full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Matt Ridley: When ideas have sex

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now, you do get other animals working for each other too. Ants are a classic example; workres work for queens and qneues work for workers. But there's a big difference, which is that it only happens within the colony. There's no working for each other across the colonies. And the reason for that is because there's a reproductive division of labor. That is to say, they specialize with respect to reproduction. The queen does it all. In our species, we don't like doing that. It's the one thing we insist on doing for ourselves, is reproduction. (lugtaehr) Even in England, we don't lvaee rceoudiprton to the Queen.

Open Cloze


Now, you do get other animals working for each other too. Ants are a classic example; _______ work for queens and ______ work for workers. But there's a big difference, which is that it only happens within the colony. There's no working for each other across the colonies. And the reason for that is because there's a reproductive division of labor. That is to say, they specialize with respect to reproduction. The queen does it all. In our species, we don't like doing that. It's the one thing we insist on doing for ourselves, is reproduction. (________) Even in England, we don't _____ ____________ to the Queen.

Solution


  1. queens
  2. reproduction
  3. workers
  4. laughter
  5. leave

Original Text


Now, you do get other animals working for each other too. Ants are a classic example; workers work for queens and queens work for workers. But there's a big difference, which is that it only happens within the colony. There's no working for each other across the colonies. And the reason for that is because there's a reproductive division of labor. That is to say, they specialize with respect to reproduction. The queen does it all. In our species, we don't like doing that. It's the one thing we insist on doing for ourselves, is reproduction. (Laughter) Even in England, we don't leave reproduction to the Queen.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
million years 4
average wage 4
computer mouse 3
sexual division 3
average person 2
graph represents 2
human beings 2
making objects 2
homo erectus 2
human hand 2
reading light 2
people working 2
louis xiv 2
living standards 2
stone axes 2
tierra del 2
del fuego 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
tierra del fuego 2

Important Words


  1. animals
  2. ants
  3. big
  4. classic
  5. colonies
  6. colony
  7. difference
  8. division
  9. england
  10. insist
  11. labor
  12. laughter
  13. leave
  14. queen
  15. queens
  16. reason
  17. reproduction
  18. reproductive
  19. respect
  20. specialize
  21. species
  22. work
  23. workers
  24. working