Базовый курс английского языка - Эккерсли К.Э.
ISBN 5-7871-0174-X
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England's wealth was built up on diamonds-black diamonds (= coal).
He got many black looks (= looks of displeasure) for his speech criticizing the Government.
They are rather ashamed of George; he is the black sheep of the family (= person with a bad character).
1. Объясните следующие фразы:
to go to the dogs; the black sheep of the family; to put the cart before the horse; to lock the stable door after the horse is stolen; to take the bull by the horns; to let the cat out of the bag; to ride the high horse; a cat and dog life; a cat on hot bricks; a bull in a china shop; to smell a rat; a fish out of water; straight from the horse's mouth; raining cats and dogs
2. Закончите следующие предложения и объясните их значение:
1. You can lead (take) a horse to the water___.
2. Help a lame dog_____.
3. Birds.of a feather___.
3. Придумайте шесть предложений с составным глаголом pull.
4. Придумайте предложения со следующими словосочетаниями и объясните их значение:
to see red; red-handed; a red herring; a red rag to a bull; rose-coloured spectacles; in the blues; once in a blue moon; out of the blue; a green old age; a white lie; to show the white feather; to whitewash; to give black looks; to blackmail
Cambridge
MR. PRIESTLEY: I have just received a letter from Pedro at Cambridge. You will remember he promised to write and I'm sure you will enjoy his letter. Here it is.
KING'S COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE.
Dear Mr. Priestley, Frieda, Olaf and Hob,
My coming to Cambridge has been an unusual experience. From whatever country one comes as a student one cannot escape the influence of the Cambridge traditions-and they go back so far! Here, perhaps more than anywhere else, I have felt at one and the same time the Past, the Present and even the Future. It's easy to see in the old grey stone buildings how the past has moulded the present and how the present is giving shape to the future. So let me tell you a little of what this University town looks like and how it came to be here at all.
The story of the University begins, so far as I know, in 1209 when Several hundred students and scholars arrived in the little town of Cambridge after having walked 60 miles from Oxford.
These students were all churchmen and had been studying in Oxford at that city's well-known schools. It was a hard life at Oxford for there was constant trouble, even fighting, between the townsfolk and the students. Then one day a student accidentally killed a man of the town. The Mayor arrested three other students who were innocent, and by order of King John (who was quarrelling with the Church and knew that the death of three student clergymen would displease it) they were put to death by hanging. In protest, many students moved elsewhere, some coming to Cambridge; and so the new University began.
Of course there were no Colleges in those early days and student life was very different from what it is now. Students were of all ages and came from anywhere and everywhere. Those from the same part of the country tended to group themselves together and these groups, called "Nations", often fought one another.
The students were armed; some even banded together to rob the people of the countryside. Gradually the idea of the College developed, and in 1284 Peterhouse, the oldest College in Cambridge, was founded.
Life in College was strict; students were forbidden to play games, to sing (except sacred music), to hunt or fish or even to dance. Books were very scarce and all the lessons were in the Latin language which students were supposed to speak even among themselves.
In 1440 King Henry VI founded King's College, and other colleges followed. Erasmus, the great Dutch scholar, was at one of these, Queens' College, from 1511 to 1513. '
"The English girls are extremely pretty," Erasmus says, "soft, pleasant, gentle, and charming. When you go anywhere on a visit the girls all kiss you. They kiss you when you arrive. They kiss you when you go away and again when you return."
Many other great men studied at Cambridge, among them Bacon, Milton, Cromwell, Newton, Wordsworth, Byron and Tennyson.
Practical jokes seem always to have been common, and there is an amusing tale of one played on the poet Gray1 by the students of Peterhouse College where he lived. Gray was a rather nervous man with a fear of fire, and every night he used to hand a rope-ladder from his window for use in case a fire broke out. One night there was a great * noise and shouts of "Fire! Fire!" Dressed only in his nightgown Gray opened his window, climbed into his ladder and slid down as fast as he could-into a barrel of cold water put there by a joking student!
Now let me give you some idea of what you would see if you were to walk around Cambridge. Let us imagine that I am seeing the sights for the first time. It is a quiet market town and the shopping centre for •quite a large area, but I notice more bookshops that one normally sees in country towns, and more tailors' shops showing in their windows the black gowns that students must wear, long gowns that hang down to the feet for graduates and shorter ones for undergraduates.
