This is a new chapter from my book: New York City Sucks but You'll Wanna Live Here Anyway
The book is written in the voice of Suzy, an immigrant to New York City who has become changed by the city to the point where she sees many negative things where others see positive things. So the tone of the book is quite sarcastic and cynical.
If you want a free copy of the latest version of the book, please drop me a line through email and I'll send you a pdf copy. I think Suzy's view of New York City is quite important to encounter.
Before you read the reading passage, please go through these vocabulary words to see whether you understand them. There is a fill-in-the-blank test after the reading passage. Please remember, it is Suzy talking from now on. :)
Definitions of important words in the chapter:
gonna – gonna
is a contraction for ‘going to’ and you can only use it with a form of ‘to be’:
I’m gonna, you’re gonna, he’s gonna, she’s gonna, we’re gonna, they’re
gonna. wanna is a contraction of want to. Its use is totally different.
For instance, you can say “I wanna go there.” Or “You wanna go there.” But you
cannot say: “He wanna go there…” After
he/she and it you need an ‘s’ – He wants to go there. You can’t use ‘wanna’
with he/she or it. We wanna and they wanna is OK. Please don’t say “he
wanna” or “she wanna” – it sounds bad, really bad.
to sue – this
means to take legal action against someone to try to get money from that
person. You hire a lawyer, pay the lawyer a lot of money that he/she does not
deserve because he or she is probably a dishonest bastard or bitch and then the
lawyer helps you try to harm another human being in a courtroom with a judge or
jury, usually by lying about the person or making the person seem like someone
he/she is not. If you sue you are trying to get the judge or jury to give you
lots of money. So if you sue a person you cannot throw that person in jail –
you can just get money from him or her.
should (say) –
remember that ‘should’ is a recommendation; 'have to' means you have no choice
whether – ‘if’
is used for conditional statements; whether is used when you are making a
choice. I don’t know whether to drink vodka or whiskey.
guy – In this
case, guy means person. I get asked whether ‘guys’ can be used with women. If
it’s a mixed group of men and women you can get away with using ‘guys’. Hey
guys, are you ready to leave? If it’s an
all-female group you might want to use ‘gals’ – are you gals ready to leave?
a buck – a
dollar. Sometimes ‘a buck’ can mean money in general. He lives to make a buck. He’ll do anything
for a buck. 5 dollars is 5 bucks. 100 dollars is 100 bucks.
scruples –
morality, morals, ethics. Morality means a sense of doing the right thing, not
something wrong. If you have scruples, you are a good person.
a weapon – not
a literal weapon, but a symbolic of figurative weapon. When I say justice is a
weapon I mean justice is not always justice in NY City or the USA, it’s often a way to hurt
people or make money.
rotten – if
you leave an apple lying around for too long, it will become rotten and you
will not want to eat it. So instead of calling NY City the Big Apple, I called
it the rotten apple since it seems as if it is not a very pure or honest place.
People often describe how they feel using the word ‘rotten’. If you are not
feeling good, you feel rotten.
to be screwed up
– to be messed up, to be ruined, not working properly, to be very very wrong;
if something is screwed up, it doesn’t work as it should. Hey my smartphone seems to be screwed up, the
time is all wrong. Things can be morally screwed up too. He should not have
been punished – that was screwed up!
to threaten
s/o – to tell someone you are going to hurt them
a law suit –
this is the paperwork that goes along with suing a person. So the lawyer types
up the argument and submits it to a court and a trial is set.
shady – not
honest, dishonest, not trustworthy; you hear this word a lot – Nixon was a
shady politician.
a whistle blower
– someone who sees something wrong and who complains about it; like someone who
sees something and blows a whistle to make a loud noise to alert other people
to what’s wrong.
evidence –
there is a difference between evidence and proof. Evidence seems to indicate
that something wrong happened. Proof shows that there is no doubt that
something bad happened.
to run a story
– when a newspaper runs a story they print a story
a scandal – a
story that causes someone a huge amount of embarrassment
to tell – to
tell can sometimes mean to determine. Is he alive? I don’t know, I can’t tell.
verifiable –
provable, if you can prove something you can verify it
to retract s/t
– to take a statement back; to remove a statement you made earlier
to prove- this
means you have demonstrated something to have happened or to be true
in violation of
the law – if you break the law, or do something against the law, you are in
violation of the law; in violation of means you did not do something you were
supposed to do
to matter – if
something doesn’t matter, it is not important
didn’t make sense
– you hear this a lot in English; if something doesn’t make sense it is
illogical or nonsensical, it doesn’t sound right and might even be impossible
to file a
complaint – we use the verb ‘to file’ with a complaint; if you think
something is wrong and want to write to the city or government about it, you
will be filing a complaint about something that is wrong
scum – scum is
a type of dirt mixed with germs; technically it is the layer of dirt that you
sometimes see floating on a small body of water. If you think someone is
disgusting because of a lack of ethics or morals, he/she is ‘scum’ or dirt.
a politician –
someone who makes money by getting elected to office and then pretending to care
about the people while he/she makes a lot of money for him/herself. The USA is
run by politicians who are supported by people with lots of money. They like
calling this system: democracy.
got left alone
– he got left aloe is an example of a way many Americans might express a
situation like this. A more formal way might be: and he was finally left alone.
Get = become
to complain about
s/t – to express your opinion that something was wrong or unfair
guilty – not
innocent; you are guilty of something if you have done something wrong
prestigious –
important, being considered exceptional and great
to shut the guy up
– to stop someone from saying something you don’t want him to say
the bastard –
if you are angry at a guy, you might call him a bastard
how dare he! –
this is an ironic statement; of course it’s wrong to attack someone innocent,
but lawyers in the USA don’t seem to care about guilt or innocence. Anyone who
pays a lawyer is innocent and the person not paying is guilty.
this shit place
– shit can be used as a type of adjective here
to be asking for
trouble – often if someone corrupt or evil attacks an innocent person, they
will say the person was ‘asking’ for trouble meaning that the person deserved
to get hurt
cockroaches –
these are disgusting little insects that are all over New York City. They are
brown and creepy and crawl around
kitchens and bathrooms, but they are not half as creepy as your common,
everyday lawyer.
to get away with
s/t – to do something wrong and not get punished for it
a judge – this
person’s job is to sit in a courtroom and determine whether people are guilty
or innocent. If the person on trial wants a jury, then the judge basically runs
the trial and the jury the tries to decide whether the person is guilty or
innocent. We need the jury system because our judges suck so badly. They are
losers who couldn’t succeed as lawyers and went begging politicians for jobs
to fail at s/t
– to not succeed at something; to set a goal and not reach it
to distinguish
yourself at s/t – to do especially well at something; to do much better at
something than anyone else
zillions –
lots and lots and lots
the world is your
oyster – this is an expression from a line by Shakespeare which means that
you are in a position to succeed tremendously. If the world is your oyster, you
will be very successful.
to suck – if
something sucks it is very bad. It is a simple intransitive verb which many
students misuse. For instance, you can’t say, “It is sucks.” You have to say,
“It sucks.” “Bill sucks.” “This food
sucks.” “K-pop sucks.”
a bum – like a
homeless person
dough re me –
dough is a slang term for money. Do re me fa so la ti do represents the musical
scale of notes. So sometimes instead of just saying ‘dough’ for money, a person
will say “do re me”.
favors – if
you do a favor for someone, you do something nice for that person
elections – a
election is when people vote to allow corrupt people to run their government
to kiss s/o’s ass
– you are very very friendly to a person because you want something from him; to do things for a person so that the
person will do things for you
to sponsor s/o
– to support someone, to help someone to do something
president,
congressman, mayor – usually people go to vote for ‘important’ offices and
then see that there seems to be a bunch of unimportant things to vote about.
Most people just choose randomly or do what their politicians want them to do.
The president leads the country, a congressman makes laws in Washington D.C.
and a mayor leads a city.
a ballot –
this is the piece of paper on which people indicate for whom they want to vote
who the hell –
if you want to show emotion or emphasis, instead of just saying “Who did that?”
you can say, “Who the hell did that?” This is informal and kind of aggressive.
a polling station
– a place where people go to vote in the USA
quid pro quo –
this for that; if I do this for you, you have to do this for me…it’s a Latin
term
immoral – not
moral, unethical, not doing what is right
greedy –
obsessed with money, someone who lives for money
incompetent –
not capable of doing your job well, not able to do a job properly
assholes – not
very nice people
jail/money –
there are two types of court systems in the USA, the criminal and the civil. If
a person is arrested by the police and goes to trial, this will be a criminal
trial; if a person is sued, this will be a civil trial
some scumbag –
scumbag is a negative term for a person; scum is dirt mixed with germs – you
usually see scum at the bottom of a river, it is very nasty and smelly
to drag s/o into
s/p – to force someone to do something or to go somewhere
compromised –
to compromise your morals means to do something you really don’t think is
right, but you do it anyway to benefit yourself. To compromise usually means
that you and a person disagree and so both of you give in a little bit and meet
in the middle.
remotely
- he ever remotely had means that he
never really cared about morals or rules or ethics but might have weakly
believed in some things – so morality was remote or far away from him
inspiring –
motivating; I’m being sarcastic here
elegant – very
lovely, beautiful
a cleaners – a
place that cleans clothing; usually you take formal, expensive clothing to a
cleaners and they do a good job of cleaning and pressing the clothing
a patch – a piece
of cloth used to cover a hole or a tear in
clothing
to go ballistic
– to become very angry; a ballistic missile is a missile that explodes and
causes a lot of damage
cases – a
court case is an individual situation that is to be judged and determined
security deposit
– when you move into an apartment in NY City, you are usually asked for a
security deposit. This is an amount of money you give to the person who is
renting the apartment and he/she will give it back when you leave if nothing
has been damaged in the apartment.
small claims –
if you are seeking a relatively small amount of money, you go to small claims
court – you are making a small claim
to file a case
– we use the term ‘file’ to mean to begin a case; when you submit the paperwork
to begin the case, you have filed a case
fishy – if
something seems fishy, it doesn’t seem right or legitimate; a fish smells so if
something smells it is not something you want to be a part of
corrupt –
dishonest, not morally reliable, predisposed to (likely to) do wrong, unethical
things
respectable –
if people admire you or feel you can be trusted you are respectable
to convey s/t to
s/b - to communicate something to somebody
on behalf of –
to do something for someone else
a janitor –
the person who cleans the floors and the toilets
to be dumbfounded
– to be so shocked that you can’t say anything
livid – very
very very angry
a continuance
– to continue a situation later
outrageous -
shocking
absurd – it
doesn’t make any sense, ridiculous
NY Post – this
is a newspaper in New York City that features the most gossip and lurid
(shocking) stories
evidence –
this is not proof…evidence just suggests that someone may have done something
wrong
to settle this
– to resolve this matter
big time –
this is a way to emphasize something: I hate him big time! He screwed up big
time! So big time means ‘a lot’.
pissed - angry
what the hell
– this is used to emphasize how you feel. So instead of saying, “What is wrong
with him?” You can say, “What the hell is wrong with him!?” “What the hell are
you doing!?” This is not very polite, but shows that you are upset.
a nut – a
crazy person. To be nuts is to be crazy.
to be hit with
punitive damages - to be hit with something means something bad has
happened to you. He was hit with a
parking ticket by the police. Punitive damages means money the judge gives you
to punish the bad guy. So if you are suing for $120 but the judge gets angry at
the other guy, you might get punitive damages of up to $5,000.
resolved –
fixed, taken care of
weird –
strange, unusual
dim sum – this
is a type of Chinese restaurant in which there are many choices of food and as
waitresses roll carts around on the floor you choose what you want from the
carts
to beat s/o –
to do better than someone or to win in a competition against someone
I’m gonna sue you!
If you become angry with someone in America, the first
thing you should say is: “I’m gonna
sue you!” It doesn’t matter whether
you are right or wrong, because even if you are wrong, you can easily find a
lawyer who will help you sue some innocent guy
if you are willing to pay him enough.
Basically lawyers will do anything for a buck in New York City and America. They don’t seem to have any scruples. Justice is a weapon like everything else in the Big Rotten Apple.
You might say, “Wait a minute, that’s really screwed up. How can you get away with
suing an innocent guy?” Well, it happens all the time, my friend. Actually, it
happens some of the time. Many times if a lawyer just threatens to sue an innocent guy it can be effective and it can
stop the innocent guy from doing something that will harm someone evil. So if
you complain about someone evil or some evil company, expect to get threatened
with a law suit. Lawyers do it all
the time. They don’t care about anything except making a buck.
For instance, my language exchange partner Bob used to
work for a shady company. He thought
there was stuff that was wrong with the shady company and he became what is
known as a whistle-blower. He
contacted a newspaper, handed his evidence
over to them and they ran a story
about this shady company. It became a big scandal.
Based on what I could tell,
everything he had said was true and verifiable.
Yet, the first thing this company did was hire lawyers who contacted him and
told him they were going to sue Bob for $100,000,000 if he did not write back
to the newspaper and retract his
story.
But Bob looked at the story and everything he said was
true to the best of his knowledge and so he couldn’t retract anything. In fact,
everything was basically proved to
be true in the story and one of the guys from the shady company even admitted
to the newspaper reporter that the company had done something in violation of the law. That didn’t
seem to matter – there were lawyers
waiting to jump in there to threaten and possibly sue an innocent guy anyway.
The lawyers obviously knew Bob was innocent, but were willing to try to destroy
his life for a few extra bucks. In the crazy letter they sent to Bob, they
seemed to even want him to retract the statement the guy from the company made
about the illegal activity. It didn’t
make sense, so Bob threatened them and filed
complaints all over the place to the government and then they finally left
him alone. Frankly Bob should have sued them but I don’t think he wanted to
waste his time on scum.
Actually, the law firm threatening Bob had connections to
some shady politicians (from what a
journalist told Bob) and so Bob wrote to these shady politicians and threatened
to go to the newspapers about them supporting a shady company. Then Bob finally
got left alone. So basically, if you
come to New York City and find anything wrong and complain about it, the evil and guilty people will sue YOU and try to make you look evil and
guilty. There are lawyers who specialize in this type of law at the greatest
and most prestigious universities in
the country. They teach this in law school.
Student: “Professor, what if a company wants me to sue an
innocent guy to try to shut the guy up
about something which is wrong?”
Professor: “Sue the bastard!
Who the hell does he think he is? This is New York City! If you are innocent
here, you are as guilty as hell! How
dare he be an honest person in this shit
place!! He’s just asking for trouble!
He deserves it!”
Welcome to America – the land of justice. There are more
lawyers than cockroaches in New York
City and the lawyers are often dirtier, smellier, and less moral than these insects. At least cockroaches don’t threaten to
sue innocent guys.
So how can these lower-than-cockroach lawyers get away with this nonsense? Judges let them (you can see a judge pictured above on this post). You see, judges in
America used to be lawyers. In fact, it looks as if you only become a judge in
America if you fail at being a lawyer.
In South Korea, for example, you only become a judge if you distinguish yourself academically and
prove you are 100% honest. In America, it’s exactly the opposite. If you become
a successful lawyer you can make zillions
of dollars and acquire enough power to threaten lots of innocent guys all over
the place. The world becomes your oyster.
If you suck as a lawyer, your mom
and dad have paid zillions of dollars to a law school or you owe lots of money
in student loans and now you are nothing but some stupid bum who can’t get a job. Your only hope at this point is to get a
job as a judge. So what do you do? How
do you do this?
Well, you go to your neighborhood shady politician. You give him an envelope filled
with dough rey me or you do favors for him. Lots of favors. You do
free legal work, threaten innocent guys, help the shady politician win elections, kiss the politician’s ass in ten zillion ways etc. Finally, after
you have kissed the politician’s ass enough, he’ll sponsor you for a position as a judge. How does this work?
Well, judges have to be elected in the USA. So you go to
vote for president or congressman or
mayor and you see a list of names for open positions for judges. You don’t
know who any of these people are. You’ll see about 25 names and the ballot will say: please choose ten of
these losers. But you don’t know who the hell any of these losers are.
But that’s OK, because your local shady politician has already given you a list
on your way to the polling station.
The list says, “Your shady neighborhood politician recommends the following ten
losers. Please vote for them and if
you ever have any problems we’ll help you too.” All of this is called ‘quid pro quo.’ So being a good
American, you do what your shady politician wants you to do and now there are
ten more stupid, immoral, shady,
ignorant, greedy, incompetent assholes deciding whether
people are going to go to jail or lose
money. So some scumbag lawyer drags an innocent guy into court and it
looks perfectly fine to the loser judge who compromised every principle he ever remotely had to get his position.
So that brings me to my story. Yes another inspiring Suzy story of how wonderful
life is in the Big Apple.
I had a female friend from China named Ruby. She had
bought a beautiful dress online at a discount for $120. It was an elegant black dress with sheer sleeves. After she had worn it to
a party she took it to a cleaners to
be professionally washed and dried. When she went to pick up the dress, she saw
that one of the sleeves had been torn. The guy who owned the cleaners told her,
however, that he would fix the sleeve. When she went back in a week, the guy
had merely put a black patch on the
sleeve. So one sleeve was completely sheer and the other had a big, ugly black
patch on it. She went ballistic.
Ruby demanded $120 from the guy, but the bastard only offered her $8. He said she had paid $8 for the
cleaning and since she wasn’t satisfied with the cleaning he would refund her money.
When I met her for coffee a couple days later she was so angry she was crying.
So I said, “Ruby….let’s sue the bastard!” She suddenly became very happy again.
You see, in the USA there are special courtrooms for cases where someone is demanding under
$5,000. This type of court is called ‘small claims’ court or ‘pro se’ court.
Pro se, in Latin, means ‘Do it yourself – DIY’.
You don’t need a shady lawyer for this court – you can show up by
yourself and sue a person. Also, it only costs $15 to file a case. So Ruby and
I went down to Chinatown in Manhattan where the pro se court is and we filed a
lawsuit against the bastard who tore her nice dress. They gave us a court date
and Ruby and I practiced answering legal questions about the dress.
So the court date arrived and we showed up. We went to
our little court room and kept looking around for the shady cleaners guy and we
couldn’t see him. However, among the other people in the courtroom was a shady
looking guy who kind of looked like a lawyer. He had a really, really nice
looking Armani suit on, but the strange thing was that he was wearing sneakers
(athletic shoes). He had on an Armani suit but also sneakers. Ruby kept saying,
“That must be his lawyer – he keeps looking at the board where our case is
listed and he has a really nice suit.” But I thought something looked fishy. It didn’t make sense to me that
he would be wearing sneakers. Lawyers don’t mix Armani suits and sneakers. The
key to being really corrupt and
shady is looking as if you are 100% respectable
and mixing sneakers with an amazing suit doesn’t convey this impression.
So the clerk called our case and we went up to his table.
He said, “Who is Ruby Ma?” Ruby introduced herself. He then said, “Where is Mr.
K?” So the guy in the Armani suit spoke up and said, “I’m here on behalf of Mr. K” So the clerk asked,
“Are you Mr. K’s attorney?” Whereupon the guy in the Armani suit said,
“Well….technically…..no….actually, I’m Mr. K’s janitor.” The clerk was dumbfounded. “Mr. K sent his janitor
here to represent him?” “Yes sir.” The clerk just stared at the janitor in the
Armani suit. I think the clerk, Ruby and I were all thinking the same thing:
“Is that really your suit? Or are you wearing some other guy’s suit which was
brought to K’s to be cleaned? Who does that Armani suit really belong to
buddy!?”
But the clerk said, “Wait a minute, you can’t represent K
here. You’re a janitor. You were not there when this happened, you were
cleaning the toilets or whatever. They are probably going to win this case. The
judge is not going to like this.” So K’s janitor said, “But Mr. K is busy. He
doesn’t have time for this.” I was livid. I said, “K doesn’t have time for
this? Well, we win. Where’s the judge? K didn’t show up, so we win.” But the
clerk said, “Wait, I think the janitor may be able to ask for a continuance on K’s behalf.” Now, Ruby
was scheduled to go back to China in one month, so we knew that if they got a
continuance she wouldn’t even be able to come to court. So I made a big deal
and kept demanding to see a judge. I kept saying things like, “This is outrageous! K has no respect for this
court proceeding! I can’t wait to email the mayor! This is absurd!
The guy doesn’t show up, he sends his janitor, and the court clerk helps the
guy! The mayor is going to hear about this! I’m writing to the NY Post!”
So finally, because we kept demanding to see the judge,
some lawyer who worked for the judge came out of his office. It turns out the
judge in a pro se court is typically a lazy bastard who doesn’t even show up
until about 1pm. We didn’t know this until we were actually leaving the
courtroom and finally saw a judge show up. The bars in New York City don’t open
until 11am, so I guess they need to make a quick trip there for alcohol first.
Apparently they try to get the clerks to resolve as much as possible before the
lazy bastard judge shows up.
So the assistant to the judge looked at Ruby’s evidence and told the janitor that he
needed to call K and K needed to settle
this with her right now. He told the janitor that he knew the judge, he
worked for the judge and that K was going to lose this case big time if a continuance was granted and
we all came back. He was kind of pissed.
He said his time was being wasted and K needed to settle. His time was being
wasted? What the hell was he doing in his little back room anyway? But I was
happy to hear him make the janitor call K. So the janitor walked away, talked
to K and came back and said, “Mr. K would like to offer zero dollars and zero
cents. He will not pay anything to her.” I thought the lawyer was going to
explode. He started yelling, “What the
hell is wrong with this nut!? He’s going to lose! I’m going to tell the
judge K’s a nut and K’s going to lose! K can be hit with punitive damages for this! What the hell kind of nut is
this guy!?”
So the janitor said, “Wait, OK, listen, K gave me $60 to
come here and represent him. I’ll give her my $60 if she’ll drop the case.”
Ruby, however, demanded $80 plus the ability to keep the dress. The janitor
didn’t have $80, though. So the lawyer yelled, “Get your ass to an ATM machine
then because I want this fucking case resolved! Get that goddamn $20 and then tell that
fucking nut K to give you another $20 plus the 60 you’ll be paying!” So the janitor ran out and got an extra $20
and we signed some papers and left.
Ruby was pretty happy. She didn’t get $120 but we got
something and we had to take it because there was no way she could appear in
court again. Getting $80 was probably the best we were ever going to do,
especially since many people who lose cases in small claims court simply refuse
to pay the winner, and there is very little the winner can do to get his/her
money. I felt kind of bad that we got the money from the janitor, but, what the
hell, we got the money and she still had the dress and was going to try to
replace the sleeves herself.
So here’s the weird
Suzy ending you’ve been waiting for – Ruby was so happy that she took me to a dim sum restaurant around the corner
from the court house and we ate $75 worth of food. Ruby treated me because she
said I had done an excellent job as her lawyer. I kind of wish she had kept the
$75, but that food was really good and it was nice to celebrate some kind of
victory for a change, even though we beat
the guy’s janitor and not the guy himself.
Grammar stuff:
How to use ‘appreciate’ properly.
Many students will say or write: I very very appreciate
you did this.
Oooops, sorry. Just use ‘really’ and you’ll be OK. I really, really appreciate that you helped
me.
Very modifies adjectives – He is very fat. She is very
smart. He is very corrupt. Use ‘really’
with a verb. He really eats a lot. I
really like her.
I really appreciate how kind you are; thank you!
Please don’t use ‘here’ as a noun
I wish I had a dollar for each time I heard this: Here is
nice.
Sorry. “Here” is not a noun and can’t be used as a
subject. It is nice here. So just throw ‘here’ to the back of the
sentence. They don’t like it here.
Fill in the blanks
scruples, rotten, shady, evidence, verifiable, to
retract, to tell, to sue, livid, incompetent, outrageous, corrupt, elegant,
inspiring, compromised
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:
rotten, inspiring, retract, compromised, elegant, scruples, tell, sue, corrupt or shady, shady or corrupt, evidence, livid,
incompetent, outrageous, verifiable,
Fill-in-the-blanks
cockroaches, to
suck, an election, quid pro quo, a scumbag, prestigious, absurd, remote,
ballistic, fishy, 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
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