Text 4 Getting the message

1. Определите, что обозначают эти слова:

wire

expensive

receive

way

cheap

kind

language

few

2. Прочитайте и переведите текст:

Although the first email message was sent in 1971, electronic messages began nearly two hundred years earlier. Telegraph machines used electricity to send messages along wires from one place to another.

The first telegraph machine was built in 1774. But for the next sixty years, the machines were very large and difficult to use, and each one needed twenty-six wires - one for each letter of the alphabet. In the 1840s, an American inventor called Samuel Morse built a better kind of telegraph which only needed one wire. He also invented a special code for messages - Morse Code. Immediately, telegraphs became an important way for people to communicate. During the next twelve years, American telegraph companies put up 36,000 miles of telegraph wires to send messages all over the USA.

In the 1920s, a new kind of electronic message was invented -the telex. A telex machine could send a message to any other telex machine in the world. They did not use telephone or telegraph wires – they used telex lines. These lines were quite expensive, and the machines were not easy to use. It was not a perfect system - but it worked. Companies continued to use telex until the 1980s and many companies still have telex machines today.

In the 1980s, people began to buy personal computers. Soon, it was possible to send email messages from one PC to another, but both people had to be part of the same email system. There were several different email systems, and it was not possible to send messages from one system to another. For this reason, emails did not immediately become popular.

In the 1990s, people began to use the Internet and the Web. This made it easier to send email messages because there was only one system. Emails soon became a very popular (and very cheap) way to send messages to anywhere in the world. In the late 1990s, people started to send another kind of electronic message: they used their mobile phones to send text messages. Now they could send or receive messages in any plaсe and at any time.

Text messages use their own kind of language. Long text messages are not easy to send or read, so people find ways to make them shorter. For example, when you write a message in

English, you can write RUOK?' (Are you ОК?), or 'B4' (before). This way, you can send invitations in just a few letters and numbers: for example, 'CUL8R 4 T'. ('See you later for tea.')

3. Найдите английские эквиваленты следующих слов и словосочетаний:

хотя; общения электронной почты; появились почти; по проводам; из одного места в другое; каждому требовалось 26 проводов; изобретатель; незамедлительно; проложили; по всей территории США; довольно дорогими; несовершенная система; стало возможным; стало легче; существовала единая система; по всему миру; в любое время; сделать их короче; Вы в порядке?; приглашение.

4. Ответьте на вопросы, используя текст:

1. When was the first email message sent?

2. When did electronic messages begin?

3. What was invented in 1920s?

4. How did Samuel Morse make it easier to send messages?

5. Why did emails become popular not immediately?

6. What do we use now to send messages?

7. Why do people write words in a special short way when they send text messages?

Дата добавления: 2015-09-06