Unit 1 Recording 2

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 414.

Use the idioms while giving a gist of the story.

Be in the same boat with smb.

1. You must feel rather blank and let down. But you see, whether we served or not, we're all more or less in the same boat. (R. Aldington, ‘All Men Are Enemies', part II, ch. VI)

2. ‘I heard about it,' Laura said vehemently. ‘I think It's awful. Making you a private...' ‘It's not so awful. There're a lot of people in the same boat.' (I. Shaw, ‘The Young Lions', ch. 14)

3. He must somehow get their sympathy and cooperation by convincing them that they were all in the same boat with him and working for the same ends. (W. Du Bois, ‘Mansart Builds a School', ch. IV)

P = Presenter

P: To continue our series on famous firsts ... If you ask a Brazilian who first flew an airplane, she'll tell you it was Alberto Santos Dumont. Ask an American and he'll answer the Wright brothers. In 1906, Santos Dumont was widely believed to have flown the first plane that was heavier than air. Others say that the Americans Wilbur and Orville Wright first flew in 1903. The truth is, we don't really know who flew first, but Santos Dumont was certainly a colorful character. He's said to be the first person to have owned a flying machine for personal use. He kept his balloon tied up outside his Paris flat and regularly flew to restaurants!

Our second question ... It's commonly assumed that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, but now we're not so sure. Many people believe that Antonio Meucci, an Italian immigrant, got there first. And in 2003, files were discovered which suggest that a twenty-six-year-old German science teacher, Philipp Reis, had invented the phone fifteen years before Bell.

Now, who was the first to the North Pole? In 1908, Dr Frederick Cook said he'd done it, but it's commonly believed that he lied, and that a man called Robert Peary made it first. There are others who claim that neither of them reached the North Pole.

The light bulb. It's widely asserted that Edison invented it, but we don't really know for sure. Edison based a lot of his inventions on other people's ideas. Also, he worked with a team, and he never shared the credit.

Moving on to our football question, it's widely assumed that South America's football glory belongs to Brazil and Argentina. But it was Uruguay that hosted and won the first World Cup in 1930. They beat Argentina 4-2 in the final in front of 93,000 people in Montevideo. The cheering of the crowd is said to have been the loudest noise ever heard in Uruguay. Talking of sport, it is often thought that rugby and sheep are the main claims to fame for New Zealand. Not many people know that in 1893 New Zealand became the first country to allow women to vote.

Now talking of empowering women, one woman who has empowered herself is Ellen MacArthur. MacArthur is sometimes wrongly assumed to be the first woman to sail around the world. She wasn't. She was the fastest but not the first. That honor goes to another Englishwoman, Naomi James, who did it in 1979.

, she got so seasick that soon afterwards she gave up sailing altogether.

And our final question. The Ancient Olympic Games were of course first held in Greece. They were quite different from the Games today. Instead of money, the winners received a crown of leaves. They were also said to be allowed to put their statue up on Olympus.