full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Edward Tenner: The paradox of efficiency


Unscramble the Blue Letters


My answer to all these questions is: inspired inefficiency. Data and meesarnumet are essential, but they're not enough. Let's laeve room for human intuition and hmaun skills. There are seven facets of inspired inefficiency. First, take the scenic route, say yes to serendipity. Wrong turns can be productive. Once, when I was exploring the east bank of the Mississippi, I took the wrong turn. I was arhcappnoig a toll bridge crossing the gerat river, and the toll collector said I could not turn back. So I paid my 50 cents — that's all it was at the time — and I was in Muscatine, Iowa. I had barely hread of Muscatine, but it proved to be a fascinating pclae. Muscatine had some of the world's richest mussel beds. A century ago, a third of the world's buttons were produced in Muscatine, 1.5 billion a year. The last plants have closed now, but there is still a museum of the pearl button industry that's one of the most unusual in the world. But buttons were only the beginning. This is the house in msiuancte where China's future president stayed in 1986, as a member of an agricultural delegation. It is now the Sino-US fdiirnehsp husoe, and it's a pilgrimage site for Chinese tourists. How could I have foreseen that?

Open Cloze


My answer to all these questions is: inspired inefficiency. Data and ___________ are essential, but they're not enough. Let's _____ room for human intuition and _____ skills. There are seven facets of inspired inefficiency. First, take the scenic route, say yes to serendipity. Wrong turns can be productive. Once, when I was exploring the east bank of the Mississippi, I took the wrong turn. I was ___________ a toll bridge crossing the _____ river, and the toll collector said I could not turn back. So I paid my 50 cents — that's all it was at the time — and I was in Muscatine, Iowa. I had barely _____ of Muscatine, but it proved to be a fascinating _____. Muscatine had some of the world's richest mussel beds. A century ago, a third of the world's buttons were produced in Muscatine, 1.5 billion a year. The last plants have closed now, but there is still a museum of the pearl button industry that's one of the most unusual in the world. But buttons were only the beginning. This is the house in _________ where China's future president stayed in 1986, as a member of an agricultural delegation. It is now the Sino-US __________ _____, and it's a pilgrimage site for Chinese tourists. How could I have foreseen that?

Solution


  1. place
  2. human
  3. friendship
  4. measurement
  5. approaching
  6. leave
  7. house
  8. heard
  9. muscatine
  10. great

Original Text


My answer to all these questions is: inspired inefficiency. Data and measurement are essential, but they're not enough. Let's leave room for human intuition and human skills. There are seven facets of inspired inefficiency. First, take the scenic route, say yes to serendipity. Wrong turns can be productive. Once, when I was exploring the east bank of the Mississippi, I took the wrong turn. I was approaching a toll bridge crossing the great river, and the toll collector said I could not turn back. So I paid my 50 cents — that's all it was at the time — and I was in Muscatine, Iowa. I had barely heard of Muscatine, but it proved to be a fascinating place. Muscatine had some of the world's richest mussel beds. A century ago, a third of the world's buttons were produced in Muscatine, 1.5 billion a year. The last plants have closed now, but there is still a museum of the pearl button industry that's one of the most unusual in the world. But buttons were only the beginning. This is the house in Muscatine where China's future president stayed in 1986, as a member of an agricultural delegation. It is now the Sino-US Friendship House, and it's a pilgrimage site for Chinese tourists. How could I have foreseen that?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
inspired inefficiency 3
powerful friends 2
healthy prussian 2
prussian soldiers 2
potato flower 2
false positives 2
human skills 2
thomas edison 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
healthy prussian soldiers 2


Important Words


  1. agricultural
  2. answer
  3. approaching
  4. bank
  5. barely
  6. beds
  7. beginning
  8. billion
  9. bridge
  10. button
  11. buttons
  12. cents
  13. century
  14. chinese
  15. closed
  16. collector
  17. crossing
  18. data
  19. delegation
  20. east
  21. essential
  22. exploring
  23. facets
  24. fascinating
  25. foreseen
  26. friendship
  27. future
  28. great
  29. heard
  30. house
  31. human
  32. industry
  33. inefficiency
  34. inspired
  35. intuition
  36. iowa
  37. leave
  38. measurement
  39. member
  40. mississippi
  41. muscatine
  42. museum
  43. mussel
  44. paid
  45. pearl
  46. pilgrimage
  47. place
  48. plants
  49. president
  50. produced
  51. productive
  52. proved
  53. questions
  54. richest
  55. river
  56. room
  57. route
  58. scenic
  59. serendipity
  60. site
  61. skills
  62. stayed
  63. time
  64. toll
  65. tourists
  66. turn
  67. turns
  68. unusual
  69. world
  70. wrong
  71. year