Vocabulary Practice

1. Write in transcription and read the following words and phrases:

shiver; ache; headache; miserable; forehead; fever; temperature; downstairs; coloured capsules; epidemic of influenza; danger; various; detached; medicine; bother; the same position; stare; one hundred and two and four tenth; straight ahead; evidently; pirate; commence to read; different thermometre; gaze; cry easily; absolutely.

2. Translate into English:

бледное лицо; больно двигаться; разные лекарства; инструкция для применения; сто четыре градуса; избежать пневмонии; сделать пометку; он не следил за моим чтением; Как ты себя чувствуешь?; пока так же; в ногах кровати; предписанные лекарства; щёки покраснели от жара; я не могу не думать; глупо об этом говорить; плакать по пустякам; напряжение в нём спало.

3. Reproduce the situations from the text where the active vocabulary is used. Think of your own sentences with the words from the list.

1. Suggest words and word combinations from active vocabulary for the following:

• to look unwell and unhappy

• to have temperature

• to be delirious

• to evade flue

• not dangerous case of flue

• not showing much personal feeling to what is happening around

• to suffer a continuous pain while walking

• to measure sb’s fever

• black circles around the eyes

• to read to one’s own private use

1. Choose the correct statement:

1. “You go to bed. I’ll see you when …”

1. I’m dressed

2. I have breakfast

3. I go shopping

1. When the doctor came he …

1. washed his hands

2. took the boy’s temperature

3. asked to bring a teaspoon

1. He lay still in bed and seemed

1. very wistful

2. very sad

3. very detached from what was going on

1. It would have been natural for him to …

1. read a book

2. go for a walk

3. to go to sleep

1. At the house they said the boy had refused …

1. to eat his soup

2. to take medicine

3. to let anyone into the room

1. At school in France the boys told me …

1. young boys mustn’t smoke

2. young boys mustn’t drink wine

3. you can’t live with forty-four degrees

1. Answer the following questions:

1. Who is the main character of the story?

2. What happened to the boy one day?

3. What did the doctor advise?

4. What was the boy’s behaviour after the doctor’s visit?

5. Why didn’t the boy refuse to let anyone into his room?

6. Why did he think he was going to die?

7. How did the boy’s father comfort him?

1. Topics for general discussion

1. What kind of history is it?

2. What kind of boy was the principle character?

3. Do you think the boy really believed his father?

Stephen Butler Leacock, Ph.D , FRSC (30 December 1869 – 28 March 1944) was a Canadian writer and economist. Born in Swanmore, Hampshire, England, at the age of six years old Leacock and his family moved to Canada. While the family had been comfortable in England, the farm in Georgina Township of York County was not a success and Leacock's family was quite poor.

Leacock, always of obvious intelligence, was sent to the elite private school of Upper Canada College in Toronto, where he was top of the class and was chosen as head boy. In 1887, seventeen year-old Leacock started at University College at the University of Toronto.

He left university to earn money as a school teacher - a job he disliked immensely. As a teacher at Upper Canada College, his alma mater, he was able to simultaneously attend classes at the University of Toronto and, in 1891, earn his degree through part-time studies. It was during this period that his first writing was published in The Varsity, a campus newspaper.

In 1899 he became a lecturer and long-time acting head of the political economy department at McGill University.

Early in his career Leacock turned to fiction, humour, and short reports. His stories, became extremely popular around the world. Between the years 1915 and 1925, Leacock was the most popular humourist in the English-speaking world.

In accordance with his wishes, after his death due to throat cancer, he was cremated and buried at Sibbald Point in Georgina Township near his boyhood home. In 1947, the Stephen Leacock Award was created to recognize the best in Canadian literary humour.

A number of buildings in Canada are named after Leacock, including the Stephen Leacock Building at McGill University, a theatre in Keswick, Ontario, and schools in Toronto and Ottawa.