19. Translate b’s replies, paying special attention to idioms.

1	A	George’s presentation about crisis management was absolutely fabulous!	B	Я это и хотел сказать.
2	A	Nobody supported John’s passionate pleas for peace.	B	К сожалению, это был глас вопиющего в пустыне.
3	A	I think we should discuss the question of cooperation with this company again. There are some new details to consider.	B	Не ходи вокруг да около! Говори по существу.
4	A	In all broadcasting you have to be interesting, and keep the listener listening.	B	Конечно, это и определяет успех любой передачи.
5	A	Los Angeles Times ran the story about the details of the water law reform including some unsavory ones.	B	Неудивительно, что теперь это у всех на устах.
6	A	In the days before social media, the brand's reputation depended totally on the opinion of the users passed to other people.	B	Вы хотите сказать, что информация передавалась из уст в уста?
7	A	You’d better think twice before saying something.	B	Всем известно, что когда слова уже вертятся у тебя на языке, желательно сказать лишь половину.
8	A	The principal continued to read while I watched him from across the desk.	B	Наверно он хотел на какое-то время предоставить тебя самому себе.
9	A	She said very little at the meeting.	B	Говорить было и не надо. Все можно было прочитать по ее лицу.
10	A	I can't seem to get on with him.	B	Вы просто совсем разные.

Grammar Clinic

19. Use the verbs in brackets in the correct past form.

The employees in the store … (buy) bought a silver inkstand for the senior partner on his fiftieth birthday. I … (select) for spokesman, and I … (make) a little speech that I … (prepare) for a week. It made a hit. It was full of puns and epigrams and funny twists that … (bring) down the house.

So on that very morning I … (give) momentum to my reputation as a humorist. My fame … (spread) very quickly and soon I … (become) a local “character”. The daily newspaper … (quote) me. I … (become) indispensible at social gatherings.

Soon I … (receive) a letter from the editor of a famous weekly publication, who … (offer) to make a contract with me for a year at a figure that was considerably higher than the amount paid me by the hardware firm. My column in the weekly … (make) some stir, and my townspeople … (begin) to look upon me as a citizen of some consequence instead of the merry trifler I … (be) when I … (clerk) in the hardware store.

The success, however, … (come) at a high price.

After five or six months the spontaneity … (seem) to depart from my humor. In no time I … (listen) to catch available ideas from the conversation of my friends – I was after every bright saying, a witty comparison a piquant phrase like a hound springing upon a bone. Where once I … (furnish) them with entertainment and jollity, I now … (prey) upon them.

My friends … (regard) me in sorrow and wonder. I was not the same man they … (use) to know but the one who … (forget) how to smile. Nearly everyone began to avoid me. I had no friends, no amusements, no enjoyment of life. Shortly after I … (receive) a letter from the editor of the weekly saying they … (not renew) my contract.

Strange as it may seem I was far from displeased as I finally … (get) free from the slavery of obligatory humor. I soon … (regain) my natural aptitude for humor and my jokes were again noised about and quoted.

After “Confessions of a Humorist” by O’Henry

Joint Research