The Future of the English

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Lesson 11
The Future of the English
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Pre-Text Questions
What is the writing mainly about?
What kind of writing is this one?
part an exposition and part an argument
What are the differences between exposition
and argument?
How many subcategories can argument fall into?
formal and informal
What is the controversial topic of this writing?
The English are different.
John Boynton Priestley
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Detailed Study of the Text
To describe the English people in political terms
that are generally used all over the world such
as being politically left, centre or right, will
result in a waste of time and effort.
How can we understand and translate this
Englishness ?
instinctive feeling
natural or inborn feeling
thought arrived at after reasoning
rational thought
neo-or-potential Fascists
have more than their share
have comparatively more than other countries
(esp. when considering the small size of the
country and the population)
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the English people may hotly argue and abuse
and quarrel with each other but there still
exists a lot of natural sympathetic feeling for
each other
Not everybody may have or be able to display this
instinctive fellow-feeling.
shop steward
a union member elected to represent coworkers in
dealings with management
what the wealthy employers would really like to
do is to whip all the workers whom they consider
to be lazy and troublesome people
there are not many snarling shop stewards in the
workshop, nor are there many cruel wealthy
employers on the board of managers
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cancer
something destructive and malignant in their
character
inheritance
qualities that go together with Englishness and
which have been handed down generation after
generation
The contemporary world demands that everything
be done on a big scale and the English do not
like or trust bigness.
Whats the difference between rational and

reasonable ?
consistent with or based on reason
being within the bounds of common sense
often the product of cold logical thinking but
not sensible
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admass
section of the public that is thought to be
easily influenced by advertising and the media
Admass
the art of advertising or way of persuading
people to buy stuff which they may not need
battle
conflict between Admass and Englishness
At least on the surface, when Englishness is put
against the power and success of Admass,
Englishness seems to put up a rather poor weak
performance.
Englishness
a faint pencil sketch
Admass
a poster in full colour
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build into
construct/include as an integral part of
The new policy intends to build stability into
the economy.
while Englishness is not hostile to change,sake
Englishness is not against change, but it
believes that changing just for changing and for
no other useful purpose could be very wrong and
harmful
To put cars before housesimbecility.
To regard cars and motorways as more
important than houses seems to Englishness a
public stupidity.
I must admitAdmass could be winning.
I must further say that while Englishness can go
on fighting, there is a great possibility of
Admass winning.
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Train themselves out of it
deliberately and intentionally throw away
their Englishness
moral capital
a reservoir of strong moral and ethical
principles
It must have some moral capitalfor an overdraft.
Englishness draws its strength from a reservoir
of strong moral and ethical principles, and soon
it may be asking for strength which this
reservoir of principles cannot supply.
a deception tricky condition
catch
Wheres this Good life in sweatingcaper?
How can there be a Good Life when one has to
work extremely raising the productivity of every
man every hour?
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Did the author make his point clear at this point?
How can we translate the word pretending here?
certainly not where there is a genuineon hand
certainly not in places where workers still take
real pride, though this may seem rather
old -fashioned, in the work they are doing
industrial action
a general strike
an ideology legitimizing direct industrial action
by the workers
the aggressive obstinacy
bloody-mindedness
What did the author determine as the
innermost cause for all this chaos?
it
the awareness of this conflict
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huge organizations
powerful trade unions
syndicalism
a theory and movement of trade unionism in
which all means of production and distribution
would be brought under the control of
federations of labor unions by the use of
direct action, such as general strikes
they were in the van
they were the leaders of the movement
they are like a hippopotamus blundering in and
out of a pets tea party
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any of the charges in an indictment, each of
which gives a reason and is sufficient for
prosecution any of a group of offences of which
a person is accused
count
two counts of forgery and one of fraud
These people probably believe, as I do, that the
Good Life promised by Admass is false and
dishonest in all respects.
runaway or fugitive
Tory
conservative politicians
member of a former British political party,
traditionally in opposition to the Whig Party.
sb. who administers or directs a commercial
director
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They can be found toothough there are not many
of them now because these kind of people are
dying outamong the curt, bad-tempered,
extremely conservative politicians who refuse
to accept high posts in big commercial
enterprises.
to cause to come about successfully manage
with the desired results
swing
act in accordance with current customs or modes
conform
Hippy California
Madison Avenue
the road to Katmandu
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a group of cattle or other domestic animals of a
single kind kept together for a specific purpose
herd
they have not been trained by hard and cruel
circumstances to practice self-control and
behave in an orderly way
he will not even find much satisfaction in his
untidy and disordered life where he manages
to live as a parasite by sponging on people. This
kind of life does not help a person to build up
any self-respect.
fall between two stools
fail to be either of two satisfactory
alternatives
vandalism
willful or malicious destruction of public or
private property
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showing inability to look ahead into the future
myopic
What is your understanding of the word fair in
the brackets?
But those roots must be needing nourishment.
But they need new moral sustenance to keep them
flourishing.
What features does east wind have?
dry, cold, harsh
Englishness cannot flourish on narrow logical
reasoning, the latest financial figures of
profit and loss, nor a constant appeal to
self-interest.
In what sense does Priestley put politician and
statesman in sharp contrast?