full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Kathryn Mannix: What happens as we die?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


As a newly qualified doctor, I'd senpt five years being trained to stop people from dying. And actually, if a death happened, it was a thing that was seen as a medical disaster. It was a thing that was embarrassing, it was a thing of which we do not speak.

Why the difference, and why within just a cpluoe of gnieenrotas? Think about what happened to medicine over the course of the 20th century. It was not wtorh going to hpastoil when you were dying in the 1920s. But by the 1960s, '70s, '80s and onwards, think of the fantastic progress that had been made so that people who were so sick that they might die, of course we took them to hospital, because there were antibiotics, there were really clever aeetnishtcs that allowed surgeons to spend a long time uncnpiikg things during operations. There were new and very shttiecpiasod treatments for cancers, for heart failure, for kidney failure. There were intensive care units, there was transplantation of organs, some of that pioneered in this very city. Medical progress was atinsnoishg, taking dying people to hospital very often saved their lives, and that is faiatstnc.

Open Cloze


As a newly qualified doctor, I'd _____ five years being trained to stop people from dying. And actually, if a death happened, it was a thing that was seen as a medical disaster. It was a thing that was embarrassing, it was a thing of which we do not speak.

Why the difference, and why within just a ______ of ___________? Think about what happened to medicine over the course of the 20th century. It was not _____ going to ________ when you were dying in the 1920s. But by the 1960s, '70s, '80s and onwards, think of the fantastic progress that had been made so that people who were so sick that they might die, of course we took them to hospital, because there were antibiotics, there were really clever ___________ that allowed surgeons to spend a long time _________ things during operations. There were new and very _____________ treatments for cancers, for heart failure, for kidney failure. There were intensive care units, there was transplantation of organs, some of that pioneered in this very city. Medical progress was ___________, taking dying people to hospital very often saved their lives, and that is _________.

Solution


  1. spent
  2. astonishing
  3. sophisticated
  4. couple
  5. anesthetics
  6. unpicking
  7. generations
  8. hospital
  9. fantastic
  10. worth

Original Text


As a newly qualified doctor, I'd spent five years being trained to stop people from dying. And actually, if a death happened, it was a thing that was seen as a medical disaster. It was a thing that was embarrassing, it was a thing of which we do not speak.

Why the difference, and why within just a couple of generations? Think about what happened to medicine over the course of the 20th century. It was not worth going to hospital when you were dying in the 1920s. But by the 1960s, '70s, '80s and onwards, think of the fantastic progress that had been made so that people who were so sick that they might die, of course we took them to hospital, because there were antibiotics, there were really clever anesthetics that allowed surgeons to spend a long time unpicking things during operations. There were new and very sophisticated treatments for cancers, for heart failure, for kidney failure. There were intensive care units, there was transplantation of organs, some of that pioneered in this very city. Medical progress was astonishing, taking dying people to hospital very often saved their lives, and that is fantastic.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
human beings 2
dying people 2
dying person 2
breathing cycles 2
palliative care 2


Important Words


  1. allowed
  2. anesthetics
  3. antibiotics
  4. astonishing
  5. cancers
  6. care
  7. century
  8. city
  9. clever
  10. couple
  11. death
  12. die
  13. difference
  14. disaster
  15. doctor
  16. dying
  17. embarrassing
  18. failure
  19. fantastic
  20. generations
  21. happened
  22. heart
  23. hospital
  24. intensive
  25. kidney
  26. lives
  27. long
  28. medical
  29. medicine
  30. newly
  31. onwards
  32. operations
  33. organs
  34. people
  35. pioneered
  36. progress
  37. qualified
  38. saved
  39. sick
  40. sophisticated
  41. speak
  42. spend
  43. spent
  44. stop
  45. surgeons
  46. time
  47. trained
  48. transplantation
  49. treatments
  50. units
  51. unpicking
  52. worth
  53. years