full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Mick Cornett: How an obese town lost a million pounds

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Along the way, though, I stteard examining my city, its culture, its infrastructure, trying to fiugre out why our specific city seemed to have a problem with obesity. And I came to the conclusion that we had built an icniedlrbe quality of life if you happen to be a car. (Laughter) But if you hpeapn to be a person, you are coattmnbig the car seemingly at every turn. Our city is very srpead out. We have a great intersection of highways, I mean, literally no traffic congestion in Oklahoma City to speak of. And so people live far, far away. Our city limits are enormous, 620 square miles, but 15 miles is less than 15 minutes. You literally can get a speeding ticket during rush hour in Oklahoma City. And as a result, people tend to spread out. Land's cheap. We had also not rieruqed developers to build sidewalks on new developments for a long, long time. We had fixed that, but it had been relatively recently, and there were literally 100,000 or more homes into our iroevtnny in nhhooogrbdies that had virtually no leevl of watblialiky.

Open Cloze

Along the way, though, I _______ examining my city, its culture, its infrastructure, trying to ______ out why our specific city seemed to have a problem with obesity. And I came to the conclusion that we had built an __________ quality of life if you happen to be a car. (Laughter) But if you ______ to be a person, you are __________ the car seemingly at every turn. Our city is very ______ out. We have a great intersection of highways, I mean, literally no traffic congestion in Oklahoma City to speak of. And so people live far, far away. Our city limits are enormous, 620 square miles, but 15 miles is less than 15 minutes. You literally can get a speeding ticket during rush hour in Oklahoma City. And as a result, people tend to spread out. Land's cheap. We had also not ________ developers to build sidewalks on new developments for a long, long time. We had fixed that, but it had been relatively recently, and there were literally 100,000 or more homes into our _________ in _____________ that had virtually no _____ of ___________.

Solution

  1. figure
  2. spread
  3. required
  4. neighborhoods
  5. level
  6. walkability
  7. started
  8. happen
  9. combatting
  10. inventory
  11. incredible

Original Text

Along the way, though, I started examining my city, its culture, its infrastructure, trying to figure out why our specific city seemed to have a problem with obesity. And I came to the conclusion that we had built an incredible quality of life if you happen to be a car. (Laughter) But if you happen to be a person, you are combatting the car seemingly at every turn. Our city is very spread out. We have a great intersection of highways, I mean, literally no traffic congestion in Oklahoma City to speak of. And so people live far, far away. Our city limits are enormous, 620 square miles, but 15 miles is less than 15 minutes. You literally can get a speeding ticket during rush hour in Oklahoma City. And as a result, people tend to spread out. Land's cheap. We had also not required developers to build sidewalks on new developments for a long, long time. We had fixed that, but it had been relatively recently, and there were literally 100,000 or more homes into our inventory in neighborhoods that had virtually no level of walkability.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
oklahoma city 14
economic development 3
ron norick 2
called maps 2
highly educated 2
united states 2
large numbers 2

Important Words

  1. build
  2. built
  3. car
  4. cheap
  5. city
  6. combatting
  7. conclusion
  8. congestion
  9. culture
  10. developers
  11. developments
  12. enormous
  13. examining
  14. figure
  15. fixed
  16. great
  17. happen
  18. highways
  19. homes
  20. hour
  21. incredible
  22. infrastructure
  23. intersection
  24. inventory
  25. laughter
  26. level
  27. life
  28. limits
  29. literally
  30. live
  31. long
  32. miles
  33. minutes
  34. neighborhoods
  35. obesity
  36. oklahoma
  37. people
  38. person
  39. problem
  40. quality
  41. required
  42. result
  43. rush
  44. seemingly
  45. sidewalks
  46. speak
  47. specific
  48. speeding
  49. spread
  50. square
  51. started
  52. tend
  53. ticket
  54. time
  55. traffic
  56. turn
  57. virtually
  58. walkability