Page 152 - 182_

The Englishman thinks it is ill-mannered to ask personal
questions. The American doesn’t feel it at all. The Englishman prizes
privacy, the American prefers sociability. With this sociability goes
overwhel-ming hospitality. You get taken to parties at the houses of
your friends; you are invited to theatres, dinners, sports meetings,
motor trips; they all show the keenest interest in your affairs, but by
the following week they have forgotten all about you.

***

Text 3

ENGLISH COMPROMISE
1
By Yatel G

Courtesy, kindness, obligingness, tolerance, moderation, self-
control, fair play, a cheerful temper, pleasant manners, calmness,
stoicism, an extremely high degree of social civilization - these were
the adorable things I discovered in the English when I first arrived in
English. Gradually, however, I became aware of subtler
characteristics and currents, not so adorable.
Compromise. It is in their blood. It is the law of their organism.
I won't go into origins, which are probably geographical, and
physical; what concerns me here is that it is so. The English
compromise in every domain, as naturally, inevitably, and
unconsciously as the human lungs breathe air. Their constitution,
their legal, social, industrial, economic systems are compromises. As
a foreigner, these compromises do not effect me practically. It is the
English who have to suffer from them not I. But when it comes to
psychological and linguistic manifestations, I have a say in the
matter, for I run up against them constantly in daily life, and they do
not breed admiration or amity.
Because compromise is his fundamental cerebral process, the
Englishman will not make up his mind at once on any question. He
funks it. He'll patch it up, he'll snip bits out of it and stick bits on to it;
he'll darn it and repair it and freshman it up; but he won't thrash it out,

1
Текст друкується за виданням Yatel G. Senior English for Technical
Students. - К: Вища школа, 1995, с. 192-194.

158