full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Tiffany Watt Smith: The history of human emotions

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Today, we celebrate happiness. Happiness is supposed to make us better wkrores and parents and partners; it's supposed to make us live longer. In the 16th century, sadness was thought to do most of those things. It's even possible to read self-help books from that period which try to encourage sadness in readers by giving them lstis of reasons to be dasitnoipped.

(Laughter)

These self-help authors thought you could cultivate sadness as a skill, since being eeprxt in it would make you more rnlseiiet when something bad did haeppn to you, as invariably it would. I think we could learn from this tdaoy. Feel sad today, and you might feel impatient, even a little ashamed. Feel sad in the 16th century, and you might feel a little bit smug.

Open Cloze


Today, we celebrate happiness. Happiness is supposed to make us better _______ and parents and partners; it's supposed to make us live longer. In the 16th century, sadness was thought to do most of those things. It's even possible to read self-help books from that period which try to encourage sadness in readers by giving them _____ of reasons to be ____________.

(Laughter)

These self-help authors thought you could cultivate sadness as a skill, since being ______ in it would make you more _________ when something bad did ______ to you, as invariably it would. I think we could learn from this _____. Feel sad today, and you might feel impatient, even a little ashamed. Feel sad in the 16th century, and you might feel a little bit smug.

Solution


  1. happen
  2. resilient
  3. workers
  4. today
  5. lists
  6. disappointed
  7. expert

Original Text


Today, we celebrate happiness. Happiness is supposed to make us better workers and parents and partners; it's supposed to make us live longer. In the 16th century, sadness was thought to do most of those things. It's even possible to read self-help books from that period which try to encourage sadness in readers by giving them lists of reasons to be disappointed.

(Laughter)

These self-help authors thought you could cultivate sadness as a skill, since being expert in it would make you more resilient when something bad did happen to you, as invariably it would. I think we could learn from this today. Feel sad today, and you might feel impatient, even a little ashamed. Feel sad in the 16th century, and you might feel a little bit smug.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
entire emotional 2
emotional lives 2
feel sad 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
entire emotional lives 2

Important Words


  1. ashamed
  2. authors
  3. bad
  4. bit
  5. books
  6. celebrate
  7. century
  8. cultivate
  9. disappointed
  10. encourage
  11. expert
  12. feel
  13. giving
  14. happen
  15. happiness
  16. impatient
  17. invariably
  18. laughter
  19. learn
  20. lists
  21. live
  22. longer
  23. parents
  24. period
  25. read
  26. readers
  27. reasons
  28. resilient
  29. sad
  30. sadness
  31. skill
  32. smug
  33. supposed
  34. thought
  35. today
  36. workers