Questões Militares Comentadas sobre inglês para espcex

Chinese Woman Opens Plane’s Emergency Exit for Some Fresh Air

     A flight was delayed for an hour and a woman detained by police after she opened the emergency exit for “a breath of fresh air” before the flight took off in central China’s Hubei province, mainland media reported. The incident happened on Xiamen Air Flight MF8215 from Wuhan to Lanzhou, which was scheduled to take off at 3.45 p.m. on September 23.

    Cabin crew had briefed the woman, who was in her 50s, about the rules when sitting next to the emergency exit and reminded her not to touch the button that opened the emergency exit. However, the woman said she needed some fresh air and touched the button to open the exit when the stewardess turned around to help others, the report said. The woman was taken away and the flight was delayed for an hour. Opening the emergency exit can be considered to be disturbing public order in an aircraft, which is punishable by police detention and a fine.

    In July last year, a woman who was flying for the first time mistook the emergency door for a lavatory door before her plane took off in Nanjing. The emergency slide was released and the flight was delayed for two hours. The woman was detained for 10 days. Some passengers have paid a heavy price for releasing the emergency slide, which may take days and considerable expense to repair and reinstall. In January 2015, a man who opened an emergency door after a plane landed in Chongqing had to pay 35,000 yuan (150,000 baht) in compensation to the airline.

    In June, a man from Hubei who was returning to China from Bangkok on a Thai Lion Air Flight opened an emergency exit before take-off. After apologising repeatedly, according to witnesses, he was held by Thai authorities for one day and given a fine of 500 baht before being deported.

Adapted from https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1762629/chinese-woman-opens-planes-emergency-exit-for-somefresh-air

Lockdown Named 2020’s Word of the Year by Collins Dictionary

    Lockdown, the noun that has come to define so many lives across the world in 2020, has been named word of the year by Collins Dictionary. Lockdown is defined by Collins as “the imposition of stringent restrictions on travel, social interaction, and access to public spaces”. The 4.5-billion-word Collins Corpus, which contains written material from websites, books and newspapers, as well as spoken material from radio, television and conversations, registered a 6,000% increase in ______(1) usage. In 2019, there were 4,000 recorded instances of lockdown being used. In 2020, this had risen to more than a quarter of a million.

    “Language is a reflection of the world around us and 2020 has been dominated by the global pandemic,” says Collins language content consultant Helen Newstead. “We have chosen lockdown as _______(2) word of the year because it encapsulates the shared experience of billions of people who have had to restrict _______(3) daily lives in order to contain the virus. Lockdown has affected the way we work, study, shop, and socialise. It is not a word of the year to celebrate, but it is, perhaps, one that sums up the year for most of the world.”

    Other pandemic-related words such as coronavirus, social distancing and key worker were on the dictionary’s list of the top 10 words. However, the coronavirus crisis didn’t completely dominate this year’s vocabulary: words like “Megxit,” a term to describe Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepping back as senior members of the royal family, also made the shortlist along with “TikToker” (a person who regularly shares or appears in videos on TikTok), and “BLM.” The abbreviation BLM, for Black Lives Matter is defined by Collins as “a movement that campaigns against racially motivated violence and oppression”, it registered a 581% increase in usage.

Adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/10/lockdown-named-word-of-the-year-by-collins-dictionary

Native English speakers are the world’s worst communicators

    It was just one word in one email, but it caused huge financial losses for a multinational company. The message, written in English, was sent by a native speaker to a colleague for whom English was a second language. Unsure of the word, the recipient found two contradictory meanings in his dictionary. He acted on the wrong one.

    Months later, senior management investigated why the project had failed, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. “It all traced back to this one word,” says Chia Suan Chong, a UK-based communications skills and intercultural trainer, who didn’t reveal the tricky word because it is highly industry-specific and possibly identifiable. “Things spiralled out of control because both parties were thinking the opposite.”  

    When such misunderstandings happen, it’s usually the native speakers who are to blame. Ironically, they are worse at delivering their message than people who speak English as a second or third language, according to Chong. “A lot of native speakers are happy that English has become the world’s global language. They feel they don’t have to spend time learning another language.”

    The non-native speakers, it turns out, speak more purposefully and carefully, trying to communicate efficiently with limited, simple language, typical of someone speaking a second or third language. Anglophones, on the other hand, often talk too fast for others to follow, and use jokes, slang, abbreviations and references specific to their own culture, says Chong. “The native English speaker is the only one who might not feel the need to adapt to the others,” she adds.

Adapted from http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20161028-native-english-speakers-are-the-worlds-worst-communicators