Taking Сomputer for Granted. Учебное пособие

UNIT 6

It implies that Mr. Jones is still alive and can write more. Hence, Lord Byron wrote many poems.

5.The Present Perfect is used for actions occurring in an incomplete period. An incomplete period may be expressed by today, this morning, this afternoon, this evening, this week, this month, this year etc.

The Present Perfect is used with this morning up to 1 o’clock. After that the Simple Past is used. E.g. the postman comes to you every day in the morning; it is 11 a. m. You ask, «Has the postman come?». At 2 p.m. you ask, «Did the postman come?»

As afternoon ends at 5 p. m., at 3 p. m. you ask, «Have you seen Sam this afternoon?» But at 7 p. m. you ask, «Did you see Sam this afternoon?»

Lately and recently also indicate an incomplete period of time:

He has had a lot of trouble recently.

But if recently is used with the Simple Past it means a short time ago:

He went out recently = He went out a short time ago.

6.The Present Perfect can be used with ever, never, always, occasionally, often, several times etc. and also with since + a point of time:

I have not seen Jack since July. I have never smoked.

7.The Present Perfect is used when a sentence begins with This is the first (second, third) time:

This is the first time I’ve been to London. This is the third time I’ve driven a car.

171

Taking Computer for Granted

8.The Present Perfect continuous is used for an action which began in the past and is still continuing:

We have been waiting for him for 30 minutes. Let’s go now.

Don’t forget about a number of verbs which are not normally used in the continuous form (except certain cases). The verb want is often used in this tense:

Thanks so much for this book. I have been wanting it for ages.

9. The Present Perfect continuous tense does not exist in the passive.

An action which began in the past and is still continuing with certain verbs can be expressed by either the Present Perfect Simple or the Present perfect continuous. Among these verbs are: live and work:

How long have you been living in London? Or How long have you lived in London?

The Past Perfect is the past equivalent of the Present Perfect and is used when the narrator looks back on earlier action from a certain point in the past: I had just started to do my homework when Tom dropped in.

2

Have to

As it is known the verb must expresses an obligation imposed by the speaker:

Have to implies an external obligation:

Sam has to use his old computer because he has no money for acquiring a new CPU and motherboard.

In the first person the difference between must and have to is less important.

172

UNIT 6

3

Have + object + present participle

The expressions of such type are often used with a period of future time:

I’ll have you speaking English in one year, which means that you will speak English as a result of my efforts.

It can be also used for future and past:

The teacher had them all studying.

Which means that the teacher persuaded them to study.

This expression can be used in the interrogative but not often in the negative.

4

Have + object + past participle

This construction can be used to express situations like:

I employed someone to do something.

For example instead of saying

I employed a professional to mend my TV set it’s possible to say

I had my TV set mended.

Take it into account that this construction is frozen. If you change the order of the words you’ll change the meaning of the statement, e.g.:

I had mended my TV set

means that you mended it yourself.

This construction can be used to replace a passive verb. For example instead of saying

His car was stolen before he had a chance to drive

173

Taking Computer for Granted

you can say

He had his car stolen before he had a chance to drive.

When ‘have’ is used in this way the negative and interrogative are formed with the help of ‘do’.

5

Besides ‘to posses’ the verb to have has several different meanings. Here are some of them, e.g.:

accept: He wanted to marry her, but she wouldn’t have him.

know, understand: He has no English.

deceive, cheat (colloq.): The gambler had him.

people with or without wealth or privilege: There are haves and have-nots.

assert: Rumor has it that she is going to be married.

tolerate: I won’t have you to behave that way.

cause to be done: Have your haircut.

6

To have as a phrasal verb:

have in (invite): We are having the Smiths in for dinner today.

have on:

1.wear: He had nothing on.

2.be engaged in doing: He has a lot on today, but tomorrow he’ll be free;

3.deceive, cheat, mislead (fam): They must have been having you on.

have out: Stop having me on, please!

have removed or extracted: He had his tooth out yesterday.

discuss, argue towards a conclusion: They had it all out yesterday.

I must have the matter out with them.

have up (invite): I had them up for coffee last night.

174

UNIT 6

7

Well, try to remember now several useful expressions and idioms with have:

Have an eye for – have good taste in

He has an eye for good English usage. She has an eye for style in clothes.

Have eyes only for – want nothing else but, give all attention to

All the girls liked Tom, but he had eyes only for Ann.

Have a screw loose (slang) – to be foolish, to act in a strange way

Now I really know he has a screw loose.

Have got it made – to be successful

With your excellent education and quick wit you’ve got it made.

Have + noun is often used in the sense of performing certain activity: have a dance, have a look, have a rest, have a fight, have a talk, have a wash, have a swim:

Have a look at our place.

You’re exhausted. You must have a rest. We had a nice talk with Jim yesterday. Sam had a dance with Mary.

8

Had better + bare infinitive

It’s a sort of advise or wish:

We had better go means that it would be better for us to go. You had better is an advice form:

You had better stop smoking.

175

Taking Computer for Granted

In indirect speech had better remains unchanged. With the second person it can be reported by advise:

He said, «You had better go by train».

Two possible versions:

He said I had better go by train. He advised me to go by train.

Had rather + bare infinitive means prefer.

I had much rather he come tomorrow.

3.Vocabulary training

1.Identification of words

Match the words in the left-hand column with their equivalents in the right-hand column, e.g. 3-4. If necessary look up the dictionary.

UNIT 6

2. Useful expressions

Match the expressions in the left-hand column with their equivalentsin the right-hand column, e.g. 1-3:

3. Phrasal verbs

Make up your own sentences using the phrasal verbs from the list below.

If necessary use the dictionary at the end of this book.

Run on; develop into; process into; fall into; check for; sell along with; sort out; go on; forge into; sift through.

4. Reading comprehension

Read the text, try to understand the topic, look for the logical sequence of the items and put them in the proper order.

The first and the last item are in the right position.

1.An OCR (Optical Character Recognition) system enables you to input printed documents into your computer automatically via a scanner.

FineReader is an omnifont optical text recognition system. It means that the system recognizes texts in practically any font without prior training. The process of document input can be divided into two stages:

177

Taking Computer for Granted

2.The principles of IPA (Integrity, Purposefulness, Adaptivity):

Integrity – the object of recognition is described as a single entity by a set of basic elements and their interrelations.

Purposefulness – recognition is a process of generation and purposeful verification of hypotheses.

Adaptivity – the system ability to learn and be trained.

3.Let’s take a closer look at the second of two mentioned above stages.

FineReader OCR image processing involves analyzing the image file transmitted by the scanner (layout analysis) and recognizing each character.

4.These three principles determine the systems behavior. The system generates a hypothesis about object of recognition and then tries to find all the structural elements and their interrelations step by step. Then the program adapts itself to the text – tunes itself – using the positive experience gained from the first confidently recognized characters. Purposeful searching and using context enable the system to recognize even torn and distorted characters.

5.The final result is the recognized text you see in the FineReader Text window, a text you can edit save in any convenient format.

6.These two stages are:

Scanning. During the first stage the scanner acts as the «eye» of your computer; it looks at the image and transfers it into the computer.

Recognition. During the second stage FineRider performs the OCR image processing.

178

UNIT 6

5. Computer terms in use

A.Match the terms in the left-hand column with their definitions in the right-hand column. If necessary consult the dictionary:

Taking Computer for Granted

B.Find out Russian equivalents of the computer terms given below. If it’s beyond your grasp, give at least Russian explanation:

Plug and play – an industry standard that allows computer peripherals to be automatically configured by the operating system. Plug and play eliminates the need to manually change jumpers and other hardware settings when installing hardware.

Resource. Window resources include icons, cursors, menus, bitmaps, fonts, etc. The resources used by an application are either part of the system, or private resources stored in the applications program file.

Icon – a small image on a display screen that, in conjunction with a mouse, select and executes program functions.

Menu – a list of options from which a user can chose, or a list of programs that a user can access.

Bitmap – in graphic technology, when a portion of the customer’s memory is used for storing graphics.

Assembly language – machine language that has had some of the numbers replaced by somewhat easier to remember mnemonics in an attempt to make it more human-readable. The program that converts assembly language to machine language is called an assembler.

Program – a series of instructions for a computer, telling it what to do or how to behave.

Running – a program is how it’s made to do smth. The term «execute» means the same thing.

Graphics – anything visually displayed on a computer that is not text.

Browse – to look through a list on a computer system. Character – a letter, number, punctuation mark etc.

180