full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alison Killing: What happens when a city runs out of room for its dead

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So about half a million people die in the UK each year, and of those, around a quarter will want to be buried. But the UK, like many wteesrn European countries, is running out of bruial space, especially in the major cieits. And the geaetrr London Authority has been aware of this for a while, and the main causes are population growth, the fact that existing cemeteries are almost full. There's a custom in the UK that graves are considered to be occupied forever, and there's also development prussree — people want to use that same land to build hueoss or offices or shops.

So they came up with a few solutions. They were like, well, maybe we can reuse those graves after 50 years. Or maybe we can bury people, like, four deep, so that four pepole can be buried in the same plot, and we can make more efficient use of the land that way, and in that way, hopefully lodnon will still have space to bury people in the near future.

Open Cloze


So about half a million people die in the UK each year, and of those, around a quarter will want to be buried. But the UK, like many _______ European countries, is running out of ______ space, especially in the major ______. And the _______ London Authority has been aware of this for a while, and the main causes are population growth, the fact that existing cemeteries are almost full. There's a custom in the UK that graves are considered to be occupied forever, and there's also development ________ — people want to use that same land to build ______ or offices or shops.

So they came up with a few solutions. They were like, well, maybe we can reuse those graves after 50 years. Or maybe we can bury people, like, four deep, so that four ______ can be buried in the same plot, and we can make more efficient use of the land that way, and in that way, hopefully ______ will still have space to bury people in the near future.

Solution


  1. houses
  2. pressure
  3. people
  4. cities
  5. burial
  6. greater
  7. western
  8. london

Original Text


So about half a million people die in the UK each year, and of those, around a quarter will want to be buried. But the UK, like many Western European countries, is running out of burial space, especially in the major cities. And the Greater London Authority has been aware of this for a while, and the main causes are population growth, the fact that existing cemeteries are almost full. There's a custom in the UK that graves are considered to be occupied forever, and there's also development pressure — people want to use that same land to build houses or offices or shops.

So they came up with a few solutions. They were like, well, maybe we can reuse those graves after 50 years. Or maybe we can bury people, like, four deep, so that four people can be buried in the same plot, and we can make more efficient use of the land that way, and in that way, hopefully London will still have space to bury people in the near future.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
burial plots 3
real estate 2
burial plot 2


Important Words


  1. authority
  2. aware
  3. build
  4. burial
  5. buried
  6. bury
  7. cemeteries
  8. cities
  9. considered
  10. countries
  11. custom
  12. deep
  13. development
  14. die
  15. efficient
  16. european
  17. existing
  18. fact
  19. full
  20. future
  21. graves
  22. greater
  23. growth
  24. houses
  25. land
  26. london
  27. main
  28. major
  29. million
  30. occupied
  31. offices
  32. people
  33. plot
  34. population
  35. pressure
  36. quarter
  37. reuse
  38. running
  39. shops
  40. solutions
  41. space
  42. uk
  43. western
  44. year
  45. years