номер 2, страница 114 - гдз по английскому языку 11 класс (spotlight) учебник Афанасьева, Дули

ICT: Across the Curriculum 6

Exercise 2, Page 114

Getting the Message Across

How do you prefer to contact distant friends? Mobile phone? Instant messenger? Email perhaps? Well, take your pick, because one thing is for sure: it's never been easier.

But how did people get messages to one another in the past? Well, they didn't have modern technology, but they certainly had creativity.

Stop That Pigeon!

Did you know that a pigeon will return to its loft no matter how far or long it is separated from its home? Or that until the 19th century, the pigeon, which can travel up to 60 miles an hour, was the fastest means of communication?

Since the ancient Greeks used pigeons to announce the winners of the Olympic Games to the Athenians, pigeons have been used throughout history to deliver news about wars, battles, and even the latest stock prices. In fact, probably the world's first regular airmail service was Mr. Howie's Pigeon Post Service, which started in New Zealand in 1896.

Later on, during World War I, one particularly heroic pigeon was even awarded a medal for delivering 12 important messages, despite being shot once.

Say It With Fire

North American Indians used smoke signals to send messages. After lighting a fire on a hill, they would cover it with a blanket and then remove it, causing a puff of smoke to rise up into the air.

They managed to change the number, size, shape, and color of the puffs, and also the time between them, in order to convey different messages, such as "attention," "all's well," or "danger." The messages could be seen from up to 50 miles away.

The Indians, however, are not the only ones to have used fires to send messages. The Greeks learned that the city of Troy had fallen in the 12th century BC by using fires to signal from mountain peak to mountain peak and from island to island until the message was carried nearly 400 miles.

For Crying Out Loud!

The ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks all used a highly efficient system involving a messenger running or riding to a station with a message and then shouting or passing it on to another waiting messenger, and so on, until the message reached its destination.

A variation on this system was a network of people shouting their message from field to field and from farm to farm. Or, how about whistling to get your message across?

On the island of La Gomera in the Canary Islands, Spain, before the arrival of roads or telephones, the islanders discovered that whistles carried much further than shouting—up to 2.5 miles, in fact. This system became so popular that it developed into a whole language. A study in 1940 identified more than 3,000 different words.