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A reading comprehension

Posted by Smokey Stover on December 29, 2003

In Reply to: A reading comprehension posted by Shae on December 28, 2003

: : : : Hi folks,
: : : : Please read this small passage and help me with these:
: : : : 1.When Abe told Mr.Crawford what had happended to the book, he talked _B__

: : : : A.mockingly
: : : : B.humorously
: : : : C.unconcernedly

: : : : (Why choose B as answer here?)

: : : : 2.Do you know what is a weather side?

: : : : 3.Could you explain this sentence "How came you to forget..."

: : : : It seems ungrammatical! We can only use "how come that...?" to express our surprise, and the tense of "come" is never changed!

: : : : Thanks!!!!!

: : : 1. I don't think any of these choices fit. Just from the text, it doesn't sound like he was mocking or joking. Abe was being straightforward but he was concerned. Abe had a reputation for joking, maybe that's why the choice was B.

: : : 2. The part of the daubing or whatever he called it, that faced the outside of the cabin and was exposed to weather.

: : : 3. Maybe that is an old way of speaking.

: : 2.Forgive me, but what is a mud-daubing?
: : 3.Could you please put "How came you to forget..." in plain English?

: 2. Houses built from roughly-hewn timber or from wattles (interwoven branches) were made weather-proof by plastering (daubing) mud in the spaces between the timbers.

: 3. "How came you to forget . . ." means "What happened to make you forget?"

"How came you to forget . . " is plain (if old-fashioned) English for what we now phrase as "How did you come to forget . . . ." It was a perfectly normal way of phrasing the thought from at least the 16th century until Mr. Crawford's day. "How did you know that?" = "How knew you that?" The language may change in more than one way, of course. "Whence came you?" = "Where did you come from?" There is a large body of expressions, however, which are easy to update. Add an auxiliary verb, change the word order, and bob's your uncle! SS

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