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COMMON SUPERSTITIONS

What is a superstition^? The Russian chemist Mendeleyev gave the following definition to the superstition: "A superstition is the confidence which is not based on knowledge".

Superstitions are as old as mankind is. Some superstitions came so deep into our lives that we follow them without paying much attention at the action itself. For instance, when a person is sneezing, we automati­cally say: "Bless you". But few of us ever thought why should we bless the person sneezed? Ancient people believed that when someone is snee­zing, his or her soul leaves that person for a while. So you have to bless the person on returning the soul back.

What role are superstitions playing in our lives and why a great many of them are the same in different countries? Long before different reli­gions came to different countries and divided people into various reli­gious groups all people were pagans. They worshipped nature — water, fire, plants and earth as a living entity — and the remnants of that pagan­ism are still detectable today in our countless beliefs and traditions.

Many nations believe Thai a broken mirror means bad luck for seven years. But why seven years? Once the mirror is broken, you cannot sec yourself as a whole person in it. And something very bad is going to hap­pen to you. A long time ago people thought it took seven years for the body to repair itself. That idea has much in common with a scientific one about the cells of our body. It is known that the numerous cells of the body arc renewing every seven years.

There is a common saying in many countries: "He got up on a wrong side of the bed". But which side of the bed do we consider "the wrong side" and why? It's a common superstition when people believe that a right side is good and a left side is bad. Since most people arc right-handed they felt that being left-handed was suspicious.

We all know the scope of common distrust of Friday the 13-th. Many hotels in the world dropped the idea of having Room 13 or the 13-th floor. Lots of air companies have neither aisle 13 nor scat 13. According to folk-lariats there is no written evidence for a number 13 superstition before the nineteenth century. In fiction Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since the fourteenth century's The Canterbury Tales. The earliest known documented reference in English occurred in the biography of Rossini in 1869. It was written there that many Italians regarded Friday as an unlucky day, and thirteen as an unlucky number. In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months in the year, twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve hours of the clock, Twelve Apostles of Jesus, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing that completeness. It has also been sug­gested that Friday is considered to be a bad day as Friday was the day that Jesus was crucified. Unbelievably, but all those superstitions are still part and parcel of today's scientifically advanced society.

Vocabulary Notes

to bless - благословлять

a pagan - язычник

to worship –поклоняться

a remnant - пережиток

an entity - существо

to be detectable – быть обнаруженным

an aisle - проход

to be left-handed – быть левшой

to transgress the completeness- переходить за пределы

a written evidence- письменное доказательство

to sneeze- чихать

to drop the idea- подать идею

What is the main idea of the text and the key points of the passages?

4. Write down all the words referring to such issues as:

a) common superstitions, b) scientifically advanced society, c) worshipped nature.

Read out the sentences they are used in and translate them into Russian.

Look back at the text, find out and write down the answers to the following questions.

- Where did most common superstitions come from?

-What do we usually say when a person is sneezing? What is origin of that saying?

- What superstition is connected with a broken mirror?

- What is considered "a wrong side of the bed"?

- What is the explanation of the Friday the 13-th superstition'.'

6. Give Russian equivalents to the following words and expressions:

to pay attention to, to bless the person, a living entity, cells of the body, written evidence for.

Fill in the chart with family words. Translate them into Russian.

Noun	Verb	Adjective	Adverb
	differ
science
		new
	detect
		unbelievable
person
	vary

8. Translate the passages of the text in written form beginning from “ We all know ” up to “ advanced society ”.

Write a short summary of the text of no more than 250 words using the guidelines on page6.

 

Text 3. BUSINESS BEHAVIOUR

1. Answer these questions:

- How do you understand the term "business behavior"?

- Is business behavior the same in different countries?

- What should we study the patterns of business behavior for?