5th box -Flashcards

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1. lesson19

Don't look over My Shoulder! The kibitzer is a person who volunteers useless information, especially in card games, causing the players to be prejudiced against him. The name comes from a Yiddish word which originally referred to a certain bird whose shrill cry scared the animals away upon the approach of the hunters. Though the kibitzer may think he is being jolly or witty, his advice often hinders more than it helps. We may scowl at him or lecture him for his abuse of our friendship, but he still continues to mumble his unwelcome remarks. The serious player may even wish he could make the kibitzer mute by sticking a wad of cotton in his mouth. The kibitzer, however, may not realize that he is causing torment or distress to his colleagues. Thus we may have to resign ourselves to his annoying habit if we wish to retain him as a friend.
Protecting Our Health Pick an apple, a tomato, a peach-no worms in the harvest. We are familiar with the abundant use of pesticides by farmers, but today's chemists are becoming uneasy. They calculate that there are 45,000 different pesticides, and all of them can be absorbed by the fruit on which they are sprayed. The chemists estimate that every morsel we eat in the future may contain a deadly quota of pesticide. The tragedy* will come slowly but the threat is real. These government chemists do not suggest that we ban pesticides. They are cautious* and do not easily panic. What is needed, they say, are appropriate, budgeted* doses that will not pollute* our food.
Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift tried to show the smallness of people by writing the biography of Dr. Lemuel Gulliver. In one of his strangest adventures, Gulliver was shipwrecked. Drenched and weary, he fell asleep on the shore. In the morning, he found himself tied to pegs in the ground, and swarming over him were hundreds of little people six inches high. After a time he was allowed to stand, though he began to wobble from being bound so long. He was then marched through the streets, naturally causing a tumult wherever he went. Even the palace was not big enough for him to enter, nor could he kneel before the king and queen. But he did show his respect for them in another way. The king was dejected because he feared an invasion of Lilli put by Blefuscu, the enemy across the ocean. The reason for the war between the two tiny peoples would seem small and foolish to us. The rebels of Blefuscu were originally Lilliputians who would not abide by the royal decision to crack their eggs on the small end instead of on the larger end. Gulliver, obedient to the king's command, waded out into the water when the tide receded, and sticking a little iron hook into each of fifty warships, he pulled the entire enemy fleet to Lilliput. Gulliver later escaped from Lilliput when he realized the tiny king was really a tyrant with no charity in his heart. Oddly enough, the verdict of generations of readers has taken no heed of the author's intention in Gulliver)s Travels. Instead, while Lilliputians are still the symbol of small, narrow-minded people, Swift's savage attack upon humankind has become one of the best-loved children's classics.
Roller Derby The most unruly game known to man or woman is the Roller Derby. Revived* every so often on television, it has no rival for violent, brutal action. The game commences* with two teams on roller skates circling a banked, oval track. Then one or two skaters try to break out of the pack and "lap" the opponents. When the skater leaves the pack,the brawl begins. No sport can duplicate the vicious shrieking,* pushing, elbowing, and fighting, all at high speed while the skaters are whirling around the track. And women are just as much of a menace* as the men. Often considered the underdog, the female skater can thrust a pointed fingernail into the face of a bewildered enemy.

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