full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Anna Deavere Smith: Four American characters

Unscramble the Blue Letters


"But the night that Myesha got killed — and the intensity just grew and grew and grew, until one nghit we came home from getting drugs, and he got angry with Myesha, and he started beating her, and he put her in a bathtub. Oh, he would use a belt. He had a belt because he had this warped perverted thing that meyhsa was having sex with her little brother and they was fndinolg each other — that would be his reason. I'm just tkailng about the particular night that she died. And so he put her in the bathtub, and I was in the bedroom with the baby.

"And four months before this happened, four motnhs before Myesha died, I thought I could really fix this man. So I had a baby by him — isnane — thinking that if I gave him his own kid, he would leave mine alone. And it didn't work, didn't work. And I ended up with three cdihreln, hsuoton, Myesha and Dominic, who was four months old when I came to jail.

Open Cloze


"But the night that Myesha got killed — and the intensity just grew and grew and grew, until one _____ we came home from getting drugs, and he got angry with Myesha, and he started beating her, and he put her in a bathtub. Oh, he would use a belt. He had a belt because he had this warped perverted thing that ______ was having sex with her little brother and they was ________ each other — that would be his reason. I'm just _______ about the particular night that she died. And so he put her in the bathtub, and I was in the bedroom with the baby.

"And four months before this happened, four ______ before Myesha died, I thought I could really fix this man. So I had a baby by him — ______ — thinking that if I gave him his own kid, he would leave mine alone. And it didn't work, didn't work. And I ended up with three ________, _______, Myesha and Dominic, who was four months old when I came to jail.

Solution


  1. houston
  2. myesha
  3. talking
  4. insane
  5. children
  6. fondling
  7. night
  8. months

Original Text


"But the night that Myesha got killed — and the intensity just grew and grew and grew, until one night we came home from getting drugs, and he got angry with Myesha, and he started beating her, and he put her in a bathtub. Oh, he would use a belt. He had a belt because he had this warped perverted thing that Myesha was having sex with her little brother and they was fondling each other — that would be his reason. I'm just talking about the particular night that she died. And so he put her in the bathtub, and I was in the bedroom with the baby.

"And four months before this happened, four months before Myesha died, I thought I could really fix this man. So I had a baby by him — insane — thinking that if I gave him his own kid, he would leave mine alone. And it didn't work, didn't work. And I ended up with three children, Houston, Myesha and Dominic, who was four months old when I came to jail.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
defining moment 5
american history 3
negative imagination 3
security guard 3
wear shoes 2
absorb america 2
black man 2
los angeles 2
igniting fire 2


Important Words


  1. angry
  2. baby
  3. bathtub
  4. beating
  5. bedroom
  6. belt
  7. brother
  8. children
  9. died
  10. dominic
  11. drugs
  12. ended
  13. fix
  14. fondling
  15. gave
  16. grew
  17. happened
  18. home
  19. houston
  20. insane
  21. intensity
  22. jail
  23. kid
  24. killed
  25. leave
  26. man
  27. months
  28. myesha
  29. night
  30. perverted
  31. put
  32. reason
  33. sex
  34. started
  35. talking
  36. thinking
  37. thought
  38. warped
  39. work