This is the second episode of my series Talk, Walk and Laugh
English, this is fun story which adds some words to your vocabulary and tells
you how to add feelings to your story by word play.
My Dog Marcus :-
Anyone who has met Marcus, my huge, handsome, lazy, stupid St Bernard(1)
Roughly, then, his idea was this : 'If I were deaf, I couldn't hear when they called me for walk and they wouldn't be able to move me, because nothing can move me. So I will pretend to be deaf'.
It was some days before we noticed that Marcus was only partly deaf, he was still able to hear anything connected with food. The course we took was not, perhaps, entirely sporting(2). Marcus had gone deaf, we would go silent. When Marcus was about(3), we would now go through the actions of speaking but would not say a word.
Marcus's first reaction was to be lazily puzzled(4). Very soon he was really worried. Had he overestimated his power and gone really deaf? The horrible part was that, for all he knew, we might be talking about food. The thought of what he might be missing was real torture to him
As we mouthed silently at one another, Marcus would stare painfully into our faces, trying, I swear, to lip-read. Also, as he was never called now for meals, I doubt if he had fourteen hours' real sleep out of the twenty-four, and he worried himself down to about three hundred pounds in weight.
We kept this up for several days. Then we decided to restore Marcus's hearing. I said in loud voice one morning, 'Come on, Marcus! Time for your walk, boy.'
An expression of beautiful relief spread over his vast face. He was not deaf at all! He bounded to his feet(5). He frisked(6) to the gate like a lively pony(7).He joyously took one of the longest walks of his career--almost half a mile.
Marcus was not troubled again with his deafness. Neither were we.
Now let's talk about points to learn :
1. St. Bernard is a breed of dogs
2. Sporting means fair/right
3. Author has written : When Marcus was about, (use of word phrase ‘was about’)
A normal person would have written : When Marcus was near about.
4. Lazily puzzled : lazily is used as adverb to the verb puzzled. (mixture of two feelings)
5. Bounded to his feet : Following someone else’s orders
6. Frisked : leap playfully (jumped in happiness)
7. Pony : a small horse/a tattu
Now I would like to discuss about the two different strategies used by the writer to enhance the reading experience.
a) The writer was giving a room to the secondary explanatory thoughts we have while conversing in the story which makes it feel like an actual narration from a speaker.
eg.
Marcus would stare painfully into our faces, trying, I swear, to lip-read.
The course we took was not, perhaps, entirely sporting.
b) The author put humanly feelings in the acts of the dog.
eg.
He joyously took one of the longest walks of his career.
Had he overestimated his power and gone really deaf?
I hope you liked the content. You can check the video version on Insta/fb/Youtube on @keshavatearth.
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