A) Make the sentences emphatic using the devices of fronting, inversion and cleft sentences.

1) None of the family could realize that Feona was permanently and incurably tired.

2) They little valued what the mother did for them.

3) The children were accustomed to manual work.

4) The most stringent rule in Paddy’s domain concerned the proper delegation of duties.

5) The boys were allowed to do female tasks on no account.

6) Paddy never drank or gambled.

7) Frank was really concerned about his mother’s state.

8) Feona might have been content with her lot, but she was not happy.

9) She came to understand only later what Paddy meant to her.

b) Read the text below and choose the better option [a/ b] to fill in the gaps.

Social institutions are continually changing in conformity with the new requirements arising out of the evolving realities of life. [1] Yet, it has repeatedly changed its form. In early societies, the word “home” denoted the abode of man and woman, their offspring and dependents. [2]

Under the system the duties in a family were stringently divided among its members. Men were engaged in activities requiring strength, violence, speed, and the craft and foresight which follow from the contacts and strains of their rather “motor” life. Quite logically, the slow, unspasmodic routine, stationary occupations were the part of the woman. In other words, [3] Women did the cleaning, cooking and gardening, and also chopped wood, churned butter, sewed, wove, knitted and span. [4]Likewise, the boys served a long apprenticeship with their father, whether blacksmith, carpenter, or farmer, in the shop or on the farm.

Such was the home under the domestic system, – a complete, self-sustaining economic unit. In the 19^th century, however, manual labour was replaced by machinery. The Industrial Revolution, as the change is commonly referred to, had a profound effect upon home, too. [5] The latter practically eliminated the old type of home of which we read in fiction and biography. Thereby, the woman, who for centuries was looked upon as a homemaker responsible for child-rearing and a myriad of household chores, entered the labour force.

Nevertheless, running the house seems to remain a woman’s lot. The matter is that [6] all or most household chores fall on her shoulders. No wonder that running the house has turned into one of the most contentious issues for many couples – battles over housekeeping are second only to conflicts over money.

Now that the material means of producing solidarity has left the home, the binding ties of a family must therefore depend on an ethical rather than a material basis. This new type of home solidarity will call for overhauling the approach to housekeeping handed down from cooperative home industry. [7] With such a foundation our home will regain peace, integrity and stability shaken, if not lost, in the previous century.

Options:

1. a) Home stands as one of our oldest institutions.

b) One of our oldest institutions is home.

2. a) It was in such a home that the domestic system of production developed.

b) In such a home the domestic system of production developed.

3. a) women’s sphere centered exclusively around home and housekeeping.

b) home and housekeeping represented an exclusively women’s responsibility.

4. a) The girls helped their mother in her work, learning the rudiments of domestic industry and arts almost as soon as they could walk or talk.

b) The girls, learning the rudiments of domestic industry and arts, helped their mother in her work as soon as they could walk or talk.

5. a) By removing industry from the home and calling the majority of its inmates into the factory, the Industrial Revolution was responsible for a “domestic revolution”.

b) The Industrial Revolution was responsible for a “domestic revolution”, by removing industry from the home and calling the majority of its inmates into the factory.

6. a) in practice the wife bears the brunt of it, though in theory both working spouses should take care of their home:

b) though in theory both working spouses should take care of their home, it is the wife who factually bears the brunt of it:

7. a) A similarity of ideas, respect and sympathy between all family members, as well as mutual aid from all to all can really take its place.

b) What can really take its place is a similarity of ideas, respect and sympathy between all family members, as well as mutual aid from all to all.

Text 1

TAKING OVER

Things certainly changed for the better when we moved to our new house. Gloria, George’s mother, had her granny flat above the garage, George had his study which he called his “den”, the children had a large sunny playroom and I had the best view in Cambridgeshire. And a lock on my door.

I also gave up cooking. It was not a wild feminist decision (You’ve got nothing to do all day, George, why don’t you get the dinner for a change?) but an admission of feminine weakness. The new kitchen was banked with electronic controls like a space station, and all the equipment was hidden discreetly behind panelled doors, so that I kept opening the dishwasher to get out the milk and putting the dirty washing in the fridge.

A couple of weeks after we moved in, I decided to roast a joint of beef; and then decided to go out and buy a take-away chicken when the instruction manual instead of issuing instructions about roasting on number 4 for 20 minutes to a pound, started babbling about the unique benefits of combining Infra technology & Turbo technology.

“Let me look at it, Pauline,” George took the manual firmly out of my hand. “The trouble with you is that you don’t bother to read the instructions properly. I say, it is amazing. Do you realize you can bake and roast simultaneously on six different levels?”

I couldn’t see why I’d want to perform this culinary feat, any more than I understood why the ceramic hob needed two heat zones to boil an egg or what the microwave thought in its two stage memory.

Once he had mastered all the masculine stuff about thermostatically controlled oven heat and such like, George opened his first cookery book surreptitiously, as though it was called “One Hundred Amusing Ways of Making Love” rather than “The Good Housekeeping Infra Turbo Cookbook.” He didn’t go so far as to conceal it in a plain wrapper but shyly hid the cover with his arms if anyone came into the kitchen and caught him with it. I noticed that he read “The Art of French Cookery” with far more concentration than he ever gave to “The Beginner.”

When Gloria tactlessly told him that now that he had nothing much to do, he could help a bit more around the house (something I’d never dream of saying since I felt permanently guilty about having a wonderful job when George was out of work), she probably expected him to push the Hoover1 about once a week and produce an occasional steak and crinkle chips to rapturous applause from the womenfolk. But George, while doing very little Hoover-pushing, plunged right in at the Cordon bleu end of cooking, marinating meat in wine and herbs, grilling fish over fennel twigs, baking his own bread.

Proudly bearing his first batch of bread, covered with a damp tea towel, up the stairs to the airing cupboard to raise the dough, he had bumped into Gloria putting away freshly ironed laundry.

“Let me do that, George,” she said, attempting to take the tin from him, but George hung on grimly. “Leave me alone, mother. It’s wholemeal and I’m going to put cracked wheat on it.”

“I suppose it’s all right,” she said, bringing me a cup of coffee in the studio and reporting the incident, “but it’s not very manly, is it, cooking?” I realized she had come to be reassured. “The best chefs in the world are men,” I said.

“That’s true.” She sipped her coffee reflectively. “But they don’t go modelling clothes in their spare time, do they?”

“I’m sure George won’t make a habit of it,” I said. There seemed to be no point in worrying Gloria by telling her that George was rather taken with the idea. He told me in bed one night (the only time and place we seemed to have time to talk to each other), that since Sybilla’s fashion pictures had turned out so well he was thinking of getting an agent.

“And is it that easy?” – I for one always found it most unrelaxing being told to relax in front of cameras for our publicity pictures.

“Easier than trying to sell out-of-date packaging units to people who don’t want to buy them,” he said, taking me in his arms. “I hated it, you know, Pauly.”

So this is how our new life went on. I had two babies to look after, and three shops to worry about, to say nothing about designing. It was a relief that George had taken to the new kitchen technology with such enthusiasm.

As for modelling, he did a session from time to time but we never mentioned it in front of Gloria.

(by S. Lowe, A. Ince)

EXERCISES

1. Comment on the cultural connotations of the following items: granny flat, feminist, joint of beef, a take-away chicken, French cookery, Cordon bleu, airing cupboard, wholemeal, chef.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 1153