The great automatic grammatizator

by Roald Dahl

General Vocabulary:

Astonish - изумлять

Contribute, contribution to smth. – (делать) вклад

impracticable - непрактичный

Precise - точный

Rapid - быстрый

Revenge oneself on/upon smb – отомстить кому-л. за ч.-л.

Sloppily, sloppy – неряшливый, неряшливо

Urge - нужда

Phrasal Verbs:

Be worked up – быть на взводе

Break down – потерять самообладание

Come off - получиться

Run smth off – строчить

Sign up - подписаться

Step smth up – увеличивать обороты ч.-л.

Turn smth/smb down – отвергнуть ч.-л.

Idioms:

Doesn’t know the half of it – не знать и половины всего

For good measure – для ровного счета

Heart is not in it – сердце не лежит к ч.-л.

It stands to reason that – само собой разумеется, что

Whatever next! – без разницы

Worth its/his, etc. weight in gold – на вес золота

Prepositional Phrases:

Along the lines of – в соответствии с ч.-л.

At half the price – за полцены

By the million – продавать миллионами

From a (certain) angle – с определенного угла

To adapt for smth – приспосабливать под ч.-л.

Erle Gardner - (1899–1970), American novelist and short-story writer. He practised as a defence lawyer before writing his novels featuring the lawyer-detective Perry Mason.

Ernest Hemingway - (1899–1961), American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist; full name Ernest Miller Hemingway. He achieved success with The Sun Also Rises (1926), which reflected the disillusionment of the post-war ‘lost generation’. Other notable works: A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952, Pulitzer Prize 1953). Nobel Prize for Literature (1954).

William Faulkner - (1897–1962), American novelist. His works deal with the history and legends of the American South and have a strong sense of a society in decline. Notable works: The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), and Absalom! Absalom! (1936). Nobel Prize for Literature (1949).

James Joyce - (1882–1941), Irish writer; full name James Augustine Aloysius Joyce. One of the most important writers of the modernist movement, he made his name with Dubliners (short stories, 1914). His novel Ulysses (1922) revolutionized the structure of the modern novel and developed the stream-of-consciousness technique. Other notable novels: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1914–15) and Finnegans Wake (1939).

John Rockefeller - (1839–1937), American industrialist and philanthropist; full name John Davison Rockefeller. By 1880 he exercised a virtual monopoly over oil refining in the US. Both he and his son, John D. Rockefeller Jr (1874–1960), established many philanthropic institutions.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and so forth

by John Updike

General vocabulary:

Compromise – компромисс

Deliberate - преднамеренный

Encourage - воодушевлять

For the good of smb – во благо к.-л.

Genuine - истинный

Odd - странный

Provoke - провоцировать

Scold - бранить

Suspense - неопределенность

Valid – обоснованный, действительный

Phrasal Verbs:

Be wrapped up in smth – быть поглощенным ч.-л.

Hang up - медлить

Laugh smth off – отшутиться от ч.-л.

Think smth up - сочинить