THREE

THE WORKING-CLASS
The working-class man feels inadequate because he is inarticulate. He is thought of as being stupid and
lazy by the middle classes because he can’t express himself and snorts ‘Definitely, disgusting’, in answer to any
question.
The working classes divide themselves into the Rough and the Respectable. The Rough get drunk fairly
often, have public fights, neglect their children, swear in front of everyone, and don’t give a stuff about anything
– just like the upper classes. The Respectables chunter over such behavior; they also look down on people on the
dole, the criminal classes and the blacks, calling them ‘soap dodgers’.
MR AND MRS DEFINITELY-DISGUSTING
They have two children, SHARON and DIVE, and live in a council house. Mr D-D is your manual
worker. He might be a miner in the North, a car worker in the Midlands, or a casual labourer in the South. He
married young and lived for a while with his wife’s parents. After a year or two he went back to going to the pub
with the blokes. Despite his propensity to foul language, he is extremely modest, always undressing with his
back to Mrs D-D. He often does something slightly illegal, nicking a car or knocking off a telly. He is terrified of
the police, who, being lower-middle and the class just above, reserve their special venom for him. Mrs D-D
spends a lot of the day with a cigarette hanging from her bottom lip gossiping and grumbling.
MR AND MRS NOUVEAU-RICHARDS
They are of working-class origin but have made a colossal amount of money. Boasting and ostentation
are their salient characteristics. Mrs Nouveau-Richards has a huge house and lots of servants, who she bullies
unmercifully. She is very rude to waiters and very pushy with her children, TRACEY-DIANE and JISON. Mr
Nouveau-Richards gets on the committee of every charity ball. The upper classes call him by his Christian name
and appreciate his salty humour, but don’t invite him to their houses. Jison goes Oxford and ends up a member
of the Telly-stocracy - the real powers in the land.
(Jilly Cooper – Class, slightly adapted text)

A
READING COMPREHENSION

Consider the following class chart devised by Paul Fussell in 1983. Comment on the validity of the ‘surefire
class indicators’ proposed in it. Could you come up with a similar schema for our own social classes?

CLASS Your Living Room Your Favourite Your Vocabulary Your Car Tells
Announces It Drink Proclaims It Shouts It the World
UPPER Threadbare Oriental Scotch on the rocks ‘Grandfather died.’ Dirty old
rugs; Dark wood (no soda!) in a ‘Muffy is pregnant.’ Plymouth or
walls; Exotic, out-of- tumbler decorated Chevy
season flowers with sailboats
MIDDLE Wall-to-wall ‘Grandma passed Brand-new
carpeting; Imitation ‘Martoonies’ away.’ Mercedes or
Tiffany lamps; ‘Meredith is BMW
Encyclopedia expecting.’
Britannica in wall
unit
PROLE Linoleum floor; ‘Uncle was taken Anything with
Naugahyde Domestic beer out of to Jesus.’ stuffed dice or
Barcalounger; Fancy the can ‘Minnie is in a baby shoes
aquarium family way.’ hanging in the
window.

(Paul Fussell – Class, 1984)

B
VOCABULARY

1. Consider the list of lexical items below. Select a) the informal words b) the formal words. List them in
the two-column table, trying to provide a definition for each item.
propensity, on the dole, not to give a stuff on anything, labourer, nick something, pushy, bully, chunter,
inadequate, grumble, worker, bloke, articulate, salient, ostentation.
 INFORMAL FORMAL

2. CLIPPING AND BLENDING: Explain how the following words are formed; build contexts for each
of these words:
telly, tellystocracy, glitteratti, pinny, hankie, undies, motel, jammies, showbiz, sitcom, pram, fridge, shrink,
sexcapade, guesstimate, autocide, chocoholic, slanguage, brunch, Oxbridge, wellies, meritocracy, vac, amp,
sissy, smog, wargasm, dawk, droid, rrhoid, veggie.

3. SYNONYMY:
a) Fill in the blanks with one of the following synonyms: rough, coarse, gritty, scaly, prickly
1. All the hospital beds were covered with _______ cotton sheets. 2. To relieve tight, itchy or _____ skin, add a
teaspoon of fine oil to your bathwater. 3. I hate wearing woolen underclothes – they feel so _____.
4. The sea is ______ today, I’m afraid; we’re not going to be able to take a swim. 5. Her straight hair, once dark
brown, was becoming gray and ______. 6. Suddenly he fell headfirst, badly cutting his forehead on the ______
edge of a rock. 7. A jeep is ideal for riding over _______terrain. 8. He doesn’t have polished manners, but he’s
kind: a ______ diamond, if ever there was one. 9. His ______ manners and jokes did not endear him to his wife.
10. Oh, I didn’t mean any disrespect. You’re a bit _____ today, aren’t you, to be so easily offended? 11. I’ve
never liked the kind of cheap ______ bread they serve in this restaurant.
b) Translate into Romanian, trying to find equivalents for the following series of synonyms: complain, go
about, nag, grumble, moan, gripe, whinge, whine, bitch, chunter.
1. I don’t know why you keep whingeing about being underpaid. You earn a lot more than I do. 2. Look, I’m
sorry I kept you waiting, but there’s no need to go on and on about it. 3. I got really irritated when Christina
griped about the lack of cooperation from my kids. 4. Don’t be such a fusspot, that small amount of garlic won’t
kill you. 5. She left her last job because her boss used to nag at her all the time. 6. I can’t understand why you lot
are all moaning and groaning just because we have to get up early. 7. For heaven’s sake, stop whining. Nobody
has touched your precious records. 8. You’re an old misery. Ever since we came away on holiday you’ve done
nothing but moan. 9. She’s such a moaner – to listen to her, you’d think the whole world was against her. 10.
She’s always grumbling about some thing or other – if it’s not the weather, it’s her husband. 11. There’s no place
in the army for people who whinge. 12. She’s always bitching about people at work. She’s just an old grumbler,
if you ask me. 13. Look at him, always chuntering about the price of food in the shops. And you thought I was
cheap!

4. Paraphrase and provide a context for the following collocations:

to be in one’s teens/ a playground bully/ bully-boy tactics/ at a rough estimate/ to give somebody a peck on the
cheek/ pecking order/ the gossip column/ salt of the earth/ to feel a bit peckish/ a pusher/ dodgy.

5. POLYSEMY: TALK. Translate into Romanian:

1. He actually wasted precious hours talking round the issue. 2. Take the day off? Now you’re talking! 3. I would
really like to see how he’s going to talk his way out of that one! 4. Oh, come on, let’s stop talking shop for once!
There are people here who aren’t really interested in food-processing. 5. The evening turned to be a disaster.
First he drank his way through a whole bourbon bottle and then he talked my head off for hours. 6. Don’t you
dare talk back! You’re in the doghouse as it is! 7. I’m really curious to see if he’ll manage to talk his boss into
giving him a rise. 8. We finally succeeded in talking them round to our way of thinking. 9. Be more discreet, or
you’ll get yourself talked about. 10. Talk about stupid! I thought he’ll never stop!

C
GRAMMAR: EXPRESSING HABITUAL ACTIONS AND GENERALIZATIONS

Preliminaries
Let us look again at a fragment from the text above:

(1) The working classes divide themselves firmly into the Rough and the Respectable. The Rough get drunk
fairly often, make a great deal of noise at night, often engage in prostitution, have public fights, neglect their
children, swear in front of women and children, and don’t give a stuff about anything – just like the upper
 classes, in fact. The Respectables chunter over such behaviour, and in Wales sing in Male Voice Choirs.
They also look down on people on the dole, the criminal classes and the blacks, who they refer to as ‘soap
dodgers’.

There are two types of items we have underlined in this piece of text. First, consider the phrases in italics, all
representing simple present tense forms that are used by Jilly Cooper as an effective means of building up a
generalization. Thus the main value of Simple Present is put to good use, by way of which the idea of present
habit is impressed upon us. The second category of items we have chosen to underline are frequency
adverbials such as often, at night, always, etc. which are meant to reinforce the idea of repetition expressed by
the verbal forms.

This section tries to offer students a brief survey of the grammatical and lexical devices used by English to
convey temporal repetition, iteration. We shall try to discuss this problem by trying to make a distinction
between present and past situations.

1. Why is the Present-Past Distinction Necessary?

In order to answer this question we need to have a look at the following pair of sentences in the table below:

(2)
PRESENT PAST

Sally goes to school. Sally went to school.

The main difference that we can spot between these two sentences is a temporal one. Obviously, the first
sentence makes use of the Simple Present, whereas the second one makes use of the Simple Past. But is this the
only distinction that we can speak of? Try and add a temporal adverbial phrase to each of these sentences. You
will see that in the case of the Simple Present sentence, the first time adverb that pops up into your head is a
frequency one such as often or every day. In the second case however, a definite time adverb is our first option.
Consider the table again:

(3)

PRESENT PAST

Sally goes to school (every day). Sally went to school (yesterday).

This test shows us that there is an important semantic difference between these two tenses: while the main value
of the Present Simple is that of showing repetition at the present moment, the main meaning of the Past Simple
is that of expressing the fact that one event took place in the past:

(4)
PRESENT PAST

Sally goes to school (every day). Sally went to school (yesterday).

Repeated action Single event in the past

In other words, while the Present Simple’s main job is to make generalizations, Past Simple is used for
particular instances. This is a crucial distinction that points to the asymmetry existing in the English Indicative.
The Present and Past Simple convey different information:
 Temporal : present vs. past
 Aspectual: repeated vs. single

The temporal distinction is not something we wouldn’t expect. It is only too normal that two different tenses
should be temporally distinct. But what about their aspectual dimension? Both are ‘simple’ tenses. Therefore we
would normally expect them to behave similarly from this point of view.
 2. How Does English Solve the Aspectual Asymmetry?

Due to the existence of this distinction, English needed a solution for expressing past habit. This gave rise to
more than one ways of expressing past repetition in the language. We will list these possibilities below:

(5)

Simple Past + Sally went to school every day.

Obligatory Frequency Mary often visited her aunt.
Adverb
Habit ‘would’ When we were kids we would visit our aunt and
listen to her wonderful stories. Then we would go
back home and repeat them to mother.
Used to She used to go to the opera when she was in her
teens.
I used to cook wonderful meals for Jim when we
were young.

Let us discuss each of these categories in turn:

The Past Simple can convey repetition but only when combined with a frequency adverbial. Otherwise it
expresses a single event in the past. Compare:

(5) a. She played her records.

b. She played her records often/ whenever she fancied/ every day.

If there is no time adverb present to clarify the meaning of the tense form, we automatically interpret this form as
expressing one single event that took place at a point in the past.

Habit ‘would’ is a frequent device in narration. It is not preferred in single sentences, but it functions very well
when repeated in a complex sentence or in a larger text:

(6) When we were kids we would visit our aunt and listen to her wonderful stories. Then we would go back
home and repeat them to mother.

An important characteristic of habit ‘would’ is that it does not combine with state verbs:

(7) * She would love Jim a lot when she was younger.

If we want to reformulate this sentence correctly, we will have to resort to either the Simple Past or to used to:

(8) a. She loved Jim a lot when she was younger.

b. She used to love Jim a lot when she was younger.

Habit ‘would’ is the past counterpart for habit ‘will’ (which is in fact our probability ‘will’, see Unit Two,
Section One, C). This modal is also used to convey the idea of present habit, but is much less frequent than
‘would’:

(9) a. Accidents will happen.

b. They will sit there for hours, fishing and telling jokes.

The fact that habit ‘will/would’ is a modal is checked by its validity in time adverbial sentences introduced by
whenever. As you know, the presence of a future auxiliary is banned in such contexts:

(10) a. Whenever they will go fishing, they will sit there for hours, enjoying themselves.
b. Whenever they would go fishing, they would sit there for hours, enjoying themselves.

Nota bene!
 The Simple Past needs frequency adverbs to convey the idea of habit
 Habit ‘would’ does not go well with state verbs

Used to
This phrase has often been analysed as having a modal value. Unlike ‘would’, it is not restricted to narrative
contexts and is very frequently employed by speakers of English.

There is another thing that distinguishes ‘used to’ from ‘would’ or from the Past Simple: ‘used to’ does not
have a present counterpart. So, beware of such incorrect instances as those under (12):

(11) a. *Mary uses to go there quite often.

b. * They use to like her.

It is only too normal for ‘used to’ to be a past-only expression. Since English has the Present Simple for
expressing habit in the present, why should it need an extra form? Then, if one really needs to lay emphasis on
the idea of present iteration, they can always make use of adverbs such as usually or nominal predicates such as
be used to + ing:

(12) a. Mary goes there quite often.

b. They like her.
c. She usually lets her husband have the final word.
d. I’m used to sleeping late.

Learners of English erroneously think that the nominal predicate (i.e. be used to + ing, which is quite
infrequently used in English) is the present counterpart of ‘used to’. But while the former is a copula + adjective
construction, the latter is a verb phrase. How do we check on that? Negation is a good test:

(13) a. I’m used to sleeping late.

b. I’m not used to sleeping late.

(14) a. She used to sleep late.

b. She didn’t use to sleep late.

The fact that ‘used to’ is a lexical verb, not a copula, is checked by its being combined with ‘did’. This is not the
case of ‘be used to + ing’ where do-insertion is impossible. ‘Used to’ functions just like your normal English
regular verb (play, smile, etc.). So take care to use the infinitive form after ‘did’:

(15) a. They didn’t play well.

b. *They didn’t played well.
c. They didn’t use to go there.
d. *They didn’t used to go there.

Both (b) and (d) are very bad sentences, because the presence of the past temporal morpheme in both the
auxiliary (did) and the lexical verb (play, use) conveys redundant temporal information.

Nota bene!
 ‘Used to’ is a past-only device.
 Don’t mistake ‘used to’ for ‘to be used to + ing’.
 The negation of ‘used to’ is ‘didn’t use to’.

EXERCISES:

1. Consider the text above. Try and rewrite it in the past, performing all the necessary changes to make
it coherent.
2. a. Translate the text below, paying attention to the grammar problem discussed in this section.
b. Can you speak of this text as being made up of two distinct parts? How do you motivate this
statement?
c. Comment on the value of the Past Tense instances underlined in the text.
The child of a beautiful woman, I was also a shrimper’s son in love with the shape of boats. I grew up a river
boy with the smell of the great salt marsh predominant in sleep. In the summers, my brother, my sister, and I
worked as apprentice strikers on my father’s shrimp boat. Nothing pleased me more than the sight of the
shrimping fleet moving out before sunrise to rendezvous with the teeming shoals of shrimp that made their swift
dashes through the moon-sweetened tides at first light. My father drank his coffee black as he stood at the wheel
of the boat and listened to the heavily accented voices of the other shrimp boat captains keeping each other
company. His clothes smelled like shrimp and there was nothing that water or soap or my mother’s hands could
do to change that. When he worked hard, his smell would change, the sweat cutting into the odor of fish and
becoming something different, something wonderful. Standing beside him as a small boy, I would press my nose
against my father’s shirt and he would smell like some rich, warm acre. If Henry Wingo had not been a violent
man, I think he would have made a splendid father.
One bright summer night (…) our mother took us out of the house (...) and walked all of us down to the river
and out onto the dock. Suddenly the moon lifted a forehead of stunning gold above the horizon, lifted straight out
of filigreed, light intoxicated clouds that lay on the skyline in attendant veils. Behind us, the sun was setting in a
simultaneous congruent withdrawal and the river turned to flame in a quiet duel of gold. . . . The new gold of
moon astonishing and ascendant, the depleted gold of sunset extinguishing itself in the long westward slide, it
was the old dance of days in the Carolina marshes, the breathtaking death of days before the eyes of children,
until the sun vanished, its final signature a ribbon of bullion strung across the tops of water oaks. (Pat Conroy –
The Prince of Tides)

3. Translate the following, paying attention to the grammar problem discussed in this section:
a)* Lucrul se hotărâse. În clipa când, zărind-o, Pantazi fusese atât de viu izbit de asemănarea ei cu Wanda de
odinioară, vechea lui patimă se redeşteptase. Îndrăgostirea aceasta, unică în felul ei, nu fu treptată, cu încolţit şi
dat în pârg; ea izbucni dintr-o dată pârdalnică, pustiitoare şi Pantazi nici nu încercă măcar să i se împotrivească,
se lăsă să meargă cât mai adânc, până la fund, găsind o voluptate în a se aţâţa şi suferi. Tot timpul se gândea la
dânsa, vorbea numai de dânsa, mă ruga să-i vorbesc de dânsa orice, rău chiar, dar să fie de dânsa. Şi bea. Deşi nu
mai mult ca de obicei — ar fi fost şi greu — acum se îmbăta tun şi turtă; a trebuit de vreo două ori să-l sui în
cârcă la el acasă. Noaptea, târziu, mergea cu mine să dea târcoale, pe furiş, casei Arnotenilor, se apropia
tremurând de fereastra odăii unde-i dormea preaiubita. Ce avea de gând a-i spune acesteia, lucruri minunate şi
bine aduse, adesea înduioşătoare, mi le spunea mie; pe dânsa o ocolea, când se afla în faţa ei se fâstâcea, îngâna
ceva neînţeles şi fugea, fiindu-i frică şi s-o privească. Cum însă taina lui nu mi-o încredinţase decât mie, în
învălmăşeala sporindă de la Arnoteni, lucrul trecea nebăgat de seamă. Şi fără îndoială nici n-ar fi mers mai
departe dacă, îndemnat de prietenia cea mai curată pentru amândoi şi convins că le fac cel mai mare bine, nu mi-
aş fi pus eu în cap să-i unesc prin căsătorie. (Mateiu Caragiale – Craii de Curtea-Veche)
b)Pomponescu era obişnuit să aibă la masă câte un invitat cel puţin. Când anticamera era plină, reţinea pe rând
câte unul. Acum nu mai avea de unde face alegere, şi prânzul şi cina erau foarte morocănoase. Madam
Pomponescu urmări cu telefonul pe cunoscuţi , dar aceştia fie că nu raspundeau, fie că se scuzau. Numai
Smărăndache veni de vreo două ori şi o data Hagienuş, care înainte de a intra pe poartă, privi cu atenţie în toate
părţile. Nu era laş în halul lui Sufleţel , totuşi avea convingerea că o relaţie deschisă cu Pomponescu nu-i fără
risc. (George Călinescu – Scrinul negru)
c)* Într-o cârciumă, un mahalagiu se împinse în prinţ, imagină exclamaţii inexistente din partea acestuia şi-l luă
de gât , cu intenţia precisă de a îl sili să se înfurie şi apoi să îl lovească cu un briceag. Agenţii şedeau la o parte,
gata de a “ aresta ” pe mahalagiul agresor, căruia i se promisese o imediată eliberare pentru caz de legitimă
apărare şi o substanţială recompensă bănească. Din păcate, Hangerliu unea calmul cu o forţă herculiană, foarte
bine disimulată în moliciunea gesturilor sale. Când individul îl prinse de gât , Hangerliu apucă mâna
ipochimenului şi o desprinse, aruncând-o cu atâta facilitate şi o comică strâambatură de compătimire, încât
lumea începu să râdă. Atins în onoarea lui de pungaş , individul se aruncă furios la Hangerliu. Acesta îl pocni cu
dosul palmei fără nici o sforţare şi îl lăsă lat lângă masă, după care ispravă ieşi din local, nesupărat de nimeni. De
atunci însă nu mai frecventă localurile suspecte şi alese ca unic loc de întâlnire “ Capşa “. (George Călinescu
– Scrinul negru)
d) Hagienuş se uita la copiii lui ca la ochii din cap, încântându-l chiar şi impertinenţa lor, şi nu prindea necaz pe
ei nici când îii făceau pozne ca acelea împotriva guvernantei. N-avea încredere, cu toate astea, în ei, pentru că
filozofia lui spunea că, prin legea naturii, copiii înlătură pe bătrâni. (George Călinescu – Scrinul negru)
e) A fost odata o ţară unde toata lumea fura. Noaptea, toţi locuitorii ieşeau cu şperaclul şi cu lanterna mascată în
mână ca să forţeze casa vreunui vecin. Se întorcea fiecare în zori încărcat, dar îşi găsea casa jefuită. (...)
S-a întâmplat însă, nu se ştie cum, ca în ţara aceea să existe un om cinstit. În loc să iasă noaptea cu sacul şi
lanterna, stătea în casă, fuma şi citea romane.
Hoţii veneau, vedeau lumina aprinsă şi nu mai urcau.
Treaba a mers asa o bucată de vreme, dar au fost nevoiţi să-i dea de înţeles că n-avea decât să trăiască fără să
facă nimic, însă nu era cazul să-i împiedice prin felul lui de a fi pe ceilalţi să o facă. Fiecare noapte petrecută de
el în casă însemna să laşi o familie fără hrană în ziua următoare.
 În faţa acestor argumente, omul cinstit nu avea replică. Începu şi el să iasă seara din casă şi să se întoarcă a
doua zi dar nu se ducea să fure. Cinstit cum era, n-aveai ce să-i faci. Se ducea pe pod şi privea apa care curgea pe
dedesubt; la întoarcere îşi găsea casa jefuită. (...)
Între timp, cei ce se îmbogăţiseră au prins şi ei obiceiul să se ducă pe pod să vadă cum curge apa pe
dedesubt. Ceea ce a accentuat dereglarea, pentru că au fost mult mai mulţi cei care s-au îmbogăţit şi mulţi alţii
care au sărăcit. Bogaţii şi-au dat însă seama că, mergând noaptea pe pod, după o vreme aveau să sărăcească. Ce
s-au gândit? “ Să plătim nişte săraci care să fure în contul nostru.” Au fost încheiate contracte, au fost stabilite
salariile, procentele (...) Dar, aşa cum se întâmplă de obicei, bogaţii deveneau tot mai bogaţi, iar săracii tot mai
săraci.
Existau bogaţi atât de bogaţi încât nu mai aveau nevoie să fure sau să pună pe alţii să fure ca să rămână în
continuare bogaţi. Dar dacă nu mai prădau, sărăceau, pentru că nevoiaşii furau de la ei. Atunci i-au plătit pe cei
mai săraci dintre săraci ca să-şi apere averea de ceilalţi săraci. Aşa au ajuns să instituie poliţia şi să ridice
închisori. (Italo Calvino – O lume de hoţi)

4.Consider the following fragment representing a description of a famous city and its inhabitants. What
are the grammatical devices the author uses to make generalizations? Does the type of the text (i.e.
description) dictate the author’s choice in point of tense forms, syntax, etc.?
I love the night. In Venice, a long time ago, when we had our own calendar and stayed aloof from the world,
we began the days at night. What use was the sun to us when our trade and our secrets and our diplomacy
depended on darkness? In the dark you are in disguise and this is the city of disguises. In those days (I cannot
place them in time because time is to do with daylight), in those days when the sun went down we opened our
doors and slid along the eely waters with a hooded light in our prow. All our boats were black then and left no
mark on the water where they sat. We were dealing in perfume and silk. Emeralds and diamonds. Affairs of the
state. We didn’t build our bridges simply to avoid walking on water. Nothing so obvious. A bridge is a meeting
place. A neutral place. A casual place. Enemies will choose to meet on a bridge and end their quarrel in that
void. One will cross the other side. The other will not return. For lovers, a bridge is a possibility, a metaphor of
their chances. And for the traffic in whispered goods, where else but a bridge in the night?
We are a philosophical people, conversant with the nature of greed and desire, holding hands with the Devil
and God. We would not wish to let go of either. This living bridge is tempting to all and you may lose your soul
or find it here. (Jeanette Winterson – The Passion)

5.* Translate into Romanian, paying attention to the use of would:

      Not many those mornings trod the piling streets: an old man always, fawn-bowlered, yellow-gloved and, at
this time of year, with spats of snow, would take his constitutional to the white bowling green and back, as he
would take it wet or fire on Christmas Day or Doomsday; sometimes two hale young men, with big pipes
blazing, no overcoats and wind blown scarfs, would trudge, unspeaking, down to the forlorn sea, to work up an
appetite, to blow away the fumes, who knows, to walk into the waves until nothing of them was left but the two
furling smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars. Then I would be slap-dashing home, the gravy smell of the
dinners of others, the bird smell, the brandy, the pudding and mince, coiling up to my nostrils, when out of a
snow-clogged side lane would come a boy the spit of myself, with a pink-tipped cigarette and the violet past of
a black eye, cocky as a bullfinch, leering all to himself. (Dylan Thomas – A Child’s Christmas in Wales)

6.Translate the following text into Romanian. Comment on the generalizations made in this text and on
the tenses used to this effect:
If she returned to Charleston under those humiliating conditions, she could expect little sympathy and much
withering commentary, for in the eyes of many she had foolishly squandered the fleeting few years of courtship
when young ladies were elevated to the apex of their culture, and men knelt in deference while all of society
stood at attention to watch their progress toward marriage as if the primary moral force of the universe were
focused in that direction. At the time, Monroe’s friends and acquaintances had found her relative disinterest in
the process puzzling.
She had done little to help matters, for in the confines of ladies’ parlors following dinner parties where the
mated and the mating passed sharp judgment on one another, she was prone to claim she was so dreadfully bored
by suitors (…) that she felt she ought to have a sign fashioned to read Gentlemen Prohibited hanging from the
porch gate. She counted on such pronouncements to evoke a doctrinal response (…) among those who held that
the highest expression of married woman was reasonable submission to man’s will. Marriage is the end of
woman, one of them would say. And Ada would respond, Indeed. (…)
As a result of such behaviour, it became not an uncommon opinion among their acquaintances to think that
Monroe had shaped her into a type of monster, a creature not entirely fit for the society of men and women.
There was, therefore, little surprise, though considerable indignation, at Ada’s response to two marriage
proposals during her nineteenth year: she rejected them out of hand, explaining later that what she found lacking
in her suitors was a certain amplitude – of thought, of feeling, of being. (…)To many of her friends, rejection of
a marriage proposal made by any man of means who was not defective in a clear and demonstrable way was, if
not inconceivable, at least inexcusable, and in the year before their move to the mountains, many of her friends
had fallen away, finding her too bristly and eccentric. (Charles Frazier – Cold Mountain)

D
WRITING
1. FORMAL STYLE. Read the following advertisement for a job. Write a letter of application for the job.

Local doctor seeks nurse in training to work as Saturday assistant. Training will be provided. The
successful applicant will be bright and quick to learn, possibly with an interest in working full-time. An ability to
deal with the public is required. No experience necessary. Good rates of pay.
Apply in writing to Pamela Forster, M.D., 17 High Street

Tips: Do not use a conversational, chatty style. Try to choose words and expressions that are formal, but not
too archaic. Keep your style simple and informative, do not use very long and elaborate sentences or give
too many details. Do not state why you need the job, but try to present relevant information about yourself.

2. CONVERSATION AND STYLE. Write a conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Nouveau Richards or Mr.
and Mrs. Definitely Disgusting. Try to think about the words and expressions that these persons would use
today in a conversation.