Тексты для самостоятельного чтения Touchy Topics

In North America when people meet each other for the first time, they talk about things like family, work, school, or sports. They ask questions like “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”, “Where do you work?”, “What school do you go to?”, and “Do you like sports?” they also ask questions like “Where do you come from?” and “Where do you live?” these are polite questions. They are not personal or private.

But some things are personal or private, and questions about them are not polite. People don’t ask questions about a person’s salary. They don’t ask how much someone is paid for something. It is OK to ask children how old they are, but it is not polite to ask older people their age. It is also not polite to ask people about politics or religion unless you know them very well. People don’t ask unmarried people ‘Why are you single?”, and they don’t ask a married couple with no children “Why don’t you have any children?”

Pair Work

1 Look at the following questions. Are they polite or not polite when you meet someone for the first time in North America?

Polite/ Not polite

a) What does your wife do?

b) Do you believe in God?

c) How much money do you earn?

d) How many children do you have?

e) Why aren’t you married?

f) Do you like baseball?

g) How old are you, Mr. Lee?

h) Are you a Democrat or a Republican?

i) How much was you watch?

2 Look at the questions again Are they polite or not polite in your country?

A quiet life

Felix Catt is a typical resident of Siberia Avenue, Surbiton. He looks gloomy, but in fact he is quite happy, and he leads a quiet life in this suburb of London. His wife Mary looks after him carefully; she cleans the house regularly, and feeds him daily on well cooked meat and tinned vegetables. There is always a supply of fresh water for his whisky, and plenty of carpet space for putting practice, so he is very comfortable and content with suburban life.

Felix is very fond of his old dog, Sam. They go for walks together on Sundays. Today he is taking Sam to the local vet, because he is afraid that he is going blind. However, the vet is confident of curing him by means of a small operation. He is giving Sam an injection before operating on him, so that he will sleep peacefully the whole time and not feel any pain. There is even a pretty nurse standing by to comfort Sam in case he feels unhappy and lonely in strange surroundings.

In general, both Felix and Sam think that they don’t have a bad life, and they have no desire to change it for anything more adventurous.

resident

a typical resident

to look gloomy

to lead a quiet life

in the suburb (on the outskirts of)

to look after

to feed on

a supply

plenty of

putting practice

to be comfortable and content with

to be fond of

to be afraid of

to go blind/ deaf

to be confident with

to cure

by means of

to sleep peacefully

pain

to stand by

in case

to have no desire

adventurous

both

Gap Years

In the newspaper article below, Mr. Coren, an ex-university student, gives his opinions on ‘gap years’. In Britain a gap year refers to a year off between leaving school and starting higher or further education, or between finishing your education and starting work.

Traditionally, students have used this year to travel and experience life in other countries, often by working there.

There is absolutely nothing at all to be said for taking a year out between school and university and using it to travel the world. Supporters of the gap- year fraud claim that it broadens the mind. As if a broad mind were of any use at all in settling down to the miserable grist of a workaday existence – in life it is only those with the very narrowest horizons who survive.

The first disaster was that my chosen university insisted that I took a year off.

‘You will be very welcome in 1989,’ they said. ‘But you need to mature’. ‘Mature?’ I was not a cheese. Did that venerable begowned gentleman actually believe that to pick up an exotic disease or lose my right arm wrestling with an alligator in the Amazon would in some way make me keener to read Spenser?

I will never know. All I do know is that I had the prospect of 15 months before I started university with nothing to do and no money. I really didn’t want to travel.

What is more, even if I had wanted to go away I couldn’t have afforded it.

It is the private income posse who travel. Dosh from Daddy. They will say that they ‘worked’ for their round the world air ticket meaning ‘I earned nine pounds for walking the neighbour’s dog and my parents paid the rest.’ It is they, and only they, who go away.

But, and here is the point, I learnt more about life, dearth and the nature of humanity in the 15 months that I spent working in London than anyone who came back from the depths of South-East Asia. Far from enlivening to work a till in Harrods and see what happens to a posh woman in a Hermes scarf when her credit card won’t work.

Whatever you do in your gap year you do not mature but merely age. And wherever you spend you time it is wasted. However good you might think your gap year was, if you hadn’t taken it you would be a year younger now.

a) Which of these titles do you think would be the best one for the article? Why?

-Diseases and alligators: The risks and rewards

- Foreign travel: No way to bridge the dreaded gap

-A gap year: Time off well spent?

b) Which of Mr Coren’s opinions do you agree or disagree with?

c) Comment on the tone/ attitude of the article. Is it cynical? Light-hearted? Funny?

Find words and phrases to justify your choices.

Example: He is quite cynical (it is only those with the very narrowest horizons who survive).