full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Jennifer Pahlka: Coding a better government

Unscramble the Blue Letters


This is the call center for the services and information line. It's generally where you will get if you call 311 in your city. If you should ever have the chance to staff your city's call ceetnr, as our fellow soctt svrmalien did as part of the program — in fact, they all do that — you will find that people call gonmrneevt with a very wide range of issues, including having an ousopsm stuck in your house. So Scott gets this call. He types "Opossum" into this official knowledge base. He doesn't really come up with anything. He starts with animal control. And finally, he says, "Look, can you just open all the doros to your house and play music really loud and see if the thing leaves?" So that worked. So booya for Scott. But that wasn't the end of the osposums.

Open Cloze


This is the call center for the services and information line. It's generally where you will get if you call 311 in your city. If you should ever have the chance to staff your city's call ______, as our fellow _____ _________ did as part of the program — in fact, they all do that — you will find that people call __________ with a very wide range of issues, including having an _______ stuck in your house. So Scott gets this call. He types "Opossum" into this official knowledge base. He doesn't really come up with anything. He starts with animal control. And finally, he says, "Look, can you just open all the _____ to your house and play music really loud and see if the thing leaves?" So that worked. So booya for Scott. But that wasn't the end of the ________.

Solution


  1. opossums
  2. government
  3. silverman
  4. opossum
  5. center
  6. scott
  7. doors

Original Text


This is the call center for the services and information line. It's generally where you will get if you call 311 in your city. If you should ever have the chance to staff your city's call center, as our fellow Scott Silverman did as part of the program — in fact, they all do that — you will find that people call government with a very wide range of issues, including having an opossum stuck in your house. So Scott gets this call. He types "Opossum" into this official knowledge base. He doesn't really come up with anything. He starts with animal control. And finally, he says, "Look, can you just open all the doors to your house and play music really loud and see if the thing leaves?" So that worked. So booya for Scott. But that wasn't the end of the opossums.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
citizens connect 3
fire hydrant 2
fire hydrants 2
tsunami sirens 2
collective action 2
call center 2
government services 2
political leader 2


Important Words


  1. animal
  2. base
  3. booya
  4. call
  5. center
  6. chance
  7. city
  8. control
  9. doors
  10. fact
  11. fellow
  12. finally
  13. find
  14. generally
  15. government
  16. house
  17. including
  18. information
  19. issues
  20. knowledge
  21. leaves
  22. line
  23. loud
  24. music
  25. official
  26. open
  27. opossum
  28. opossums
  29. part
  30. people
  31. play
  32. program
  33. range
  34. scott
  35. services
  36. silverman
  37. staff
  38. starts
  39. stuck
  40. types
  41. wide
  42. worked