CAMBRIDGE
ENGLISH VOCABULARY IN USE ADVANCED
UNIT 75
A pat on the back: complimenting and praising
A
|
Collocations with compliment and
praise
The boss would get better results if
she paid her staff compliments occasionally.
He asked us what we thought of his
suit, but he was really only fishing for compliments.
Take it as a compliment that he feels relaxed enough to fall asleep at your dinner
party!
A back-handed compliment and a
double-edged compliment are ones that appear to be both positive and
negative. Back-handed compliments tend to have a malicious intent, whereas
double edged ones are usually made innocently.
I took it as a back-handed
compliment when he said I was looking good for my age.
She paid me the double-edged
compliment of saying my driving was pretty good for a beginner.
The phrase give praise to is
usually used only (though not exclusively) for a god. An action or person
that deserves praise is praiseworthy and people are praised for their
actions.
Other common collocations are widely/
highly praised, praised to the skies, to sing someone’s/something’s
praises, to shower/ heap praise on someone/something.
To damn someone with faint praise is to praise with such a lack of
enthusiasm that you give the impression of actually having rather negative
feelings.
Common mistakes
The verb to compliment is
followed by on:
He complimented me on my guitar
playing
(NOT
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
B
|
Other
expressions relating to praising
These
mostly informal expressions imply praising someone for your own benefit: to
flatter, to make up to, to crawl, to suck up to,
to lick someone’s boots. Someone who behaves like this can be called smarmy,
slimy or a crawler (all informal), a flatterer (neutral)
or servile, obsequious (more formal).
Flatter
can also be used more positively.
That dress flatters her figure. [makes her figure look better than it
really is]
The
noun flattery is often used in the phrase Flattery will get you
nowhere! [insincere praise will not achieve anything]
|
EXERCISES
75.1
|
Look
at A opposite and fill the gaps in these sentences with one word.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
75.2
|
Look
at the table in B opposite. Match the beginning of each sentence with its
ending.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
75.3
|
Look
at the words below the table in B. Write each of the following sentences in
four different ways. Indicate which of your sentences are particularly formal
or informal.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
75.4
|
Complete
this word formation table. Do not fill the shaded boxes. Give two answers for
some of the words. Use a dictionary if necessary.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
75.5
|
Choose
one of the words from the table in 75.4 to complete these sentences.
|
ANSWER KEY
75.1
1
fish
2 singing 3 paying 4 to 5 take, as 6 shower / heap 7 widely / highly 8 damning
75.2
1
d 2 a 3 e 4 f 5 b 6 c
75.3
Suggested
answers:
1 He’s always flattering the boss. (neutral) He’s always licking the boss’s boots. (informal) He’s always making up to the boss. (informal) He’s always crawling to the boss. (informal) 2 I wish she wasn’t so slimy. (informal) I wish she wasn’t such a crawler. (informal) I wish she wasn’t so servile. (formal) I wish she wasn’t so obsequious. (formal)
75.4
75.5
1
complimentary
2 flatterer 3 crawl 4 laudable / praiseworthy (laudable is a little more formal) 5 Flattery 6 laud / praise (laud is a little more formal) |
No comments:
Post a Comment
thank you for visiting my blog and for your nice comments