Text 7 Mr. Sellyer selling books

One day I went to a bookshop to look through new books. Mr. Sellyer showed me to the back of the shop where I could find some interesting books. While I was looking through the books, I could watch Mr. Sellyer at work and see some of his methods. A fashionably dressed woman was standing at the counter and Mr. Sellyer was showing a book to her. “You are quite sure it’s the latest?” the lady was saying to Mr. Sellyer. “Oh, yes,” answered the manager. “This is Mr. Slush’s latest book. It’s having a wonderful sale.” I looked at the title, the name of the book was Golden Dreams. Another lady entered the bookshop. She was in deep mourning and looked like a widow. She asked the manager to show her some new books. “Something new in fiction?” repeated the manager. “Yes, Madam, here’s a charming thing Golden Dreams. The critics say that it’s one of the sweetest things written by this author. It’s a love story – very simple and sweet and wonderfully charming. My wife was reading it aloud only last night. She was crying all the time while she was reading it”. The lady bought Golden Dreams and left the shop. So every customer who entered the shop went away with Golden Dreams. To one lady the manager sold Golden Dreams as the reading for a holiday, to another as the book to read after holiday, another bought it to read on a rainy day and the fourth as the right book for a fine day. When I was leaving the bookshop, I went up to the manager and asked him, “Do you like the book yourself?” “Dear me!”, said the manager. “I’ve no idea of the book. I’ve no time to read every book I’m selling.” “And did your wife really like the book?” “I am not married, Sir”, answered the manager smiling.

While I was looking through the books, I could watch Mr Sallyer at work, and see some of his methods. (this utterance represents a combined tune consisting of 3 adjacent intonation groups, the first 2 of which are in the subordinative relations, which means that the subordinate part is semantically and grammatically incomplete without the continuation. This is an example of preposed subordination, which presoposes that we should use the Low Rising tone to show that there is a continuation which follows. The speaker’s attitude is neutral, as it’s just a straightforward statement.)

Dear me! I’ve no idea of the book! (these utterances are emotionally colored and the speaker’s attitude is rather energetic and enthusiastic, that’s why the High emphatic falling tone combined with the Irregular Prehead is suitable in this case to show this expressiveness. In the last utterance there’s also the nuclear tone shift, where the nucleus is departed from the last notional word in the phrase to the previous part of it – from book to idea.)

Book-shop – a composite word, which consists of two routs, the first of which is stressed as the whole phrase introduces the new idea.

Went up - it’s so called ‘false’composite word, because it’s actually a phrasal verb. In English such examples are pronounced with two primary stresses. Besides, in speech one of the stresses may be lost due to the rhythmic structure of the phrase. So here the first word, the verb takes the full stress as it’s the first notional word in the utterance.