Part 4. Language study and language appreciation.
Listen to the following statements you have learned in the previous and present units, pay special attention to the parts in bold type. Learn to appreciate and use the language.
1. to rush through.../ to race through.../ a breathless race with...
Most people rush through their days, trying to do more in less and less time.
Some people are trying to slow down, and instead of racing through life, actually experience it.
Journalist Carl Honore admits that not long ago his life was a breathless race with time.
2. to become obsessed with...
To finish all those tasks, day after day, Mr Honore says he became obsessed with saving time wherever he could.
3. to scatter among.
Industrialization and urbanization create many specialized jobs which tend to scatter family members among different employees and thus to separate residences as soon as they became wage earners.
4. to bring into picture.
Polygamy, for example, brings several wives and their children into the picture.
5. to be the mirror image of...
I think in our experience, we complemented each other, we were the mirror image of each other.
6. to make up...
Today, women make up 1.5% of the 200,000 professional firefighters in the U.S and they make up 5% of the airline pilots and navigators.
7. to have one's heart walk outside of one's body.
To choose to have a child is to choose forever to have your heart walk outside of your body.
8. to keep lots of balloons in the air
But we also are able to keep lots of balloons in the air, which means that what we do is you get up in the morning and you say "I need to do this, this, this, this and I need to go to work, what's for dinner besides."
9. a stake in the maternal heart.
For many of the women I interviewed, it was, this is mothers as well as daughters, it was a stake in the maternal heart if the daughter didn't follow the mother's domestic example, i.e. marriage, children, you know, food, meal planing.
10. to defuse tension/ to serve as...
Among other things, fathers can defuse some of the mother-daughter tension and serve as mediators.