full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Casey Gerald: Embrace your raw, strange magic

Unscramble the Blue Letters

I'm not saying she was perfect, just that I sure bietenefd from her ieetmfipcrons. And maybe that's what magic is, after all: a useful mistake. So when she began to dseppiaar for days at a time, I turned to some magic of my own. It srcutk me, as from above, that I could conjure up my mother just by walking plrcetefy from my elementary school at the top of a steep hill all the way down to my grandmother's house, placing one foot, and one foot only, in each sidewalk square. I couldn't let any part of any foot touch the line between the square, I couldn't skip a square, all the way to the last square at the last blade of grass that separated our lawn from our driveway. And I bullshit you not, it wkroed — just once though.

Open Cloze

I'm not saying she was perfect, just that I sure _________ from her _____________. And maybe that's what magic is, after all: a useful mistake. So when she began to _________ for days at a time, I turned to some magic of my own. It ______ me, as from above, that I could conjure up my mother just by walking _________ from my elementary school at the top of a steep hill all the way down to my grandmother's house, placing one foot, and one foot only, in each sidewalk square. I couldn't let any part of any foot touch the line between the square, I couldn't skip a square, all the way to the last square at the last blade of grass that separated our lawn from our driveway. And I bullshit you not, it ______ — just once though.

Solution

  1. benefited
  2. perfectly
  3. worked
  4. disappear
  5. imperfections
  6. struck

Original Text

I'm not saying she was perfect, just that I sure benefited from her imperfections. And maybe that's what magic is, after all: a useful mistake. So when she began to disappear for days at a time, I turned to some magic of my own. It struck me, as from above, that I could conjure up my mother just by walking perfectly from my elementary school at the top of a steep hill all the way down to my grandmother's house, placing one foot, and one foot only, in each sidewalk square. I couldn't let any part of any foot touch the line between the square, I couldn't skip a square, all the way to the last square at the last blade of grass that separated our lawn from our driveway. And I bullshit you not, it worked — just once though.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
wrong side 2
longer believed 2

Important Words

  1. began
  2. benefited
  3. blade
  4. bullshit
  5. conjure
  6. days
  7. disappear
  8. driveway
  9. elementary
  10. foot
  11. grass
  12. hill
  13. house
  14. imperfections
  15. lawn
  16. line
  17. magic
  18. mistake
  19. mother
  20. part
  21. perfect
  22. perfectly
  23. placing
  24. school
  25. separated
  26. sidewalk
  27. skip
  28. square
  29. steep
  30. struck
  31. time
  32. top
  33. touch
  34. turned
  35. walking
  36. worked