against of the game defending the lead. one’s opponents

draw

The score was 1-0, but the losing team got a late goal and the game ended in a 1-1 draw.

to finish a contest or game with an even score; tie

event

The 100 metres run is one of the most exciting events in athletics.

a particular contest in a sporting programme

fan

Sometimes the umpire of a tennis match has to tell noisy fans to be quiet.

a person who supports a particular sport, team or player

field

How many players are allowed on the field during a baseball game?

a piece of land marked out for a sports contest e.g. hockey field

final score

Today’s basketball game was very close. The final score was 84 to 82.

the score at the end of a game

fitness

I exercise at the gym every the condition of being day for fitness and good health. physically fit and healthy

an area of land prepared for racing, golf, or other sports

to win a victory over opponents in a game or contest; to beat

125

126

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

an instance of scoring in a ball game by getting the ball into a target such as between goal-posts, through a hoop, or into a net.

goal

Jimmy got the ball, ran down the pitch, and then scored the best goal of the game.

gym / gymnasium

Our gym has a lot of new exercise equipment, including a room or building equipped running machines and cycling for physical exercise machines.

half-time

The players went into the rooms at half-time and listened to their coach.

the interval between the first and second halves of a game

judge

In sports like diving and gymnastics, judges score each performance in a contest.

a person who rates the quality of a sporting performance, usually by awarding points

league

Nearly every town in the U.S. a group of sports clubs that has teams in a local baseball play each other over a period league. for a championship

leisure

It’s good for kids to spend some of their leisure time playing sports.

free time, or the use of free time for enjoyment

lob

Her lob flew high into the air and dropped into the back of the court, just inside the baseline.

a shot that is hit in a high arc, usually over the opponent’s head

manager

Liverpool sacked their manager after they lost eight of their previous ten games.

the person in charge of a sports team

medal

Every athlete’s dream is to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games.

a piece of engraved metal given to signify an achievement or an honor

object

The object of the game of football is to score more goals than the opponents.

the thing you want to get or achieve; what you aim to do

offside

Forwards have to learn how to avoid being caught in an offside position.

In an illegal position ahead of the ball (in football, rugby, hockey, etc.)

Sports

opponent

Roger Federer’s opponent in the Wimbledon final was Rafael Nadal.

the person one competes against in a contest or a game; rival

pass

A defender tries to pass the ball to a forward in a good position to score.

to throw or kick the ball to another player on one’s own team

penalty

The penalty for abusing a a punishment imposed on a referee is usually a one-match player or team for breaking suspension. the rules of a sport

perform

All the athletes will do their best to perform well in the Olympic Games.

performance

Venus Williams put in one the an instance of competing in a best performances of her life sports event in public to win the tournament.

physique

Rugby players work hard in the gym to build up their physiques.

the form or shape of a person’s body

pitch (1)

The fans cheered as the players ran onto the pitch.

a playing field (British)

pitch (2)

Our pitcher threw one of the best pitches of his life to win the game.

a throw of the ball, esp. in baseball and softball

player

How many players are on the court during a doubles match in tennis?

a person who plays a sport

practise (U.S. spelling; practice)

Professional golfers spend hours every day practising their shots.

to repeatedly do something in order to develop one’s skill

professional

Tiger Woods has been a professional golfer since he was 20 years old.

a person whose paid occupation is playing a sport

record

Do you know who holds the world record for the men’s 100 metres?

the best performance that has been officially measured and noted

referee

The referee saw a foul, blew his whistle and awarded a free kick.

a sports official with authority to make rulings during a contest

to carry out a practised activity, such a play a sport

127

128

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

rules

In several sports there is an offside rule, and it’s often difficult to explain.

the laws or regulations that govern how a game or sport is played

score

Do you know how to keep score in badminton?

the number of points a competitor or team earns during a game

serve

Serving the ball is one of the most important skills in sports like tennis.

to hit the ball to begin play (in tennis, table tennis, squash, volleyball, etc.)

shoot

In basketball, players try shoot from outside the 3-point line to score the extra points.

to kick, hit, or throw the ball in an attempt to score a goal (in soccer, hockey, basketball, etc.)

skill

Ken has gone to a boxing camp to improve his boxing skills.

the ability to do something well

spectator

Spectators can add a lot to sporting events by creating an a person who watches an event exciting atmosphere.

sportsmanship

Good managers know how to teach their players sportsmanship.

an attitude of fairness, respect for opponents, and graciousness in winning or losing

stadium

The stadium was built for sports, but it’s sometimes used for concerts as well.

a sports arena with tiered seating for spectators

strategy

One of the jobs of the manager or coach is to develop a strategy for winning each game.

a plan to achieve an objective

tackle

Rugby players have to learn how to tackle an opponent strongly but fairly.

to challenge an opponent who has the ball

tactics

Players use tactics such as attacking their opponent’s weaknesses in order to win.

an action or strategy planned to achieve an objective

Sports

talent

Our daughter’s basketball coach says she has a lot of natural talent for the game.

a natural aptitude or skill

teammate

The team wins because the players are always looking for their teammates.

a fellow member of a sports team

teamwork

The best teams spend a lot of time on the training ground working on teamwork.

the combined action of a group of people

tie

The score was very close throughout the game, and it ended in a tie with 89 points each.

a result in a game in which teams have the same final score; a draw

tournament

The four major tennis tournaments form what is known as the ‘Grand Slam’.

a series of contests between a number of competitors, who compete for an overall prize

trainer

Some players are a bit lazy and need a strict trainer to make them work hard.

a person who helps athletes develop their skills and fitness

train

The hockey team trains every Tuesday and Thursday after school.

to teach a skill over time through instruction; to practise a skill

trophy

The players carried the trophy over their heads as they ran around the stadium.

a decorative object awarded as a prize in a contest or a tournament

umpire

In a game of cricket, there are two umpires on the field during play.

a sports official with authority to make rulings during a contest

victory

The players had worked very hard, and they deserved their victory.

the act of winning a game or contest

whistle

The referee blew his whistle twice to signal the end of the match.

a small instrument that makes a high-pitched noise when blown

129

130

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

Sports idioms Idiom sport of origin

Meaning

Example Sentence

across the board cards

equal for everyone

Ten percent raises were given across the board.

at this stage in the game any sport

at this time

Nobody knows who is going to win the election at this stage in the game.

the ball is in your court tennis

it’s your decision or responsibility to do something now

«Do you think I should accept the job offer?» «Don’t ask me. The ball is in your court now».

bark up the wrong tree hunting

you’ve got the wrong person or idea

I think you’re barking up the wrong tree by blaming Matt for the missing money.

blind-sided any sport

to not see something coming

George blind-sided Eric with his fist at the bar.

blow the competition away any sport

win easily

If you wear that dress to the beauty pageant you are going to blow the competition away.

call the shots billiards

make the decisions

While our boss is on vacation, Bob will call the shots.

chip in gambling

help by donating money or time

The staff members chipped in 5 dollars each to buy Jody a birthday gift.

down to the wire horse racing

right at the end

It’s coming down to the wire to get these done on time.

front runner track

one of the people who is expected to win

Angela is a front runner for the new supervisor position.

get a head start horse racing

start before all others

They gave the walkers a head start in the run for cancer.

Sports

get into the full swing tennis

be comfortable doing something after some time

It will probably take a month of working at my new job before I get into the full swing of things.

get off the hook fishing

escape, have responsibility removed

The child got off the hook for stealing because the security camera was broken.

give something or someone a fair shake gambling

try for a while before giving up

You should give Nadine a fair shake before you decide she isn’t good enough for the job.

get a second wind sailing

have a burst of energy after tiring

I was exhausted after 3 kilometres of running, but I got a second wind after I passed the beach.

give it your best shot hunting

try your hardest

Give it your best shot and you may just make it to the finals.

give one a run for one’s money horseracing

try one’s hardest to defeat another person

I know the other team is expected to win, but let’s give them a run for their money tonight.

go overboard sailing

do or say more than you need to

You can’t believe everything Janice says about Rick. She tends to go overboard when she’s complaining about him.

go to bat for someone baseball

defend someone

Andy is asking for a salary increase, and I’m going to go to bat for him if the boss says no.

have the upper hand cards

have a better chance of winning or succeeding

The Blues have the upper hand in the tournament, because none of their players is injured.

hit below the belt martial arts

do or say something that is very unfair or cruel

Amanda was hitting below the belt when she called Adrian an unfit father.

hit a snag boating

come up against a problem

The renovations were going along great until we hit a snag with the carpet installation.

131

132

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

hold all the aces cards

expected to win or succeed

The children hold all the aces when it comes to the father-son baseball tournament.

the home stretch baseball

almost the end

I think Alice’s pregnancy is in the home stretch.

hot shot (big shot) hunting

a person who thinks they are the best

Even though Luke only placed 20th in the ski race, he thinks he’s a hot shot.

jump the gun track

start too early

I guess I jumped the gun by buying Pam and Steve a wedding gift. They called off the engagement.

keep one’s head above water swimming

try not to fall behind in work or other duties

We are so busy during the tourist season I can barely keep my head above water.

learn the ropes sailing

understand new things

The first week on the job you will just be learning the ropes.

let her rip boating

go ahead now

Okay, here are the keys to your new car. Let her rip!

level playing field any field sport

everyone has an equal chance

The spelling bee is a level playing field because all of the kids are in grade nine.

long shot hunting

a very difficult thing to accomplish

Jim thinks we can afford the house, but I think it’s a long shot.

make the cut any sport

be chosen to be part of a team or group

I didn’t get a second interview, so I’m pretty sure I won’t make the cut.

neck and neck horse racing

to be in a close tie with someone

George and Stan are neck and neck in the hockey pool. Either of them could win the money.

no sweat any sport

no problem

I told Lily it was no sweat for us to babysit next weekend.

not playing with a full deck of cards cards

not having full brain capacity

I think Jerry was still drunk at work on Sunday because he wasn’t playing with a full deck of cards.

Sports

not up to par golf

not good enough for a job or position

I’m afraid your resume isn’t up to par for the engineering position.

to be off base baseball

not making a fair or true remark

You were way off base when you said Bill needed to lose weight.

on target darts

doing the right thing to succeed

We are on target to meet our budget this month.

on the ball baseball

ready and able

The new receptionist is really on the ball when it comes to answering the phone.

out in left field baseball

nowhere near being true, nowhere near doing something correctly

All of the students laughed when Joe gave an answer that was out in left field.

out of someone’s league team sport

not as good as someone

I’d like to date Maria, but I’m afraid I’m out of her league.

par for the course golf

an expected circumstance

Waiting in line is par for the course at Christmas time.

plenty of other fish in the sea fishing

there are many other men and women to date

I know you still love Jack, but remember there are plenty of other fish in the sea.

race against time track

there is almost no time left to accomplish something

It’s a race against time to find a kidney donor for my cousin.

settle a score with someone any sport

get even with a person after a previous battle

My brother wants to settle the score with that guy who stole my wallet.

shot in the dark hunting

a guess

I was lucky to win the quiz. All my answers were shots in the dark.

skate on thin ice skating

do something risky, take a chance

You’re skating on thin ice by not sending in your college application before now.

133

134

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

start the ball rolling ball sports

begin something

Please can everyone be seated so we can start the ball rolling.

step up to the plate baseball

do the honourable thing, take responsibility

It’s time you stepped up to the plate and apologized for your mistake.

take a rain check baseball

accept at a later time

Sorry, I can’t go to the movies today, but I’d love to take a rain check.

take sides any sport

choose a person or group to support

I hate to take sides, but I think Jerry is right about the paint colour.

take the bull by the horns bull fighting

accept the challenge and try your hardest

Even though this new job will mean relocating, I think you should take the bull by the horns for once.

take the wind out of one’s sails sailing

make someone feel deflated

I think I took the wind out of Angela’s sails when I told her she was a terrible singer.

throw in the towel boxing

give up

If they don’t accept our offer this time we are going to throw in the towel and look at houses elsewhere.

time out any sport

break

Let’s take some time out and grab a coffee.

three strikes and you’re out baseball

you only get three chances

The school’s no smoking policy is three strikes and you’re out.

two strikes against baseball

you only have one chance remaining

Nancy is going to be fired in no time. She already has two strikes against her for coming in late.

under the table gambling

illegally

I don’t have a work visa, so they have to pay me under the table.

win hands down gambling

easy victory

The other team was missing half of its players. We won hands down.

Sports

Exercise 11 Do the following Sports idioms quiz 1. a ballpark figure a ballpark estimate She gave us a ballpark figure for the cost because she a. didn’t know the exact amount b. knew how much a ballpark cost c. wanted to tell us the exact amount 2. across the board The staff cuts will be across the board, so staff will be cut from a. every department b. some departments c. one department 3. ahead of the game The best way to stay ahead of the game in the fashion business is to a. do market research and surveys b. copy what your competitors do c. spend less on salaries 4. another string to your bow John’s a truck driver, but he wants another string to his bow so he’s going to a. take up archery b. do a bartending course c. go fishing on weekends 5. behind the eight ball The report is due tomorrow morning, and Nayomi is behind the eight ball because a. her computer crashed and she can’t print it b. she’s still waiting for a few pages to print c. it’s after 8 o’clock and she isn’t asleep yet 6. get off on the wrong foot Peter got off on the wrong foot on his date with Wendy when a. he made her laugh at a joke b. he ordered an expensive bottle of wine c. he knocked over a glass of water 7. jump the gun Donny was playing the part of a detective in the play, but he jumped the gun on the first night. He a. accidentally fired his gun

135

136

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

b. forgot what his lines were c. started saying his lines too soon 8. jump through hoops | go through hoops You’ll have to jump through hoops before you’ll be allowed to a. join the circus b. buy a motorbike c. adopt a baby 9. no holds barred Our boss is a tough businessman, so it’s no holds barred when he a. negotiates a deal b. withdraws money from the bank c. plays golf with customers 10. off your own bat The production manager decided, off his own bat, to change the quality of the raw materials used in the factory. He did it a. without being asked to b. without planning to do it c. without knowing much about it Answers 1. a. didn’t know the exact amount 2. a. every department 3. a. do market research and surveys 4. b. do a bartending course 5. a. her computer crashed and she can’t print it 6. c. he knocked over a glass of water 7. c. started saying his lines too soon 8. c. adopt a baby 9. a. negotiates a deal 10. a. without being asked to

Literature list

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

http://www.amphibianark.org http://kids.sandiegozoo.org/animals/amphibians http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/Arachnida/ http://www.special-dictionary.com/proverbs/keywords/bird/ http://www.idiomconnection.com/birds.html#A http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame. asp?id=8084 7. http://www.blackcatpoems.com/ 8. http://philipchircop.wordpress.com/ 9. http://www.keepinginsects.com/butterfly/general/ 10. http://www.quotegarden.com/butterflies.html 11.http://www.thequickenedword.com/rhema PARABLEBUTTERFLY.html 12. http://instructor.mstc.edu/instructor/swallerm/Struggle%20-%20 Butterfly.htm 13. http://www.spiritual-short-stories.com/spiritual-short-story 14. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish 15. http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/animals/fish.html 16. http://www.special-dictionary.com/proverbs/keywords/fish/9.htm 17. http://www.idiomconnection.com/fish.html 18.http://voxy.com/blog/index.php/2012/09/5-common-fishingidioms/ 19. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/jokes/animals/fish.shtml 20. http://www.movingplanets.com/world/animals/mammals/ 21. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammal 22. http://www.familypets.net/sheepproverbs.htm 23. http://www.englishexercises.net/yybaby.html 24. http://www.idiomconnection.com/animal.html#A 25. http://wiltonelder.com/list-of-music-instruments

138

A.Zh. Zhaparova THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE

26. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_instrument 27. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dombra 28. http://www.quotegarden.com/music.html 29. http://www.learn-english-today.com/idioms/idiom-categories/ music/music.html 30. http://www.esl-lounge.com/student/vocabulary/3v23 musical-vocabulary.php 31. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/jokes/topics/music.shtml 32. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport 33. http://www.inspirational-quotes.info/sports.html 34. http://www.quotegarden.com/sports.html 35. http://www.muhealth.org/body_teens.cfm?id=4402

Contents

Introduction ......................................3 Animality ..........................................5 Musical instruments........................89 Sports ............................................109 Literature list ................................137

Еducational issue

Zhaparova Asemzhan Zhaparkyzy THEMATIC ENGLISH IN USE An educational manual

Managing Editor G. Rustembekova Typesetting G. Kaliyeva Cover design A. Kolesnikov

Cover design used photos from sites www.severnbusinesscollege.com, www.bessarabiainform.com IB No. 7490 Signed for publishing 10.09.14. Format 60x84 1/16. Offset paper. Digital printing. Volume 8,62 printer’s sheet. 120 copies. Order No 1742. Publishing house “Kazakh University” Al-Farabi Kazakh National University KazNU, 71 Al-Farabi, 050040, Almaty Printed in the printing office of the “Kazakh University” publishing house