--- title: Rumours and gossip — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Rumours and gossip», a lesson of the everyday course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A rumour is a story passed from person to person without anyone checking whether it is true. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/) [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/) / [Everyday](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/) / Rumours and gossip # Rumours and gossip Lesson 202 of the everyday course of Mova's primary school: 23 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/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/0/) — A rumour is a story passed from person to person without anyone checking whether it is true. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/2/) — Even a true piece of gossip can hurt badly: a crush, a private message, a whisper about someone in the room. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/3/) — Online, gossip spreads even faster and stays around. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/4/) — The wise habits: ask «How do you know that?», do not pass it on, check important news with a teacher or parent, and judge people by how they treat you yourself. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/5/) — Example: a rumour spreads in a school in Phoenix that a scary character is coming to school. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/6/) — Such viral scares are usually hoaxes. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/7/) — A frightened child tells an adult, who checks and reassures her. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/8/) — If you passed on something untrue, go back to the people you told, say it was not true, and say sorry to the person it was about. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/9/) — Messages change each time they are passed on, so second-hand stories are often wrong. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/10/) — Many rumours are untrue or twisted, and repeating one makes you part of the harm. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/11/) — Asking «How do you know that?» helps you test a rumour. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/12/) — Rumours about crushes can embarrass people badly and spread fast. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/14/) — Online gossip spreads fast, stays around and can really hurt someone. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/15/) — Private messages were meant for one person, and spreading them betrays trust. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/16/) — Judge people by how they treat you, not by gossip. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/17/) — People trust someone who keeps secrets more than someone who spreads gossip. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/18/) — Correcting a rumour you passed on helps undo the harm. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/19/) — Viral scary-character and «challenge» rumours are usually hoaxes, and an adult can check if there is real danger. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/20/) — Whispering and giggling about someone who is present makes them feel left out and talked about. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/21/) — A girl in Texas passed on a rumour that a classmate had stolen money; it was not true, but other children stopped sitting with the classmate for weeks, and she cried every morning before school. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/22/) — A boy in Dublin shared a made-up story about a teacher in a group chat; it spread to parents, the school had to deal with it, and the boy was suspended (sent home from school for some days). - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/23/) — A rumour can spread to hundreds of people in a day online, and the truth hardly ever catches up with it. - [24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/202-rumours-and-gossip/24/) — Being the target of rumours can make a child lonely, anxious and afraid to go to school. - ← previous: [Honest work at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/201-cheating-in-tests-and-homework/) - next →: [Jokes and teasing: when is it still funny?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/203-jokes-and-teasing/) - ↑ back to [Everyday](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/)