Out of StepOut of Step

Bill Bryson

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Unit 11Pre-reading questions:Pre-reading questions:

1. It is said that the United States is a nation on the wheel. How important do you think is the car for an ordinary American?

2.When do you prefer to walk and when to drive? Do you think people will become over-reliant on cars in the future?

Read paragraphs 1-6, answer the following questions:

• What kind of town is it?• What is considered the author’s “eccentric

behavior”?• Why would drivers “depart reluctantly, even

guiltily” when their offer was declined.

reference

Reference:

• It is a small, pleasant and agreeable town. The inhabitants are friendly and willing to help. But although the town is compact, few people go about on foot.

• Instead of driving a car, the author walks around the town, doing his shopping, going to the movies or visiting the cafe or bar. To people who are used to going everywhere in the car, he is like an eccentric.

• With cars becoming the basic essentials of their life, people are so habituated to using the car for everything. The scene of somebody walking around seemed so unusual to them that they would naturally show their concern to those unfortunate people. When their offer to give him a ride was declined, they were sorry for not being able to help the person in need.

[1] After living in England for 20 years, my wife and I decided to move back to the United States. We wanted to live in a town small enough that we could walk to the business district, and settled on Hanover, N. H., a typical New England town — pleasant, sedate and compact. It has a broad central green surrounded by the venerable buildings of Dartmouth College, an old-fashioned Main Street and leafy residential neighborhoods.

[2] It is, in short, an agreeable, easy place to go about one’s business on foot, and yet as far as I can tell, virtually no one does.

[3] Nearly every day, I walk to the post office or library or bookstore, and sometimes, if I am feeling particularly debonair, I stop at Rosey Jekes Café for a cappuccino. Occasionally, in the evenings, my wife and I stroll up to the Nugget Theatre for a movie or to Murphy’s on the Green for a beer. I wouldn’t dream of going to any of these places by car. People have gotten used to my eccentric behavior, but in the early days acquaintances would often pull up to the curb and ask if I wanted a ride.

[4] “I’m going your way,” they would insist when I politely declined. “Really, it’s no bother.”

[5] “Honestly, I enjoy walking.”

[6] “Well, if you’re sure,” they would say and depart reluctantly, even guiltily, as if leaving the scene of an accident without giving their name.

Read paragraphs 7-12, answer the following questions:

• What is the main idea of the part?

• How does the author support this idea in this part?

• Why are the examples described in detail?

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• People in the United States are getting used to going anywhere in their cars, however near the destination may be.

• Examples are employed to support this idea.• In order to show how ridiculous people have

become, the author chooses to describe these examples in detail: A fit man rode his car for only 16 feet to get to a store next door; a woman rode to the gymnasium to do exercises although it was only a six-minute walk from her home. The detailed descriptions support the author’s ides.

[7] In the United States we have become so habituated to using the car for everything that it doesn’t occur to us to unfurl our legs and see what those lower limbs can do. We have reached an age where college students expect to drive between classes, where parents will drive three blocks to pick up their children from a friend’s house, where the letter carrier takes his van up and down every driveway on a street.

[8] [S1]We will go through the most extraordinary contortions to save ourselves from walking. Sometimes it’s almost ludicrous. The other day I was waiting to bring home one of my children from a piano lesson when a car stopped outside a post office, and a man about my age popped out and dashed inside. He was in the post office for about three or four minutes, and then came out, got in the car and drove exactly 16 feet (I had noting better to do, so I paced it off) to the general store next door.

[9] And the thing is, this man looked really fit. I’m sure he jogs extravagant distances and plays squash and does all kinds of healthful things, but I am just as sure that he drives to each of these undertakings..

[10] An acquaintance of ours was complaining the other day about the difficulty of finding a place to park outside the local gymnasium. She goes there several times a week to walk on a treadmill. The gymnasium is, at most, a six-minute walk from her front door.

[11] I asked her why she didn’t walk to the gym and do six minutes less on the treadmill.

[12] She looked at me as if I were tragically simple-minded and said, “But I have a program for the treadmill. It records my distance and speed and calorie burn rate, and I can adjust it for degree of difficulty.”

Read paragraphs 13-20, answer the following questions:

• Why did the author say “Actually, I’m surprised it was that much”?

• Why did Laconia change its downtown pedestrian mall to one with parking lots?

reference

Reference:• When the author found that the newly planned

suburbs totally overlooked pedestrian needs, he assumed there was no budget for pedestrian facilities at all. So he says he was surprised to learn that there actually was less than one percent of the budget on it. Here the author writes with a touch of irony.

• Although the pedestrian mall was well-decorated, shoppers were unwilling to walk to the stores from a parking garage. As a result, it was a commercial failure. The government had to compromise with the public preference.

[13] I confess it had not occurred to me how thoughtlessly deficient nature is in this regard.

[14] According to a concerned and faintly horrified 1997 editorial in the Boston globe, the United states spent less than one percent of its transportation budget on facilities for pedestrians. Actually, I’m surprised it was that much. Go to almost any suburb developed in the last 30 years, and you will not find a sidewalk anywhere. Often you won’t find a single pedestrian crossing.

[15] I had this brought home to me one summer when we were driving across Maine and stopped for coffee in one of those endless zones of shopping malls, motels, gas stations and fast-food places. I noticed there was a bookstore across the street, so I decided to skip coffee and head over.

[16] Although the bookshop was no more than 70 or 80 feet away, I discovered that there was no way to cross on foot without dodging over six lanes of swiftly moving traffic. In the end, I had to get in our car and drive across.

[17] At the time, it seemed ridiculous and exasperating, but afterward I realized that [S2]I was possibly the only person ever to have entertained the notion of negotiating that intersection on foot.

[18] The fact is, we not only don’t walk anywhere anymore in this country, we won’t walk anywhere, and woe to anyone who tries to make us, as the city of Laconia, N. H., discovered. In the early 1970s, Laconia spent millions on a comprehensive urban renewal project, which included building a pedestrian mall to make shopping more pleasant. Esthetically it was a triumph — urban planners came from all over to coo and take photos — but commercially it was a disaster. Forced to walk one whole block from a parking garage, shoppers abandoned downtown Laconia for suburban mall.

[19] In 1994 Laconia dug up its pretty paving blocks, took away the tubs of geraniums and decorative trees, and brought back the cars. Now people can park right in front of the stores again, and downtown Laconia thrives anew.

[20] And if that isn’t sad, I don’t know what is.

sedate: tending to avoid excitement or great activity and to be calm and relaxed• She is sedate old lady; she is caring but

never talks much.

• The flight against a nuclear power station site has transformed a normally sedate town into a battlefield.

v. to make calm or sleepy, especially with a drug

• The patient was heavily sedated and resting quietly in be.

• word derivation:

sedately ad.

sedation n.

sedative a./n.

eccentric: (of people or bahavior) unconventional and slightly strange

• The old gentleman, who lived alone all his life, was said to have some eccentric habits.

• n. a person of unconventional and slightly strange views or behavior

• The old gentleman enjoyed a colorful reputation as an engaging eccentric.

curb: a line of raised stone separating the footpath from the road

• v./n. (to place) a control or limit on something undesirable

• Poor nutrition can curb a child’s development both physically and mentally.

• There will be new curbs on drunk-driving from next month.

habituate: to accustom by frequent repetition or prolonged

exposure• You must habituate yourself to reading

aloud.

• By the end of the school term, the students had been habituated/accustomed/used to rising at five o’clock.

contortion: movement of the body or face into an unusual shape or position

• The spectators cannot but admire the contortions of the gymnasts.

• contort: v. (to cause something ) to twist out of its natural shape

• Compare: distort, twist, deform, contort, warp

• Distort is to alter in shape, as by torsion or wrenching; the term also applies to verbal or pictorial misrepresentation and to alteration or perversion of the meaning of something:

The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.

• Twist applies to distortion of form or meaning:

a mouth twisted with pain

He accused me of twisting his words to mean what I wanted them to.

• Deform refers to change that disfigures and often implies the loss of desirable qualities such as beauty:

Great erosion deformed the landscape.

The earlier part of his discourse was deformed by pedantic divisions and subdivisions.

• Contort implies violent change that produces unnatural or grotesque effects:

a face contorted with rage

a contorted line of reasoning• Warp can refer to a turning or twisting from a flat

or straight form:

The floorboards had warped over the years.

It also can imply the bending or turning of something from a true course or direction:

Prejudice warps the judgment.

bring something home to somebody: to make somebody realize something

• The news report has brought home to us all the plight of the prisoners of war.

• drive something home to somebody: to make somebody realize something, especially by saying it often, loudly, angrily, etc.

• The professor drove home to them that they must finish the writing assignment by Friday.

negotiate: to get over or past (an obstacle, etc.) successfully; to manage to travel along a difficult route

• The only way to negotiate the path is on foot.

• Frank Mariano negotiates the dessert terrain in his battered pickup.

coo: to speak in a soft, gentle, and loving ay, especially when expressing surprise

• “How wonderful to see you again, darling,” she cooed.

• The little girl is always cooing over those parrots of hers.

anew: (formal) again or one more time, especially in a different way

• The scientists started the experiment anew.

• The film tells anew the story of her rise to stardom.

Paraphrase of sentences:

• As long as we can avoid waling, we are willing to do anything possible, however unnatural or ridiculous it may be.

• … I was very likely the only person who had ever attempted to cross that intersection on foot.

Translation:

• The university is one of the most venerable institutions of higher education in the world.

• If one is deficient in practical experience, he can hardly make himself a success with only what he has acquired in class.

• I felt exasperated by constant interruptions, for I had to finish writing the monograph by the end of this week.

• He feels that it is ludicrous to write about a contemporary topic in an ancient style.

• The Bund in Shanghai was a place where young couples liked to come to coo in the 70’s and 80’s of the last century.

• His daughter is very sedate for a girl of about ten, for she likes reading more than playing.

• The couple strolled hand-in-hand along the country road when the sun in its first splendor steeped the earth.

• The poet was commonly considered as an eccentric romantic genius when alive.