XIII. Подготовьте пересказ текста “B” на английском языке.
XIV. Прочтите и перескажите своим друзьям следующие истории:
In past centuries in China some ‘doctors’ often kidnapped infants and turned them into “animal children”. Every day, starting with the back, the captors removed a bit of the unfortunate child’s skin and transplanted pieces of the hide of a bear or dog in its place. The children often died during the treatment. The captors also destroyed their victims’ vocal cords, forced them to walk on all fours, and tortured them to such an extent that the innocent infants were soon bereft of all reason. One result of such experiments was the “wild boy of Kiangse,” whom his torturers exhibited in the nineteenth century before a group of westerners in China. The child walked on all fours, made barking sounds, and was covered with a fuzzy, leathery kind of hide. An American doctor named Macgowan who witnessed that spectacle recorded that another method of creating child-monsters in China was to deprive the children of light for several years so that their bones could become deformed.
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to kidnap (infants) – похищать (детей)
to turn smb into “animal children” – превращать кого-либо в «детей-животных»
а captor – похититель
to remove skin – удалять кожу
unfortunate – несчастный
the hide of a bear – шкура медведя
treatment - лечение
a victim – жертва
to destroy vocal cords - разрушать голосовые связки
to forced smb to walk on all fours – заставлять кого-либо ходить на четвереньках
to torture smb to such an extent that… – мучить кого-либо до такой степени, что…
to be bereft of all reason – лишиться рассудка
to exhibit – показывать, выставлять, экспонировать (на выставке)
to make barking sounds – производить гавкающие звуки
fuzzy – пушистый
leathery – похожий на кожу
to witness – быть свидетелем
to deprive the children of light – лишать детей света
* * *
In seventeenth century Europe there were wandering bands of smugglers called comprachicos whose stock-in-trade was buying children, deforming them, and selling them to the aristocracy, who thought it fashionable to have freaks in court. The comprachicos could slunt children’s growth, place muzzles on their faces to deform them (it was from this practice that Dumas took his theme for The Man in the Iron Mask), slit their eyes, dislocate their joints and malform their bones. James II of England hired comprachicos to kidnap the heirs of families whose lines he wished to extinguish. Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs had a grotesque permanent smile carved by the comprachicos.
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wandering bands of smugglers – бродячие группы контрабандистов
stock-in-trade – шаблонные манеры и уловки, присущие определенным лицам; (зд.) ремесло
a freak - уродец
in court – при дворе
а muzzle – морда, намордник
to slit – разрезать в длину, расщеплять, раскалывать
to dislocate joints – перемещать конечности / части тела
to malform (bones) – деформировать, уродовать (кости)
to hire smb – нанять кого-либо
an heir (of a family) – наследник (семьи)
to extinguish – уничтожать
XIV. Прочтите и перескажите своим друзьям английские шутки:
b) Believe it or not, but…
… when a masked man tried to rob a post office at Darby Abbey, Derbyshire, an official just threw a cup of hot tea in his face and the bandit fled.
… When an Australian Bushman died, they lowered his body into a grave where a special gravedigger awaited it. This person’s job was to slice up the corpse and hand out bits of the flesh to the mourners. The order in which the relatives partook of the feast was strictly prescribed. A mother ate from her children, and children from their mother. A man could eat his sister’s husband and his brother’s wife. A father, however, could not eat his children, nor children their father.
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to rob - ограбить
to flee (fled) – сбежать, спасаться бегством
to lower a body into a grave – опустить тело в могилу
a gravedigger – могильщик
а corpse – труп
to hand out bits of the flesh – раздавать кусочки плоти
a mourner – присутствующий на похоронах, плакальщик
to partake (partook, partaken) of smth – принимать участие в чем-либо, отведать, съесть, выпить что-либо
to prescribe – предписывать
XIV. Прочтите и перескажите своим друзьям английские шутки:
6. An American went to Florida on holiday. Suddenly he fell ill there and died. His body was sent to New York. At the funeral one of his friends said to the widow:
“He looks so nice!”
“Oh, yes! Two weeks in Florida did him much good!”
6. A dangerous criminal escaped. So the police issued the usual photographs: left profile, front view, and right profile. A few days later they received a telegram from an Irish detective reading as follows: “Captured the fellow on the left, and the fellow in the middle, and will soon get the fellow on the right as well”.
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to escape - сбежать
t o capture – схватить
as well - тоже