英语泛读课后问题

1.If a conversation does start, personal questions like "How old are you?" or even "What is your name?" are not easily asked. Questions like "Where did you buy your watch?" or "What is your salary?" are almost impossible. Similarly, conversation in Britain is in general quiet and restrained and loud speech is considered ill-bred.
Self-praise is felt to be ill-bred.If a person is, let us say, very good at tennis, and someone asks him if he is a good player, he will seldom reply "Yes," because people will think him conceited. He will probably give an answer like, "I'm not bad,"
The English do not laugh at a cripple or a madman, a tragedy or an honorable failure.
If it is a social occasion, not a business one, it is not polite to arrive early.
If you disrespect the old man or women is also considered ill-bred.
2. Another feature in Britain is politeness. On the whole British habits of politeness are very informal. All politeness is based on the elementary rule of showing consideration for others, and acknowledging the consideration they show to you. "Excuse me" is used as an advance apology for troubling somebody, "Sorry" expresses regret for an accidental disturbance or breach of manners. "Pardon?" is the polite way of asking somebody to repeat what he has said. you are always expected to say "Thank you".

British people do not readily ask each other to do anything that would involve real inconvenience: they prefer to wait for such service to be offered, rather than ask for it. If they do ask, then the request is accompanied by an implied apology . British people sometimes make offers purely out of politeness, not really expecting them to be accepted, and offers of this kind are refused with the same politeness.
If you are invited into a person's home, you should be obey the English politeness
Politeness towards women is less observed today than it used to be. It is still considered polite to give up one's seat to a woman who is standing, to open doors for her, help her alight from the bus, carry things for her, protect her from the traffic, and so on.
The same principle applies to old people. If they are respected in Britain, it is because they are felt to be in need of protection and support.


3. When people talk or write using long, fancy words that really mean nothing, we call it gobbledygook. Unfortunately, many people use gobbledygook because they want to seem more important than they are, or because they don't really want people to understand what they mean or what they are doing. So, when the dishonest politician wants to hornswoggle the public with a boondoggle, he usually explains things in gobbledygook.

4.If you regarding the meaning of a word. The question is, just as Humpty Dumpty said, which is to be master. But if you used words in an odd way, and that made him a master of gobbledygook, not a master of language. A master of language knows what words really mean, and where they come from; knows when to use big, i

mportant ones and when to use the shorter, equally important simple ones.