II. Exercises

1. Define the contextual meaning of these words and word combinations:

futile; to yield; despicable; to degrade; fast; to have one's tongue in one's cheek; to make much of smb; to pull smb's leg

2. Give the corresponding abstract nouns and translate them:

futile, reluctant, despicable, to degrade, wicked, petty, grave

3. Translate into Russian. Make up your own sentences or situations:

1. a futile action (life, attempt, effort, remark); to die a martyr to science (duty, homeland, the right cause); to be re­luctant to get into a mess (to send smb to certain death, to make a risk, to resume one's work); a fast woman (behaviour), to lead a fast life, to move with a fast crowd; to make much of an actress (a great traveller, people of consequence); to yield to a temptation, to yield in a dispute

1. 1. — Do you know that you've got chalk on your back?

• Are you pulling my leg?

• Not I. Today is the second of April.

2. — Have you noticed that he has his tongue in his cheek

when he speaks about his family? — It's all the fashion nowadays to be ironical about one's near and dear, I find it despicable.

3. - Don't degrade yourself by telling me lies! Your father has been complaining that you are leading a fast life.

Yesterday I saw you in company of people whom it was impossible to misjudge.

— My dear mamma, why can't you see all the futility of your effort to make a decent man of me? Whom should I keep company with if I don't like the people you make so much of? I do keep out of their way because they bore me to death.

4. If you are really keen on doing the right thing, ask him to bin our expedition. He may be reluctant, though, to go such a

long way at his age.

4. Say what you find: a) despicable; b) degrading; c) imprudent in human behaviour. Begin your sentences as in the model.

Model: 1. It is despicable to kick up rows in public.

2. I think it degrading to feel all thumbs in somebody's presence.

3.1 find it imprudent to go about bare-headed in frosty weather.

5. Discuss the episodes from the novel where the active vocabulary is employed.

6. Use the active vocabulary applying it to situations in the chapters previously read.

7. Paraphrase or explain:

1. ...at the memorial arch he said good-bye to her, and looking at it for the last time she felt that she could reply to the enigmatic irony of its appearance with an equal irony of her own.

2. The habiliments of woe could not but serve as an ef­fective disguise to her unexpected feelings.

3.I know I can do nothing to make up for your terrible loss, but I want you to know how deeply, how sincerely I feel for you.

8. Say who and under what circumstances made these ut­terances. What feelings and motives were they prompted by?

1. Have you ever been to a symphony concert?

2. Walter died of a broken heart.

3. I wish he could have minded his own business.

4. The only thing that counts is the love of duty.

5. You can't go and live all by yourself in your own house.

6. He was a thundering good chap, and he'll be missed here more than I can say.