full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now, I've laughed every time I've read this. And one must admire the imagination of John Lok. But what is important about his writing is that it represents the biningneg of a tradition of telling African stories in the West: A tradition of Sub-Saharan afrcia as a place of negatives, of difference, of darkness, of plpeoe who, in the words of the weroufndl poet Rudyard Kipling, are "half devil, half cilhd."

And so, I baegn to realize that my ariaemcn roommate must have throughout her life seen and heard different versions of this single srtoy, as had a professor, who once told me that my novel was not "authentically African." Now, I was quite willing to contend that there were a nbmuer of things wrong with the novel, that it had failed in a number of places, but I had not quite imagined that it had failed at achieving something called African authenticity. In fact, I did not know what African aicinutthety was. The professor told me that my characters were too much like him, an educated and middle-class man. My characters drove cars. They were not starving. Therefore they were not authentically African.

Open Cloze


Now, I've laughed every time I've read this. And one must admire the imagination of John Lok. But what is important about his writing is that it represents the _________ of a tradition of telling African stories in the West: A tradition of Sub-Saharan ______ as a place of negatives, of difference, of darkness, of ______ who, in the words of the _________ poet Rudyard Kipling, are "half devil, half _____."

And so, I _____ to realize that my ________ roommate must have throughout her life seen and heard different versions of this single _____, as had a professor, who once told me that my novel was not "authentically African." Now, I was quite willing to contend that there were a ______ of things wrong with the novel, that it had failed in a number of places, but I had not quite imagined that it had failed at achieving something called African authenticity. In fact, I did not know what African ____________ was. The professor told me that my characters were too much like him, an educated and middle-class man. My characters drove cars. They were not starving. Therefore they were not authentically African.

Solution


  1. began
  2. people
  3. africa
  4. beginning
  5. wonderful
  6. american
  7. number
  8. authenticity
  9. child
  10. story

Original Text


Now, I've laughed every time I've read this. And one must admire the imagination of John Lok. But what is important about his writing is that it represents the beginning of a tradition of telling African stories in the West: A tradition of Sub-Saharan Africa as a place of negatives, of difference, of darkness, of people who, in the words of the wonderful poet Rudyard Kipling, are "half devil, half child."

And so, I began to realize that my American roommate must have throughout her life seen and heard different versions of this single story, as had a professor, who once told me that my novel was not "authentically African." Now, I was quite willing to contend that there were a number of things wrong with the novel, that it had failed in a number of places, but I had not quite imagined that it had failed at achieving something called African authenticity. In fact, I did not know what African authenticity was. The professor told me that my characters were too much like him, an educated and middle-class man. My characters drove cars. They were not starving. Therefore they were not authentically African.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
single story 12
roommate knew 7
ginger beer 3
british books 2
chinua achebe 2
american roommate 2
african stories 2
african authenticity 2
stories matter 2


Important Words


  1. achieving
  2. admire
  3. africa
  4. african
  5. american
  6. authentically
  7. authenticity
  8. began
  9. beginning
  10. called
  11. cars
  12. characters
  13. child
  14. contend
  15. darkness
  16. devil
  17. difference
  18. drove
  19. educated
  20. fact
  21. failed
  22. heard
  23. imagination
  24. imagined
  25. important
  26. john
  27. kipling
  28. laughed
  29. life
  30. lok
  31. man
  32. negatives
  33. number
  34. people
  35. place
  36. places
  37. poet
  38. professor
  39. read
  40. realize
  41. represents
  42. roommate
  43. rudyard
  44. single
  45. starving
  46. stories
  47. story
  48. telling
  49. time
  50. told
  51. tradition
  52. versions
  53. wonderful
  54. words
  55. writing
  56. wrong