211
Find a single adjective to describe ‘what cannot be’.
What can’t be stopped is unstoppable, what can’t be shaken is unshakeable, and what can’t be divided is indivisible. See if you can continue the pattern with these words.
That which cannot
1 be believed is ...
2 be eaten is ...
3 be wounded is ...
Exercises of this kind were set in School Certificate English Practice (1933) by NL Clay.
Posted September 15 2024
212
Make as many words as you can using the letters of one nine-letter word. Can you beat our score?
Posted September 14 2024
Picture: © ASTELUS, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
213
A half-starved cat is recruited by the Allies in the fight against Hitler.
Posted September 14 2024
Jigsaws: Join this group of ideas together to make a single sentence, in as many ways as you can. See if you can include any of the words in square brackets.
They needed a trench. The ground was stony. They could not dig. [Impossible. Owing. Prevent.]
Picture: © Roman Boldyrev, Wikimedia Commons. CC Attribution 4.0.. Source.
214
These words have very similar meaning but they are not the same — can you show the difference?
To what extent are these words synonymous? Give examples.
1 Isolated.
2 Lonely.
3 Remote.
Posted September 9 2024
215
Fill the empty boxes with letters, using the clues to help you find the right ones.
A new crossword for the collection.
Fill the empty boxes with letters to make words running across and down. Use the numbered clues to help you find the right words. Click any box to get started.
1 across Pass along like fast-moving clouds. 4 letters
4 across Sunrise. 4 letters
6 across Very powerful and harmful in effect, like a disease. 8 letters
7 across A spendthrift, one who throws away his money. 8 letters
2 down (Of an act) hidden, done amid secrecy. 6 letters
3 down Mock scornfully. 6 letters
4 down Flood. 6 letters
5 down Extract something with difficulty, as if from a shell; Nathaniel ______, a character in Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. 6 letters
Posted September 4 2024
Picture: © Acabashi, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
216
What well-known phrase do we take from this little piece of history, and can you use it?
This exercise is based on NL Clay’s Advanced English Exercises (1939).
Read the following snippet from history. To which well-known saying has this tradition given rise? How might you use the phrase today?
In times past, it was customary that, after a successful hunt for deer, the venison would be divided among the huntsmen. The gentlemen would take the choice cuts, and these would be served to them at their high table upon the dais. Those of inferior rank were led to lower tables, where they were served with a pie containing the leftover entrails or umbles (a word derived from Middle French nombles).
The phrase is eat humble pie. It is a pun on ‘the umbles’ (entrails) and ‘humble’. Whoever ‘eats humble pie’ has been demoted to a lower position than the one he aspired to.
Louisa M. Alcott: Polly had a spice of girlish malice, and rather liked to see domineering Tom eat humble-pie, just enough to do him good, you know.
Posted September 1 2024