LESSON

out of the blue = suddenly

WHETHER = IF
(two alternatives/ but not weather in conditions)

Whether always refers to two possible alternatives, while if expresses several

possibilities or a condition. A good general rule to follow is to use whether
when you only have two choices and use if in conditional sentences.

 I wonder if he would agree.

 I wonder whether he would agree or not.

When talking about two possibilities, we can add ‘or not’ to the end of the
clause. This is not necessary; it is just for emphasis.
 Henry and Isabella don’t know if their friends are coming (or not).
 Henry and Isabella don’t know whether their friends are coming (or
not).

Likewise, we can add ‘or not’ directly to whether. Again, this is generally
redundant, but it is used in spoken English.

 It depends on whether or not their friends are coming.

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INDIRECT SPEECH (I)

He says he is sick.
He says he has a headache.
He says he has a cold.
She says she has a toothache.
She says she needs a doctor.
She says she will call a doctor.

Direct speech = Mary is working.

Indirect speech = He said Mary was working.

Mary works every day.

What did he say?
He said Mary worked every day.

Mary will work today.

What did he say.
He said Mary would work tomorrow. (indirect speech = same day)
He said Mary would work the following day. (indirect speech = different day)

Mary worked yesterday.

What did he say?
He said Mary had worked the previous day.

Mary was working yesterday.

What did he say?
He said Mary had been working the previous day.

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Mary has worked.
What did he say?
He said Mary had worked.

Mary had worked.

What did he say?
He said Mary has worked. (no chance)

INDIRECT SPEECH (II)

(attention to the sequence of tenses)

Principal verb in the present.

He is sick
He says (that) he is sick.

Principal verb in the past

Bill – I’m sick
Mary – What did he say?
John – He said he was sick.

When the principal verb is in the past all the verbs in the subordinate clause
go to the past form. Each tense has a past form to be used in Indirect Speech,
even if referring to an action in the future.

Mary – I’ll go home tomorrow.

Jane – What did she say?
Bill – She said she would go home tomorrow the following day.

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 TENSES

TENSE INDIRECT SPEECH

Simple Present (work/works) worked
Present Continuous (is working) was working
Present Perfect (have/has worked) had worked

Present Perfect continuous (have/has been had been working

working)
Simple Past (worked) had worked
Past Continuous (was working) had been working

Past Perfect (had worked) had worked (=)

Past Perfect Continuous had been working (=)
(had been working)
Future (will work) would work
Can (can work) could work

Attention:

Direct Speech Indirect Speech

now then
yesterday the previous day
tomorrow the following day

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Sam and Sarah have been married for over five years and are still incredibly
happy. They’ve a very well-adjusted couple. Besides loving and respecting
each other. They have many things in common and try to participate in each
other’s live.
Sam and Sarah wish they could go to Europe on their vacation. They wish they
had enough time and money to spend a couple of months traveling around
various countries. They would like to rent a car and drive leisurely, stopping
at the places that either interested or pleased them. They wish, they could go
back to the places they went to on their honeymoon. While there, they’d love
to visit museums, go to plays, Ballets, operas and concerts.
They’ve already paid off the mortgage on the apartment they’d bought before
getting married. They’ve recently opened a savings account and are now
depositing their spare money instead of spending it.
Although they wish they could do a lot of things that they haven’t been able
to do this has never spoiled their marriage. They’re aware that it’s impossible
to have everything at once. They realize they wouldn’t have enjoyed the last
five years as much as they have if the good things in life had come too easily.
In a couple of years from now, they’ll take the trip of their dreams to Europe.

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What will life be like after the coronavirus
pandemic ends?
Experts predict the social consequences of COVID-19

John Barry - Historian, Tulane University

Author, The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
What happens in the next six months will have a disproportionate impact on
what happens in the more distant future. If vaccines are very effective, if
immunity lasts for a few years, if therapeutic drugs come online that are
highly effective and if we have broad usage of cheap rapid antigen tests that
can assure people that others around them are safe, I would foresee relatively
few changes other than the really obvious ones, such as more work from
home, teledoc services and a decimation of small business.
If the virus remains a threat, changes could be pretty profound, all stemming
from a de-densifying, if there is such a word, of life in general. This trend
would affect where and how people live and work, the housing market,
commercial real estate practices and the interior design of buildings. There
would be more cars and less mass transit.

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Katherine Hirschfeld - Medical anthropologist, University
of Oklahoma
Author, Gangster States: Organized Crime, Kleptocracy and Political Collapse
The changes that I think are most likely include increasing political division
and increased economic inequality in the United States and elsewhere, with
the basic science of epidemiology and public health attacked and undermined
by conspiracy theories spread on social media. If an effective vaccine is
developed and becomes widely available in 2021, then the pandemic will
contract, but the social environment will still support new disease outbreaks.
There is no reason to assume that a post-COVID world will be a post-pandemic
world.
If this sounds unusually grim, it may be due to my years of research exploring
post-Soviet conflicts, when many multicultural countries fell apart in warring
factions that triggered epidemics of easily preventable diseases.

Anna Mueller - Sociologist, Indiana University Bloomington

The pandemic has shown us how online teaching can be a tool that makes the
classroom more accessible, particularly for students with disabilities. In the
past, I’ve had students who sometimes struggled to attend class because they
were coping with anxiety or living with significant pain. They needed my
empathy and flexibility with class attendance but still missed the classroom
experience. I now realize how easy it is to turn on a camera and pop on a
microphone so they can join from the comfort of their homes.

Mario Luis Small - Sociologist, Harvard University

Author, Someone to Talk to: How Networks Matter in Practice
COVID-19 has shown that a lot, though by no means all, of higher instruction
can happen online. Parents and students will likely ask how much of the on-
campus experience is truly needed and demand alternatives. And when the
virus is under control, I suspect that companies, organizations, governments
and individuals will take a look at their travel practices and decide to cut
back, although many of us will yearn to engage in the physical contact that is
part of social interaction.
I wonder what new strategies people will have learned to fight loneliness and
avoid isolation, which of them will last after the pandemic ends and how
those strategies will affect our sense of being part of the collective.

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Christopher McKnight Nichols - Historian, Oregon State
University
Author, Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age
We could see a dramatic rise in leisure activities and collective gatherings
post-pandemic, including live music concerts and sports events. That’s what
happened in the 1920s as societies emerged from the 1918 [influenza]
pandemic and World War I. In the United States, the rise [in popularity and
national prominence] of professional baseball and college football occurred.
In Europe, professional soccer expanded. We’re not having fun together right
now.
It’s an open question whether social behaviors we took for granted, such as
hand shaking and hugging, will endure.

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