full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Michael McDaniel: Cheap, effective shelter for disaster relief

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So, I'm going to start off with kind of the buzzkill a little bit. Forty-two million ppoele were displaced by natural disasters in 2010. Now, there was nothing particularly special about 2010, because, on average, 31 and a half million people are displaced by natural disasters every single year. Now, usually when people hear ssitcattis or sttas like that, you start thinking about places like Haiti or other kind of exotic or maybe even iehsevpirmod aears, but it happens right here in the United seatts every single year. Last year alone, 99 federally declared disasters were on file with FEMA, from jolpin, Missouri, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to the Central Texas wildfires that just happened recently. Now, how does the most powerful country in the world hdalne these displaced people? They cram them onto cots, put all your personal boneinglgs in a plastic garbage bag, stick it underneath, and put you on the floor of an entire sports arena, or a gaimysnum.

Open Cloze


So, I'm going to start off with kind of the buzzkill a little bit. Forty-two million ______ were displaced by natural disasters in 2010. Now, there was nothing particularly special about 2010, because, on average, 31 and a half million people are displaced by natural disasters every single year. Now, usually when people hear __________ or _____ like that, you start thinking about places like Haiti or other kind of exotic or maybe even ____________ _____, but it happens right here in the United ______ every single year. Last year alone, 99 federally declared disasters were on file with FEMA, from ______, Missouri, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to the Central Texas wildfires that just happened recently. Now, how does the most powerful country in the world ______ these displaced people? They cram them onto cots, put all your personal __________ in a plastic garbage bag, stick it underneath, and put you on the floor of an entire sports arena, or a _________.

Solution


  1. belongings
  2. people
  3. stats
  4. states
  5. areas
  6. statistics
  7. joplin
  8. gymnasium
  9. impoverished
  10. handle

Original Text


So, I'm going to start off with kind of the buzzkill a little bit. Forty-two million people were displaced by natural disasters in 2010. Now, there was nothing particularly special about 2010, because, on average, 31 and a half million people are displaced by natural disasters every single year. Now, usually when people hear statistics or stats like that, you start thinking about places like Haiti or other kind of exotic or maybe even impoverished areas, but it happens right here in the United States every single year. Last year alone, 99 federally declared disasters were on file with FEMA, from Joplin, Missouri, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to the Central Texas wildfires that just happened recently. Now, how does the most powerful country in the world handle these displaced people? They cram them onto cots, put all your personal belongings in a plastic garbage bag, stick it underneath, and put you on the floor of an entire sports arena, or a gymnasium.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
started sketching 3
million people 2
natural disasters 2
single year 2
quickly told 2
hangar space 2


Important Words


  1. alabama
  2. areas
  3. arena
  4. average
  5. bag
  6. belongings
  7. bit
  8. buzzkill
  9. central
  10. cots
  11. country
  12. cram
  13. declared
  14. disasters
  15. displaced
  16. entire
  17. exotic
  18. federally
  19. fema
  20. file
  21. floor
  22. garbage
  23. gymnasium
  24. haiti
  25. handle
  26. happened
  27. hear
  28. impoverished
  29. joplin
  30. kind
  31. million
  32. missouri
  33. natural
  34. people
  35. personal
  36. places
  37. plastic
  38. powerful
  39. put
  40. single
  41. special
  42. sports
  43. start
  44. states
  45. statistics
  46. stats
  47. stick
  48. texas
  49. thinking
  50. tuscaloosa
  51. united
  52. wildfires
  53. world
  54. year