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За последние 60 дней ни разу не выходила


Открыта: 09-07-2001
Адрес автора: job.lang.edvenglish-owner@subscribe.ru

Автор
Костенко Андрей Владимирович

Статистика

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Продвинутый English


A warm welcome to all subscribers! Здравствуйте, уважаемые подписчики!
Выпуск #132
 "ПРОДВИНУТЫЙ ENGLISH" 10.10.06
Электронный журнал для изучающих английский язык

Hello, dear subscribers! The last part of "The Gratuity" by Otto Pfarrer is in today's issue.
As you are the very first readers of such a story, your feed-back means a lot to us. Tell us please whether in the future you would like to read original stories like this, straight from an author of our own, (or maybe not) in our newsletters. Your suggestions and ideas are certainly most welcome.

But first of all, we cannot miss out "The Conditionals":


GRAMMAR - The Conditionals (Basic information)

The use of conditional sentences in English often seems to be problematic for learners because of significant differences in form and usage in the English language and their mother tongue respectively. In understanding (then mastering) English conditionals the point of departure should be the fact that in English we have three different basic types of conditional sentences.
Note first of all that conditional sentences have two parts: the if-clause and the main clause. In the sentence If it rains, I shall stay at home ‘If it rains’ is the if-clause, and ‘I shall stay at home’ is the main clause.
The problem with the above mentioned three kinds of conditional sentences is that each kind (type) contains a different pair of tenses. With each type certain variations are possible but at the beginning it is useful to ignore these and concentrate on the basic forms.

1. Conditional type 1 (probable condition):

Formation: The verb in the if-clause is in the present simple tense; the verb in the main clause is in the future simple. In any of the types, it doesn’t matter which comes first or second.

If he runs, he’ll get there in time.
The cat will scratch you if you pull her tail.

(Note. There is a prescriptive rule in English which says ‘Use comma after an if-clause’. However, not all grammar books stick to this rule rigorously).

Basic meaning: This type of sentence implies that the action in the if-clause is quite probable.
Note that the meaning here is present or future, but the verb in the if-clause is in a present, not a future tense (if + will/would is also possible, but only with certain special meanings).


Conditional type 2 (possible condition):

Formation: I would not go to the beach, if it rained.

In the main clause should/would + the present infinitive (future in the past) is to be used, whereas in the subordinate if-clause the verb tense is past (present subjunctive).

Basic meaning: Conditional type 2 denotes an action which is probable or possible at present or in the future.

If it rained, I would not go to the beach.
But it is not raining, so there is no reason to stay at home and sweat in vain (the action is possible, also probable, but I am still vacillating about going or not going).

Conditional type 3 (impossible condition):

Formation: I would not have gone to the beach if it had rained.

In the main clause should/would + perfect infinitive is used, whereas in the subordinate if-clause the verb tense is past perfect.

Basic meaning: Conditional type-3 denotes an action, which could have happened in the past but did not happen. The action is impossible.

If it had rained, I would not go to the beach. ( It didn’t rain, so I went. The fact of my having gone to the beach is impossible to change.)

Note: In all three types different variations in formation, and consequently in meaning, are possible.


READING

Thursday, September 14, 2006

The Gratuity

-- By Otto Pfarrer --

Continuation (the first, the second, and the third parts of the story are in issues # 129,130,131):

But what I wanted to speak about is not the stream of her consciousness but an episode in her life I myself partly witnessed and would always remember. It was so touching that … But let me start from the very beginning.
Stalin, Yossiph Vissarionovich, died, and the fall of the empire began. After seven years imprisonment and forced labour my dad was released at last. Those who kept him in slavery for seven years said that they as faithful and decent communists, who are shaped from a totally different stuff, not as all the other common people, must admit frankly and sincerely that he (my dad) was sentenced for twenty five years of penal servitude by mistake, he did not deserve that, and now they ask him to excuse them for this. Izvinyitye, they said, and do not be angry with us.

servitude - принудительный труд; каторга; сервитут

You must not be angry, eh? If you are, they said, then you are not a nice man at all. Look, they confessed they were not right, more than that: they were mistaken. But everyone could make a mistake occasionally. Even the communists. Wasn’t it touching? After all my dad should know very well, because he was not quite uneducated, he was a teacher, a professor, who even taught religion at school, that Jesus himself said one had to forgive or something like that, and it was in the Bible, too. So let him forgive them and then he might go. Because in case he was still harbouring grievances or something, then you know. They still always had some means.
So my dad came home. He wanted to get a job at once to help my mother to feed the family. But it was not as easy as that for him to get a job. He had been in prison, he had a criminal record. Who on earth would give him work to do with a record as long as my arm? So we had to go on living almost as before. Dad sometimes had some work and sometimes – most of the time – none. We children of course hardly noticed. There were our parents and they were our shield to protect us. After all and as a rule we always had something to eat, and in winter to wear, and also the bags, the books, the notebooks and everything we needed for going to school. In summer we liked walking and playing without shoes and shirts, for it was much cozier, wasn’t it? Once we got a real football from dad. And he kicked it high to show that it was a real ball, and it could jump and spring, and that we must be very glad to have such a ball for a present. And we were glad indeed because it was a real big present. The first one we had for years. That our parents and grandma did not always properly eat we did not notice. After all they also ate something. If there was nothing, then grandma cooked vegetables from nettle. Grandma always said it was very healthy food, full of ascorbic acid, ie. Vitamin C. And it makes your bones strong and all, she used to say. Salubrious.

nettle - крапива
salubrious - полезный для здоровья; целебный

Finally, the story I wanted to retell here happened on a cold winter day, just before Christmas. And since I liked to go and see grandma, I sort of witnessed what happened myself. If not altogether, then partially. But dad liked to talk about it as an anecdote later on quite often. Understandingly, smilingly. Though at the time it happened he was not in a smiling mood at all.
So as I said above, on a cold winter day just before Christmas, dad went to see his mother, grandma, in the Kerekes House. Poor grandma as a bird on its perch was sitting before the cold tile stove, and perhaps was praying because her hands were knitted together. Dad went to see her with the intention, more or less hidden or not quite hidden, that maybe his mother would offer him something to eat. He didn’t have anything to eat since the early morning. At first the children, he might have thought. We often were surprised to see that our dad always wanted to have the neck of a chicken if ma cooked us chicken soup by chance and put it on the table. He was never willing to have anything else. Only the neck of that chicken. But he always liked looking at us and seeing how we were consuming the rest of it with the appetite of healthy children. He often asked: “Is that good, too? Hm, I can’t believe that.” In short dad was hungry a little. Or perhaps pretty hungry. So he dropped on his mother’s place. “Good morning mother”, he greeted her politely. And asked how she was. Grandma said ‘I’m well, my dear, quite well,’ but offered him nothing to eat. ‘I have nothing, my dear’, she said feeling very bad about it. ‘I’ll offer you something in the evening. If God’s good enough to give us something’, she added.
Dad did not say anything. Kissed grandma’s hand and went away. He too trusted God very much, but he also knew that God would not help if you did not help yourself. Because the Creator’s ways is not our ways. If you just ask God to allow you to hit the jackpot even without going there to hit it, He can’t help doing anything either. So he went to the church, to the city market or any other place where he thought he could meet good people. Well, he went, and he returned around noon to his mother. With a carload of wood and fifty roubles, which was a pretty sum at that time. And he said to his mother: ”Mum, I brought some wood. Hire a woodcutter for thirty roubles, and please buy some food for the rest twenty. Now I must be off because I have a lot to do yet, but I’ll be back in the evening. And please offer me something to eat because I will be hungry. I always am”. ‘All right, my dear, all right’, grandma said. ‘let it be as you say. Do come please, do come. I’ll prepare something very delicious for you, sure. And thank you, my dear, thank you very much. For the wood and the money. Can you see how good and graceful God is. He never abandoned those who loved him. He always helped.”
Dad did as he said. He went away to come back in the evening. He came back as he promised. He was in high spirits. He was happy because he knew his mother could not be cold that night. She had fuel, wood to heat the room. He had brought it for her. And she would also make dinner. He had given the money. And she would offer him something very yummy to eat, too. Grandma was a good cook, she was. He would be full at last.
As he approached grandma’s place he saw there was no problem as far as wood was concerned. It was cut and put into stacks all right very nicely in the yard. He went up to the stack to see whether the wood was dry or perhaps wet a little bit. Because if it was dry, then it would crackle in the stove. But if it is wet, then it would only weep. It would crackle, sure it would, crackle indeed. He was satisfied with the wood and with himself, too. He went in, kissed grandma’s hand, then sat down close to the tile stove, which thanks to God was hot as hot cakes, put his palms on it to warm up his hands properly which were cold since dad never wore gloves. He said wearing gloves was simply superstition and he was not superstitious. The temperature outdoors was minus ten that night. Then he looked at grandma who seemed to be restless and uneasy for some unknown reason to him. She was fidgeting in the chair, at times stared at the ground, then looked sideways at her son. “Mum, what did you cook?” asked her my father.

fidgeting - быть в волнении; ёрзать; вертеться; возиться; беспокойно двигаться; волноваться

Although as I said grandma was a good cook, she did not like cooking very much. She preferred reading Zola, Balsac and other great French authors, but her favourites were some nineteen century bestsellers. If she had nothing to read, she liked talking to people. To any one who was willing to listen to her and talk to her, let it be a man or woman of any kind. Then she caressed and kissed them. Just for fun and out of sheer love. But I mentioned it already. She loved people and was happy with them.
‘Oh my dear, excuse me, my dear’, said grandma bashfully and blushed a little.

bashfully - застенчивый; робкий; конфузливый; стыдливый; скромный

‘I could prepare no dinner today’
‘Ma, how come you didn’t?’, said dad. ‘But I had given you money. Whole fifty roubles. Thirty for cutting the wood, and twenty for food. Did you not go to the market? Why did you not buy anything?’, my father asked her and was pretty annoyed. He was angry with his mother.
Grandma, who considered lie a mortal sin, and consequently never lied to anybody, started to whimper and snivel.

whimper - хныкать; скулить; ныть;
snivel- хныкать; плакаться; причитать; распускать сопли; сопеть; всхлипывать

“You know, my dear, I gave those twenty roubles to the woodcutter as a tip. I was unable to let him go without any gratuity. How come, just before Christmas, and no gratuity at all for such hard work. And he was so sweet. He brought in wood for me, too. And lit the fire, too. I was obliged to give him a tip, wasn’t I? Please understand me, my dear, and don’t be angry with me. Don’t be angry if this time your mother cannot give you anything to eat. Next time, next time, you can be sure”, said grandma wiping her tears.

-- The End ---



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Автор рассылки Костенко Андрей Владимирович.
Этот выпуск подготовили Любовь Абрамова и Dr.Ortutay Peter.
Special thanks to Artyom Sergeev for proofreading.
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