full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Bruce Feiler: The secret to mastering life's biggest transitions

Unscramble the Blue Letters

The Italians have a wrodufnel eoiperssxn for this: “Lupus in fabula.” The wolf in the fairytale. Just when life is going simlwngmiy, along comes a demon, a dragon, a downsizing, a pandemic. Just when our firay tale seems poised to come true, a wolf shows up and threatens to destroy it. And that's OK. Because if you bniash the wolf, you banish the hero. And if there's one thing I learned, we all need to be the hero of our own story. That's why we have fairy tales, after all. And why we tell them year after year, bedtime after bedtime. They turn our nightmares into dreams.

Open Cloze

The Italians have a _________ __________ for this: “Lupus in fabula.” The wolf in the fairytale. Just when life is going __________, along comes a demon, a dragon, a downsizing, a pandemic. Just when our _____ tale seems poised to come true, a wolf shows up and threatens to destroy it. And that's OK. Because if you ______ the wolf, you banish the hero. And if there's one thing I learned, we all need to be the hero of our own story. That's why we have fairy tales, after all. And why we tell them year after year, bedtime after bedtime. They turn our nightmares into dreams.

Solution

  1. banish
  2. expression
  3. swimmingly
  4. wonderful
  5. fairy

Original Text

The Italians have a wonderful expression for this: “Lupus in fabula.” The wolf in the fairytale. Just when life is going swimmingly, along comes a demon, a dragon, a downsizing, a pandemic. Just when our fairy tale seems poised to come true, a wolf shows up and threatens to destroy it. And that's OK. Because if you banish the wolf, you banish the hero. And if there's one thing I learned, we all need to be the hero of our own story. That's why we have fairy tales, after all. And why we tell them year after year, bedtime after bedtime. They turn our nightmares into dreams.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
life transitions 5
life transition 5
tip number 5
life story 3
lesson number 3
collective involuntary 3
linear life 2
thought life 2
average person 2
involuntary lifequake 2
messy middle 2
long goodbye 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
collective involuntary lifequake 2

Important Words

  1. banish
  2. bedtime
  3. demon
  4. destroy
  5. downsizing
  6. dragon
  7. dreams
  8. expression
  9. fabula
  10. fairy
  11. fairytale
  12. hero
  13. italians
  14. learned
  15. life
  16. nightmares
  17. pandemic
  18. poised
  19. shows
  20. story
  21. swimmingly
  22. tale
  23. tales
  24. threatens
  25. true
  26. turn
  27. wolf
  28. wonderful
  29. year