full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Grace Smith-Viduarre and Tim Wright: Why can parrots talk?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


With this specialized anatomy, parrots can bark, scream, curse, and recite factoids. One intrepid lost parort managed to get back home after repeating his full name and address to helpful sgnertras.

But these impressive abilities raise another question: do parrots actually understand what they’re saying? When most captive parrots talk, they’re likely attempting to form social bndos in the absence of their own spicees. Many probably have ansasiictoos with words and may be drawn to ones that elicit certain responses— hence their capacity for profanity. But, especially after training, parrots have been observed to say things in the appropriate contexts and assign meaning to words— saying “goodnight” at the end of the day, asking for certain treats, or cutnnoig and piinkcg objects. One eievnlsetxy trained African grey parrot named Alex became the first non-human animal to pose an existential question when he asked what color he was.

Open Cloze


With this specialized anatomy, parrots can bark, scream, curse, and recite factoids. One intrepid lost ______ managed to get back home after repeating his full name and address to helpful _________.

But these impressive abilities raise another question: do parrots actually understand what they’re saying? When most captive parrots talk, they’re likely attempting to form social _____ in the absence of their own _______. Many probably have ____________ with words and may be drawn to ones that elicit certain responses— hence their capacity for profanity. But, especially after training, parrots have been observed to say things in the appropriate contexts and assign meaning to words— saying “goodnight” at the end of the day, asking for certain treats, or ________ and _______ objects. One ___________ trained African grey parrot named Alex became the first non-human animal to pose an existential question when he asked what color he was.

Solution


  1. species
  2. parrot
  3. associations
  4. picking
  5. bonds
  6. extensively
  7. strangers
  8. counting

Original Text


With this specialized anatomy, parrots can bark, scream, curse, and recite factoids. One intrepid lost parrot managed to get back home after repeating his full name and address to helpful strangers.

But these impressive abilities raise another question: do parrots actually understand what they’re saying? When most captive parrots talk, they’re likely attempting to form social bonds in the absence of their own species. Many probably have associations with words and may be drawn to ones that elicit certain responses— hence their capacity for profanity. But, especially after training, parrots have been observed to say things in the appropriate contexts and assign meaning to words— saying “goodnight” at the end of the day, asking for certain treats, or counting and picking objects. One extensively trained African grey parrot named Alex became the first non-human animal to pose an existential question when he asked what color he was.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
contact calls 3
british accent 2


Important Words


  1. abilities
  2. absence
  3. address
  4. african
  5. alex
  6. anatomy
  7. animal
  8. asked
  9. assign
  10. associations
  11. attempting
  12. bark
  13. bonds
  14. capacity
  15. captive
  16. color
  17. contexts
  18. counting
  19. curse
  20. day
  21. drawn
  22. elicit
  23. existential
  24. extensively
  25. factoids
  26. form
  27. full
  28. grey
  29. helpful
  30. home
  31. impressive
  32. intrepid
  33. lost
  34. managed
  35. meaning
  36. named
  37. objects
  38. observed
  39. parrot
  40. parrots
  41. picking
  42. pose
  43. profanity
  44. question
  45. raise
  46. recite
  47. repeating
  48. scream
  49. social
  50. specialized
  51. species
  52. strangers
  53. talk
  54. trained
  55. training
  56. treats
  57. understand
  58. words