--- title: Olympiad: reading between the lines ★★★ — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Olympiad: reading between the lines ★★★», a lesson of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Olympiad texts pack many soft words into one passage: a house advert, a school report, a news story or a death notice, and you --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Euphemisms](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/) / Olympiad: reading between the lines ★★★ # Olympiad: reading between the lines ★★★ Lesson 42 of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school: 24 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/0/) — Olympiad texts pack many soft words into one passage: a house advert, a school report, a news story or a death notice, and you must translate every phrase before you answer. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/1/) — Read like a detective: an advert that says "compact" and "needs some TLC" is telling you small and falling apart, and a report that says "sociable" and "a work in progress" is telling you chatty and not good yet. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/2/) — Some questions ask you to put events in order, some to count, some to say how big or bad a thing really is; turn each phrase into plain words first, then solve. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/3/) — Spin goes both ways: officials make bad news sound small ("efficiency savings" for cuts), while boasters and grumblers make things sound huge ("it took forever"), so the real size is in the plain facts. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/4/) — Picture a letter home that says "Josh is a natural leader and an enthusiastic contributor": his teacher is gently telling his parents that Josh is bossy and shouts out answers. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/5/) — "Compact" in a house advert means small, and "deceptively spacious" usually means small too. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/6/) — "Needs some TLC" means a place is in bad condition and needs repairs; TLC stands for "tender loving care". - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/7/) — "Pre-loved" means second-hand, and "fun-size" means small. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/8/) — "Price adjustment" usually means the price went up. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/9/) — On a school report, "natural leader" can mean bossy and "enthusiastic contributor" can mean shouts out answers without waiting. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/10/) — "Sociable" on a report often means talks too much in class, and "has made some progress" often means very little progress. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/11/) — "Needs encouragement" on a report usually means lazy, and "emerging" means well below the expected level. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/12/) — "Efficiency savings" means budget cuts; "streamlining" and "rightsizing" mean cutting jobs. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/13/) — "Headwinds" in business means problems that hurt sales. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/15/) — "We are reviewing our options" often means nothing has been decided yet. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/16/) — "A good day to bury bad news" means a day when some bigger story will stop people noticing your bad news. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/17/) — "A long illness" in a death notice usually means cancer or another slow disease, and "slipped away" means died quietly. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/18/) — "Slipped away" can also mean left a place quietly, so the rest of the sentence tells you which meaning is meant. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/19/) — "Didn't make it" means died, usually after an accident or illness. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/20/) — "A frank exchange of views" and "a robust discussion" mean an angry argument; "strategic withdrawal" means a retreat. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/21/) — "Not our finest hour" and "a learning experience" mean a failure; "a mixed bag" means partly good and partly bad. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/22/) — "Shrinkage" is shop talk for goods lost to theft. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/23/) — "Not ideal" and "a bit of a pickle" are British understatement for something bad, and "a funny turn" can be a faint or a small stroke. - [24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/42-olympiad-reading-between-the-lines/24/) — A hyperbole number such as "a million times" or "forever" is never the number to count; the real number in the text is. - ← previous: [Olympiad: the euphemism detective ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/41-olympiad-euphemism-detective/) - ↑ back to [Euphemisms](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/)