full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Sherwin Nuland: The extraordinary power of ordinary people
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Well, it reminds me a little bit of surgery. If there's one operation for a disease, you know it works. If there are 15 operations, you know that none of them work. And that's the way it is with definitions of words. If you have appendicitis, they take your andppeix out, and you're cured. If you've got rluefx oesophagitis, there are 15 procedures, and Joe Schmo does it one way and Will Blow does it another way, and none of them work, and that's the way it is with this word, hope. They all come down to the idea of an expectation of something good that is due to happen. And you know what I found out? The Indo-European root of the word hope is a stem, K-E-U — we would selpl it K-E-U; it's pronounced koy — and it is the same root from which the word cruve comes from. But what it means in the original Indo-European is a cgahne in dtcreoiin, going in a different way.
Open Cloze
Well, it reminds me a little bit of surgery. If there's one operation for a disease, you know it works. If there are 15 operations, you know that none of them work. And that's the way it is with definitions of words. If you have appendicitis, they take your ________ out, and you're cured. If you've got ______ oesophagitis, there are 15 procedures, and Joe Schmo does it one way and Will Blow does it another way, and none of them work, and that's the way it is with this word, hope. They all come down to the idea of an expectation of something good that is due to happen. And you know what I found out? The Indo-European root of the word hope is a stem, K-E-U — we would _____ it K-E-U; it's pronounced koy — and it is the same root from which the word _____ comes from. But what it means in the original Indo-European is a ______ in _________, going in a different way.
Solution
- reflux
- curve
- change
- appendix
- spell
- direction
Original Text
Well, it reminds me a little bit of surgery. If there's one operation for a disease, you know it works. If there are 15 operations, you know that none of them work. And that's the way it is with definitions of words. If you have appendicitis, they take your appendix out, and you're cured. If you've got reflux oesophagitis, there are 15 procedures, and Joe Schmo does it one way and Will Blow does it another way, and none of them work, and that's the way it is with this word, hope. They all come down to the idea of an expectation of something good that is due to happen. And you know what I found out? The Indo-European root of the word hope is a stem, K-E-U — we would spell it K-E-U; it's pronounced koy — and it is the same root from which the word curve comes from. But what it means in the original Indo-European is a change in direction, going in a different way.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
human spirit |
3 |
great deal |
2 |
individual humankind |
2 |
Important Words
- appendicitis
- appendix
- bit
- blow
- change
- cured
- curve
- definitions
- direction
- disease
- due
- expectation
- good
- happen
- hope
- idea
- joe
- koy
- means
- oesophagitis
- operation
- operations
- original
- procedures
- pronounced
- reflux
- reminds
- root
- schmo
- spell
- stem
- surgery
- word
- words
- work
- works