① Linguists now generally agree that “ grammar is based on usage,” and that a grammarian has no more right to say how people ought to talk than a chemist has to say how molecules ought to act upon each other.
② The laws of grammar are like the laws of any other science, simply generalized statements about what does happen, not directions about what should.
③ and they are subject to change as soon as any new evidence comes in.
22番
① In conversation, one is likely to find out certain things about the other person quite easily.
② He will learn these things not so much from what the other man says as from how he says it
③ ,for whenever we speak we cannot avoid giving our listeners clues about our origins and the sort of person we are.
23番
① Reading is a habit.
② Once you’ve got the habit you never lose it.
③ But you must somehow be exposed to reading early enough in life to have it become a part of your daily routine, like washing your face or breathing.
24番
① Today young people find themselves, through no fault of their own, living in a world torn by international bitterness and the threat of nuclear destruction.
② More than ever do we need goals or leading ideas that will give purpose to whatever we are doing.
③ We need the assurance that life is worth living , despite the difficulties that surround us.
25番
① Knowledge is power, but it is power for evil just as much as for good.
② With every increase of scientific knowledge man’s power for evil is increased in the same proportion as his power for good.
③ I think, therefore, that the really important question raised by modern technology is not “will it be possible for man to inhabit other planets,” but “will it be possible for man to continue to inhabit his own planet?”
④ I think that a happy answer is possible only if we can learn to think in terms of the welfare of mankind and not of this or that particular nation or group.
26番
① One of the greatest dangers in your human relation is self-centeredness.
② Certainly there is nothing that will separate people more, and nothing so easy to slip into.
③ Even the most self-centered people are usually forgetful of this fault.
④ Yet it can be conquered very easily.
⑤ All you have to do is to cultivate the ability to put yourself in the other fellow’s place.
27番
① Each stage of life is a preparation for the next as well as a complete life in itself.
② Childhood and youth are too precious to be sacrificed to the present convenience of adults or the later requirements of adult life,
③ but if they are lived only for their own sake, later life will become miserably poor and bitter regret will be in store.
④ A balance between what is due to the present and what is due to the future is seldom easy and always of main importance.
28番
① It is important to remember that it is never impossible to shake off an old habit and form a new one.
② Once a habit has been acquired, it has almost compulsive power over us.
③ But human habits are freely acquired by the choices we make, and can be got rid of and replaced by making other choices.
④ No habit, no matter how strong, ever abolishes our freedom to change it.
29番
① All these things seemed to me the less important the longer I worked with him and the better I knew him.
② Great as Einstein is as a physicist, he is still greater as a man.
③ He achieved a fame greater than that of any other scientist, although no other man is so indifferent to fame and so uncomfortable about publicity as he is.
30番
① I’m sure people would live twice as long if they stopped getting themselves worked up over everything.
② When you’ve lived as long as I have, you’ll know that all our troubles solve themselves in time, and that most of the things we think we want aren’t worth half the energy we use getting them.
