full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Taiye Selasi: Don't ask where I'm from, ask where I'm a local

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now, think of your relationships, of the people who shape your days. To whom do you speak at least once a week, be it face to face or on feimcate? Be reasonable in your assessment; I'm not talking about your Facebook friends. I'm speaking of the people who shape your weekly emotional eicrepnxee. My mother in Accra, my twin sister in Boston, my best friends in New York: these relationships are home for me. "R" number two, relationships.

We're local where we carry out our rituals and relationships, but how we experience our lictlaoy depends in part on our rriseoittcns. By restrictions, I mean, where are you able to live? What porsapst do you hold? Are you ritercestd by, say, racism, from feeling fully at home where you live? By civil war, dysfunctional governance, emoonicc inflation, from living in the locality where you had your rilutas as a child? This is the least sexy of the R’s, less lyric than rituals and relationships, but the question takes us past "Where are you now?" to "Why aren't you there, and why?" Rituals, relationships, restrictions.

Open Cloze


Now, think of your relationships, of the people who shape your days. To whom do you speak at least once a week, be it face to face or on ________? Be reasonable in your assessment; I'm not talking about your Facebook friends. I'm speaking of the people who shape your weekly emotional __________. My mother in Accra, my twin sister in Boston, my best friends in New York: these relationships are home for me. "R" number two, relationships.

We're local where we carry out our rituals and relationships, but how we experience our ________ depends in part on our ____________. By restrictions, I mean, where are you able to live? What ________ do you hold? Are you __________ by, say, racism, from feeling fully at home where you live? By civil war, dysfunctional governance, ________ inflation, from living in the locality where you had your _______ as a child? This is the least sexy of the R’s, less lyric than rituals and relationships, but the question takes us past "Where are you now?" to "Why aren't you there, and why?" Rituals, relationships, restrictions.

Solution


  1. facetime
  2. economic
  3. passport
  4. rituals
  5. restrictions
  6. restricted
  7. experience
  8. locality

Original Text


Now, think of your relationships, of the people who shape your days. To whom do you speak at least once a week, be it face to face or on FaceTime? Be reasonable in your assessment; I'm not talking about your Facebook friends. I'm speaking of the people who shape your weekly emotional experience. My mother in Accra, my twin sister in Boston, my best friends in New York: these relationships are home for me. "R" number two, relationships.

We're local where we carry out our rituals and relationships, but how we experience our locality depends in part on our restrictions. By restrictions, I mean, where are you able to live? What passport do you hold? Are you restricted by, say, racism, from feeling fully at home where you live? By civil war, dysfunctional governance, economic inflation, from living in the locality where you had your rituals as a child? This is the least sexy of the R’s, less lyric than rituals and relationships, but the question takes us past "Where are you now?" to "Why aren't you there, and why?" Rituals, relationships, restrictions.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
friend named 3
colum mccann 2
sovereign state 2


Important Words


  1. accra
  2. boston
  3. carry
  4. child
  5. civil
  6. days
  7. depends
  8. dysfunctional
  9. economic
  10. emotional
  11. experience
  12. face
  13. facebook
  14. facetime
  15. feeling
  16. friends
  17. fully
  18. governance
  19. hold
  20. home
  21. inflation
  22. live
  23. living
  24. local
  25. locality
  26. lyric
  27. mother
  28. number
  29. part
  30. passport
  31. people
  32. question
  33. racism
  34. reasonable
  35. relationships
  36. restricted
  37. restrictions
  38. rituals
  39. sexy
  40. shape
  41. sister
  42. speak
  43. speaking
  44. takes
  45. talking
  46. twin
  47. war
  48. week
  49. weekly