Practice: Task 50

What are the meanings of the polysemantic words which are played upon in these jokes?

1. Customer: "I would like a book, please."

Bookseller: "Something light?"

Customer: "That doesn't matter. I have my car with me."

2. The new maid was full of her own importance. She had worked on the Continent and felt superior to the other servants.

One day she was telling "below stairs" some of her experiences.

"How do the foreign dishes compare to English ones?" asked one of her audience.

"Oh," replied the maid, airily, "they break just the same."

3. The teacher was giving her class a test in natural history.

"Now, Tony," she said, "tell me where the elephant is found."

Tony thought a little and then answered: "The ele­phant is such a large animal that it is hardly ever lost."

4. While waiting in line at the space flight station ticket window, a man asks for a seat in a spaceship on the flight to the moon.

"Sorry, sir," the attendant says, "but all passenger flights have been cancelled for the next few days."

"Oh," said the man. "How come?"

"Well, the moon is full right now."

5. Pam: "Hasn't Harvey ever married?"

Beryl: "No, and I don't think he intends to, because he's studying for a bachelor's degree."

6. Caller; "I wonder if I can see your mother, little boy. Is she engaged?"

Willie: "Engaged! She's married."

7. Prof: "Nobody ever heard of a sentence without a predicate."

Stud.: "I have, professor."

Prof: "What is it?"

Stud.: "Thirty days."

8. "Very sorry, Mr. Brown, but the coffee is ex­hausted," the landlady announced.

"Not at all surprised," came back Mr. Brown. "I've seen it growing weaker and weaker every morning."

9. "You're a pretty sharp boy, Tommy."

"Well, I ought to be. Pa takes me into his room and strops me three or four times a week."

Task 51

Can you identify the meanings of the polysemantic words which are played upon in these riddles and conundrums?

1. Why are oysters lazy? (They are always found in bed.)

2. When does a chair dislike you? (When it can't bear you.)

3. Why is a proud man like a music book? (Because he is full of airs.)

4. Why is an English teacher like a judge? (Both give people sentences.)

5. What bird can lift the most? (A crane.)

6. What has a lot of keys but cannot open any doors? (A piano.)

Task 52

Establish the meanings of the underlined polysemantic ad­jectives realized in these contexts.

1. a) They brew their sour beer without the fear of police raids (N. Gordimer).

b) McGinnis considered this, his expression sour (Eng­lish Guides: Metaphor).

2. a) Most often we hear about great deeds of men who fear nothing; of giants who turn the tide of battle by a single brave act (D. d'Amato).

b) There was a brave and conspicuous assemblage in the dining-saloon of a noted hostelry where Fashion loves to display her charms (O. Henry).

3. a) She made him a bed in the small room (D.H. Lawrence).

b) I lived in the country when I was small (Oxford Ad­vanced Learner's Encyclopedic Dictionary).

c) She's a very small eater (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English).

4. a) To most police, the cold spell simply meant that the bad men wouldn't gee around so much (J.J. Marric).

b) She had spread a cloth on the grass and father was kneeling beside it carving slices of meat from a cold leg of lamb (A. Marshall).

c) The dogs lost the cold scent (Random House Web­ster's Unabridged Dictionary).

5. a) An Irishman was asked if his horse was timid. "Not at all," said he, "he frequently spends the night by himself in a dark stable." (A. Joke).

b) The insistent, passionate, dark soul, the powerful unsatisfaction in him seemed stilled and tamed, the lion lay down with the lamb in him (D.H. Lawrence).

c) Your meaning is too dark for me (Oxford Advanced Learner's Encyclopedic Dictionary).

6. a) It is difficult enough to fix a tent in dry weather... (J.K. Jerome).

b) Even when he might appear to be depressed, his dry sense of humour never deserted him (English Guides: Metaphor).

c) For the next four days he lived a simple and blame­less life on thin Captain's biscuits (I mean that the biscuits were thin, not the captain) and soda-water; but, towards Saturday, he got uppish, and went in for weak tea and dry toast, and on Monday he was gorging himself on chicken broth (J.K. Jerome).

7. a) I had not seen a dead man since the war (N. Gordimer).

b) The town is dead now the mine has closed (Oxford Advanced Learner's Encyclopedic Dictionary).

c) I sat him at a table, where he dropped into a dead sleep (J. Reed).

8. a), b) Miss Hudson was within shouting distance of fifty, thin to the point of boniness, with a sharp nose and a sharp tongue and a refined voice (B. Neels).

c) His long lean hands moved noiselessly, and only the sharp crunching rush of the teeth of his reaping hook through the yellow stalks of the rye could be heard (L. O’Flaherty).