21世纪读写教程1第58单元AB课文Word文件下载.docx

1、Mary told me all about it when I called at the hospital two days after the babys birth.Ted wants to call him Robert, Mary said, because theres a tradition in his family. The eldest son is always Robert or Edward. His father was Robert, his grandfather Edward, his great-grandfather Robert, and soon.T

2、hat seems reasonable, I said.I dont want my son to be named after someone in the family, Mary said. Hes a unique individual, and I want him to have a name that no one else in the family has had. !want to call my son Lawrence.That seems reasonable, too,Everyones been giving me advice, Mary said. Then

3、 she told me who had given her advice, and what advice she had been given, （but not in the same order）. I had to guess who gave what advice. Maybe youd like to try to do that as well?These were the people:1） Uncle Fred, who was a painter, and liked vivid colours.2） Aunt Sybil, who spent every spare

4、minute in her garden.3） Cousin John, who spent far too much of his time at horse races and simply couldnt resist a gamble.4） Marys friend, Sue, who was very active in the Womens Liberation Movement.5） Teds brother David, an actor with a high opinion of himself.6） Marys father, a music professor.7） M

5、arys mother, who loved Shakespeare.8） Marys friend, Catherine, known to be rather snobbish.Here, in a different order, is the advice they gave Mary:a） Spin a coin, and decide that way.b） Davids rather a nice name. That would be a good compromise.c） Tell your husband that you had the child so you hav

6、e the right to choose his name.d） Ive always liked the names Johann Sebastian.e） Call him William. Hell be a sweet William. What a pity you didnt have a girl. There are such lovely names for girls - Heather, Rosemary, Lily, Fern, Daisy.”f） s got blond hair. You could call him Boyd -which means yello

7、w.g） Charles is rather a refined name, dont you think? Not Robert, though, or Lawrence. Too ordinary, my dear.h） Hamlet would make an unusual, but attractive name.Well, I soon sorted out who suggested what, then I gave my own advice, Compromise!How? said Mary.In the same way as my parents, I said. M

8、y father felt that should be named after his father, and my mother felt the same way about naming me after her father. So, Im named after both of them.You mean, they were both called Samuel?No, One was George, the other was Albert. Samuel is the compromise. Im named George Albert Samuel, but called

9、Samuel.And so it was that my nephew was named Robert William Lawrence, but is called Lawrence.Text BEasy Ways to Avoid an ArgumentMy five-year-old son and I stopped at our local ice-cream store to get dessert for his birthday party. The place was crowded with people. A high-school girl was alone beh

10、ind the counter. Though working as fast as she could, she seemed to be falling further and further behind.At last she called our number, and I asked for three quarts of chocolate ice-cream. Three quarts! she said. Do you know how hard it is to scoop three quarts?I was tempted to let loose with Well,

11、 excuse me! I thought this was an ice-cream store ! Instead I held my tongue and asked myself a question I often raise when rm on the brink of an argument: Why would she say something like that? Realizing then how overwhelmed she must have felt, I asked, Has it been one of those days?”Her hostility

12、melted. Its been nonstop since this morning. Im all alone, and I was supposed to get off at one oclock, but. She continued to unburden herself as she packed our ice-cream. When we left, she gave us a big smile and a friendly wave.s natural to take offense if someone is rude. You may think: What a je

13、rk! But blurting out how you feel will only make matters worse. Dealing with difficult people is a part of everyday life, and there are ways you can stand up for yourself without starting an argument. I call these techniques Tongue Fu!Handle arguments with humor. All of us tend to lose our temper. I

14、f you find yourself in a difficult situation, try having fun with it.AS an IRS worker explained to me, Almost everyone who comes in here is hostile. Instead of taking offense, weve posted bulletin boards with comic strips that poke fun at the IRS, which we jokingly call the Income Removal Service. W

15、hen taxpayers see these, their attitudes change for the better.When people complain, dont explain. The phone rings at work, You pick up and the caller launches into a complaint: 1 asked for a catalogue three weeks ago and I still dont have it! What kind of business are you running, anyway?Dont bothe

16、r explaining that half the staff is out with the flu. Well-intentioned though they may be, such explanations usually add to the complainers anger because they come across as excuses. Avoid explaining in detail what went wrong. Instead, agree, apologize and then move on to what can be done about it.

17、Simply say:Youre right. Im sorry you havent received it yet. If I can have your name and address again, Ill personally put it in the mail to you today.Agree to disagree. A man I know said he and his wife went to her parents house for dinner one night. While we were eating, he recalled,”I mentioned t

18、hat the highway construction was stared again. My father-in-law said he was glad. That highway never shouldve been built! Itsdestroying an important historical valley.Well, I spend over an hour each way commuting to work. I told him I thought the highway was a necessary evil because there are four t

19、imes as many cars as there were ten years ago, on the same number of roads. My wifes dad grumbled that it was typical of my selfish generation to think more about our commuting time than a significant archeological site.I lost my patience and said, You cant stop progress. That did it. My father-in-l

20、aw stood up and walked away, saying, 1 dont have to sit here and listen to this at my own dinner table.I wish the whole thing had never happened. If I had been alert to his feelings about the matter, I could have prevented the whole unfortunate incident by saying, Lets agree to disagree about this,

21、and politely directing the conversation to something else.One effective way to avoid an argument is to say, Were both right! and move on to a safer topic. For example, you and your wife disagree about how to discipline your teenager, and your discussion is turning into an argument. Just because you

22、arent seeing eye to eye doesnt mean youre enemies. Saying Hey, we both want the same thing can get you out of the quarrelsome mode and get you working together again.No matter what the situation, arguments are a waste of, or at best, a misuse of time. By avoiding meaningless arguments, everybody win

23、s.Unit 6Nerds and GeeksThere is something very wrong with the system of values in a society that has only unkind terms like nerd and geek for the intellectually curious and academically serious.We all know what a nerd is: someone who wears thick glasses and ugly clothes; someone who knows all the an

24、swers to the chemistry or math homework but can never get a date on a Saturday night. And a geek, according to Websters New World Dictionary, is a street performer who shocks the public by biting off the heads of live chickens. It is a revealing fact about our language and our culture that someone d

25、edicated to the pursuit of knowledge is compared to such a freak.Even at a prestigious educational institution like Harvard, anti-intellectualism is widespread: many students are ashamed to admit, even to their friends, how much they study. Although most students try to keep up their grades, there i

26、s but a small group of undergraduates for whom pursuing knowledge is the most important thing during their years at Harvard, Nerds are looked down upon while athletes are made heroes of.The same thing happens in U.S. elementary and high schools. Children who prefer to read books rather than play football, prefer to build model airplanes rather than idle away their time at parties with their classmates, become social outcasts, Because of their intelligence a