This text deals with … 1. World’s strangest name.
2. Famous people’s names.
3. The name of the computer.
4. The names children dislike.
5. Unusual names.
6. The importance of names.
A. Your name is extremely significant. It’s how you identify yourself. It’s how other people identify you. Elton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight. Can you imagine someone famous with a name like that? He had to change it. Marilyn Monroe sounds so much more glamorous than Norma Jean Baker.
So parents make one of the most important decisions in the lives of their children - giving them a name.
B. Some people choose names because they are fashionable. Other parents do the opposite and call their children strange names, or they even invent names. People who choose strange names for their children want to show how special they are. However, the children are not always happy with their parents’ choice. David Bowie’s son found the name Zowie so embarrassing that he changed it to Joe.
C. These days it’s fashionable to give your child the name of a place that is important to you: Victoria and David Beckham decided to call their son Brooklyn because they were in New York when they discovered that Victoria was going to have a baby. Madonna named her daughter Lourdes after the town in France, the ex-US-President Bill Clinton named his daughter Chelsea after a part of London that he and his wife liked.
D. A woman, Mrs Bennet, was in hospital after the birth of her son. She was trying to decide what to call her son, when she walked past a door. It had the name ‘KING’ on it. That’s a good name, she thought. A little later, she walked past another door, and this time she saw the name ‘NOSMO’. Interesting, she thought. But she liked it, too, and so her son was named Nosmo King Bennet. It was only six months later that she discovered her terrible mistake.
E. A.L.I.C.E. is an award-winning chat robot at www.alicebot.org. She’s intelligent and funny and has won prizes for being the most human-like computer. She was created by Dr Richard S. Wallace. Six thousand people a month chat to A.L.I.C.E. Some people spend up to four and a half hours a day chatting online with her, and some have even said they prefer her to their own girlfriends.
(The text is about The 24 Hours of Le Mans, France!)
Skill, speed, and stamina are the three s’s that mark the world’s best automobile race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The race, organized by Automobile Club de L’Ouest, bridges past and present on the automotive circuit.The competition is set on a non-permanent track at Circuit de la Sarthe near the city of Le Mans on the Sarthe River. Roughly 46 cars start the race, in a series of classes that include prototype high-performance vehicles, dedicated race cars, and street cars. The diversity of autos gives the race a mix of old-fashioned and modern competitors. The winner is the car, driven by a team of three drivers, that covers the greatest distance in 24 hours.The first Le Mans contest took place in May 1923; today it is held every June. The race begins at 4 p.m., and for 24 hours the sound of roaring engines fills 8 miles (13 kilometers) of French countryside.