Teens B2T4-Reading and Use of English 3 p. 87

Book page 87

Book Page 87

Read the text and use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines to form a word that fits in the gap in the same line.

The history of Emoticons

By Tim Slavin

Example

0. Are Emoticons really an 1800s_INVENTION_?
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INVENT

1. Ever since technology existed, people have subverted it to their own ends. For example, in 1862, Victor Hugo sent a telegram to his ______________ with a single character, (?), to ask how his new book Les Miserables was selling.

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PUBLISH

2. The publisher, ______________ clever, sent a single character telegram back, (!).

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EQUAL

3. ______________, the Sumerians did something similar when pressing down stylus on moist clay to write with cuneiform. It’s human nature.

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PRESUME

4. ______________, Mad Magazine did in 1962 with its Typewriter-toons. And one of my favourite authors, Ambrose Bierce, came up with an emoticon in 1912.

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CERTAIN

5. The most contentious case in question, however, is a newspaper report in the New York Times about a speech given by Abraham Lincoln. The president had a justly deserved reputation of being both serious and cracking people up with ______________ phrases and jokes. Therefore, the appearance of a printed ;).

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WIT

6. According to the New York Times in 2009, the ______________ for and against this being an emoticon are a tie.

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ARGUE

7. Either the printer ______________ added the semi-colon, perhaps to sneak one past their superiors, or we’re silly people from the future applying our standards to what happened in 1862 because they didn’t have emoticons.

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DELIBERATE

8. Perhaps, most interesting, and to my point about human nature and the urge to play with language and the tools we use to communicate with language, someone also found a Robert Herrick poem from 1648 that uses the same ; ) as the 1862 Times article, but in a way that reflects the ______________ meaning of the text. So maybe Herrick invented Emoticons.

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PLAY