Tea in Britain
The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. So a group of the most outstanding British scientists put their heads together, an made complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it. They suggested that if you don’t drink it clear, or with lemon or sugar, but pour a few drops of cold milk into and no sugar at all the desired object is achieved.
There are some occasions when you must not refuse a cup of tea, otherwise you are judged an exotic and barbarous bird without any hope that you’ll ever be able to take your place in a civilized society.
If you are invited to an English home, at five o’clock in the morning you will have a cup of tea.
When you are disturbed in your sweetest sleep you must not say: “Madam, I believe you are a cruel person who deserves to be shot”. On the contrary, you have to declare with your best five o’clock smile: “Thank you so much. I do adore a cup of early morning tea, especially early in the morning”. If they leave you alone with the liquid, you may pour it down into your washbasin.
Then you have tea for breakfast, then you have tea at eleven o’clock in the morning, then after lunch; then you have tea for tea; then after supper; and again at eleven o’clock at night.
You must not refuse any additional cups of tea under the following circumstances: if it is hot; if it is cold; if you are tired; if anybody thinks that you might be tired; if you have just returned home; if you feel like it; if you do not feel like it; if you have had no tea for some time; if you have just had a cup.
[1]Leech, Geoffrey N. Semantics. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1974
[2]Жолковский А.К. Лексика целесообразной деятельности // Машинный перевод и прикладная лингвистика. – М., 1964. №8
[3]Арнольд И.В. Лексикология современного английского языка. – М., 1959
[4]Irvine A. H. A dictionary of synonyms and antonyms. Collins, London, and Glasgo, 1979
[5]Leech, Geoffrey N. Semantics. Penguin Books. Harmondsworth, 1974
[6]Арнольд И.В. Лексикология современного английского языка. – М., 1959
[7]Arnold N.I. Semantic structure of English word in modern English - L., 1966
[8]Arnold N.I. Semantic structure of English word in modern English - L., 1966