Assignment 14 Chapters 24, 25

I. Active Vocabulary

1. Learn the pronunciation and the meaning of the given words.

Preliminary, plausibility, wary, to forge, neurotic, fatal, recital, purgative, blower, to veer, light-igniting, trot, diffidence, rebounding, to fortify, to yield, anterior, emaciate, caesura, cerise, to gauge, leer, suffuse, effeminate.

2. Match the words in column A with their synonyms in columns B and C:

A B C

Preliminary nervous cheer

Wary surrender modesty

Neurotic prelude saturate

To yield encourage measure

To fortify permeate neural

To suffuse estimate previous

Diffidence prudent submit

To gauge former preface

Anterior encourage cautious

3. Explain who or what is meant by the words and expressions:

A locker, a blower, caesura, leer, purgative.

4. Fill in the gaps where possible with the corresponding words. Translate the words:

Noun	Adjective	Verb
		to emaciate
		to reveal
	emotional
		to enlarge
appearance
suspicion
thought
		to feed
		to quarrel
		to forge

5. Define the meaning of the lexical units:

To pass oneself off as/for smb, to take up one’s time, to enlarge on, to be news to smb, I take it, to pick a quarrel with smb, to feed on emotional tension, to go round, to put in an appearance, to get one’s thoughts into order, to remove suspicions of smb, in the margin, to be no use doing smth, to be under orders, to force one’s spirits down, to take smb for granted, to keep smb on a string, to be in the background, to have smth up one’s sleeve.

Recall the situations the units were used in.

II. Questions and Topics for Analysis

1. How did Catchpole look like? Was his appearance as well as behaviour predictable? Explain any answer.

2. What did the conversation between Catchpole and Dixon reveal about Margaret?

3. What did Dixon feel on receiving a message from Christine?

4. How did Dixon manage to get to the station in time?

5. How did the episodes with the conductor (p. 274), the traffic situation on the road (p. 275, 277) and a woman in a lilac costume (p. 277) add to the atmosphere?

6. How did Dixon try to “quicken” the speed of the bus? Find the epithets (p. 277-278) characterizing the moving bus.

7. Choose the most interesting episode of Chapter 24 to read and translate. Explain your choice.

8. Act out the conversation between Dixon and Christine.

9. Why did Jim feel so happy? Comment on the sentence: ”Now that something had happened which really deserved a face, he’d none to celebrate it with” (p. 284).