PRACTICE MATERIAL.

TOPIC 3

I. Comment on these noun compounds, according to Quirk and Greenbaum's model.

SEMANTIC MORPHOLOGY SYNTAX MEANING

CLASSIFICATION
birdcage

blackboard

bus driver

egghead

frying pan

gamekeeper

birdbrain

highbrow

theatre-goer

watchdog

butterfingers

loudmouth

redcap

paperback

bluebell

II. Complete the following sentences with the corresponding noun derived from the
word in brackets.

1. She’s training to be a ………………………… (beauty)

2. The person a cheque is made out to is called the ………………………… (pay)
3. I am full of …………………………. for what she has achieved. (admire)
4. His parents gave him a lot of …………………………. in his studies (encourage)
5. It is a ………………………… to say he did it when you know he didn’t. (false)
6. Please, put me two …………………………. of sugar. (spoon)
7. The thing I hate about him is his …………………………. (reliable)
8. We’re going to the first of the two ………………………… (perform)
9. To buy this car I made a monthly …………………………. of 400 euros for two years.
(pay)
10. Fortunately, …………………………. no longer exists in our society. (slave)
III. Give an adequate partitive or specific counter for the following uncountable nouns:

A ……………………………………… of anger A ……………………………………… of laughter

A ……………………………………… of ammunition A ……………………………………… of thunder
A ……………………………………… of coal A ……………………………………… of wood
A ……………………………………… of air A ……………………………………… of gunfire
A ……………………………………… of meat A ……………………………………… of snow
A ……………………………………… of furniture A ……………………………………… of chalk
A ……………………………………… of news A ……………………………………… of dust
A ……………………………………… of soap A ……………………………………… of luck
A ……………………………………… of applause A ……………………………………… of toast
A ……………………………………… of advice A ……………………………………… of wind

IV. What is the collective noun corresponding to the following?

1. A ………………………… of wolves.
2. A ………………………… of whales.
3. A ………………………… of bees.
4. A ………………………… of puppies.
5. A ………………………… of teachers.
6. A ………………………… of fish.
7. A ………………………… of chickens.
8. A ………………………… of birds.
9. A ………………………… of goats.
10. A ………………………… of singers.

V. Make a comment on each of these words with regard to the number category. Check
the pronunciation and spelling of the plural form.

goose wolf darts deer

memorandum criterion shorts measles
police sheep tooth thief
mumps phenomenon suspenders clergy
clothes erratum scissors cod

VI. Put the words in brackets into the sentences, in the same order, in their plural
forms. Say the type of plural they exemplify.

1. A large number of ………................. fled in fear when a flock of ………................

suddenly landed within a few ...........………….. of them. (mouse, goose, foot)

2. Automobile …………............. have all too many ………................. of

………................. in ………................ of the special security ..........…………... and are
considering ………............... of manufacturing their own. (company, story, delay,
delivery, key, way)
3. Security ..........………...... believe the ………................. climbed along the
………….............. of several houses before forcing open an upper window of the office
building with ..........………...... and escaping with the contents of two .............…………..
(chief, thief, roof, knife, safe)
4. With the help of old .…………............., war-time Paris was recreated in the film
………................ for the film '...........………….. of War', in which all the
………................ were played by unknown actors. (photo, studio, echo, hero)

5. ..........………...... were surprised when no fewer than six ………................ in full

uniform, carrying ………….............., arrived in ………............... to attend a series of
………................ (passer-by, commander-in-chief, brief-case, police car, court-martial)

6. The ..........………….... and ………….............. in the park are sometimes alarmed by

low-flying .………............... (deer, sheep, aircraft)

VII. Concord: Put the verbs in brackets into the correct form of the present simple.
Justify your choice.
1. Our livestock ………………………… (not to be) as numerous as they used to be.
2. People always …………………………. (to tell) me that mumps …………………………. (to be)
something for a man to avoid, since the consequences can be serious.
3. Vermin …………………………. (to cause) diseases.
4. The police ………………………… (to be trying) to contact the dying woman’s son.
5. The clergy ………………………… (to dress) differently from laymen.
6. Darts ………………………… (to be) a very popular game in British pubs.
7. Mathematics …………………………. (to seem) difficult at first sight.
8. Some people ………………… (to think) that politics ………………… (to be) the art of the
impossible.

VIII. Write either the masculine or the feminine of the following words and say how
gender is expressed in each case:

buck host monk

niece witch queen
widow teacher bachelor
landlady prince friend

IX. Comment on the difference between the following pairs.

1. A tea-cup / A cup of tea

2. Peter’s and Jane’s cars / Peter and Jane’s cars
3. A furniture van / A van of furniture
4. A cargo boat / The cargo of a boat
5. A pay-day / A day’s pay
6. Day-time / A day’s time
7. The rush hour / An hour’s rush
8. Your brother’s e-mail / An e-mail from your brother.

X. Write an essay-like commentary about Nouns taking the following text from The
Guardian as a corpus.

The NHS can no longer act as if minds don’t matter

 The physical basis of mental illness is clear. ‘Parity of esteem’ in health services is a necessity, not a
luxury



o Juliette Jowit
o
o The Guardian, Monday 10 November 2014 07.00 GMT

‘Why are depression, schizophrenia and psychosis dealt with by mental health
services, separate from the rest of the NHS?’

A century ago, even the greatest mind doctor of them all, Sigmund Freud, predicted
that one day mental illnesses would be explained physically, once scientific
techniques for the study of the brain became possible. In a typically prescient but off-
the-mark way, he even experimented with treating patients with a chemical remedy –
cocaine.
All these years later, Freud’s conjecture is bolstered by firm evidence. A psychiatrist,
Tim Cantopher, says that if he were to draw fluid from the spinal cord of depressed
patients he would find a deficiency of two chemicals: serotonin and noradrenaline,
essential neurotransmitters that regulate a host of functions in the body and brain.
“Depressive illness is not a psychological or an emotional state and is not a mental
illness. It is a physical illness,” Cantopher has written. “This is not a metaphor; it is a
fact.”
If such a categorical statement can be made about depression – and it may be even
more applicable to other psychological problems – it raises the question of why the
term “mental” illness is used at all. Why are depression, schizophrenia, psychosis,
alcoholism and personality disorders dealt with by mental health services, separate
from the rest of the NHS?
If this sounds like organisational nit-picking, it is not. There is plenty of evidence that
lack of integration of mental and other health services serves patients on both sides
badly. Meanwhile, institutionalising the idea that “mental” health is somehow different
from other illnesses perpetuates the idea that it these problems are “in the mind”,
that perhaps patients could buck up a bit, or they are untreatable, to be feared, even
avoided. Not only is such stigma hurtful and unhelpful, often discouraging sufferers
from seeking treatment, it also has created an environment in which, as a nation, the
UK accepts appalling discrimination.
Last month, politicians announced waiting targets for mental health services – a
decade after they were introduced in the rest of the NHS. Up until now, patients
would see a GP and be told to wait for mental health services to get in touch. They
might be prescribed antidepressants immediately, but all the evidence suggests a
combination of drug and talking therapy – a key part of which can be learning to
manage one’s condition – is the most effective treatment. After diagnosis, however,
therapy might only be available after many months and waiting more than a year is
not uncommon. Earlier this year, the incoming president of the Royal College of
Psychiatrists, professor Simon Wessely, estimated that, at any given time, two-thirds
of Britons with depression were not undergoing treatment. Some children with the
illness had had no treatment at all – “literally none”, he claimed. And while patients
wait, one in six of them will try to kill themselves, according to a new report by the
charity Mind.
Wessely wonders what it would be like if 70% of people with cancer were not getting
treated. Or if one in six patients with HIV tried to commit suicide while they waited for
treatment. There would be a national outcry.
After centuries of accusing people displaying signs of mental distress of possession
by demons or witchcraft, western civilisation underwent a fundamental change in its
approach to these problems just over a hundred years ago, when the German Emil
Kraepelin suggested psychological problems had a physical basis – though he didn’t
know what it might be. Freud went further, arguing that psychological and physical
functions could not be separated. The use of chemicals to help treat such conditions
emerged after the second world war. Most recently, scientists claim to have identified
gene variants linked to mental illnesses.
Arguably, some psychiatrists have been driven to an obsession with biology –
perhaps by the spending power of the drug companies. The risk of this is that it
draws professional attention and research away from wider psychological, social and
environmental causes – and remedies. Despite decades of an increasingly biological
approach to mental health, claims University of Liverpool professor Richard
Bentall, the prospects for patients are no better than they were in Victorian times.
But to feel that doctors have gone too far in blaming biology is not to say it does not
play a role: these arguments are largely about different weights of attribution, as
experts try to understand the complicated interplay between a patient’s physical
makeup and their life experiences. Carmine Pariante, professor of biological
psychiatry at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, describes his work as
understanding where people lie at different points on the “resilience spectrum”, with
some experiencing mental illness in response to stressors, and others not.
Nor are other health problems so different: doctors, scientists and public health
experts are increasingly aware of environmental, social and psychological issues
behind other illnesses, most publicly heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. To
take a purely biological approach to diabetes would also be a failure, but that does
not make it anything other than a physical illness.
A meta-study of published international research found no good evidence that
explaining that mental illnesses are biological reduces social stigma. In the case of
schizophrenia the opposite can happen – though more nuanced, mixed explanations
might work better. However, the same research found signs that biological
explanations could reduce “self-stigma”, including blame and guilt, and in several
studies patients who were given these accounts of their illness were more likely to
seek proper medical help. There were also studies in which a wider understanding of
the physical nature of mental illnesses appeared to reduce “structural discrimination”,
including poor relative funding.
In the last few years attempts have been made to improve mental health services.
Two years before the new waiting list targets were announced the UK
government decreed mental health patients should have “parity of esteem” in getting
treatment.
The most recent NHS England five-year plan admitted a key to future success was
to “dissolve the classic divide” between mental and physical health, and envisaged
more “liaison psychiatry” where psychiatrists work across hospital wards, which in
trials has notably reduced readmissions.
But it is hard to believe real progress can be made when there are still deep
institutional divisions. Not one of 17 NHS board members has a medical background
in mental health and only one – a non-executive director, Lord Adebowale – lists
professional experience in the field.
In Birmingham, the Conservative MP and chair of the all-party parliamentary group
on mental health, James Morris, has personally insisted on mental health advocates
sitting on the boards of local clinical commissioning groups, but there is no formal
requirement for this. Last year local authorities in England spent just 1.4% of their
public health budgets on preventing mental health problems, perhaps influenced by
Department of Health literature, which makes a solitary reference to the issues in 39
pages of guidance.
Reuniting health services would not be without its own issues, practical and
economic. But that the current regime is failing is obvious. And as research
continues to build on Freud’s instinct, the case only gets clearer. Parity of esteem
sounds like a gracious concession; in fact, it’s a scientific necessity.