full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Elizabeth Streb: My quest to defy gravity and fly


Unscramble the Blue Letters


Everywhere I looked, there were things moving. And these things moved with their very own causal rhythms, their very own mechanistic anatomies. It was clear to me — and to Newton — that things move bsead on their component parts: womrs squirmed, bdris flew, kangaroos hppoed. And a human's first bout with flying was falling accidentally, tripping, or slipping on that felabd banana peel. Once your ground is dragged out from under you, a world of wonder comes rushing in.

I had found my territory. I was seized with a compulsion, a primordial urge to leran how to fly, like a haumn. For the next 10 years, I did my experiments alone, on my own body. I drove my Honda 350 across the United States in an "Easy Rider" kind of way. I got my degree in modern dcnae. I mimicked that fly in the box. I dove horizontally through glass; on the way, I peuhcnd a hole in it. I was trying to figure out something about flight.

Open Cloze


Everywhere I looked, there were things moving. And these things moved with their very own causal rhythms, their very own mechanistic anatomies. It was clear to me — and to Newton — that things move _____ on their component parts: _____ squirmed, _____ flew, kangaroos ______. And a human's first bout with flying was falling accidentally, tripping, or slipping on that ______ banana peel. Once your ground is dragged out from under you, a world of wonder comes rushing in.

I had found my territory. I was seized with a compulsion, a primordial urge to _____ how to fly, like a _____. For the next 10 years, I did my experiments alone, on my own body. I drove my Honda 350 across the United States in an "Easy Rider" kind of way. I got my degree in modern _____. I mimicked that fly in the box. I dove horizontally through glass; on the way, I _______ a hole in it. I was trying to figure out something about flight.

Solution


  1. learn
  2. dance
  3. human
  4. based
  5. punched
  6. hopped
  7. fabled
  8. worms
  9. birds

Original Text


Everywhere I looked, there were things moving. And these things moved with their very own causal rhythms, their very own mechanistic anatomies. It was clear to me — and to Newton — that things move based on their component parts: worms squirmed, birds flew, kangaroos hopped. And a human's first bout with flying was falling accidentally, tripping, or slipping on that fabled banana peel. Once your ground is dragged out from under you, a world of wonder comes rushing in.

I had found my territory. I was seized with a compulsion, a primordial urge to learn how to fly, like a human. For the next 10 years, I did my experiments alone, on my own body. I drove my Honda 350 across the United States in an "Easy Rider" kind of way. I got my degree in modern dance. I mimicked that fly in the box. I dove horizontally through glass; on the way, I punched a hole in it. I was trying to figure out something about flight.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
extreme action 3
mason jar 2
banana peel 2
york city 2
streb extreme 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
streb extreme action 2


Important Words


  1. accidentally
  2. anatomies
  3. banana
  4. based
  5. birds
  6. body
  7. bout
  8. box
  9. causal
  10. clear
  11. component
  12. compulsion
  13. dance
  14. degree
  15. dove
  16. dragged
  17. drove
  18. experiments
  19. fabled
  20. falling
  21. figure
  22. flew
  23. flight
  24. fly
  25. flying
  26. ground
  27. hole
  28. honda
  29. hopped
  30. horizontally
  31. human
  32. kangaroos
  33. kind
  34. learn
  35. looked
  36. mechanistic
  37. mimicked
  38. modern
  39. move
  40. moved
  41. moving
  42. newton
  43. peel
  44. primordial
  45. punched
  46. rhythms
  47. rushing
  48. seized
  49. slipping
  50. squirmed
  51. states
  52. territory
  53. tripping
  54. united
  55. urge
  56. world
  57. worms
  58. years