The Gondola of Venice In Venice, Italy, instead of roads, (0) their have canals. (1) That canals are navigated | | by small boats. One type of popular boat that tourists like to ride (2) on to see the | sights is called a gondola. The gondola is a Venetian flat-bottomed boat that has been a traditional way of navigating the city’s canals (3) through hundreds of years. Gondola boatsmen — called gondoliers — power the boats by hand, using long oars to propel the boats (4) around the canals. Although gondolas (6) are once the primary means of transportation around Venice, they are mainly used to transport tourists today. The earliest gondolas featured a felze, (6) who was a small cabin that would protect riders from the | weather. The windows of the cabin could be closed with shutters. Today's gondolas are open to the air, so that tourists can have (7) a unrestricted view of the scenery. At the height of their popularity, there were about 10,000 gondolas in Venice. That number has (8) plummet to less than 500 gondolas in active service to tourists today. Example: (0) they a 3. 5. 7 Walking Under a Ladder Superstition Broadly defined, superstition is a (0) believe in the supernatural. In the Oxford | English dictionary, superstition is defined as a belief thatis unfounded or irrational. Many | superstitions (1) comes from the same human trait that causes us to believe in monsters | and ghosts. (2) While our brains cannot explain something, we make stuff up. One of the (3) more common superstitions is, it is bad luck to walk under a ladder. It is common sense to avoid walking (4) below an open ladder for fear of something falling on you, but there are superstitious reasons for avoiding ladders too. The shape of an open ladder is a (6) triangular, which signifies life in some mythologies. When you walk (6) over the triangle, it is thought that you tempt the Fates. You also run the risk (7) off awakening spirits that live within the tridngle, including evil spirits who may not be happy with the disturbance, | HFyou do (8) accident walk under a ladder, itis believed that you can counteract the bad ‘| | luck by placing your thumb between your index and middle fingers and holding it for at | least 5 seconds, Example: (0) belief” » 1. 2) 4. 6. 8.