full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Billy Collins: Everyday moments, caught in time

Unscramble the Blue Letters


(Applause)

BC: Thank you. (aplasupe) Thank you. And the last poem is called "The Dead." I wrote this after a friend's funeral, but not so much about the friend as something the eulogist kept saying, as all etlgusois tend to do, which is how happy the deceased would be to look down and see all of us almessbed. And that to me was a bad start to the afterlife, having to witness your own funeral and feel gratified. So the little poem is called "The Dead."

(vdeio) Narration: "The Dead." The dead are always looking down on us, they say. While we are putting on our shoes or making a sdinawch, they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven as they row themselves slowly through etretniy. They wcath the tops of our heads moving below on eatrh. And when we lie down in a field or on a couch, drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon, they think we are looking back at them, which makes them lift their oars and fall silent and wait like parents for us to close our eyes.

Open Cloze


(Applause)

BC: Thank you. (________) Thank you. And the last poem is called "The Dead." I wrote this after a friend's funeral, but not so much about the friend as something the eulogist kept saying, as all _________ tend to do, which is how happy the deceased would be to look down and see all of us _________. And that to me was a bad start to the afterlife, having to witness your own funeral and feel gratified. So the little poem is called "The Dead."

(_____) Narration: "The Dead." The dead are always looking down on us, they say. While we are putting on our shoes or making a ________, they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven as they row themselves slowly through ________. They _____ the tops of our heads moving below on _____. And when we lie down in a field or on a couch, drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon, they think we are looking back at them, which makes them lift their oars and fall silent and wait like parents for us to close our eyes.

Solution


  1. eternity
  2. earth
  3. assembled
  4. watch
  5. sandwich
  6. video
  7. applause
  8. eulogists

Original Text


(Applause)

BC: Thank you. (Applause) Thank you. And the last poem is called "The Dead." I wrote this after a friend's funeral, but not so much about the friend as something the eulogist kept saying, as all eulogists tend to do, which is how happy the deceased would be to look down and see all of us assembled. And that to me was a bad start to the afterlife, having to witness your own funeral and feel gratified. So the little poem is called "The Dead."

(Video) Narration: "The Dead." The dead are always looking down on us, they say. While we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich, they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven as they row themselves slowly through eternity. They watch the tops of our heads moving below on Earth. And when we lie down in a field or on a couch, drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon, they think we are looking back at them, which makes them lift their oars and fall silent and wait like parents for us to close our eyes.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
long time 3
high school 2
york city 2


Important Words


  1. afterlife
  2. afternoon
  3. applause
  4. assembled
  5. bad
  6. boats
  7. called
  8. close
  9. couch
  10. dead
  11. deceased
  12. drugged
  13. earth
  14. eternity
  15. eulogist
  16. eulogists
  17. eyes
  18. fall
  19. feel
  20. field
  21. friend
  22. funeral
  23. gratified
  24. happy
  25. heads
  26. heaven
  27. hum
  28. lie
  29. lift
  30. making
  31. moving
  32. oars
  33. parents
  34. poem
  35. putting
  36. row
  37. sandwich
  38. shoes
  39. silent
  40. slowly
  41. start
  42. tend
  43. tops
  44. video
  45. wait
  46. warm
  47. watch
  48. witness
  49. wrote