Emotions and Reactions

I. Some vocabulary

A. Verbs that express a strong desire that is hard to control:

-to crave/ have a craving for

-to hanker after/ have a hankering for

-to thirst/ to have a thirst for

-to yearn to do sth/ to yearn for/ have a yearning for

-to covet

B. Verbs describing ways of reacting to other people‟s emotions:

-defuse= make a dangerous or tense situation calmer e.g. Jane tried to defuse the tension by changing the subject.

-placate= stop someone feeling angry e.g. Jim was very angry with his daughter and it took all her charm to placate
him.

-conciliate (between)= end a disagreement between 2 groups in a friendly way e.g. An advisor was brought to
conciliate between the 2 groups.

-appease= end a disagreement by giving the other side an advantage (-) e.g. Appeasing the enemy is not always the
best thing to do.

C. Words referring to being extremely happy:

- to rejoice

-exultant

-jubilant= expressing great happiness especially at a victory

-rapture= extreme pleasure or happiness

-bliss -> blissfully happy/ unaware/ ignorant

Colloquial expressions meaning „very happy‟:

-to be full of the joys of spring

-to be thrilled to bits at sth

-to feel on top of the world

-to be floating/ walking on air

-to be over the moon

-to be on cloud nine

1
Task: Find synonyms and idioms meaning „very sad‟

D. Reactions

- to be adamant

- to be baffled

- to be blasé

- to be devastated

- to be/ feel drowsy

- to be enthralled

- to be/ feel flattered

- to be flummoxed = to have no idea what the answer to a problem is

- to be/ get flustered= to be/ get very nervous because you are very short of time

- to be impressed (by sb/ sth)

- to be off-hand

- to be stunned

- to be/ feel uptight

to be/ feel lethargic

- to be livid= to be extremely angry (!)

Make sentences with these adjectives.

E. Emotion Idioms

Explain the meaning of the following idioms expressing emotion and translate the sentences into Romanian:

1. I could see that my son was bored to tears by the historical documentary.
2. He's been carrying the torch for Julie since their college days, before she married Ted.
3. Jenny is absolutely cheesed off with her job.
4. I think Paul has taken a fancy to the new intern!
5. Alan looks embarrassed. Bob's comment must have been close to home.
6. You could see that she was hurt - she wears her heart on her sleeve!
7. Mike couldn't keep things to himself any lo bnger. He decided to bare his soul to his best friend.
8. The shock of the announcement make me go weak at the knees!
9. Her affection for her grandson was written all over the old lady's face.
10. Alan was cut to the quick when Joe expressed doubt about his sincerity.
11. When the company closed down, finding a new job took a load off Tom's mind.
12. We were all over the moon when we heard the good news.
13. When things go wrong, his assistant always has to bear the brunt of his anger.

2
14. Don't get bent out of shape if you're delayed. We'll wait for you.
15. He was beside himself with grief when he lost his son.
16. After the initial shock, Lisa got a grip on herself and called an ambulance.
17. So you got the job - I'm so sad ... Sorry, I mean 'glad'!
18. Bob has had so many problems lately, he's coming apart at the seams.
19. The old lady's cake wasn't wonderful but she's got her heart in the right place!
20. She left the table in a fit of pique.
21. Tony's only interest at the moment is Maria. He's head over heels in love with her!
22. He appears to be indifferent to his success, but deep down he's very happy.
23. Don't expect any sympathy from him. He's as hard as nails.
24. Eva will go off the deep end if her kids leave the kitchen in a mess again.
25. He's got a chip on his shoulder because he's from a working-class family.
26. Reading gossip magazines is a guilty pleasure for many women… and some men too!
27. If anyone criticizes his proposals, Joe immediately gets hot under the collar.
28. As a non-golfer, I felt like a fish out of water at the clubhouse.
29. On his return, when Pete saw the pile of files on his desk, he groaned inwardly.
30. Jack nearly went to pieces when his son died in a car crash.
31. It would be better if she showed her grief and didn't cork up her feelings.
32. If you announce that you are going to drop out of school, your parents will go bananas!
33. It's his first day at school tomorrow and he's all worked up about it.
34. The comments I overheard made my ears burn.
35. My seven-year-old son thinks he's a big boy; he wouldn't be caught dead holding my hand in front of his
friends!
36. Tell you parents how you feel - it's better to get it out of your system.
37. Just talking about snakes makes my flesh crawl!
38. When she heard the bad news, she kept a stiff upper lip.
39. When Alan was promoted instead of Steve, he said to Steve : 'No hard feelings I hope.'
40. The speech was so touching that I had a lump in my throat.
41. OK. You know nobody. But look on the bright side - you'll make lots of new friends!
42. I had mixed feelings about leaving the company. I was excited about my new job but sad to be leaving my
colleagues.
43. He was against charity, but he had a change of heart when he saw the plight of the homeless.
44. When the police came to arrest him, he didn't turn a hair.
45. When his son won first prize, Bill was as proud as a peacock.
46. Dad was as proud as punch when he won the tennis match.
47. He carefully avoided the subject so as not to open old wounds.
48. When she needs to pour her heart out to someone, Elsa goes to visit her grandmother.
49. She wears eccentric clothes but she couldn't give a hoot about what others think..
50. Poor Harry is licking his wounds after being dropped from the team.
51. It took her a while to regain her composure after hearing the insulting remarks.
52. She's a wonderful grandmother - the children think the world of her.
53. She really put her foot in her mouth when she mentioned the housewarming party - Andy hadn't been
invited.
54. I'm not interested in football so I don't give a hang about which team wins.
55. I've been tearing my hair out all morning trying to find the error!
56. When he discovered he wasn't on the invitation list, that really put his nose out of joint!
57. When the company closed down, finding a new job took a load off Tom's mind.
58. She adores her husband - she thinks the sun rises and sets on him!
59. They allowed him to save face by accepting his resignation.

3
 60. I think Paul has taken a fancy to the new intern!
61. He whispered sweet nothings in her ear as they danced.
62. My grandfather has always had a soft spot for his first grandchild.
63. I can thank my lucky stars I wasn't on the train that crashed.
64. Let's bring the kids to the playground so they can let off steam.
65. Calm down - there's no need to get all steamed up about it!
66. When she was organizing the wedding reception, Laura got into a stew over the seating arrangements.
67. You struck a raw nerve when you mentioned divorce. They're separating.
68. The hospital's plea for donors tugged at the heartstrings of millions of viewers.
69. When Jill failed the exam, she had to swallow her pride and repeat the course.
70. His disappointment was thinly veiled when he saw what he had won.
71. At the start of the interview I was completely tongue-tied!
72. When I realized I was reading the wrong report, I stood there in front of the group wishing the ground
would swallow me up!
73. His daughter means all the world to Mr. Jones.

II. Comment upon the following quotes:

a. “But smiles and tears are so alike with me, they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I
often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
b. “It is a grave injustice to a child or adult to insist that they stop crying. One can comfort a person who is
crying which enables him to relax and makes further crying unnecessary; but to humiliate a crying child is
to increase his pain, and augment his rigidity. We stop other people from crying because we cannot stand
the sounds and movements of their bodies. It threatens our own rigidity. It induces similar feelings in
ourselves which we dare not express and it evokes a resonance in our own bodies which we resist.”
― Alexander Lowen, The Voice of the Body
c. “To hide feelings when you are near crying is the secret of dignity.”
― Dejan Stojanovic
d. “...no one can do a thing about feelings, they exist and there's no way to censor them. We can reproach
ourselves for some action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply because we have no control
at all over it.” (Milan Kundera, Identity)

Do you agree? Can reason censor feelings? Choose one quote and write a 300-word essay stating your
opinion.

III. Listening
1.Listen to the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LelkiUDS0yM and try to fill in the
following sentences:

1. “I was more of an Italian food fan, but I love……………food now.”

2. One woman who got the heart of a boxer………
3. One way to find out things about people‟s hearts is……………., not dismissing them as…….
4. Systemic memory is…………….
5. The scientists were looking for parallels between…………..and recipients
6. It was discovered that…………………..played violin.
7. Scientists have found……….in the heart.

4
 8. The question is not…………, but………If we only glorify ……, we will not be open to
the……………….
9. Researchers in California have developed experiments testing whether the metaphors of the heart
can…………………
10. People had only seen the heart as a ……………..until 50 years ago.
11. One of the researchers named the small and complex nervous system of the
heart…………………..
12. Cardiac cycles represent……………….
13. Why couldn‟t memory be distributed……………………..?
14. Bill put his career aside and…………………
15. The heart sends ……….information to the brain than the brain………….to the heart.
16. The heart is the strongest…………….
17. The heart is behaving……………..It registers an……………….response before a disturbing
image appears on screen and then……….
18. The brain does not have an………role in………………….

2. Mention at least 3 cases of surprising changes in the recipient after a heart transplant.

IV. Read the following article:

Second Brain Found in Heart Neurons - Trust your Gut Feelings (by Juliette
Kando)

The idea of transplanted cellular memory emerged as early as 1920 in the film "Les Mains d'Orleac" written by
science fiction writer Maurice Renard. A second brain in the heart is now much more than an idea. Prominent
medical experts have recently discovered that many recipients of heart transplants are inheriting donors' memories
and consequently report huge changes in their tastes, their personality, and, most extraordinarily, in their emotional
memories. Today new science is testing the theory that the heart is involved in our feelings. So what have they
discovered so far?

Amazing new discoveries show that the heart organ is intelligent and that it sometimes can lead the brain in our
interpretation of the world around us, and in the actions we chose to take. A large number of case studies were
enough to prompt some scientists to look differently at the heart and test old theories that the heart is involved in our
feelings and emotions. Since cardiac surgeon Christian Barnard's first successful human heart transplant in South
Africa in 1967, heart transplant recipients have had intriguing experiences, so strange and out of character that they
seek to meet the families of their donors to find out what is going on. Could they have inherited certain behavioral
and character traits through cellular memories stuck in the heart of their donors?

Meeting Donor's Family

Upon meeting their donors' families, the heart transplant patients' hunches were confirmed: the new personality traits
had indeed been passed on from their donors. Families of donors often tend to bond with a recipient of an organ
donated by their departed loved ones. They, in many ways, recognize and like the recipient, almost as if a part of
their lost one was, somehow, still alive.

The Little Brain In The Heart

Neurologist Dr. Andrew Amour from Montreal in Canada discovered a sophisticated collection of neurons in the
heart organised into a small but complex nervous system. The heart‟s nervous system contains around 40,000
neurons called sensory neurites that communicate with the brain. Dr. Amour called it “the Little Brain in the Heart”.

5
It has been known for many years that memory is a distributive process. You can‟t localize memory to a neuron or a
group of neurons in the brain. The memory itself is distributed throughout the neural system. So why do we draw a
line at the brain?

FACTS
The following facts are only a few of the many cases reported as evidence of something new and extraordinary
happening to heart transplant recipients: They seem to take on the likes and dislikes of their donors.

A gentle, soft-spoken woman who never drank alcohol and hated football got a heart from a crashed biker donor
and turned into an aggressive beer drinking football fan.

A lazy male couch potato received a heart from a stuntman. He inexplicably started training fanatically for no
apparent reason until he became a true athlete.
A 47-year-old Caucasian male received a heart from a 17-year-old African-American male. The recipient was
surprised by his new-found love of classical music.

What he discovered later was that the donor, who loved classical music and played the violin, had died in a drive-by
shooting, clutching his violin case to his chest.

A man who could barely write suddenly developed a talent for poetry.

Most Amazingly...
An eight-year-old girl who received the heart of a ten-year-old murdered girl had horrifying nightmares of a man
murdering her donor. The dreams were so traumatic that psychiatric help was sought.

The girl‟s images were so specific that the psychiatrist and the mother notified the police.

Using the most detailed and horrid descriptive memories provided by the little girl, the police gathered enough
evidence to find the murderer, charge him, and get a conviction for rape and first-degree murder.

Possible Explanations
Doctors now attempt to explain why organ recipients are hosts to donors‟ memories and emotions, also known as
"cellular memories". While a handful of scientists are skeptical and dismissing this strange phenomenon as post-
surgery stress or reaction to anti-organ rejection drugs, there are also a growing number of experts who believe
cellular memories are indeed transplanted from donor to recipient with organs.

Nothing Mystical, Pure Science

Other medical experts offer different explanations, but all agree that it is not so much mystical as it is science, and a
science that needs further exploration.Professor Pr Paul Pearsall and Pr Gary Schwarz got together.

Professor Gary Schwartz says that “Feedback mechanisms are involved in learning. When we talk, for example,
about how the brain learns, we talk about what we call neural networks in the brain. It turns out that the way a neural
network works is that the output of the neurons feeds back into the input of the neurons. And this process goes over
and over again. So long as the feedback is present the neurons will learn. If you cut the feedback, there is no learning
in the neurons."

Dr. Candace Pert, a pharmacologist at Georgetown University believes that the mind is not just in the brain, but also
exists throughout the body. This school of thought could explain such strange transplant experiences. "The mind and
body communicate with each other through chemicals known as peptides. These peptides are found in the brain as
well as in the stomach, in muscles and in all of our major organs. I believe that memory can be accessed anywhere
in the peptide/receptor network. For instance, a memory associated with food may be linked to the pancreas or liver
and such associations can be transplanted from one person to another".

Feedback Memory

6
"The implication is that it's important for the neurons to have the feedback for the learning to take place. By
extension, any system that has feedback is going to learn. We learn to shoot a ball into a basketball net by getting
feedback about whether we are accurate or not. We learn to speak by getting feedback about whether we're accurate
or not. And so consequently, any system, any set of cells that has feedback mechanisms in a network is going to
learn the same way that neurons learn. That's what is called feedback memory."

Love and Emotion

A heart transplant is now a routine operation. The heart has been seen for centuries as a symbolic organ associated
with love and emotion.

Scientific research today clearly shows that poets and great scholars throughout history have been right all along.
The heart has intelligence and plays a particular role in our experience of emotions.

(http://hubpages.com/education/your-second-brain-is-in-your-heart)

Tasks:

1. Try to summarize the article in a few lines.

2. State your opinion on the matter.
3. Discuss the issue in relation to the traditional association of the mind with intelligence of the heart with
emotions.