In this issue

Intermediate
Text: "2B OR NT 2B?" (left)
Reading comprehension (below)
Vocab: Text types (eg. speech...)
Vocab: Verbs describing reduction
What do you think?
Advanced
Reading comprehension
Phrasal verbs: cut

Other issues

Index of contents

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Winston Churchill never lived to send an SMS, but he did prefer short and old words. We think he would have found our news story on the abbreviated classics very interesting...

"Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all."

Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

How 2 snd an SMS Having trouble understanding the strange SMS messages than appear on your mobile?

A simple "Hello how are you today? Shall we meet for lunch?" converts into the even more simple "LO how R U 2day? shaL we MEt 4 lnch".

To understand more of the world of sore-thumb communication we suggest you have a go yourself at transl8it.com

Learn English #8 •Intermediate | Advanced

Read the newspaper story below, and then answer the questions that follow it.

2B OR NT 2B?

Literary classics have been condensed into text messages as a study aid for students.

The Complete Works of Shakespeare – including Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech – Milton's Paradise Lost and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales have all been abbreviated.

Charles Dickens' Bleak House and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice have also been cut down to size.

Milton's Paradise Lost becomes: "Devl kikd outa hevn coz jelus of jesus&strts war."

The translation, approved by Professor John Sutherland, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, read: "The devil is kicked out of heaven because he is jealous of Jesus, and starts a war."

Professor Sutherland, chairman of this year's Man Booker Prize, says the service "amply demonstrates text's ability to extract the important elements in a plot".

• Text from Ananova.com

Reading comprehension

True or false?

		true	false
1.	The texts are intended to help students remember the stories.
2.	Milton wrote The Canterbury Tales and Jane Austen wrote Bleak House.
3.	In the text message translations, a is an abbreviation of of.
4.	Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice has not been condensed.
5.	Professor Sutherland is happy with the result of the abbreviations.

Exercises

1. Nouns: Text types Use the words below to complete the sentences.

note, notice, message, speech, tale, history, summary, essay

Please ensure a Java Virtual Machine is installed and enabled

2. Verbs: Describing reductions Choose the best phrase to match with each of these verbs that describe reductions.

Please ensure the Java Virtual Machine is installed and enabled

3. More exercises
You will find more exercises relating to this text in the Advanced section:

Phrasal verbs: 'cut'

What do you think?

Do you think that condensing literary classics into text messages is a useful aid to students? Do you ever use summaries or abbreviations to help you remember things? What other ways are there of helping you to remember texts or information? What about condensed novels? Would you ever read one?

More exercises

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