Table of contents for N. 463 in Speak Up Italia

With the slogan “My name is Jimmy Carter and I’m running for President”, Washington outsider James Earl Carter Jr., a former peanut farmer from the American Deep South, introduced himself as the Democrat who would return integrity to US politics. While he did not quite1 succeed, Carter stands out2 as a president who did everything he could to make America moral again. PEANUTS TO PRESIDENT Born in Georgia on 1 October 1924, Carter won the US presidency in 1976. It was a time of despondency3: the Watergate scandal had led to Richard Nixon’s resignation but his successor, Gerald Ford, had issued4 a presidential pardon5, enraging6 many people. Carter was deeply religious but he was also just, and wanted both US domestic and foreign policy to be “competent and compassionate.”In his…

The UK is the windiest country in Europe, so it is not surprising that the British people are fascinated by wind. British people talk about it so much, in fact, that being familiar with certain words and expressions is essential. THE POWER OF WIND Much of the country’s renewable energy comes from wind turbines1: in 2020, the UK generated 75,610 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity from both offshore2 and onshore3 wind farms4; enough to power5 8.4 trillion6 LED light bulbs7! Several geographical features8 of the British Isles contribute to its windy weather. The Gulf Stream9 keeps it much warmer than other countries at the same latitude, while dry continental air from Eurasia encounters wetter air from the Atlantic Ocean directly over the UK, making the weather notoriously10 unpredictable. EMOTIONAL FORCE…

Hi, I need to travel on the Tube, but I don’t have an Oyster card. Is that possible? Yes, of course, you can still buy paper tickets. But there are Visitor Oyster cards, too, you know. Oh, really? I didn’t know that. Isn’t that a lot more expensive, though1? No, fares are actually2 cheaper than single paper tickets or paper Travelcards. But don’t I need to pay for the card itself? Yes, it’s a contactless card that costs £5. You load it with credit which you pay as you go. I’m only here for the weekend. What happens if I haven’t spent3 it all? Whatever4 credit you have left never expires. Then, if you come back, you just top it up. Oh, well, I’m sure I’ll be back, so I…

An epic western crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon is based on the 2017 non-fiction book by David Grann. Set in 1920s Oklahoma in the American Midwest, it tells the true story of serial murders of members of Native American tribe the Osage Nation. The movie stars Robert De Niro as real-life figure William Hale, and Leonardo Di-Caprio as his nephew1 Ernest Burkhart. Both are self-appointed2 white guardians sanctioned3 by US law to look after the Osage’s wealth after oil is discovered on their land. Ernest marries Osage woman Mollie, but then follows his uncle’s orders to steal the tribe’s money by killing its people, one by one. CRIMINAL COMPLICITY Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth spent years adapting Grann’s book for the screen. As…

CULTURE French aristocrat Donatien Alphonse François de Sade was born in Paris in 1740. He spent his late teens1 in the military, where he discovered he liked rough sex2. On leaving3, he married, but then engaged in4 orgies and affairs with women and men. He hired young prostitutes, submitting them to sexual abuses and torture. Some complained that he’d tried to poison them with an aphrodisiac called ‘Spanish fly’. THE BASTILLE Accused of sexual deviance5 and blasphemy (a serious offence at the time), Sade was imprisoned in 1768, and then again in 1777, where he tried to incite a revolt. In 1784, he was transferred to the Bastille prison in Paris. There, on a roll of paper twelve metres long, he secretly wrote Les 120 Journées de Sodome (120 Days…

As the train departed1 Tokyo Station for Niigata, Brian relaxed into his first-class carriage2 seat. He’d been in Japan for two weeks on business, and sometimes he missed his life in London. However, he appreciated the etiquette that was an essential quality of Japanese culture, the gentle nature and the reservedness of the people there. So he was surprised when, at the next station, an elderly3 man sat beside him and initiated a conversation with him. “Konbanwa,” said the man, which Brian knew meant “good evening”. He returned the greeting4 and was about to explain that he didn’t speak much Japanese when the man spoke again, but in English. “You look like a film star,” he said. “Hugh Grint?” “Hugh Grant,” said Brian, and laughed. “I hear that often.” The…

ARTICOLI PER LIVELLI Tutti i nostri articoli hanno un codice di colore che indica il livello di difficoltà dell’inglese in base al Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. A2 PRE-INTERMEDIATE B1 LOWER INTERMEDIATE B2 UPPER INTERMEDIATE C1 ADVANCED C2 PROFICIENCY GLOSSARIO In ogni articolo troverai le parole più rilevanti affiancate da un numero del colore corrispondente al livello di difficoltà, oltre alla traduzione nel glossario correlato. G in and tonic is arguably1 Britain’s favourite drink GLOSSARY 1 arguably:probabilmente2 to skyrocket: andare alle stelle EXPLAINS Le frasi evidenziate in giallo sono quelle che hanno bisogno di approfondimenti, come nel caso di riferimenti storici o culturali, frasi fatte, proverbi o espressioni di slang. Troverai la spiegazione alla fine dell’articolo. SPEAK UP IN CLASS Ogni mese su Speak Up troverai anche degli…

The Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) made one of the most important discoveries in history when he accidentally happened on1 the world’s first-ever antibiotic. Penicillin has been described as a “miracle cure” and the “single greatest victory ever achieved2 over disease3.” The discovery, made in 1928, changed the course of medicine by starting the antibiotic revolution, and it has saved the lives of millions of people. SAVING LIVES Fleming first started to make history during the First World War, working as a doctor. He saw the death of many soldiers from sepsis resulting from infected wounds4. In an article in the medical journal The Lancet, he said that antiseptics actually worsened5 some injuries, but he was ignored. He saved many soldiers’ lives by washing deep wounds with saline solution. ANTI-BACTERIAL…

I’m Norma Cerletti, better known as Norma’s Teaching on social media. I was born in Milan in 1992 and, after spending a year in an American high school in Washington State as an exchange student, I came back to Italy bilingual. In just a year, I overcame1 so many fears and became so passionate about the English language that I wanted to be an English teacher. And that’s exactly what I did. ENGLISH FOR EVERYONE For over 10 years I taught English in various schools and companies in Italy. In 2020, I was forced to move my teaching online and opened multiple social media accounts in order to be able2 to reach3 as many people as possible in order to improve their English language skills. Shortly after going online, I…

Italian explorer Christopher Columbus never set foot1 in what is now the US, but he is the third most memorialised2 person in the nation, behind Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. He is particularly celebrated on Columbus Day on 12 October. This annual celebration is now highly controversial — but it is a big deal3 for many Italian Americans, especially those who live in New York City. LATE STARTER Columbus only became an American symbol three hundred years after his death, in 1506 because 18th-century revolutionaries seeking4 independence from Britain needed a historical figurehead5, a hero who could unite the young country. The first celebration of Columbus Day dates back to 1792. However, controversy over Columbus Day began in the 19th century, when anti-immigrant groups rejected it because of its association…

Sleep: those little slices1 of death, how I loathe2 them’; ‘sleep is a criminal waste of time and a heritage from our cave days.’ Quotes like these, somewhat dubiously attributed to Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Edison, nevertheless reflect our society’s difficult relationship with sleep. Attitudes are changing, but there remains a lingering3 disdain and suspicion. We know we need it, but resent the fact that we have to do it, and are sometimes misled4 about how to get it. What we can be sure of is that sleep is critical for good health. It helps us form memories and solve problems, allows tissue5 growth and repair, promotes metabolic health and removes toxins from the brain, including amyloid beta which is linked to Alzheimer’s disease. Insufficient and disrupted sleep is…

In 1859 English writer Charles Dickens published A Tale of Two Cities, a serialised page-turner1 set in London and Paris during the French Revolution. The protagonist is a French doctor called Manette who, after spending nearly two decades in prison in Paris, is reunited with his lost daughter Lucie, who lives in London. The book begins with one of the most famous paragraphs in English literature. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before…

The bald eagle1 is the national emblem of the United States. It appears in many government institutions and on official documents, as well as on the president’s flag2, military insignia and billions of one-dollar bills3. However, not everyone was happy about its choice4 as America’s national bird. 18th-century statesman Benjamin Franklin preferred the turkey5, believing the bald eagle to be “a bird of bad moral character”. DISTINCTIVE STYLE The bald eagle is the only eagle native to North America. It is strikingly6 colourful, with a yellow beak7 and eyes and a white head and tail8 that contrast with the rest of its dark-brown feathered9 body. It is not born this way: eaglets10 have a brown beak, eyes and feathers, but their colours change at the age of four or five.…

On 5 October 1823 the first edition of an independent general medical journal appeared on London’s newsstands1. Its editor was Thomas Wakley, a surgeon2 from Devon, who brought on medical colleagues William Lawrence and James Wardrop, journalist William Cobbett, and a libel3 lawyer as associates. PRIVILEGE AND NEPOTISM Wakley named the journal The Lancet after the small very sharp4 surgical instrument, more commonly known as a ‘scalpel’. The weekly publication claimed to report on London’s hospital lectures5 and describe the important cases of the day. However, Wakley’s specific aim6 was to attack incompetence, privilege and nepotism in the British medical establishment. MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT The journal dissected medical lectures, exposed malpractices, and even accused the nephew7 of the president of the Royal College of Surgeons of incompetence (in his painfully…

This year, London is celebrating the 160th anniversary of one of its most famous icons: the London Underground, aka1 ‘the Tube’. The underground passenger railway was proposed by Charles Pearson, a city solicitor2, as part of a city improvement3 plan. In 1843, a pioneering tunnel connecting South East London and East London had opened. The Thames Tunnel had become a major tourist attraction as well as a speedy way to cross the city by carriage4 or on foot. Why not, thought Pearson, do the same and provide transportation, too? STEAM TO ELECTRIC On 10 January 1863, the world’s first London Underground line opened between Paddington (then Bishop’s Road) and Farringdon Street in London. Based on the overground train, wooden carriages were pulled5 along by steam locomotives6 that burned coke7 and…

By now, perhaps, we should be getting used to unreal1 images of the cosmos made with the James Webb Space Telescope. But a year after NASA released the cosmic observatory’s first imagery2, the space agency has dropped3 yet another breathtaking snapshot4 of our universe. Wednesday’s image was Rho Ophiuchi, the closest nursery5 of infant stars in our cosmic backyard6. Located a mere 390 light years away from Earth, this cloud complex is chock-full7 of stellar goodness8. Around fifty stars with masses comparable to our sun are sprinkled9 in white: some fully formed and shining bright, others still hidden behind dark, dense regions of interstellar dust. Near the center of the image is a mature star called S1, its starlight illuminating the wispy10 yellow nebula around it. Toward the upper right…

New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia in the US is host1 to the largest single-day2 extreme sporting event on the planet. On Bridge Day, BASE jumpers fly 267 metres into the gorge3 below, while rappellers ascend and descend from the catwalk4. ‘BASE’ stands for5 ‘building, antenna, span6 or earth’, the four categories of fixed objects that participants jump from with parachutes on their backs. The spans are typically bridges, like the one across New River. DARING FEATS Bridge Day takes place every third Saturday in October. Tens of thousands of spectators gather on the bridge to marvel at the daring feats7, while vendors8 sell food, drinks and memorabilia. The bridge itself is an iconic landmark, a single-arch construction spanning9 almost 1km. To find out more, Speak Up spoke to…

When, on New Year’s Eve1 in 2011, American recording artist Katy Perry’s marriage to English comedian Russell Brand ended by text message after just fourteen months, fans wondered2 how she would respond musically. The answer came in August 2013 when Roar, the first single from “Prism”, Perry’s fourth album, was released3. Co-writer Bonnie McKee described it as a song about self-empowerment4, telling MTV it is a “pick yourself up5 and dust yourself off6 and keep going7” song. Perry also revealed that after therapy she was “sick8 of keeping all these feelings inside and not speaking up for myself9.” The song opens with the ‘used to’ form and four idioms10, describing what the singer was like in the past, but no longer11 is. The first two verses continue largely in the…

To burn one’s bridges’ means to commit yourself to an irreversible course. It could be cutting off a relationship with someone (the infamous ‘blocking’ them on your phone!) or leaving a city, a country or a continent without any chance of returning (think Brexit). The idiom originated in ancient Rome, but came into common use as a military term in the late 1800s. It is usually used in the negative as a warning: “Keep your options open! Don’t burn your bridges!” It was a practice in Roman warfare to destroy bridges. Sometimes to stop the enemy from escaping, sometimes to leave no way for the Roman army to go back. This sense that burning one’s bridges may hurt you as much as it rejects the situation you leave behind is…