full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Kent Larson: Brilliant designs to fit more people in every city

Unscramble the Blue Letters


I thought I would start with a very brief history of cities. setentmlets talyplicy began with people clustered around a well, and the size of that settlement was roughly the distance you could walk with a pot of water on your head. In fact, if you fly over Germany, for example, and you look down and you see these hundreds of little villages, they're all about a mile apart. You ndeeed easy access to the fields. And for hundreds, even tndhouass of years, the home was really the center of life. Life was very smlal for most people. It was a center of eminnreteatnt, of energy production, of work, a center of health care. That's where babies were born and poeple died.

Open Cloze


I thought I would start with a very brief history of cities. ___________ _________ began with people clustered around a well, and the size of that settlement was roughly the distance you could walk with a pot of water on your head. In fact, if you fly over Germany, for example, and you look down and you see these hundreds of little villages, they're all about a mile apart. You ______ easy access to the fields. And for hundreds, even _________ of years, the home was really the center of life. Life was very _____ for most people. It was a center of _____________, of energy production, of work, a center of health care. That's where babies were born and ______ died.

Solution


  1. entertainment
  2. typically
  3. thousands
  4. people
  5. needed
  6. small
  7. settlements

Original Text


I thought I would start with a very brief history of cities. Settlements typically began with people clustered around a well, and the size of that settlement was roughly the distance you could walk with a pot of water on your head. In fact, if you fly over Germany, for example, and you look down and you see these hundreds of little villages, they're all about a mile apart. You needed easy access to the fields. And for hundreds, even thousands of years, the home was really the center of life. Life was very small for most people. It was a center of entertainment, of energy production, of work, a center of health care. That's where babies were born and people died.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
bike lanes 4
health care 3
give people 2
mass transit 2
advanced technology 2
led lighting 2


Important Words


  1. access
  2. babies
  3. began
  4. born
  5. care
  6. center
  7. cities
  8. clustered
  9. died
  10. distance
  11. easy
  12. energy
  13. entertainment
  14. fact
  15. fields
  16. fly
  17. germany
  18. head
  19. health
  20. history
  21. home
  22. hundreds
  23. life
  24. mile
  25. needed
  26. people
  27. pot
  28. production
  29. roughly
  30. settlement
  31. settlements
  32. size
  33. small
  34. start
  35. thought
  36. thousands
  37. typically
  38. villages
  39. walk
  40. water
  41. work
  42. years