IV - MOVIE SPEECH Any given sunday

Any Given Sunday

I don't know what to say really. Three minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives all comes down to today. Either we heal as a team or we are going to crumble. Inch by inch play by play ‘till we're finished. We are in hell right now, gentlemen believe me and we can stay here and get the shit kicked out of us or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb out of hell. One inch, at a time. Now I can't do it for you. I'm too old. I look around and I see these young faces and I think I mean I made every wrong choice a middle age man could make. I uh....

I pissed away all my money believe it or not. I chased off anyone who has ever loved me. And lately, I can't even stand the face I see in the mirror. You know when you get old in life things get taken from you. That's, that's part of life. But, you only learn that when you start losing stuff. You find out that life is just a game of inches. So is football. Because in either game life or football the margin for error is so small. I mean one half step too late or to early you don't quite make it. One half second too slow or too fast and you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. 

They are in ever break of the game every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch on this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our finger nails for that inch. Cause we know when we add up all those inches that's going to make the fucking difference between winning and losing between living and dying. I'll tell you this in any fight it is the guy who is willing to die who is going to win that inch. And I know if I am going to have any life anymore it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch because that is what LIVING is. The six inches in front of your face.

Now I can't make you do it. You gotta look at the guy next to you. Look into his eyes. Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch with you. You are going to see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team because he knows when it comes down to it, you are gonna do the same thing for him. That's a team, gentlemen and either we heal now, as a team, or we will die as individuals. That's football guys. That's all it is. Now, whattaya gonna do?

XXIV - GRAMMAR Adverbs: degrees of comparison

ADVERBS: DEGREES OF COMPARISON

Adverbs are often used to make the meaning of a verb or other adverb stronger or weaker. This is known as ‘degrees of comparison’.

Understanding degrees of comparison

There are three degrees of comparison:

• The positive degree is the simple form of the adverb: eg slowly, early (‘He walked slowly.’).
• The comparative degree is used to compare two actions: eg slower, more slowly, earlier (‘Sarah walked more slowly than Ben.’).
• The superlative degree is used to compare three or more: eg slowest, earliest (‘We all take our time, but I walk the slowest of all.’).

Making degrees of comparison

Adverbs of one syllable usually form the comparative by adding -er and form the superlative by adding -est.

hard (positive) - harder (comparative) - hardest (superlative)

Adverbs of two syllables or more generally form the comparative by adding ‘more’ and the superlative by adding ‘most’.

quickly (positive) - more quickly (comparative) - most quickly (superlative)

Watch out! There are exceptions:

• badly: worse (comparative) - worst (superlative).
• well: better (comparative) - best (superlative).

far: farther (comparative) - farthest (superlative).

XXV - GRAMMAR Recognising adverbs

RECOGNISING ADVERBS

You can’t always tell by the look of a word that it’s an adverb. You can recognise it as an adverb only by the work it does in a sentence. A word may be an adverb in one sentence and a different part of speech in another sentence. For example:

The job went well.
Here ‘well’ describes the verb ‘went’, so it’s an adverb.

The well was drained by morning.
Here ‘well’ names something, so it’s a noun.

The well water tasted disgusting.
Here well is being used to name a type of water, so it’s not describing a verb and is not an adverb here.

When you see -ly on the end of a word it’s a good clue that it’s an adverb. Many adverbs are made by adding -ly to the end of adjectives. For example:

‘careful’ (adjective) becomes ‘carefully’ (adverb)
Sunita is very careful with her money. She spends her money carefully.

However, lots of other adverbs are irregular.

Beware! Some words ending in -ly are never used as adverbs: eg friendly, lovely, lonely.

Also look out for adverbs that have the same form as adjectives.
‘Hard’ and ‘early’ are both adjectives (used to describe people, places and things) and adverbs (used to tell us more about the verb):

It’s still early. (adjective)
We arrived early. (adverb)
He works very hard. (adverb)
He’s a hard man to know. (adjective)

Other adverbs with the same form as adjectives are far, fast, high, low, late and long. 

XXVI - GRAMMAR Pronouns

PRONOUNS

A noun is a person, place or thing (eg Brian, the car, the dog, Sunita, London).
A pronoun is a word that can be used in place of a noun.
A personal pronoun is used in place of a noun that is a person or a thing.

Personal pronouns for people =	I, you, he, she, we, they me, you, him, her, us, them
Personal pronouns for things =	it, they, them

Why use a personal pronoun?

·         They are useful because you don’t have to repeat words.

·         They can be used to talk about something or someone that you have already talked about.

For example: Elizabeth put the coat on because Elizabeth was cold.
This would be better written as: Elizabeth put the coat on because she was cold.
The word she is a personal pronoun and means ‘Elizabeth’ in this sentence.
This makes the sentence shorter and more interesting because you don’t have to repeat ‘Elizabeth’.


There are two types of personal pronouns:

• Subject pronouns are the ‘who’ or ‘what’ the sentence is about:
  I, you, he, she, it, we, they are all subject pronouns
• Object pronouns are the ‘who’ or what’ acted upon:
  me, you, him, her, it, us, them are all object pronouns

For example: Elizabeth put the coat on.


In this sentence ‘Elizabeth’ is the subject and ‘the coat’ is the object.
Elizabeth is doing the action (putting on) and the coat is the thing that is ‘done to’ (it is the thing that she puts on).
If you wanted to repeat this information later you could say: She put it on.