full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Christopher M. Moreman: The dark history of zombies

Unscramble the Blue Letters

According to some vodou beliefs, a person’s soul can be captured and stored, becoming a body-less “zombi.” Alternatively, if a body isn’t properly attended to soon after death, a sorcerer called a “bokor” can capture a corpse and turn it into a suollses zbmoi that will perform their bidding. Historically, these zombis were said to be put to work as lbarreos who needed neither food nor rest and would enrich their captor’s fortune. In other words, ztbiifmiocaon seemed to reepresnt the horrors of enslavement that many Haitian people experienced. It was the worst possible fate: a form of enslavement that not even death could free you from. The zombi was dreevpid of an artleffie and trapped in eternal subjugation. Because of this, in Haitian culture, zombis are commonly seen as vtmciis deserving of sympathy and care.

Open Cloze

According to some vodou beliefs, a person’s soul can be captured and stored, becoming a body-less “zombi.” Alternatively, if a body isn’t properly attended to soon after death, a sorcerer called a “bokor” can capture a corpse and turn it into a ________ _____ that will perform their bidding. Historically, these zombis were said to be put to work as ________ who needed neither food nor rest and would enrich their captor’s fortune. In other words, _____________ seemed to _________ the horrors of enslavement that many Haitian people experienced. It was the worst possible fate: a form of enslavement that not even death could free you from. The zombi was ________ of an _________ and trapped in eternal subjugation. Because of this, in Haitian culture, zombis are commonly seen as _______ deserving of sympathy and care.

Solution

  1. zombification
  2. afterlife
  3. deprived
  4. represent
  5. laborers
  6. zombi
  7. victims
  8. soulless

Original Text

According to some vodou beliefs, a person’s soul can be captured and stored, becoming a body-less “zombi.” Alternatively, if a body isn’t properly attended to soon after death, a sorcerer called a “bokor” can capture a corpse and turn it into a soulless zombi that will perform their bidding. Historically, these zombis were said to be put to work as laborers who needed neither food nor rest and would enrich their captor’s fortune. In other words, zombification seemed to represent the horrors of enslavement that many Haitian people experienced. It was the worst possible fate: a form of enslavement that not even death could free you from. The zombi was deprived of an afterlife and trapped in eternal subjugation. Because of this, in Haitian culture, zombis are commonly seen as victims deserving of sympathy and care.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
haitian people 2
pop culture 2

Important Words

  1. afterlife
  2. alternatively
  3. attended
  4. beliefs
  5. bidding
  6. body
  7. called
  8. capture
  9. captured
  10. care
  11. commonly
  12. corpse
  13. culture
  14. death
  15. deprived
  16. deserving
  17. enrich
  18. enslavement
  19. eternal
  20. experienced
  21. food
  22. form
  23. fortune
  24. free
  25. haitian
  26. historically
  27. horrors
  28. laborers
  29. needed
  30. people
  31. perform
  32. properly
  33. put
  34. represent
  35. rest
  36. sorcerer
  37. soul
  38. soulless
  39. stored
  40. subjugation
  41. sympathy
  42. trapped
  43. turn
  44. victims
  45. vodou
  46. words
  47. work
  48. worst
  49. zombi
  50. zombification
  51. zombis