50
8 May 2025
Speak these words out aloud:
Don’t do that again!
See if you can express the following four moods. How does your intonation change? What physical gestures do you feel compelled to use?
IAnger. IIFear. IIIDeprecation. IVExpostulation.
What pictures come into your mind? Try to describe them.
Note: Deprecation expresses ‘I’d rather you didn’t’. An expostulation is an exclamation of protest, a frustrated outburst.
Expanded from an exercise in A Year’s Course in Speech Training (1938) by Anne H. McAllister.
51
7 May 2025
Join each group of ideas together to form a single sentence, in as many different ways as you can. You may change any words you like so long as the overall meaning remains the same. See if you can work in one or more of the words suggested.
1 Alf wanted to stay at the crime scene. He wanted to go home with the news. He could not decide what to do.
Between. Happen. Tear.
2 I sat for forty-five minutes. I could see the Ladies’ Room door. I never saw her come out.
Tell. Visible. Watch.
Sentences based on the novels of Dorothy L. Sayers. Developed from an exercise in Exercises 12-13 (1933) by NL Clay.
52
6 May 2025
Introduction — The first traffic lights in the world began operation outside the Houses of Parliament on December 9th, 1868. The previous evening, readers of the Express learnt about the ingenious if somewhat ungainly new technology, and looked forward to a time when all busy junctions would be made safe by traffic lights.
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53
5 May 2025
Express in other words:
1 It is a consolation to the wretched to have companions in misery.
Publius Syrus (fl. 85-43 BC)
2 Every man is like the company he is wont to keep.
Euripides (?484-?407 BC)
54
5 May 2025
Introduction — In 1917-18, Arthur Ransome (who would later write Swallows and Amazons) was in St Petersburg, then named Petrograd, reporting on the Communist revolution for the Daily News. One of his tales tickled fellow journalist Alfred Gardiner, who nonetheless drew from it a serious lesson about liberty, a word bandied about as carelessly then as it is today.
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55
4 May 2025
Blind Courage
by George Santayana
Introduction — Writing in 1905, American essayist George Santayana was full of admiration for the common soldier, and for the ordinary citizen who stands up to a bully. But to bellicose politicians and generals, and to anyone who romanticised war, he had some stern words to say.
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56
4 May 2025
Join this group of ideas together to form a single sentence. Try to do this in at least two different ways. See if you can use one of more of the suggested words.
We passed by a table. A man was sitting there. He was playing patience.
Where. Which. Who.
Sentence based on Greenmantle (1916) by John Buchan.
57
4 May 2025
The Angel Cried
from The Eastern Service Books
Introduction — The Virgin Mary was among the women who came to Christ’s tomb expecting to care for his dead body, only to find the grave empty and an angel waiting for them. This hymn, sung in the weeks after Easter, imagines how the angel told the news of Christ’s resurrection to his mother.
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58
2 May 2025
Introduction — This poem is a look back over how William Wordsworth’s love for his wife Mary had developed over time. “The germ of this poem” he admitted “was four lines composed as a part of the verses on the Highland Girl. Though beginning in this way, it was written from my heart, as is sufficiently obvious.”
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