ESSENTIAL VOCABULARY (I)

Words

anxiety n attendant n imitate υ anxious adj

audience n make υ anxiously adv entertain υ

make-up n attend υ entertainment n wear υ

attendance n hold υ, n wings n, pl wipe υ;

Word Combinations

to make (a) noise a long way from

to lead the way (to) to lose one's (the) way

to look about oneself to be (get) out of the way

about (of) smb.'s age to have one's (own) way

members of the orchestra to catch hold of smth.

anxious (worried) about smth. to keep hold of smth.

to make jokes to lose hold of smth.

to make oneself at home to hold a meeting

to make up smth. to hold on to smth.

to make one's way

EXERCISES

1. Bead the text and explain the following points (A. Grammar, B. Word usage, С. Style):

A. 1. Explain the use of tenses in: a) "...a performer said he would imitate 'our dear old favourite' So-and-so, and named a music-hall star that Rose had never heard of"; b) "Youth had fled from it"; c) "She was sitting near enough..."

2. Explain the use of all the articles in the fragment be­ginning with "One turn was an eccentric fellow", and ending with "played the accordion."

B. 1. How do you understand the word human in "...alto­gether more human than the picture theatres..."?

2. a) Explain the meaning of the italicized words in the following: "Very few of the turns were young; they them­selves, their creased and fading scenery, their worn property were getting on in years"; b) What kind of atmosphere is created by this description? Which characteristic feature of the place is specially emphasized?

3. What is the meaning of the word bloom in "There was no bloom on anything here"? What kind of image is created by the sentence?

4. Explain the meaning of the words anxious in "eyes anxious behind the mask of pain" and anxiously in "his real face peering anxiously through that mask." (Anxious implies fear. Why is the emotion of fear emphasized in these two sentences?)

C. 1. Explain the effect achieved by inversion in: a) "One thing she noticed"; b) "...Standing there, never taking her eyes off the performer, was an elderly woman..." (See Notes on Style, p. 277).

2. a) What is the effect achieved by the syntactical paral­lelism in: "...So were the attendants. So were the members of the orchestra"? b) Find another case of syntactical parallelism in the last passage but one and comment on it.

II. Transcribe the following words and translate them into Russian:

anxiety, arrival, attendance, imitate, altogether, twopence, properties, creased, wearing, weary, audience, straight, desolate, joint, anxious, grotesque, ragged, perhaps, endeavour.

III. a) Find in the text sentences with:

a great deal of, very few, very few of, many of

And write your own sentences with the same word-combinations,

b) Find in the text sentences with:

altogether, nearly, usually, then, at first, soon, whatever it is, any more, no longer

And write your own sentences with the same words and phrases.

IV. Answer the questions:

1. When did Rose and Mrs. Burlow arrive at the music-hall? 2. Where were their seats? 3. Were the stalls expen­sive? 4. In what way did the audience behave? 5. What kind of place was the music-hall? What was its most characteris­tic feature? 6. Were the attendants and the members of the orchestra young or elderly people? 7. What did the scenery and the properties look like? 8. When did the loudest ap­plause come? Why? 9. Why does the author say that the music-hall was rather sad though it was cosy and friendly? 10. Why were the actor's eyes anxious behind the mask of paint? 11. What did the man in the costume of a tramp do on the stage? 12. Did Rose like his acting? 13. What did she see in the wings? 14. Why did she say nothing to Mrs. Burlow? 15. How does this episode characterize Rose? 16. What does the author want to tell us by this episode?

V. Search the text for adjectives and classify them into two groups according to "positive" and "negative" qualities as suggested by the context (e.g. 1) great, good, nice... and 2) cheap, creased...). When the list is ready, describe some place and its atmosphere using the adjectives of each group.