full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Roman Mars: Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you've never noticed

Unscramble the Blue Letters


RM: And that first city flag I discovered in Chicago is a beaut: white field, two horizontal blue stripes, and four six-pointed red stars down the middle.

(Sound)

Narrator: Number two, use meaningful symbolism.

TK: The blue seirpts represent the water, the river and the lake.

Narrator: The flag's images, corlos or pattern should relate to what it soemlbyzis.

TK: The red stars represent significant events in Chicago's history.

RM: Namely, the founding of Fort Dearborn on the fuurte site of Chicago, the Great Chicago Fire, the wlord couilmabn epixosoitn, which everyone rbmmreees because of the White City, and the Century of Progress Exposition, which no one remembers at all.

Open Cloze


RM: And that first city flag I discovered in Chicago is a beaut: white field, two horizontal blue stripes, and four six-pointed red stars down the middle.

(Sound)

Narrator: Number two, use meaningful symbolism.

TK: The blue _______ represent the water, the river and the lake.

Narrator: The flag's images, ______ or pattern should relate to what it __________.

TK: The red stars represent significant events in Chicago's history.

RM: Namely, the founding of Fort Dearborn on the ______ site of Chicago, the Great Chicago Fire, the _____ _________ __________, which everyone _________ because of the White City, and the Century of Progress Exposition, which no one remembers at all.

Solution


  1. symbolizes
  2. remembers
  3. columbian
  4. future
  5. world
  6. stripes
  7. colors
  8. exposition

Original Text


RM: And that first city flag I discovered in Chicago is a beaut: white field, two horizontal blue stripes, and four six-pointed red stars down the middle.

(Sound)

Narrator: Number two, use meaningful symbolism.

TK: The blue stripes represent the water, the river and the lake.

Narrator: The flag's images, colors or pattern should relate to what it symbolizes.

TK: The red stars represent significant events in Chicago's history.

RM: Namely, the founding of Fort Dearborn on the future site of Chicago, the Great Chicago Fire, the World Columbian Exposition, which everyone remembers because of the White City, and the Century of Progress Exposition, which no one remembers at all.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
city flag 7
flag design 6
san francisco 6
chicago flag 5
good design 5
bad flags 4
milwaukee flag 4
great city 4
north american 3
american vexillological 3
vexillological association 3
united states 3
design principles 3
basic principles 2
red stars 2
meaningful symbolism 2
basic colors 2
people love 2
love chicago 2
civic pride 2
francisco flag 2
city flags 2
city coat 2
good flag 2
city considers 2
sports teams 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
north american vexillological 3
american vexillological association 3
people love chicago 2
san francisco flag 2
good design principles 2

Important Words


  1. blue
  2. century
  3. chicago
  4. city
  5. colors
  6. columbian
  7. dearborn
  8. discovered
  9. events
  10. exposition
  11. field
  12. fire
  13. flag
  14. fort
  15. founding
  16. future
  17. great
  18. history
  19. horizontal
  20. images
  21. lake
  22. meaningful
  23. middle
  24. number
  25. pattern
  26. progress
  27. red
  28. relate
  29. remembers
  30. represent
  31. river
  32. significant
  33. site
  34. sound
  35. stars
  36. stripes
  37. symbolism
  38. symbolizes
  39. water
  40. white
  41. world