full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Sherwin Nuland: How electroshock therapy changed me

Unscramble the Blue Letters

I was, in the 1960s, in a marriage. To use the word "bad" would be perhaps the unnedsteeatrmt of the year. It was dreadful. There are, I'm sure, enough divorced pelope in this room to know about the hottilsiy, the anger, who knows what. Being someone who had had a very difficult childhood, a very difficult adolescence — it had to do with not quite poverty, but csole. It had to do with being brought up in a family where no one spoke English, no one could read or write English. It had to do with death and disease and lots of other things. I was a little prone to depression.

Open Cloze

I was, in the 1960s, in a marriage. To use the word "bad" would be perhaps the ______________ of the year. It was dreadful. There are, I'm sure, enough divorced ______ in this room to know about the _________, the anger, who knows what. Being someone who had had a very difficult childhood, a very difficult adolescence — it had to do with not quite poverty, but _____. It had to do with being brought up in a family where no one spoke English, no one could read or write English. It had to do with death and disease and lots of other things. I was a little prone to depression.

Solution

  1. close
  2. understatement
  3. hostility
  4. people

Original Text

I was, in the 1960s, in a marriage. To use the word "bad" would be perhaps the understatement of the year. It was dreadful. There are, I'm sure, enough divorced people in this room to know about the hostility, the anger, who knows what. Being someone who had had a very difficult childhood, a very difficult adolescence — it had to do with not quite poverty, but close. It had to do with being brought up in a family where no one spoke English, no one could read or write English. It had to do with death and disease and lots of other things. I was a little prone to depression.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
electroshock therapy 3
evil spirits 3
obsessional thinking 3
prefrontal lobotomy 3
severely depressed 2
grand mal 2
referrals began 2
bovine stercus 2
senior staff 2

Important Words

  1. adolescence
  2. anger
  3. brought
  4. childhood
  5. close
  6. death
  7. depression
  8. difficult
  9. disease
  10. divorced
  11. dreadful
  12. english
  13. family
  14. hostility
  15. lots
  16. marriage
  17. people
  18. poverty
  19. prone
  20. read
  21. room
  22. spoke
  23. understatement
  24. word
  25. write
  26. year