That is a text I have to read at my phonetic examination…and I thought you’d like because it’s a funny one! It`s rather unususal…well, read it I you’ll understand everything))
You, wife-me, popstar
I’ve lately been contemplating the up and down life of a just “pop man”. I do not mean Elvis, Tom or Englebert, who don’t sing opera, just pop. I mean me and all the other victims of “just pop the kettle on”, “just pop unpstaris”, “just pop down to the bread shop” and the other “just pop” tricks.
“Just pop” is closely related to the “while you’re on your feet” trap and “Before you sit down” and should always be viewed with extreme caution. Wives, mothers, indeed the whole of the female species are great users of it.
I’ve been “just popping” ever since I was a lad, and my marriage has been popping along for years, with me the pop star. Here a pop, there a pop, everywhere a pop-pop.
The very words “just pop” are designed, of course, to diminish any task in the eyes or rather ears of all right-thinking people, thus making protest impossible, or at the least churlish. This is the first law of “just pop”.
The second law is tht the tone of voice accompanying the request is also pitched a semi-octave lower, a low murmur in fact, and delievered in a throw-away, depricating manner to fool the “poppee” into further complacency about the task before him. In this way he can finish no end of dreary jobs.
Errands and tasks that started out with a smile and a casual “just pop” have involved me in miles of walking, hours of toil and intold expense, of which I, the naive “poppee” had no hint.
Only the other day I was jolted to hear the words slipping easily off the lips of one small daughter. “If you’re going out, daddy, would you just pop into the libary and get me a couple of books on Paris? We’re doing a project.” The library was a mile out of my way and books on Paris in the geographical section were like needles in a haystack…
Did you get it right???
