Can you get these 12 useful, common words?

   

Fill-in-the-blanks

cockroaches, to suck, an election, quid pro quo, a scumbag, prestigious, absurd, remote, ballistic, fishy, to sponsor, moral

Joe told me about a plan he had to make a lot of money for both of us, but the plan seemed _____________ to me and I rejected it.

Mary had a dilemma: she could go to a pretty good school on a full scholarship or a ____________ school but only by taking out a lot of loans.

I tend to avoid going to see Hollywood films and I go to see films from around the world. Yes, Hollywood films are generally bad so I would say that they ___________.

One of the first problems you might experience in a New York City apartment is ________________. These ugly and annoying bugs seem to be everywhere.

There are many talented foreigners who come to the USA who hope to find permanent jobs here. They need to find employers who will ________________ them for green cards, however, and not many companies want to support immigrant workers  to this expensive level.

When Bill told his father that he had crashed his dad’s car into a tree, Bill expected his father to go _________________. Instead, his dad began crying.

Roger was a very handsome guy and women were always flirting with him. He was very ______________ however, and felt it would be wrong to cheat on his wife.

I expected this lawyer to help me, but he turned out to be a _________________. He was  totally unethical and was charging me for work he never did and then he threatened to sue me when I complained!

Many Americans look forward to the next presidential ______________ which will be held in 2016. They are hoping for fresh ideas and new vision.

After 15 years in New York City I really began to hate this place. I started to think of living in a ____________ area far from any cities.

Life seems dominated by _________________ relationships. People are always offering to help you so that you will have to help them later. Or they will help you only if you promise to help them later.

Matt seemed kind of nuts. He claimed to be a police officer and a spy, but I found his stories to be ________________.

Answers:

fishy, 

prestigious, 

suck, 

cockroaches, 

sponsor, 

ballistic, 

moral, 

scumbag, 

election,  

remote, 

quid pro quo, 

absurd

Can you get these 15 often-used English words?

This is the type of vocabulary exercise in my book: New York City Sucks, But You'll Still Wanna Come Here!  Please buy my book, it's pretty good!

http://www.amazon.com/York-Sucks-Youll-Wanna-Anyway-ebook/dp/B004TSPAQS

Words to choose from:

scruples, rotten, shady, evidence, verifiable, to retract, to tell, to sue, livid, incompetent, outrageous, corrupt, elegant, inspiring, compromised

Fill-in-the-blanks: 

The MTA subway system is so bad. It is crowded and expensive and unreliable. I wake up in the morning feeling pretty good, but after riding the subway I feel _____________.

It is hard to find political leaders who are so honest and so kind and have such a great vision that they are _______________. Instead, I often feel depressed looking at the leaders around me.

The journalist was sure what he had written was true, but then he learned he was wrong and he had to _____________ his article.

I wanted to use our savings for several great vacations. My wife wanted to buy a house. So we ________________ and decided to put some money down for the house and to save some for travel.

I didn’t have much money but I really needed at least one ____________ dress that I could wear to art gallery openings and formal parties.

I may not be handsome, I may not have money, but nobody can honestly say that I don’t have ______________: I really care about doing the right thing and acting with morality.

Which street is this?  I didn’t wear my glasses today and I can’t __________ where we are.

Joe was in a terrible car accident. It was the other guy’s fault and so Joe decided to ____________ him. He won $50,000 in court.

Although this politician has a very good reputation, in reality she is very _____________. The newspapers will not write the truth about her, for some reason.

Initially he seemed like a very honest businessman, but as his accountant I began to see that he was doing many illegal things and I realized how ____________ he was.

The _____________ seemed to indicate that Bill had killed his roommate’s dog because the stupid thing wouldn’t stop barking. There was no real proof, however.

When Debbie learned that Bruce was cheating on her, she became ______________ and demanded that they break up.

Most people who work for the State of New York are ______________. They don’t know what they are doing and can’t do their jobs but get these jobs for political favors they have done for shady politicians.

When I went to get my driver’s license, the conditions at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) were _______________. The employees were lazy and stupid and I had to wait 7 hours.

I felt that his theory was really good but I didn’t think it was _______________; therefore we may never know the truth.

Answers are below:

Answers:

rotten, 

inspiring, 

retract, 

compromised, 

elegant,  

scruples, 

tell, 

sue, 

corrupt or shady,  

shady or corrupt, 

evidence, 

livid, 

incompetent, 

outrageous, 

verifiable

The perfect penis size?

Esquire has reported that researchers have used 3-D printing technology to provide sample penises to women to determine what the 'perfect' male penis might look like. Actually, the researchers are interested in the length and width that women seem to prefer.

So I guess if this study has any value, the value would be in debunking (disproving) that women like huge penises. Of course, this makes sense since a huge penis will, obviously, hurt the woman during sex.  Women like 'average' size penises, which, again, seems to make sense since an average size penis evolved to coincide with what might work most effectively in conjunction with your normal, everyday vagina.

Here's the Esquire story:

http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/sex/a37712/heres-what-the-perfect-penis-looks-like-according-to-women/

Vocabulary from the article:

a phallus - another term for the male sex organ (penis)

to ascertain - to find out

to chill - to relax

an anaconda - a very large snake

a stack - a collection of something piled one on top of the other

peer-reviewed - fellow scientists read and comment on the article before it is published. If an article is peer-reviewed, it has the support of a number of scientists before it is published.

enormous - huge

erect - hard

disembodied - the penises were not connected to any men

dongs - slang for penises

skin color cues - apparently the fake penises were blue so that there would be no racial prejudice involved in selecting the best penis

a one-night-stand - having sex one time with someone and never seeing the person again

the character of the penis-haver - the author means that the personality of the guy having sex with the woman is more important than the size of the penis

Homelessness in New York City is getting ridiculous - 50,000 +

{{{Scott Stringer is a politician who wants to be mayor - leader of NY City - and he wrote to a NY newspaper about homelessness in NY City}}}

America never had a homeless problem until President Ronald Reagan decided to support businesses in America and cut services to the poor (in the 1980s).

Now we have over 50,000 homeless people living in city shelters in NY City - the 'greatest' city in the world and one of the 'wealthiest' cities in the world.

Scott Stringer is a politician in New York City who wants to become mayor (the leader of the city). He wrote this letter to the Daily News to attack the current mayor and to try to show that he can help end the homeless problem in NY City.

Here's an article about this (Stringer's letter to the newspaper - Stringer is currently the NY City Comptroller...it is his job to make sure money is spent properly in NY City):

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/scott-stringer-hands-deck-homelessness-article-1.2349456

Vocabulary to help you understand the article:

all hands on deck - this is a term from the Navy meaning - we have a crisis, everyone needs to get involved!

sustained economic recovery - a recovery which is lasting; yet, how can you have a recovery and 50,000 homeless people at the same time? Whom is the 'recovery' benefiting?

a shelter - a building owned by the government where homeless people can sleep safely (although it's not always safe in government shelters)

head to their school - go to their schools

with one hand tied behind their backs - meaning they will have some difficulties learning because they are experiencing trouble in regard to housing

to blame someone - to say that someone has done something wrong

catastrophe - a horrible situation

slashed funding - cut funding, reduced funding

balked - showed hesitation 

a rental assistance program - giving money to people to pay their rent

a unforeseeable emergency - the people who run the city are acting as if they had no idea this problem was happening

the blame game - I didn't do this - you did this!  What? Me? No way - you did this!

soared - increased

ample - enough

eviction - to be thrown out of your home because you can't pay rent

root causes - what is really causing homelessness

ad hoc - temporary

piecemeal - not thorough, an approach that just does a little here and a little there

lax oversight and quality control - nobody is making sure people are safe and nobody seems to be in charge or in control of the quality

rat-infested hovels - really dirty places that have rats (they are like mice but bigger - dirty little animals with long tails)

to be off the table - to be out of consideration

facilitating - making easier

foreclosure - when a bank takes away a house because a person couldn't pay a monthly fee for it

leverage assets - use assets

boosting - increasing

an audit - an investigation

a spectrum - a range of things

vacant - empty

1/3 of US children live in poverty

Poverty is the condition of not having enough money to live up to decent or acceptable standards. It's hard to define exactly how much money a person needs in order not to be in poverty, but UNICEF has created a standard by which to judge whether people in a country are living in poverty or not.

According to the UNICEF standard, 1/3 of US children live in poverty. The US is 36th out of 41 'developed' countries that were tested.

I think this is because the US government is good at providing free services, free food, free housing, free medical care etc., but it is not good at helping people to help themselves. The Democrats get people to vote for them by giving out free things and the Republicans just want to take free things away from people. There is no middle ground of useful answers in the USA - it's all politics.

This article is from last year, but it is worth reading:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/29/child-poverty-in-the-u-s-is-among-the-worst-in-the-developed-world/

Vocabulary from the article:

the developed world - I am not sure how they determine 'developed' versus 'undeveloped' countries, but developed countries would be countries with a strong business sector, I am guessing.

The US ranks near the bottom - to rank a series of things is to place them from first to last

the pack - the group, in this case

Let that sink in - basically the writer is saying this is so shocking you should think about it and absorb this or understand this deeply

pegs - establishes

more alarmingly - an alarm goes off when something is wrong, so more alarmingly means the writer is pointing out something even worse than he pointed out before

benchmarking - establishing; so the writer points out its really difficult to establish an amount of money under which a person can be considered to live in poverty.

former, latter - the latter is the last thing mentioned, the former is the thing mentioned before the latter thing

vulnerable - those who can be hurt easily

A robotic Abe bows in apology for Japanese war crimes (at a Shanghai robotics show)

So why did Germany apologize after World War II and work so hard to show that it was truly contrite (sorry, regretful) for all of the horrible things it had done during the 1930s and 1940s?

My guess is that during the domination (extreme control) of the Nazi government in Germany (from 1933 to 1945) there were many Germans who still opposed (were against) Hitler and even secretly fought against him and his government.  When World War II ended, some of these Germans took control of the German government. Since they had never been 'real' Nazis themselves, it was easy for them to say that Germany had done horrible things and to openly apologize and admit to all the war crimes and crimes against humanity of those years.

I am not sure there was much of a resistance in Japan during World War II (resistance would mean an organized movement of people against the government). Also, the Emperor was allowed to remain in office after the war. I am assuming that the Japanese who took control of the Japanese government after WWII had supported the war and the policies that occurred under Hirohito's reign. The worst Japanese war criminals were executed by the US military (killed by the military) but the people who took office in Japan had probably supported the war and the war-time government. 

I think this helps to explain why Germany went out of its way to admit the truth about WWII and apologize for starting it. China and Korea are still upset with Japan to this day for, as they see it, not following suit (not doing the same thing as Germany). 

This lingering (lasting) anger toward Japan can be seen at a robotics show in Shanghai, where someone has created a robot of Japanese Prime Minister Abe bowing to apologize for what Japan did during WWII. 

The article:

https://www.hongkongfp.com/2015/07/15/robot-of-japanese-pm-bows-in-apology-to-china-at-shanghai-exhibition/

Vocabulary from the article:

to bow - this means to bend one's body forward from the waist as a sign of respect or sorrow or regret

atrocities - war crimes, horrible things done by soldiers in a war

a stiff smile - an unmoving smile, a tense smile, a smile that doesn't change

presumed - guessed, assumed

to ridicule someone - to make fun of someone, to make it seem as if someone is foolish

China is set to - China is ready to

to mark - to remember

However, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said a press conference on Monday Abe has not received such an invitation. correction: However, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said in a press conference on Monday that Abe has not received such an invitation.

Zimbabwe wants to put Cecil's killer on trial

An American dentist went to Zimbabwe, in Africa, and killed a lion which had become famous throughout the world. This dentist, apparently, enjoys hunting large animals around the world.

Zimbabwe is now seeking to extradite him. This means that they want the United States to send him back to Zimbabwe to be put on trial. A trial is a legal process in which a person is determined to be guilty or innocent of a crime.

Apparently it was illegal to hunt this lion, and the American dentist 'lured' the lion outside of a park where it was protected by the law in order to kill it. "To lure" someone or something means to attract it or draw it from one place to another.

The dentist thought that by luring the lion outside of the park and onto another person's land, he could legally kill it. This was not the case.

Here is a story about this from CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/31/world/zimbabwe-cecil-lion-dentist/

Vocabulary from the article:  

outrage - extreme anger

to extradite - this is when a person is wanted for a crime in a country where he is no longer located and his home country is asked to send him to trial in the country where the crime may have happened

prized - valued

a well-orchestrated agenda - a well-designed and organized plan

to tarnish an image - to make an image look worse; a silver spoon can become tarnished if it is not taken care of - it turns a brownish color

to strain a relationship - to add stress or difficulties to a relationship

a guide - someone who assists a hunter to find wild animals

to be accused of something - this is when the police officially blame someone for doing something illegal

using a crossbow - this is a type of bow and arrow: they did not want to use a gun or they would have been caught illegally hunting.

a lion quota - if there are too many lions in a park, hunters may be allowed to enter the park and kill lions until the proper number is reached

poaching - illegal hunting; apparently the landowner helped lure the lion onto his property, where the dentist shot it

to condemn an action - to strongly say it is wrong

a conservationist - someone who wants to protect wild animals

sustainable utilization of natural resources - making sure that natural resources do not run out or 
are destroyed completely

to ensure a legal hunt - to make sure of a legal hunt

collared - scientists had placed an electronic collar on the lion to study where it traveled

allegedly - supposedly, apparently

to be lured - to be attracted by something so that someone or some animal moves to a place others want it to go to

the uproar - the noise created by an angry public

a petition - a document demanding something from the government which can be signed by numerous people

to be tried - to be put on trial, a process in a courtroom to determine a person's guilt or innocence

Feds mum - this means the federal government is mum on this issue - they are silent on this issue

a hunting quota - a number of animals which can be killed

a boost - an increase

in the wake of - following