Here is an extract adapted from a one-act play. In this extract, angry neighbours who think Joe the Inventor’s new spinning machine will make them lose their jobs come to destroy Joe’s model of the machine.
You’ve just seen how contracted forms can make a written text sound like actual speech. Try to make this extract sound more like a real conversation by changing some of the verbs back into contracted forms. Then speak out the lines.
The door is flung open, and several men tramp in. They carry sticks, and one of them, HOB, has a hammerMOB : Now where is your husband, mistress?
MARY : In his bed. He is sick, and weary. You would not harm him!
HOB : We are going to smash his evil work to pieces. Where is the machine?
SECOND : On the table yonder.
MAN
HOB : Then here is the end of it!
HOB smashes the model. MARY screamsHOB : And now for your husband!
MARY : Neighbours, he is a sick man and almost a cripple. You would not hurt him!
HOB : He is planning to take away our daily bread… We will show him what we think of him and his ways!
MARY : You have broken his machine… You have done enough…
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Activity to be done by yourself.