Лексикология английского языка. Practice Makes Perfect. Учебное пособие

G.A) To be world champion you need to be quick, you need to be consistent, you need to work well with the team and you need to be lucky. B) Three months on from the painful disappointment, the fastest female marathon runner of all time is rapidly regaining fitness and form.

H.The 15-nation Southern African Development Community has called for a summit to try to break the deadlock. Officials said the meeting might be held as early as this week.

I.An average of 344 children a day are suspended from English schools for violence against other pupils. The figured published yesterday show 65,390 pupils were temporary excluded for violence against classmates in 2006–2007.

J.A) During what has been the most grueling election campaign ever, the candidate has aged. B) The working lives of Mr. Ali and his fellow rickshaw drivers is hard and brutal, made worse by Dhaka’s awful traffic. C) Almost the last act of the Bush administration will be to make life tougher for travelers.

2.Give as many synonyms as you can for the italicized words in the following jokes. If you don’t know any, consult a dictionary

Woman Thoughts

A.Women over 50 don’t have babies because they would put them down and forget where they left them.

B.My mind not only wanders, it sometimes leaves completely.

C.The best way to forget your troubles is to wear tight shoes.

D.Amazing! You hang something in your closet and it shrinks 2

sizes.

E.Skinny people irritate me. Especially when they say things like this: “You know sometimes I forget to eat!” Now. I’ve forgotten my address, my mother’s maiden name and my keys. But I’ve never forgotten to eat. You have to be a special kind of stupid to forget to eat!

F.I read the article that said that the typical symptoms of stress are: eating too much, impulse driving and driving too fast. Are they kidding? That’s my idea of a prefect day!

G.The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight because by then your body and your fat are really good friends.

3.Carry out definitional and transformational analysis on the italicized synonyms using the explanations of meanings given below. Draw diagrams and define the types of connotations

A.To shut is to close something, or to become closed; to lock is to shut by using a lock; to bolt is to shut by using a metal bar; to bar is to close something by putting a bar or a piece of wood.

B.To laugh is to make sounds with your voice because you think that something is funny; to chuckle is to laugh quietly; to giggle is to laugh quickly in high voice because you are nervous or embarrassed; to snigger is to laugh quietly in an unkind or unpleasant way; to cackle is to laugh in an unpleasant loud way; to guffaw is to laugh very loudly.

C.Smell denotes the quality that people and animals recognize by using their nose; perfume is a good smell of a liquid; aroma is a pleasant smell used especially about food or coffee; odour is a bad smell; stink is a very strong bad smell.

D.Angry means feeling strong emotions because you think that the situation is unfair, cruel, offensive; annoyed feeling not very angry; furious means feeling very angry; outraged means very angry and shocked, because you think that something is unfair or wrong.

E.Attractive means someone who is pleasant to look at; pretty is usually used about a woman or a girl while handsome as a rule refers to a man or a boy; gorgeous or stunning are used about anyone who is very attractive or beautiful in Informal English; cute is used to describe a child or an animal; cute in American English means sexually attractive.

4.Use the definitions of the following synonyms which are given incontemporarydictionariesandprovethatsynonymspossess a dual nature. Draw diagrams to illustrate your answer

Cold – cool – chilly – freezing; mishap – accident – disaster; to advertise – to promote – to market; answer – reply – response – retort; lazy – idle – indolent; to leave – to quit – to resign – to retire; to leave one’s country – to emigrate – to migrate – to exile – to banish; to close – to shut – to slam; to find – to discover – to trace – to locate – to unearth; fashionable – trendy – stylish; flame – blaze – flash – flare; gift – present – donation; honest – fair – sincere; to imitate – to copy – to counterfeit; clean – pure; cheap – low-priced, worthless.

5.Find the dominant synonym in the following groups of synonyms. Explain your choice

Nail-biting – gripping – thrilling – exciting; to fasten – to clip – to tie – to button – to zip (up); to assemble – to build – to construct – to erect; to sip – to gulp – to drink – to swig; tough – hard – difficult; dirty – dusty – muddy – greasy; to sob – to cry – to weep; unstable – disturbed – insane – crazy; clean – spotless – pristine – immaculate; grave – serious – solemn.

6.The following humorous quotations contain members of groups of synonyms. Provide as many synonyms as you can for each, explaining the difference between them; single out the dominant synonym giving reasons for your choice

A.A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well-known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized (Fred Allen).

B.A compromise is an agreement whereby both parties get what neither of them wanted (Author Unknown).

C.A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking (Attributed to Arthur McBride Bloch).

D.All generalizations are bad (R. H. Grenier).

E.All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific (Jane Wagner, The Search for Intelligent Life in The Universe).

F.Say what you will about the ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them (H. L. Mencken).

7.Read the following groups of words. What do we call them? How do they differ from the groups of synonyms? Give several examples of your own

Flowers: daisy, buttercup, rose, sunflower, iris, poppy, geranium. Vegetables: lettuce, onion, beetroot, garlic, peppers, radish.

8.Read the following headlines from British newspapers. Provide synonyms for the italicized words. Analyze them using the classification worked out by academician V. V. Vinogradov.

A.House prices are starting to cool.

B.Greedy GPs (general practitioner) kick out patients.

C.Here is yet another casualty of oppressive political correctness.

D.Pet camel kills owner on ranch.

E.Are Tories right to target inheritance tax?

F.The tattoo that needn’t needle you all your life.

G.Pick up a new French Language Dictionary today.

H.Jane calms protest with cups of tea.

I.Preacher Graham rushed to hospital.

J.Police to swoop on British suspect.

9.There are a lot of euphemistic substitutes for such words as: god, devil, to die, drunk, stupid, lavatory in English. Find some examples from dictionaries. What is the difference between social euphemisms and superstitious taboos?

10.Find euphemisms in the following sentences. Classify them from the point of view of Linguistics

Political Correctness for Teens

A.These days, a student isn’t lazy. He’s “energetically declined”.

B.Your homework isn’t missing, it’s just having an ‘out-of- notebook experience”.

C.You’re not sleeping in class, you’re “rationing consciousness”.

D.You’re not late, you just have “rescheduled arrival time”.

E.You’re not having bad hair today. You’re suffering from “rebellious follicle syndrome”.

F.No one is tall any more. He’s “vertically enhanced”.

G.You’re not shy. You’re “conversationally selective”.

H.You don’t talk a lot. You’re just-abundantly verbal”.

I.You weren’t passing notes in class. You were “participating in the discreet exchange of penned meditations”.

J.It’s not called gossip anymore. It’s the speedy transition of “near-factual information”.

11.Find antonyms for the words given below. What type of antonyms are these?

Busy, adj.; bright adj.; brutal, adj.; bitter, adj.; artificial, adj.; ancient, adj.; beauty, n.; beginning, n.; accuse, v.; accept, v.; courage, n.; evil, n.; lose, v.; permit, v.; create, v.; cry, v.; arrive, v.; remember, v.

12.Form antonyms from verbs by using one of the following prefixes: dis-, mis-, un-. Sometimes you can use different prefixes to form new words from the same root: disinterested – ‘impartial’, uninterested - ‘not interested’

Agree, behave, fold, like, load, lock, pack, obey, trust, use.

13.Give the opposite word combinations by using root antonyms (for example: to be present – to be absent).

Casual clothes, to capture a person, to be proud of one’s country, a public telephone, rich soil, rigid methods, dangerous animals, a sad look, rural districts, a serious injury, a timid child, to pass an exam, to loosen the shoelaces.

14.To revise what you have learned from the preceding chapters, say everything you can about the italicized words in one of the following aspects: a) etymology; b) word-building; c) homonymy; d) synonymy

An elderly couple had dinner at another’s couple house, and after eating the wives left the table and went to the kitchen. The two gentlemen got talking and one of them said: “Last night we went out to a new restaurant and it was really great. I recommend it highly.” The other man said: “What’s the name of the restaurant?” The first man thought for a moment and then said: “What’s the name of the flower you give to someone you love? You know, the one that’s red and has thorns.” “Do you mean a rose?” “Yes, that’s the one,” replied the man. He then turned towards the kitchen and yelled: “Rose, what’s the name of that restaurant we went to last night?”

English Phraseology

1.Read the following sentences. Identify phraseological units in them by using two major criteria: structural and semantic. Write out the examples and translate them into Russian

A.“It was the most terrifying thing I have ever done in my entire life”, admits Fearne, 27, who cut her teeth on children’s TV.

B.Helena Christensen gets the green light to photograph illuminating new eco campaign. A mother herself she doesn’t merely pay lip service to her eco beliefs.

C.Bond fans will remember the iconic scene from 1964’s Goldfinger in which Shirley Eaton’s character Jill Masterson comes to a sticky end when she is coated top to toe in gold paint.

D.Gemma, 22, and Shirley now 72, were all smiles when they met at the Top to Tail charity evening where Gemma joined fellow Bond girls, past and present, on the catwalk. She was not the only one. In fact, the venue was packed to the grills with celebrities and their children, including Spice Girls, Olympic medalist Sally Gunnell and musician Dan Hipgrave.

E.In her 56 years as head of state, the Queen and her husband have embarked on 326 tours abroad together, beating the drum for Britain in a way no-one else can. And who else could bring the heart of the city to a standstill as they did, attracting crowds five-deep as they went on a walkabout through the center of the Slovenian capital.

F.It’s as hot as hell on set. I (Nicole Kidman) fell a little under the weather but we had a beautiful day yesterday, swam in the hot

springs and pretended we were in Italy. I’m not sure how I can get to the end. I’m in every single scene now six days a week, for months on end. I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.

G. The cocktail is a fitting tribute to the writer (Jackie Collins), whose best-selling novels have been lifting the lid on Tinseltown for the last 40 years.

2.Read the following questions and give your answers to them. What are the two major criteria for distinguishing between idioms and free word groups?

A.What kind of party is a stag party?

B.Our postman kicked the bucket last week. What has happened to him?

C.A tiresome, irritating person is described as a pain in what part of the body?

D.Jack‘s behind bars. Where is he?

E.Where on the body would you find crow’s feet?

F.What’s a busman’s holiday?

G.What sort of person is an early bird?

H.How would you be feeling if you were full of beans?

3.Read the idioms and classify them according to the source of their origin: the Bible, quotations from Shakespeare, Greek and Roman poetry and mythology, customs and traditions

A land of milk and honey, to cast pearls before swine, cakes and ale, to rub salt in the wound, to cross the Rubicon, the black sheep, to over-egg the pudding, to give the devil his due, to paint the lily, to cast the first stone at somebody, the green-eyed monster, baker’s dozen, bread and circuses.

4.Fill in the gaps using one of these words: blue, white, green, red, yellow, pink. Translate the idioms into Russian.

1. I was …with envy when I heard that he would be going to Paris for a week while I had to stay and work. 2. Lily argued with him until she was … in the face. 3. The company has been in the … for two years now – ever since their exports to Asia decreased by 20 per cent. 4. She was tickled … that you made the effort to go and visit her when you were in Spain. 5. The new stereo that he bought is a … elephant. He doesn’t need it at all. 6. He has a … streak running down his back. He is not a person to support you when things become difficult.

5.Lots of idioms have words denoting colour in their structure. Read the questions and choose the right answer. Translate the idioms into Russian.

A. What do you say when a person is fired?

a) to get the brown slip; b) to get the pink slip; c) to get the white slip B. How would you call an ideal man?

a) blue knight; b) green knight; c) white knight

C.How do you feel when you are sad? a) green; b) blue; c) yellow

D.How do you describe a person who feels very happy?

a) to be tickled pink; b) to be tickled white c) to be tickled red E. How do you call a person who is very envious?

a) green with envy; b) blue with envy; c) yellow with envy F. What would you say if a person feels fit?

a) to be in the red; b) to be in the pink; c) to be in the black G. What would you say if a person is a coward?

a) a blue streak; b) a red streak; c) a yellow streak

6.Read the sentences and find idioms in them. Correct the mistakes in the usage of idioms. What principle of a phraseological unit is violated in the examples?

A.When he lost all his money, he still tried to keep appearances even though he could not afford his lifestyle.

B.She is always the odd out one. When her friends do one sport, she does a different one.

C.Sometimes it is better to give a low profile at work. In that case nobody asks you to do difficult tasks.

D.He is always putting on grace and air, but everyone knows he’s just an ordinary person with a very ordinary background.

E.She became a name for herself by being the first woman to climb Mount Everest.

7.One of the main functions of proverbs is their didactic function. Read the proverbs and explain what moral principles and values of the society are reflected in them. Translate the proverbs into Russian

––An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

––Cowards die many times before their death.

––Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

––Haste makes waste.

––Idleness is the root of all evil.

––One day is worth two tomorrow.

––He’s a fool that makes a doctor his heir.

––Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

8.Proverbs are characterized by their poetic form. Read the proverbs and find the cases of alliteration and rhyme. Translate the proverbs into Russian.

––Barking dogs seldom bite.

––Look before you leap.

––Every dog has its day.

––Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

––A light purse is a heavy curse.

––Velvet paws hide sharp claws.