full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Conor Heffernan: The treadmill's dark and twisted past

Unscramble the Blue Letters

The constant thud underneath your feet, the constrained space, and the monotony of going nowhere fast. It feles like hours have gone by, but it's only been eleven minutes, and you wonder, "Why am I torturing myself? This thing has got to be considered a cruel and unusual punishment.".
Actually, that's exactly what it is, or was. You see, in the 1800s, tdlrielams were created to punish English prisoners.
At the time, the enlsgih prosin system was amlsablyy bad. Execution and deportation were often the punishments of choice, and those who were locked away faced hours of solitude in filthy cells. So social movements led by religious groups, prhlnoeaiphtis, and celebrities, like Charles dcnekis, shguot to change these dire conditions and help reform the prisoners.

Open Cloze

The constant thud underneath your feet, the constrained space, and the monotony of going nowhere fast. It _____ like hours have gone by, but it's only been eleven minutes, and you wonder, "Why am I torturing myself? This thing has got to be considered a cruel and unusual punishment.".
Actually, that's exactly what it is, or was. You see, in the 1800s, __________ were created to punish English prisoners.
At the time, the _______ ______ system was _________ bad. Execution and deportation were often the punishments of choice, and those who were locked away faced hours of solitude in filthy cells. So social movements led by religious groups, ______________, and celebrities, like Charles _______, ______ to change these dire conditions and help reform the prisoners.

Solution

  1. treadmills
  2. feels
  3. prison
  4. dickens
  5. sought
  6. abysmally
  7. philanthropies
  8. english

Original Text

The constant thud underneath your feet, the constrained space, and the monotony of going nowhere fast. It feels like hours have gone by, but it's only been eleven minutes, and you wonder, "Why am I torturing myself? This thing has got to be considered a cruel and unusual punishment.".
Actually, that's exactly what it is, or was. You see, in the 1800s, treadmills were created to punish English prisoners.
At the time, the English prison system was abysmally bad. Execution and deportation were often the punishments of choice, and those who were locked away faced hours of solitude in filthy cells. So social movements led by religious groups, philanthropies, and celebrities, like Charles Dickens, sought to change these dire conditions and help reform the prisoners.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

Important Words

  1. abysmally
  2. bad
  3. celebrities
  4. cells
  5. change
  6. charles
  7. choice
  8. conditions
  9. considered
  10. constant
  11. constrained
  12. created
  13. cruel
  14. deportation
  15. dickens
  16. dire
  17. eleven
  18. english
  19. execution
  20. faced
  21. fast
  22. feels
  23. feet
  24. filthy
  25. groups
  26. hours
  27. led
  28. locked
  29. minutes
  30. monotony
  31. movements
  32. philanthropies
  33. prison
  34. prisoners
  35. punish
  36. punishment
  37. punishments
  38. reform
  39. religious
  40. social
  41. solitude
  42. sought
  43. space
  44. system
  45. thud
  46. time
  47. torturing
  48. treadmills
  49. unusual