Unit 3

Three Sundays in a Week

What do you think of the title of the story?

Questions

Why did Kate and the writer invite Kate’s two sailor friends come to their home?

Did Captain Smitherton circled the Cape of Good Hope twice?

Do you believe that sometimes three Sundays do come together in a week?

Are you as well as the old man tricked by their explanation?

Elements of a Narration

Time

On a Sunday afternoon Place

At writer’s uncle’s home Figures

Figures

Robert Kate Uncle Rumgudgeon Captain Pratt – who went round the world

westward around Cape Horn Captain Smitherton – who went eastward

around the Cape of Good Hope.

Structure Part I: to plan the scheme

Part II: to steer the conversation

Part III: to argue about the subject of Sunday

Part IV: Uncle to be convinced and purpose to be fulfilled

With their help, Kate and I tried to gain our point indirectly.

What does the sentence mean?

The phrase “to gain our point indirectly” means “to get what we aimed at in a roundabout way.” Here the sentence means that they try to talk Uncle into believing that three Sundays could occur in a week.

… after a half hour or so of idle talk, we began to steer the conversation.

What does the sentence mean?

… after about half an hour of casual chatting, we began to make the conversation follow the course as we had planned.

to steer the conversation

Teachers try to steer pupils away from drugs. Helen tried to steer the conversation away from

herself.

Jo tried to steer clear of political issues. You'd better steer clear of being associated with such

people.

to bid my friends goodbye

bid somebody good afternoon/good morning The queen bade us enter.

By the way — it does seem a coincidence, really, doesn't it?

‘I’m going to Beijing tomorrow.’

‘What a coincidence! I'm going there too.’

After the fourth attack on her car she was convinced that the vandalism was more than just coincidence.

— that makes a difference, you know.

Whatever she did, it made no difference. Morning or afternoon. It makes no difference

to me.

One more person wouldn't make any difference to the arrangements.

Having a good teacher has made all the difference for Alex.

Cape Horn & the Cape of Good Hope Cape Horn --- This is the cape at the

southernmost point of South America.

the Cape of Good Hope --- This is the cape at the southwestern tip of Africa on the Atlantic.

Cape Horn

… my uncle roared, purple with anger.

Purple is a dark color which is a blend of red and blue. Usually when a person is extremely angry, his face will turn purple. Here it shows that the writer’s uncle was so angry and agitated that his face turned deep crimson.

He really saw red when I told him that I wouldn’t be coming to work today.

The theatre is in the red. The police caught the thief red-handed. The accountant was shown the red card for

hiding company money. When my cousin came to visit us we decided to

go out and paint the town red. When Nelson Mandela visited Washington, they

rolled out the red carpet and gave him a great welcome.

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is roughly the shape of a triangle and it is said to have sucked planes and boats into its dark and murky waters. Popular culture has attributed these disappearances to the paranormal or activity by extraterrestrial beings.

where more than a hundred planes and ships have literally vanished into thin air

She seemed to have just vanished into thin air. (=suddenly disappeared in a very mysterious way)

fly to the winds; vanish without a trace

Dictation

Strange things happen to time when you travel, because the earth is divided into twenty-four time zones, one hour apart for every two zones. You can have two days with more or fewer than twenty-four hours, and weeks with more or fewer than seven days. If you make a five-day trip across the Atlantic Ocean, your ship enters a different time zone every day. As you enter each zone, the time changes one hour. Traveling west, you set your clock back; traveling east, you set it forward. Each day of your trip has either twenty-five or twenty-three hours. If you travel by ship across the Pacific, you cross the International Date Line. By agreement, this is the point where a new day begins. When you cross the line, you change your calendar one full day, backward or forward. Traveling east, today becomes yesterday; traveling west, it becomes tomorrow.