Vocabulary Tasks
1 Use the word in brackets to form a word that fits in the space.
Father and son
My next door neighbour has a very unusual (1 APPEAR) __________. He has long hair with a (2 PART) ____________ in the middle, and usually wears an old pair of jeans and a (3 STRIP) ____________ shirt. His clothes are very (4 SUIT) ___________ for working in a bank, but that is what he does! Unless he (5 DRESS) ___________ when he gets to work and changes his clothes! His clothes are usually filthy and I am sure he never washes them or takes them to the (6 CLEAN) ___________. When he wears a coat it is always old and (7 WEAR) ____________, and even on very cold days it is (8 BUTTON) ___________ all down the front. The funny thing is that his son is very (9 FASHION) ___________, always wears the latest styles, and never wears casual clothes, even on an (10 FORMAL) ___________ occasions.
2 Choose the most suitable word or phrase underlined in each sentence.
At Harry’s school, the children have to wear a special appearance/style/uniform.
If you go to the Embassy ball we’ll have to wear fashion/formal/polite clothes.
I really like Jack’s dress/suit/trouser.
In the summer I always wear shirts with short collars/cuffs/sleeves.
Paul answered the door wearing his pyjamas and his dressing gown/nightdress.
You get really dirty repairing a car unless you wear a jumper/overalls/underwear.
I didn’t get wet in the rain because I put on my plastic mac/overcoat/tights.
When it snows Freda always wears a/an anorak/glove/scarf around her neck.
Davis had to stop three times to tie up his small daughter’s heels/shoelaces/soles.
My hands were cold so I put them in my jacket/pockets/turn-ups.
I don’t like that dress, it isn’t in fashion/mode/style.
Julie was given a lovely fur/hair/skin coat for her birthday.
All the men at the wedding were wearing top caps/hats/helmets.
The waitresses in this restaurant all wear white apron/dungarees/robes.
When Tom goes to a party he always wears a bow/butterfly/knot tie.
3 Correct any errors in these sentences. Some sentences contain no errors.
This shirt is too small, it’s not my number.
You have so many clothes. Why did you buy this cloth as well?
What costume did you wear to the fancy dress party?
Joan was dressed completely in white.
I like your new trouser. How much was it?
Excuse me for a moment. I have to wear some different clothes.
As far as I can see, the man in the photograph wears a suit.
The blouse is a good fit, but it isn’t a very good suit.
What are you wearing to the party this evening?
You’re soaked. Put out your clothes immediately!
4 Complete the beginnings of the compound adjectives 1 – 7 in column A with an endings a – g in column B
A B
1 clean a –aged
2 easy b –going
3 middle c –hand
4 second d –lived
5 worn e –off
6 well f –out
7 short g –shaven
5 Complete the sentences with the compound adjectives from the above task.
I often buy things in ___________ clothes shops.
I don’t mind wearing clothes that are a bit ________ if I feel comfortable in them.
I think that ________ people who wear the latest youth fashions look silly.
I hate beards and moustaches: _________ men look much better.
Most fashions are so _________ that I can’t be bothered to follow them.
Clothes don’t matter much to me and I’m very __________ about what I wear.
I’d love to be _________ so that I could spend what I like on my clothes.
Are these sentences true for you?
6 Choose the most suitable word or phrase to complete each sentence.
1)When you saw Jack at the dance, what did he …………?
a)wear b) have on c) dress d) put on
2) My hands were so cold that I couldn’t ………… my coat buttons.
a) open b) remove c) put on d) undo
3) Those trousers are far too big. Why don’t you have them ……………. .
a) taken in b) let out c) taken up d) let in
4) I don’t think that purple shirt …………. with your yellow skirt.
a) suits b) fits c) goes d) wears
5) This jacket is the kind of thing I want. Can I ……………?
a) wear it b) dress it c) take it off d) try it on
6) You look really silly! Your pullover is on ……………..
a) upside down b) inside out c) round and round d) side by side
7) I don’t want a pattern. I prefer just a/an …………. colour.
a) plain b) simple c) clear d) only
8) You look hot in that coat. Why don’t you …………..?
a) put it on b) take it off c) put it away d) take it out
9) Your diet was a success! You look wonderfully ……………..!
a) skinny b) thin c) slim d) underweight
10) I went shopping today and bought a new winter ……………
a) costume b) outfit c) suit d) clothing
11) If I wear a long-sleeved shirt, I usually …………. the sleeves.
a) put up b) take up c) roll up d) get up
12) You’re so fat! You have definitely ………… that roll necked jumper!
a) grown out of c) put away c) worn out d) tried on
13) That skirt is very short. Why don’t you have it …………?
a) let out b) set in c) let down d) taken round
14) The thief wore gloves so that his fingerprints didn’t …………..
a) give him in b) give him away c) give him out d) give him up
15) I can’t walk in these high-heeled boots. I keep …………..
a) falling off b) falling back c) falling out d) falling over
16) What do you mean, my swimming costume is too small? What are you …………..?
a) seeing to b) getting at c) making up d) putting out
17) I’m …………. money every week to buy a new sport jacket.
a) making for b) getting over c) putting aside d) turning in
18) Some of the young people in my town …………… very strange haircuts!
a) go out with b) go in for c) go through with d) go back on
19) Before you choose a dress for you, let’s …………… all the shops.
a) look into b) look through c) look up d) look around
20) If you work in a bank, you can’t …………… wearing an open-necked shirt.
a) get round to b) get into c) get away with d) get out of
SPEAKING
In pairs find out from a partner if he/she has ever:
worn the wrong thing to a social occasion (a party);
had an argument with their parents about clothes/school uniform or make-up;
had problems in a clothes shop;
decided not to buy something in a shop;
bought something unfitting him/her well;
had an accident while swimming.
Text 4
DISCUSSION POINTS
1) Have you ever had an important opportunity? Explain how the opportunity arose, how you did or did not take advantage of it, and what the results of your actions were.
2) Explain one of the achievements—either your own or that of another person—resulting from one of the following: working hard, being lucky, taking a risk, or being innovative.
What are the series of events that led to success?
READING
THE JEANING OF AMERICA – AND THE WORLD
Carin C. Quinn
In "The Jeaning of America—and the World/' Carin Quinn tells about Levi Strauss's development of blue jeans, the sturdy and reliable American pants that are now famous worldwide. Quinn also explains some of the reasons for the popularity and success of blue jeans.
1 This is the story of a sturdy American symbol which has now spread throughout most of the world. The symbol is not the dollar. It is not even Coca-Cola. It is a simple pair of pants called blue jeans, and what the pants symbolize is what Alexis de Tocqueville called "a manly and legitimate passion for equality." Blue jeans are favored equally by bureaucrats and cowboys; bankers and deadbeats; fashion designers and beer drinkers. They draw no distinctions and recognize no classes; they are merely American. Yet they are sought after almost everywhere in the world—including Russia, where authorities recently broke up a teenaged gang that was selling them on the black market for two hundred dollars a pair. They have been around for a long time, and it seems likely that they will outlive even the necktie.
2 This ubiquitous American symbol was the invention of a Bavarian-born Jew. His name was Levi Strauss.
3 He was born in Bad Ocheim, Germany, in 1829, and during the European political turmoil of 1848 decided to take his chances in New York, to which his two brothers already had emigrated. Upon arrival, Levi soon found that his two brothers had exaggerated their tales of an easy life in the land of the main chance. They were landowners, they had told him; instead, he found them pushing needles, thread, pots, pans, ribbons, yarn, scissors, and buttons to housewives. For two years he was a lowly peddler, hauling some 180 pounds of sundries door-to-door to eke out a marginal living. When a married sister in San Francisco offered to pay his way West in 1850, he jumped at the opportunity, taking with him bolts of canvas he hoped to sell for tenting.
4 It was the wrong kind of canvas for that purpose, but while talking with a miner down from the mother lode, he learned that pants—sturdy pants that would stand up to the rigors of the diggings—were almost impossible to find. Opportunity beckoned. On the spot, Strauss measured the man's girth and inseam with a piece of string and, for six dollars in gold dust, had [the canvas] tailored into a pair of stiff but rugged pants. The miner was delighted with the result, word got around about "those pants of Levi's," and Strauss was in business. The company has been in business ever since.
5 When Strauss ran out of canvas, he wrote his two brothers to send more. He received instead a tough, brown cotton cloth made in Nimes, France—called serge de Nimes and swiftly shortened to "denim" (the word "jeans" derives from Genes, the French word for Genoa, where a similar cloth was produced). Almost from the first, Strauss had his cloth dyed the distinctive indigo that gave blue jeans their name, but it was not until the 1870s that he added the copper rivets which have long since become a company trademark. The rivets were the idea of a Virginia City, Nevada, tailor, Jacob W. Davis, who added them to pacify a mean-tempered miner called Alkali Ike. Alkali, the story goes, complained that the pockets of his jeans always tore when he stuffed them with ore samples and demanded that Davis do something about it. As a kind of joke, Davis took the pants to a blacksmith and had the pockets riveted; once again, the idea worked so well that word got around; in 1873 Strauss appropriated and patented the gimmick—and hired Davis as a regional manager.
6 By this time, Strauss has taken both his brothers and two brothers-in-law into the company and was ready for his third San Francisco store. Over the ensuing years the company prospered locally and by the time of his death in 1902, Strauss had become a man of prominence in California. For three decades thereafter the business remained profitable though small, with sales largely confined to the working people of the West—cowboys, lumberjacks, railroad workers, and the like. Levi's jeans were first introduced to the East, apparently, during the dude-ranch craze of the 1930s, when vacationing Easterners returned and spread the word about the wonderful pants with rivets. Another boost came in World War II, when blue jeans were declared an essential commodity and were sold only to people engaged in defense work. From a company with fifteen salespeople, two plants, and almost no business east of the Mississippi in 1946, the organization grew in thirty years to include a sales force of more than twenty-two thousand, with fifty plants and offices in thirty-five countries. Each year, more than 250,000,000 items of Levi's clothing are sold—including more than 83,000,000 pairs of riveted blue jeans. They have become, through marketing, word of mouth, and demonstrable reliability, the common pants of America. They can be purchased pre-washed, pre-faded, and pre-shrunk for the suitably proletarian look. They adapt themselves to any sort of idiosyncratic use; women slit them at the inseams and convert them into long skirts, men chop them off above the knees and turn them into something to be worn while challenging the surf. Decorations and ornamentations abound.
7 The pants have become a tradition, and along the way have acquired a history of their own—so much so that the company has opened a museum in San Francisco. There was, for example, the turn-of-the-century trainman who replaced a faulty coupling with a pair of jeans; the Wyoming man who used his jeans as a towrope to haul his car out of a ditch; the Californian who found several pairs in an abandoned mine, wore them, then discovered they were sixty-three years old and still as good as new and turned them over to the Smithsonian as a tribute to their toughness. And then there is the particularly terrifying story of the careless construction worker who dangled fifty-two stories above the street until rescued, his sole support the Levi's belt loop through which his rope was hooked.
Comprehension check
1. What reasons does Quinn give for the success of blue jeans? Identify the sentences that support your answer.
2. What are the main incidents in the development of blue jeans?
3. Speculate about why Levi's brothers lied to him about their position in America. Why do you think the writer included this detail?
4. What conclusions can you draw about Strauss's character?
5. How do you think Quinn feels about Levi's jeans and their popularity?