TedTest

From the Ted Talk by Tania Luna: How a penny made me feel like a millionaire

Unscramble the Blue Letters

I'm five years old, and I am very pourd. My father has just bilut the best outhouse in our little village in Ukraine. Inside, it's a smelly, gaping hole in the ground, but outside, it's pearly white formica and it literally geamls in the sun. This makes me feel so proud, so important, that I appoint myself the leader of my little group of friends and I devise missions for us. So we prwol from house to house looking for flies captured in spider webs and we set them free. Four years earlier, when I was one, after the cbeyohnrl aeindcct, the rain came down black, and my sister's hair fell out in clumps, and I spent nine mtohns in the hospital. There were no visitors allowed, so my mother bbreid a hospital worker. She acquired a nurse's unrofim, and she snuck in every nihgt to sit by my side. Five years later, an unexpected silver lining. Thanks to Chernobyl, we get asylum in the U.S. I am six years old, and I don't cry when we leave home and we come to aiecmra, because I expect it to be a place flelid with rare and wonderful things like bananas and catcolohe and Bazooka bubble gum, Bazooka bubble gum with the little cartoon wrappers inside, Bazooka that we'd get once a year in uiranke and we'd have to chew one piece for an etinre week. So the first day we get to New York, my gedrthnmaor and I find a penny in the floor of the homeless shelter that my family's staying in. Only, we don't know that it's a homeless shelter. We think that it's a hotel, a hotel with lots of rats. So we find this penny kind of fossilized in the folor, and we think that a very wealthy man must have left it there because regular people don't just lose money. And I hold this penny in the palm of my hand, and it's skitcy and rusty, but it feles like I'm holding a fnutroe. I ddecie that I'm going to get my very own pecie of boozkaa bubble gum. And in that mneomt, I feel like a millionaire. About a year later, I get to feel that way again when we find a bag full of stuffed animals in the trash, and suddenly I have more toys than I've ever had in my whole life. And again, I get that feeling when we get a knock on the door of our apartment in Brooklyn, and my sister and I find a deliveryman with a box of pizza that we didn't oerdr. So we take the pizza, our very first pizza, and we devour slice after slice as the deliveryman stands there and stares at us from the doorway. And he tells us to pay, but we don't spaek English. My mother comes out, and he asks her for mneoy, but she doesn't have enough. She walks 50 blocks to and from work every day just to aviod spending money on bus fare. Then our neighbor pops her head in, and she turns red with rage when she realizes that those immigrants from dsntiaowrs have somehow gotten their hands on her pizza. Everyone's upset. But the pizza is delicious. It doesn't hit me until years later just how little we had. On our 10 year anniversary of being in the U.S., we decided to celebrate by reserving a room at the hotel that we first stayed in when we got to the U.S. The man at the front desk lguhas, and he says, "You can't reserve a room here. This is a homeless shelter." And we were shocked. My husband Brian was also homeless as a kid. His family lost everything, and at age 11, he had to live in motels with his dad, molets that would round up all of their food and keep it hostage until they were able to pay the bill. And one time, when he finally got his box of Frosted Flakes back, it was crawling with roaches. But he did have one thing. He had this sohbeox that he carried with him everywhere containing nine cmoic books, two G.I. Joes painted to look like Spider-Man and five Gobots. And this was his trruease. This was his own asemsbly of heroes that kept him from drugs and gangs and from ginivg up on his demars. I'm going to tell you about one more formerly hsoleems member of our family. This is Scarlett. Once upon a time, Scarlet was used as bait in dog figths. She was tied up and thrown into the ring for other dogs to attack so they'd get more aevssgrgie before the fhigt. And now, these days, she eats organic food and she speles on an orthopedic bed with her name on it, but when we pour water for her in her bowl, she still looks up and she wags her tail in gratitude. Sometimes Brian and I walk through the park with Scarlett, and she rolls through the grass, and we just look at her and then we look at each other and we feel gratitude. We foregt about all of our new middle-class frustrations and disappointments, and we feel like millionaires. Thank you. (Applause)

Open Cloze

I'm five years old, and I am very _____. My father has just _____ the best outhouse in our little village in Ukraine. Inside, it's a smelly, gaping hole in the ground, but outside, it's pearly white formica and it literally ______ in the sun. This makes me feel so proud, so important, that I appoint myself the leader of my little group of friends and I devise missions for us. So we _____ from house to house looking for flies captured in spider webs and we set them free. Four years earlier, when I was one, after the _________ ________, the rain came down black, and my sister's hair fell out in clumps, and I spent nine ______ in the hospital. There were no visitors allowed, so my mother ______ a hospital worker. She acquired a nurse's _______, and she snuck in every _____ to sit by my side. Five years later, an unexpected silver lining. Thanks to Chernobyl, we get asylum in the U.S. I am six years old, and I don't cry when we leave home and we come to _______, because I expect it to be a place ______ with rare and wonderful things like bananas and _________ and Bazooka bubble gum, Bazooka bubble gum with the little cartoon wrappers inside, Bazooka that we'd get once a year in _______ and we'd have to chew one piece for an ______ week. So the first day we get to New York, my ___________ and I find a penny in the floor of the homeless shelter that my family's staying in. Only, we don't know that it's a homeless shelter. We think that it's a hotel, a hotel with lots of rats. So we find this penny kind of fossilized in the _____, and we think that a very wealthy man must have left it there because regular people don't just lose money. And I hold this penny in the palm of my hand, and it's ______ and rusty, but it _____ like I'm holding a _______. I ______ that I'm going to get my very own _____ of _______ bubble gum. And in that ______, I feel like a millionaire. About a year later, I get to feel that way again when we find a bag full of stuffed animals in the trash, and suddenly I have more toys than I've ever had in my whole life. And again, I get that feeling when we get a knock on the door of our apartment in Brooklyn, and my sister and I find a deliveryman with a box of pizza that we didn't _____. So we take the pizza, our very first pizza, and we devour slice after slice as the deliveryman stands there and stares at us from the doorway. And he tells us to pay, but we don't _____ English. My mother comes out, and he asks her for _____, but she doesn't have enough. She walks 50 blocks to and from work every day just to _____ spending money on bus fare. Then our neighbor pops her head in, and she turns red with rage when she realizes that those immigrants from __________ have somehow gotten their hands on her pizza. Everyone's upset. But the pizza is delicious. It doesn't hit me until years later just how little we had. On our 10 year anniversary of being in the U.S., we decided to celebrate by reserving a room at the hotel that we first stayed in when we got to the U.S. The man at the front desk ______, and he says, "You can't reserve a room here. This is a homeless shelter." And we were shocked. My husband Brian was also homeless as a kid. His family lost everything, and at age 11, he had to live in motels with his dad, ______ that would round up all of their food and keep it hostage until they were able to pay the bill. And one time, when he finally got his box of Frosted Flakes back, it was crawling with roaches. But he did have one thing. He had this _______ that he carried with him everywhere containing nine _____ books, two G.I. Joes painted to look like Spider-Man and five Gobots. And this was his ________. This was his own ________ of heroes that kept him from drugs and gangs and from ______ up on his ______. I'm going to tell you about one more formerly ________ member of our family. This is Scarlett. Once upon a time, Scarlet was used as bait in dog ______. She was tied up and thrown into the ring for other dogs to attack so they'd get more __________ before the _____. And now, these days, she eats organic food and she ______ on an orthopedic bed with her name on it, but when we pour water for her in her bowl, she still looks up and she wags her tail in gratitude. Sometimes Brian and I walk through the park with Scarlett, and she rolls through the grass, and we just look at her and then we look at each other and we feel gratitude. We ______ about all of our new middle-class frustrations and disappointments, and we feel like millionaires. Thank you. (Applause)

Solution

bribed
piece
treasure
fight
feels
laughs
floor
uniform
fortune
grandmother
gleams
entire
order
chocolate
avoid
aggressive
moment
decide
proud
filled
bazooka
america
accident
forget
chernobyl
homeless
sleeps
night
downstairs
months
speak
motels
fights
assembly
prowl
dreams
shoebox
comic
money
ukraine
sticky
built
giving

Original Text

I'm five years old, and I am very proud. My father has just built the best outhouse in our little village in Ukraine. Inside, it's a smelly, gaping hole in the ground, but outside, it's pearly white formica and it literally gleams in the sun. This makes me feel so proud, so important, that I appoint myself the leader of my little group of friends and I devise missions for us. So we prowl from house to house looking for flies captured in spider webs and we set them free. Four years earlier, when I was one, after the Chernobyl accident, the rain came down black, and my sister's hair fell out in clumps, and I spent nine months in the hospital. There were no visitors allowed, so my mother bribed a hospital worker. She acquired a nurse's uniform, and she snuck in every night to sit by my side. Five years later, an unexpected silver lining. Thanks to Chernobyl, we get asylum in the U.S. I am six years old, and I don't cry when we leave home and we come to America, because I expect it to be a place filled with rare and wonderful things like bananas and chocolate and Bazooka bubble gum, Bazooka bubble gum with the little cartoon wrappers inside, Bazooka that we'd get once a year in Ukraine and we'd have to chew one piece for an entire week. So the first day we get to New York, my grandmother and I find a penny in the floor of the homeless shelter that my family's staying in. Only, we don't know that it's a homeless shelter. We think that it's a hotel, a hotel with lots of rats. So we find this penny kind of fossilized in the floor, and we think that a very wealthy man must have left it there because regular people don't just lose money. And I hold this penny in the palm of my hand, and it's sticky and rusty, but it feels like I'm holding a fortune. I decide that I'm going to get my very own piece of Bazooka bubble gum. And in that moment, I feel like a millionaire. About a year later, I get to feel that way again when we find a bag full of stuffed animals in the trash, and suddenly I have more toys than I've ever had in my whole life. And again, I get that feeling when we get a knock on the door of our apartment in Brooklyn, and my sister and I find a deliveryman with a box of pizza that we didn't order. So we take the pizza, our very first pizza, and we devour slice after slice as the deliveryman stands there and stares at us from the doorway. And he tells us to pay, but we don't speak English. My mother comes out, and he asks her for money, but she doesn't have enough. She walks 50 blocks to and from work every day just to avoid spending money on bus fare. Then our neighbor pops her head in, and she turns red with rage when she realizes that those immigrants from downstairs have somehow gotten their hands on her pizza. Everyone's upset. But the pizza is delicious. It doesn't hit me until years later just how little we had. On our 10 year anniversary of being in the U.S., we decided to celebrate by reserving a room at the hotel that we first stayed in when we got to the U.S. The man at the front desk laughs, and he says, "You can't reserve a room here. This is a homeless shelter." And we were shocked. My husband Brian was also homeless as a kid. His family lost everything, and at age 11, he had to live in motels with his dad, motels that would round up all of their food and keep it hostage until they were able to pay the bill. And one time, when he finally got his box of Frosted Flakes back, it was crawling with roaches. But he did have one thing. He had this shoebox that he carried with him everywhere containing nine comic books, two G.I. Joes painted to look like Spider-Man and five Gobots. And this was his treasure. This was his own assembly of heroes that kept him from drugs and gangs and from giving up on his dreams. I'm going to tell you about one more formerly homeless member of our family. This is Scarlett. Once upon a time, Scarlet was used as bait in dog fights. She was tied up and thrown into the ring for other dogs to attack so they'd get more aggressive before the fight. And now, these days, she eats organic food and she sleeps on an orthopedic bed with her name on it, but when we pour water for her in her bowl, she still looks up and she wags her tail in gratitude. Sometimes Brian and I walk through the park with Scarlett, and she rolls through the grass, and we just look at her and then we look at each other and we feel gratitude. We forget about all of our new middle-class frustrations and disappointments, and we feel like millionaires. Thank you. (Applause)

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation	frequency
bazooka bubble	3
bubble gum	2
homeless shelter	2

ngrams of length 3

collocation	frequency
bazooka bubble gum	2

Important Words

accident
acquired
age
aggressive
allowed
america
animals
anniversary
apartment
applause
appoint
asks
assembly
asylum
attack
avoid
bag
bait
bananas
bazooka
bed
bill
black
blocks
books
bowl
box
brian
bribed
brooklyn
bubble
built
bus
captured
carried
cartoon
celebrate
chernobyl
chew
chocolate
clumps
comic
crawling
cry
dad
day
days
decide
decided
delicious
deliveryman
desk
devise
devour
disappointments
dog
dogs
door
doorway
downstairs
dreams
drugs
earlier
eats
english
entire
expect
family
fare
father
feel
feeling
feels
fell
fight
fights
filled
finally
find
flakes
flies
floor
food
forget
formica
fortune
fossilized
free
friends
front
frosted
frustrations
full
gangs
gaping
giving
gleams
gobots
grandmother
grass
gratitude
ground
group
gum
hair
hand
hands
head
heroes
hit
hold
holding
hole
home
homeless
hospital
hostage
hotel
house
husband
immigrants
important
joes
kid
kind
knock
laughs
leader
leave
left
life
lining
literally
live
lose
lost
lots
man
member
millionaire
millionaires
missions
moment
money
months
motels
mother
neighbor
night
order
organic
orthopedic
outhouse
painted
palm
park
pay
pearly
penny
people
piece
pizza
place
pops
pour
proud
prowl
rage
rain
rare
rats
realizes
red
regular
reserve
reserving
ring
roaches
rolls
room
rusty
scarlet
scarlett
set
shelter
shocked
shoebox
side
silver
sister
sit
sleeps
slice
smelly
snuck
speak
spending
spent
spider
stands
stares
stayed
staying
sticky
stuffed
suddenly
sun
tail
tells
thrown
tied
time
toys
trash
treasure
turns
ukraine
unexpected
uniform
upset
village
visitors
wags
walk
walks
water
wealthy
webs
week
white
wonderful
work
worker
wrappers
year
years
york