Mark twain

          Mark twain

Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel
Langhorne Clemens, a popular American writer. He
was famous for his humorous stories, novels and other
writings. His ready wit shone through everyday
conversations. Many anecdotes related to Mark Twain
are told and enjoyed even today.
It should be noted that he was a great defender of
human values like liberty, equality and fraternity. He
opposed wars and imperialism and supported the cause
of labourers and of the black people in his country,
America. Given below are some anecdotes from his life
and some quotations from his speeches and writings.
Mark Twain
ö What was Mark
Twain’s real
name ?
ö Where else are the
 human values of
 liberty, equality and
 fraternity mentioned
 in the book ? Find
 and copy the page
 in a beautiful hand.
Some Anecdotes
One day during a lecture tour, Mark Twain entered
a local barber shop for a shave. This, Twain told the
barber, was his first visit to the town.
“You’ve chosen a good time to come,” he declared.
“Oh?” Twain replied.
“Mark Twain is going to lecture here tonight.
You’ll want to go, I suppose?”
“I guess so...”
“Have you bought your ticket yet ?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, it’s sold out, so you’ll have to stand.”
“Just my luck,” said Twain with a sigh.
“I always have to stand when that fellow lectures !”
Mrs Stowe was leaving for Florida one morning,
and Clemens (the young Mark Twain) ran over early
to say goodbye. On his return Mrs Clemens regarded
him disapprovingly:
“Why”, she said, “you haven’t on any collar and
tie.”
He said nothing, but went up to his room, did up
these items in a neat package, and sent it over to
Mrs Stowe by a servant, with a line:
‘Herewith receive a call from the rest of me.’ One day Henry Irving, in the midst of telling
Mark Twain a humorous story, abruptly stopped and
examined his friend’s face. “You haven’t heard this,
have you ?” he asked. Twain assured him that he had
not.
When, some time later, Irving again paused, and
again posed the question, Twain again reassured him.
Then, approaching the climax, Irving broke off once
more. “Are you quite sure you haven’t heard this?”
he demanded suspiciously.
“I can lie once,” Twain finally replied. “I can lie
twice for courtesy’s sake, but I draw the line there. I
can’t lie the third time at any price. I not only heard
the story, I invented it !”



Mark Twain once proposed a ‘Plan for the
Improvement of English Spelling’:
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter ‘c’
would be dropped to be replased either by ‘k’ or
‘s,’ and likewise, ‘x’ would no longer be part of
the alphabet.
The only kase in which ‘c’ would be retained
would be the ‘ch’ formation, which will be dealt
with later.
Year 2 might reform ‘w’ spelling, so that
‘which’ and ‘one’ would take the same konsonant,
wile Year 3 might well abolish ‘y’ replasing it
with ‘i’ and Iear 4 might fiks the ‘g/j’ anomali
wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue
iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless
double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing
vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist
konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi
posibl to meik ius ov thi ridandant letez ‘c,’ ‘y’
and ‘x’ — bai now jast a memori in the maindz
ov ould doderez — tu riplais ‘ch,’ ‘sh,’ and ‘th’
rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl
riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius
xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. One day during his tenure as the editor of a small
Missouri newspaper, Mark Twain received a letter
from a reader who had found a spider in his paper.
He wondered whether this portended good or bad luck.
“Finding a spider in your paper,” Twain replied,
“is neither good luck nor bad. The spider was merely
looking over our paper to see which merchant was
not advertising so that he could go to that store, spin
his web across the door, and lead a life of undisturbed
peace ever afterward.”
Mark Twain’s birth in November 1835 was
heralded by the return of Halley’s comet. Twain, who
often remarked upon this curiosity, came to think of
himself and the comet as ‘unaccountable freaks,’
cosmically linked: having come in together, he
declared, they would go out together.
In fact, Twain was proven right. On the night of
his death in April 1910, Halley’s comet once again
blazed through the sky...
• portended:
indicated,
foretold
Some Quotations
Ð April Fool’s Day - This is the day upon which
we are reminded of what we are on the other
three hundred and sixty-four.
Ð A man cannot be comfortable without his own
approval.
Ð A person with a new idea is a crank until the
idea succeeds.
Ð Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you
don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
Ð All generalizations are false, including this one.
Ð Be careful about reading health books.
You may die of a misprint.
Ð Be careless in your dress if you will,
but keep a tidy soul.
Ð ‘Classic’ - A book which people praise
and don’t read.
Ð Humour is mankind’s greatest blessing.
Ð I am an old man and have known a great many
troubles, but most of them never happened.
Ð I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it
takes me as much as a week sometimes to make
it up.
Ð If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember
anything.
Ð It is better to deserve honours and not have them
than to have them and not deserve them.
Ð It is better to keep your mouth closed and let
people think you are a fool than to open it and
remove all doubt.
Ð It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction.
Fiction has to make sense.
Ð Whenever you find yourself on the side of the
majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Ð Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve
at a funeral? It is because we are not the person
involved.
Ð Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered
- either by themselves or by others.
Ð Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is
lightning that does the work.
Ð When I was younger I could remember anything,
whether it happened or not.
Ð When your friends begin to flatter you on how
young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting
old.

Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan 9th class English workshop

Workshop- Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan 9th class English

English workshop

1. Say whether the following sentences are true or false :

(a) The most important day in Helen Keller’s life was 

when her teacher came to her.

(b) When young Helen stretched out her hand, her 

mother took it.

(c) Young Helen learnt to spell many words without 

understanding them.

(d) One day, young Helen understood that everything 

has a name.

(e) Young Helen did not try to put the pieces of the 

doll together.

(f) Young Helen felt sorry that she had broken the doll.

2. Listen carefully and classify the following into ‘one’ 

and ‘many’.

day, contrasts, teacher, lives, months, years, afternoon, 

porch, signs, face, fingers, leaves, blossoms, anger, 

bitterness, weeks, struggle, ship, darkness

one 

3. This narrative is written in the first person - using ‘I’. Rewrite the following 

sentences using ‘Helen Keller/Young Helen’ appropriately in place of ‘I’ and making 

other neccessary changes in the sentences

(a) I did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me.

(b) The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room

 and gave me a doll.

(c) On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken.

(d) Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realised what I had done, and for the first

time I felt repentance and sorrow.

4. Read the following sentences and frame at least two relevant questions on each.

(a) I was like that ship before my education began. 

 (Questions with ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’. 

 Example : Who was like that ship before her education began?)

(b) One day I was playing with the new doll.

(c) I learnt a great many new words that day.

(d) She brought my hat.

(e) We walked down the path to the well-house.

(f) That living word awakened my soul.

5. Write about your own experience. Do you remember an occasion when you did 

something successfully for the first time ? Write about it in short (10-12 lines). 

Prepare an outline of your composition before you write it.

6. Gather more information about the following :

(a) Different types of impairment that limit a person’s activity or make it difficult for

him/her to mix with others in society.

(b) How modern technology can be used to overcome these problems.

7. Complete the following sentences using your own ideas:

(a) The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which ..............

(b) I did not know what ........................ .

(c) One day, while I was playing .............................. .

(d) I realised what .................................... .

(e) I do not remember what ............................. .

7. Find three examples of the following from the passage.

(a) articles

(b) compound words

(c) present participles 

• (d) past participles

Workshop- Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan 9th class English

Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan 9th class English

Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan

(Helen Keller became ill at the age of two and was 
left blind and deaf. For the next five years she grew 
up in a world of darkness and emptiness. She was 
afraid, alone and without any anchor. This is the story 
of her meeting the teacher who would change her life.)
The most important day I remember in all my life 
is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield 
Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when 
I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the 
two lives which it connects. It was the third of March, 
1887, three months before I was seven years old.
On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on 
the porch, dumb and expectant. I guessed vaguely 
from my mother’s signs and from the hurrying to and 
fro in the house that something unusual was about to 
happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps. 
The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle 
that covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face. 
My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the 
familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come 
forth to greet the sweet Southern spring. I did not 
know what the future held of marvel or surprise for 
me. Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me 
continually for weeks and a deep languor had 
succeeded this passionate struggle.
Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when 
it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, 
and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way 
toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and 
you waited with beating heart for something to 
happen ? I was like that ship before my education 
began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbour 
was. “Light! Give me light!” was the wordless cry of 
my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that 
very hour.
I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my 
hand as I supposed it was my mother. Someone took 
it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms 
of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, 
more than all things else, to love me.
The morning after my teacher came she led me 
into her room and gave me a doll. The little blind 
children at Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura 
Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until 
afterward. When I played with it a little while, Miss 
Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word “d-o-
l-l.” I was at once interested in this finger play and 
tried to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in making 
the letters correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure 
and pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held 
up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not 
know that I was spelling a word or even that words 
existed; I was simply making my fingers go in 
monkey-like imitation. In the days that followed I 
learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great 
many words, among them pin, hat, cup, and a few 
verbs like sit, stand and walk. But my teacher had 
been with me several weeks before I understood that 
everything has a name.
One day, while I was playing with my new doll, 
Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also, 
spelled ‘d-o-l-l’ and tried to make me understand that 
‘d-o-l-l’ applied to both. Earlier in the day we had a 
tussle over the words ‘m-u-g’ and ‘w-a-t-e-r’. Miss 
Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that ‘m-u-g’ 
is mug and that ‘w-a-t-e-r’ is water, but I persisted 
in confounding the two. In despair she had dropped 
the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first 
opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated 
attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon 
the floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet. Neither 
sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst. I 
had not loved the doll. In the still, dark world in 
which I lived there was no strong sentiment or 
tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to 
one side of the hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction 
that the cause of my discomfort was removed. She 
brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into 
the warm sunshine. This thought, if a wordless 
sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and 
skip with pleasure.
We walked down the path to the well-house, 
attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with 
which it was covered. Someone was drawing water 
and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As 
the cool stream gushed over one 
hand she spelled into the other 
the word water, first slowly, then 
rapidly. I stood still, my whole 
attention fixed upon the motions 
of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a 
misty consciousness as of 
something forgotten-a thrill of 
returning thought; and somehow 
the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew 
then that ‘w-a-t-e-r’ meant the wonderful cool 
something that was flowing over my hand. That living 
word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set 
it free ! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers 
that could in time be swept away.
I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything 
had a name, and each name gave birth to a new 
thought. As we returned to the house, every object 
that I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was 
because I saw everything with the strange, new sight 
that had come to me. On entering the door I 
remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to 
the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to 
put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for 
I realised what I had done, and for the first time I 
felt repentance and sorrow. 
I learned a great many new words that day. I do 
not remember what they all were; but I do know that 
mother, father, sister, teacher were among them-words 
that were to make the world blossom for me ‘like 
Aaron’s rod, with flower.’ It would have been difficult 
to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib 
at the close of that eventful day and lived over the 
joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed 
for a new day to come.
(Helen went on to become a graduate cum laude 
from Radcliffe. She then devoted the rest of her life to 
teaching and giving hope to the blind and deaf, as her 
teacher had done. She and Anne remained friends until 
Anne’s death.)

The fun they had English workshop

The fun they had English workshop

English workshop

Answers:

1. Use the proper punctuation mark. 

(a) Where did you find it

(b) What’s it about

(c) They had a teacher

(d) How could a man be a teacher

(e) Sure, if they were the same age

2. The following sentences have an unusual meaning in 

the context of the story. Write what these sentences 

would mean today, and what they mean in the context 

of the story.

(a) She had been hoping they would take the teacher 

away altogether.

(b) They had taken Tommy’s teacher away for nearly 

a month.

(c) It wasn’t a regular teacher. It was a man.

(d) How could a man be a teacher ?

(e) A teacher has to be adjusted to fit the mind of 

each boy and girl it teaches.

3. Write words related to the following words. (At least ten words each.)

4. Discuss: How would you like to learn -

from a human teacher or a mechanical teacher ?

Present your arguments in the form of a chart.

Human teacher Mechanical teacher

Advantages Disadvantages Advantages Disadvantages

book school family

Use one minute 

to write one set 

of related words.

small

(e) “What’s it about ?”

(f) I’ve slowed it up.

(g) I don’t know.

(h) It wasn’t a regular teacher.

5. Rewrite the following using complete words instead of contracted forms.

(a) ...when you’re through.

(b) ...and it’s good for plenty more.

(c) I wouldn’t throw it away.

(d) She hadn’t seen as many telebooks.

home

6. Underline the verbs and choose the correct option from the brackets.

(a)

• Margie even wrote about it.

 (present tense/past tense)

• Today Tommy found a new book.

 (present tense/past tense)

• My father knows as much as my teacher.

 (present tense/past tense)

(b)

• Margie was scornful.

 (singular/plural)

• This is the old kind of school.

 (singular/plural)

• And the teachers were people ...

 (singular/plural)

Thus, we see that verb forms show tense, number, etc. Here, the verb form changes 

according to the subject. A verb form which is decided by and changes according 

to the subject of the sentence is known as a finite verb.

Example: ‘You are very kind.’ If the subject ‘you’ is changed to ‘she’, the sentence 

will be ‘She is very kind.’

Now change the verb form according to the change in the subject.

I don’t know : Change ‘I’ to ‘She’.

My father knows : Change ‘My father’ to ‘We’

I am following in your footsteps : Change ‘I’ to ‘He’.

7. Activity : Live English : Online shopping

(a) Read the following conversation between two cousins. 

Tejaswini : Hi, Santosh. What are you thinking about ? 

Santosh : Hi, Teju. Next week’s Didi’s birthday. 

 We want to give her a surprise gift.

Tejaswini : Great idea ! What is your surprise gift ?

Santosh : Well, we don’t have any big shops here, there’s little to choose 

 from. Nothing new or surprising.

Tejaswini : So why don’t you try online shopping?

Santosh : Is it safe ?

Tejaswini : Yes, it is. If we take proper care, it is one of the most convenient 

 ways of shopping. Plus, you will get so much variety.

Santosh : True. But I don’t know how to do it.

Tejaswini : It’s ok. I will show you. Do you have an internet connection?

Santosh : Yes.

Tejaswini : That’s good, then. We can do it in five easy steps. Let’s start.

The fun they had English workshop

English workshop

Workshop of Walk a little slower

Workshop of Walk a little slower 

Answers:

1. Read the poem aloud. 2. Put the words given in brackets in the proper blanks.

(a) The child is talking to its father . (father/ child)

(b) The father is leading and the child is following. (father/child)

(c) Someday the child will become a father
 . (father/child)

(d) The child does not wish to fall while following its father. (father/child)

2. Find and write pairs of rhyming words from the poem. (Words that appear at the 

end of the line.)

3. The meanings of the words in the following pairs show that they are related 

• Daddy/father D child • follow D lead

Find five more pairs of related words -

Examples : • teacher : • doctor : • give : 

• • • • •

4. The child in the poem requests his father to walk slower. Here, the poet implies that 

the child wants to understand his father’s actions better. The child would like to act 

the same way, but wants the father to be more understanding towards the child’s 

needs. What is implied in the following lines ?

(a) Sometimes, your steps are fast ...

(b) Sometimes your steps are hard to see ...

(c) I would want to lead just right ...

(d) And know that I was true.

5. Using your own ideas, frame three sentences that show continuous action.

Example : You are leading me.

6. Using your own ideas, frame at least three sentences that show future action or state.

Examples : • Who’ll (who will) want to follow me.

 • When I’m all grown up ...

7. Discuss the following and write the summary of your 

discussion in the form of bullet points.

(a) How are certain ideas/customs/knowledge 

 passed on from one generation to the next ?

(b) Is it necessary for children to follow the

 footsteps of their forefathers ? If yes, why ?

 Why is it sometimes necessary to change the old ways ?

8. Do you have a role model ? What qualities do you appreciate in your role model ?

9. Think of an occasion when you did not like the decision/actions of your family 

members but realised later on that they were right. Write about it in 5-8 lines.

10. Within two minutes, 

 write as many phrases 

 or sentences as you can 

 using ‘a little’.