THE WORKING-CLASS

Leaving school at sixteen, the working-class man feels inadequate because he is inarticulate. He is thought
of as being bloody-minded and lazy by the middle classes because he can’t express himself and to snort ‘Definitely,
disgusting’, in answer to any question put to him, is the only way he can show his disapproval.
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’.

MR AND MRS DEFINITELY-DISGUSTING

Our archetypal working-class couple is Mr and Mrs DEFINITELY-DISGUSTING. They have two
children, SHARON and DIVE, and live in a council house with walls so thin you can hear the budgie pecking its
seed next door. Mr Definitely-Disgusting 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, football and the dogs with the blokes. He detests his mother-in-
law. But, 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 Definitely-Disgusting wears
her curlers and pinny to the local shop and spends a lot of the day with a cigarette hanging from her bottom lip
gossiping and grumbling.

MR AND MRS NOUVEAU-RICHARDS

The other couple you will meet are the NOUVEAU-RICHARDS, of working-class origin but have made a
colossal amount of money. Boasting and ostentation are their salient characteristics. At coffee mornings Mrs
Nouveau-Richards, who lives in lurex, asks anyone if they’ve got any idea ‘whether gold plate will spoil in the
dishwasher’. She 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, who have after-school coaching several hours
every day. Mr Nouveau-Richards gets on the committee of every charity ball in London. The upper classes call him
by his Christian name and appreciate his salty humour, but don’t invite him to their houses. Jison goes to Stowe and
Oxford and ends up a member of the Telly-stocracy, who are the real powers in the land – the people in
communication who appear on television. They always talk about ‘my show.’
(Jilly Cooper – Class, 1981)

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, 1983)

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, archetypal.

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

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.

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
Present Simple is that of showing repetition at the present moment, the main meaning of 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 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. 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.

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:

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 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!
 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 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 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. Comment upon the underlined phrases. Why is it that you can use the Present tense in a past context?
Why is it that we can use Past Simple to formulate generalizations even if there is no frequency adverb
present?
c. Can you speak of this text as being made up of two distinct parts? How do you motivate this statement?
I passed all the other courses that I took at my university, but I could never pass botany. This was because all
botany students had to spend several hours a week in a laboratory looking through a microscope at plant cells and I
could never see through a microscope. I never once saw a cell through a microscope. This used to enrage my
instructor. He would wander around the laboratory pleased with the progress all the students were making in
drawing the involved and, so I am told, interesting structure of flower cells, until he came to me. I would just be
standing there. “I can’t see anything.” I would say. He would begin patiently enough, explaining how anybody can
see through a microscope, but he would always end up in a fury, claiming that I could too see through a microscope
but just pretended that I couldn’t. “ It takes away from the beauty of flowers anyway”, I used to tell him. “ We are
not concerned with beauty in this course”, he would say. “ We are concerned solely with that I may call the
mechanics of flowers”, “ Well “, I’d say, and I would put my eye to the microscope and see nothing at all, except
now and again a nebulous milky substance – a phenomenon of maladjustment. You were supposed to see a vivid,
restless clockwork of sharply defined plant cells. “ I see what looks like a lot of milk”, I would tell him. This, he
claimed, was the result of my not having adjusted the microscope properly, so he would readjust it for me, or rather,
for himself. And I would look again and see milk.
I finally took a deferred pass, as they call it, and waited a year and tried again. (You had to pass one of the
biological sciences or you couldn’t graduate). The professor had come back from vacation brown as a berry, bright-
eyed and eager to explain cell-structure again to his classes: “ Well” he addressed me, “ We are going to see cells
this time, aren’t we?” “ Yes, sir “, I said. Students to right of me and to left of me and in front of me were seeing
cells; what’s more, they were quietly drawing pictures of them in their notebooks; of course, I didn’t see anything.
“ We’ll try it “, the professor said to me, grimly, “with every adjustment of the microscope known to man. As God
is my witness, I’ll arrange this glass so that you see cells through it or I’ll give up teaching. In twenty- two years of
botany, I…” He cut off abruptly for he was beginning to quiver all over, like Lionel Barrymore, and he really
wished he hold on to his temper. His scenes with me had taken a great deal out of him.
So we tried it with every adjustment of the microscope known to man. With only one of them did I see anything
but blackness or the familiar lacteal opacity, and that time I saw, to my pleasure and amazement, a variegated
constellation of flecks, specks and dots. These I hastily drew. The instructor, noting my activity, came back from an
adjoining desk, a smile on his lips and his eyebrows high in hope. He looked at my cell drawing. “ What’s that?” he
demanded with a hint of squeal in his voice. “ That’s what I saw”, I said. “ You didn’t, you didn’t, you didn’t!” he
screamed, loosing control of his temper. He instantly bent over and squinted into the microscope. His head snapped
up. “That’s your eye!” he shouted. “ You’ve fixed the lens so that it reflects! You’ve drawn your eye! (James
Thurber – University Days)
3. Translate the following, paying attention to the grammar problem discussed in this section:
a) George pierdu ceasuri întregi jupuind câinele cu ajutorul securii. Degetele îi amorţiseră şi mirosul aspru al cărnii
îi întorcea stomacul pe dos. Colonelul ieşi afară şi aduse apă din şanţ în câteva cutii de conserve ruginite. Petrecură
aproape toată noaptea încercând să fiarbă carnea aceea albă şi aţoasă. Colonelul îşi muşca tot timpul buzele; când,
în sfârşit, împungând carnea cu băţ, socotiră că e destul de moale, îl sculară pe sublocotenent, cu greu, deoarece se
prăbuşea mereu pe patul de scânduri. Apoi începu să înghită hălci mari, înecându-se şi sughiţând. Era bine, cald şi
George îşi simţea membrele ca de plumb. Colonelul le spuse că vor dormi toată ziua şi spre seară vor porni spre
apus. Mâna i se umflase tare, o privea mereu, clătinând din cap. (Titus Popovici - Setea)
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.
În felul acesta toţi trăiau în deplină înţelegere şi nepăgubiţi, pentru că unul fura de la altul, iar acesta, la rândul
lui, de la un al treilea şi aşa mai departe, până se ajungea la ultimul care fura de la primul. Comerţul practicat în ţara
aceea echivala cu o tragere pe sfoară atât pentru cel care vindea cât şi pentru cel ce cumpăra. Guvernul era o
congregaţie de delicvenţă în dauna supuşilor, care, la rândul lor, nu aveau alt gând decât să păcăleasca guvernul. Aşa
că viaţa continua fără hopuri, neexistând nici bogaţi nici săraci.
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.
În mai puţin de o săptămână, cinstitul se trezi fără un ban, fără nimic de mâncare şi cu casa goală. Până aici, nimic
grav, pentru că vina era a lui; necazul e că din cauza modului său de a proceda se deregla totul. Pentru că el se lăsa
furat, fără să fure de la careva; din această pricină se găsea mereu câte unul care, la întoarcere îşi găsea casa
neatinsă: casa de unde ar fi trebuit să jefuiasca el. Cert e că, după o vreme, cei care nu fuseseră prădaţi erau mai
bogaţi decât ceilalţi şi n-au mai vrut să fure. Iar, pe de altă parte, cei ce veneau să fure de la omul cinstit, găseau casa
goală; aşa ajungeau să sărăcească.
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:
fireşte, tot hoţi erau şi încercau să se tragă pe sfoară unii pe alţii. 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.
În felul acesta, la numai câţiva ani de la întâmplarea cu omul cinstit, nu se mai vorbea de mers la furat şi de a fi
furat, ci numai de bogaţi şi săraci; în ciuda acestui fapt, continuau să fie cu toţii nişte hoţi.
Cinstit nu fusese decât omul nostru, care a murit curând, de foame. (Italo Calvino – O lume de hoţi)

3. 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)

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.