urban legends
tekstthema met opdrachten
Jenny de Bode-van Vuren
Urban legends
the folklore of our time
Name..........................................................
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urban legends
tekstthema met opdrachten
Jenny de Bode-van Vuren
Hoe moet je de assignments maken ?
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

Maak de opdrachten op blanko A4 papier
Neem voor elke tekst een nieuw vel papier en schrijf erboven welke tekst en
welke opdracht het betreft, b.v. Text 4 , nr 2.
Beantwoord vragen in complete zinnen. (Engelse vragen in het Engels,
Nederlandse vragen in het Nederlands)
Contents
Text 1 What is an urban legend?
Text 2 Urban legends as a warning
Text 3 Tales about basic human fears
Legend 1 A ski acciddent
Legend 2 The back-seat killer
Legend 3 Biscuits for Brains
Legend 4 The sauce that didn’t taste so nice
Legend 5 Watch out for the woman in white
Legend 6 The spiral staircase
Legend 7 The dead professor
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urban legends
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Jenny de Bode-van Vuren
Text 1
What is an urban legend ?
Urban legends are one of the phenomena of our society. An Urban Legend is a strange
story that passes from person to person and usually has little basis in truth. Urban
legends used to be told by word of mouth around a campfire or late at night in a
college dorm room. However, with the invention of the computer, urban legends can
be emailed around the world. What distinguishes an urban legend from an ordinary
story is the fact that you can accept that all of these strange or funny things really
could happen.... but it is very unlikely that they really did happen at so many different
times and in so many different places as the legend tellers describe.....
Some examples
1. One of the oldest and most popular Urban Legends is the “Guy with the
Hook”.
In this story a young couple is told not to park in the woods because a onearmed psychiatric patient has escaped in the area. Not heeding the warning,
the couple park in a secluded spot anyway and start to make love, fogging up
the windows. The girl thinks she hears a sound like metal tapping on her
window... They panic and drive off. They finally pull up in front of her house,
laughing at themselves for getting so spooke. Then the boy gets out and walks
around his car to open the passenger door for the girl. And there he sees a
bloody hook hanging from the passenger door....
There are several variations of this story, some in which the psycho kills the
guy, the girl, or both of them.
2.
Late nights, teenagers, and cars are part of more than a few urban legends.
One of the most popular legends that have been recently recycled in a film
named "Urban Legend" is that of a particular gang initiation.
In this tale, a gang drives around with their headlights off, waiting until some other
driver will "flash" his own lights as a sign to turn on their lights. The first car that
does this is picked as the gang’s victim. All the gang members have to run them down
and shoot them. This tale caused much hysteria among car drivers and it is said that
police departments are advising people in city areas not to flash their lights at cars
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Jenny de Bode-van Vuren
driving in the dark. (although this has not been confirmed...)
3. Another even more unbelievable urban legend...
This is the story of two roommates, one of which was very sexually active. She
always left a scarf on the door to let her roommate know that she was
entertaining. One night, the locked out roommate had a few drinks and was
dead tired, so she saw the scarf on the door but entered anyway, heard some
rustling of the sheets and moaning, but went over to her side of the room and
crashed asleep. When she awoke she saw that the trampy roommate was
brutally murdered and the blood was everywhere. A note was on the lamp
table between the beds, which read “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the
light!”
Characteristics of urban legends
\Urban legends can be about all sorts of people, places and things. An Urban Legend
can be based on a true story. They can be horrible, dirty, outrageous, spooky, funny
or sad. A definitive characteristic of an urban legend is that it is almost impossible to
track down its original source. The stories are changed, embellished and extended as
they go from one person to the other. Most stories have two or more versions.
You can often recognise them by how they are told : in the first, second or third
person or, as something that happened to a friend or to a friend's friend. In fact the
‘true’ event always happened to someone entirely unknown to the person who is
telling the story.
Many Urban Legends only lead a short life and disappear as fast as they are started.
But there are also stories, like “The Guy with the Hook” that seem to circulate forever.
They are timeless bits of nonsense that continue to thrill and chill for generations....
Conclusion
Urban legends are in many ways the folklore of the people. They are spread by telling
them from one person to another as well as over the Internet. Wherever ordinary
people gather, such as at birthday parties, in schoolyards, at picnics and in coffee bars,
urban legends will be exchanged.
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urban legends
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Jenny de Bode-van Vuren
Vocabulary bij Urban Legends tekst 1
What is an urban legend.
a phenomenon (mv.: phenomena)
society
they used to be told
a college dorm room
however
to distinguish
it’s very unlikely
to describe
een verschijnsel
maatschappij
ze werden vroeger altijd verteld
slaapzaal op een kostschool
maar, echter
onderscheiden, onderscheid maken
het is erg onwaarschijnlijk
beschrijven
a guy
to escape
to heed a warning
a secluded spot
to fog up the window
een vent, een knul
ontsnappen
gehoor geven aan een waarschuwing
een afgelegen plek
het raam laten beslaan
to tap
to pull up the car
more than a few
recently
recycled in a film
kloppen
de auto tot stilstand brengen, stoppen
heel wat
onlangs, pas geleden
opnieuw in omloop gebracht via de film
a gang
an initiation
to flash
a victim
to run somebody down
to confirm
a scarf
to entertain
rustling
moaning
to crash asleep
trampy
outrageous
to track down
a source
to embellish
to extend
an event
entirely
a timeless bit of nonsense
to thrill
to chill
to gather
to exchange
een bende
een inwijding
knipperen (van de lichten)
een slachtoffer
iemand opjagen, proberen te pakken
bevestigen
een shawl
iemand vermaken, bezighouden
geritsel
gekerm
als een blok in slaap vallen
‘sletterig’
gewelddadig, over de grens gaand
opsporen
een bron (van water), bron van herkomst
mooier maken, versieren
uitbreiden
een gebeurtenis
compleet, volledig
een tijdloos stukje onzin
spanning oproepen bij iemand
afkoelen,verkillen, koude rillingen geven
bijeen komen
uitwisselen, ruilen
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Jenny de Bode-van Vuren
Assignment text 1 ‘What is an Urban legend’
1. Give a definition of an urban legend.
2. Give your opinion why so many people like these stories.
3. What is the reason that there are so many different versions of every urban legend
?
4. Make a list of all the characteristics of an urban legend that you can find in text 1.
(at least 5!)
Text 2
Urban Legends as a warning.....
On the Internet and in universities all over the world, you'll find a lot of people who are
interested in the role of urban legends in modern society. Most of the stories are horrible,
disgusting or gruesome. Many ‘folklorists’say that this has the following reason. The
stories always have a subject that has to do with basic human fears. The legends give us
a warning or a moral lesson telling us how to protect ourselves from danger. This is called
the cautionary (waarschuwend) aspect of the urban legend.
Let’s look again at the most famous cautionary urban legend, the story of the "Hookhand killer". In this story, a young couple on a date drive off to a lonely place to park
the car and kiss and make love. Over the radio, they hear about a psychopath with a
hooked hand who has escaped from a local mental institution. After a while, the girl
thinks she hears a scratching or tapping sound outside the car. The boyfriend assures
her it's nothing, but she doesn’t want to stay and they leave. When they get to the girl's
house, the boyfriend goes around to the passenger side to open her door and there is a
bloody hook hanging from the door handle.
The warning and moral lesson of this story are clear: Don't park in lonely places and
don’t have sex before you’re married! If you do, something horrible will happen to
you!
When the story first circulated in the 1950s, teenagers using cars and parking in
isolated places was a relatively new phenomenon, and parents were terrified of what
might happen to their kids. Most people who tell the story now don't take it seriously.
From a real urban legend it has become a "campfire ghost story," that is told to others
for amusement, not as a warning anymore.
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Text 2 Urban Legends as a warning. Assignment
1. What is the reason that folklorists give for the fact that most urban legends are
horrible or gruesome ?
2. They say that urban legends have a cautionary aspect. What is a cautionary aspect ?
What was the “caution” in the story of the “ski accident” ?
3. Most children (and adults!) are afraid of the dark. Fear of total darkness is a basic
human fear. Which other basic human fears can you think of ? Make a list of at least
10 ! (TV programma’s als “The Fear Factor” maken dankbaar gebruik van ‘basic
human fears’!)
Text 3
Tales about basic human fears......
One of the most interesting characteristics of urban legends is that they always have to
do with something that everybody is afraid of. All over the world young children (and
most adults) are frightened of total darkness. This is a sort of universal feeling of
fear that everybody knows and understands. Psychologists call fear of
darkness a basic human fear. . But there are many more things that can
terrify us. Some fears have been with us as long as Mankind exists. Through
the ages we changed the way we live, and then there were new things to be
afraid of..... New unknown things always brought on new fears that
sometimes only lasted a short time. Stories were told about the first bicyles
that were a danger for a men’s testicles. The first (open) automobiles were
supposed to be very dangerous, because speed could kill you by taking away
your breath!
Mad murderers and ghosts always have been very popular and there are also lot of
stories circulating about food contamination. That has to do with the way we eat these
days. Very often the food we eat has been prepared by people that we don’t even
know. Do you have any idea who touched the vegetables in your deepfreeze meal or
who washed and cut the potatoes for your chips? Even in a restaurant you don’t know
what has happened in the kitchen or how your food has been treated before it was put
on your plate! We know that we are putting a lot of trust in people that we know
nothing about! Are they clean enough? Can we really trust them with our food?
We seldom know exactly what happened to the things we eat before they were put on
our plate.... This fear is played out in our urban legends about people who find baby
rats in bottles of milk, bloody bandages in hamburgers or chopped off fingers in a tin
of carrots......
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New fears are ‘hitting us ‘all the time. If a story is connected with something that
many people suddenly are afraid of, it will spread like wildfire. Urban Legends about
terrorism are very successful these days and ‘September 11th’ gave reasons for a lot of
wild tales!
In this way, urban legends give an insight into the time and the culture that create
them.
Text 3 Tales about basic human fears......
Assignment
1. Why is it that everybody can be frightened by the idea that there is something wrong
with their food?
2. Computers are quite new in our lives. They did not only bring us a lot of possibilities
and pleasure but they also brought us new fears. What sort of fear can you think of
that has to do with computers? Explain what people - in your opinion- are afraid of.
3. Kies één van de volgende drie opdrachten :
a. Write a short urban legend that has to do with a modern fear.
b. Write a poem about a special human fear..
c. Translate alinea’s 2 and 3 from the text (start with : Mad murderers..... and end
with : ….tinned food.)
.
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Urban Legend 1
A ski accident ..
A friend of mine just got back from a holiday ski trip to Switzerland with a story
that I thought to be very funny
This is what she told me :
The skiing conditions were perfect that day, 12 degrees below zero, a
clear sky, a nice mountain slope and good company to be with.
One of the women in the group complained to her husband that she was
in bad need of a bathroom. He told her not to worry, that he was sure
there would be a facility at the top of the lift in the form of a sort of
powder room for female skiers in distress. He was wrong, of course, and
her trouble did not go away
If you’ve ever had nature hit its panic button inside you, then you know
that a temperature of 12 degrees below zero doesn’t really help matters.
So, with time running out, the woman thought of a solution
Her husband, who saw that she was in pain, suggested that since she was
wearing a completely white ski outfit, she should go off into the woods.
No one would even notice, he assured her. The white of her outfit would
give her more than enough camouflage. No one would see her..! So she
headed for the line of trees, began to unzip and unbutton her clothes and
started to do her thing. Now, if you’ve ever parked a car on the side of a
slope, then you know there is a right way and a wrong way to set your
wheels so that you won’t move. That’s true for skis also... Yup, you got it.
She had them positioned the wrong way.
Steep slopes are a real danger especially during embarrassing moments.
Without warning, the woman found herself skiing backward, out
of control, racing through the trees, somehow missing all of them and
onto another slope. Her derriere and her reverse side were still bare, her
pants down around the knees, and she was picking up speed all the while.
She continued on backwards, totally out of control, creating an unusual
sight for the other skiers. The woman skied, if you can still call it that...,
back under the lift, and finally collided violently with a pylon. The bad
news was that she broke her arm and was unable to pull up her ski pants.
At long last her husband arrived, putting an end to her show, then went
to the base of the mountain and called the ski patrol, who transported her
to a hospital.
In the emergency room where she had to wait ,a man who had a broken
leg was put in the bed next to hers. “So how’d you break your leg?” she
asked, making small talk. “It was the dumbest thing you ever saw,” he
said, “I was riding up this ski lift, you see and suddenly I couldn’t believe
my eyes. There was this crazy woman skiing backward out of control
down the mountain with her bare bottom hanging out of her clothes and
her pants down around her knees. I leaned over to get a better look and I
guess I didn’t realize how far I’d moved. I fell out of the lift.”
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Assignments Legend 1
A ski-accident
1. In the text you can find at least three expressions that are used instead of saying that
somebody urgently has to pee (plassen). Find them and write them down.
2. What is meant by the “right way for parking on a slope ?” (line 20)
3. Translate:
... female skiers in distress” ? (line 8/9)
... she was picking up speed (line 26)
... she finally collided with a pylon (line 29)
....at long last (line 31 )
“..making small talk” (line 36)
4. Why (in line 28) says the storyteller .....”if you can still call it that...”?
5. “If you’ve ever had nature hit its panic button inside you, then you know that a
temperature of 12 degrees below zero doesn’t really help matters “
How would you translate this sentence into Dutch ?
6. What is meant by “putting an end to her show” (line 31) (Translate and explain it) .
Urban Legend 2
The Killer in the Backseat
One night a woman went out for a drink with her girlfriends. She
left the bar fairly late at night, got into her car and drove onto the
deserted highway. She noticed a lonely pair of headlights in her
rear-view mirror, approaching at a speed just slightly quicker than
her own. When the car pulled up behind her she looked at it and
saw that it had the lefthand signal light on. The car was going to
pass....,but suddenly it swerved back behind her, pulled up
dangerously close to her and started flashing the bright lights!!
Now she was getting nervous. The lights dimmed for a moment and
then the bright lights came back on again and the car behind her
surged forward with a roaring sound.... The frightened woman
struggled to keep her eyes on the road and fought the urge to look
at the car behind her. Finally, she came to the exit where she had
to get off the highway and she left the main road. But the other car
continued to follow her, flashing the bright lights periodically.
Through every trafficlight and every turning of the road, it followed
her until she drove into her own driveway. She thought her only
hope was to make a mad dash into the house and call the police. As
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she flew from the car, so did the driver of the car behind her — and
he screamed, "Lock the door and call the police! Call 911!"
When the police arrived the horrible truth was finally told to the
woman. The man in the car behind her had been trying to save her
life. When he had pulled up behind her and his headlights
illuminated her car, he had seen the silhouette of a man with a
butcher knife rising up from the back seat, ready to stab her.....
Every time when he had flashed his bright lights the figure had
crouched back down again.....
The moral of the story: always check the back seat!
Did You Know?
In another variant of this legend, the poor female (and it's
always a female) pulls into a petrol station and is frightened by
the strange behaviour of the attendant, who keeps trying to get
her to leave the car and join him in the office. It turns out he has
seen a knife-wielding murderer in the backseat and is trying to
save her life.
Folklorists have traced the legend back to the 1960s. It was
among the stories dramatized in the 1998 film 'Urban Legend.'
Assignment Legend 2 The killer in the backseat.
1. Which expression is used in the first alinea to let you know that the car was
coming closer and closer to the car of the woman ?
2. Which expression tells you that the woman found it difficult to drive safely?
3. Look up the meaning of :
to swerve
to pull up
to surge forward
to fight the urge
to make a mad dash
to crouch
-
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odd behaviour
to glimpse
to wield a knife
to trace
-
4. Read the variation on this urban legend under the heading “Did you know?”
Describe - from the point of view of the gas station attendant - what happened
when he went out to serve the little car that just had arrived at the petrol pump.
(Use the “I” form and the past tense!) (1/4 A4)
Urban Legend 3
Biscuits for Brains
As told by Vanessa Berger...
A few years back my uncle swore that this story happened to
someone in his church...
There was a sweet old lady who would often do grocery shopping
for the sick and elderly in her church. One hot summer day a lady
asked her to pick up a few things and bring them to her house in a
dangerous part of Baltimore City. The sweet old lady was tired but
felt that she couldn't say no, even though she was terrified of
driving in that part of the city that often had shoot-outs and other
drug violence. Anyway, the woman went on her way, picked up the
groceries and drove to the lady's house.
As she entered the lady's neighbourhood she noticed young
hooligans standing together on every street corner. Although she
had no air conditioning in the car, she rolled the windows up tightly
(as a safety precaution) and suffered in the heat.
She drove on until suddenly she heard a loud "pop" and felt a jolt
to the back of her head. She reached to feel the back of her head
and came back with a wet oozing mess that she was sure was part
of her brain! Knowing that she had been shot, the woman turned
around and raced to a local hospital.
Somehow she made it to the emergency room and had the strength
to walk right in. She told the attendant that she had been shot.
Immediately she was taken to an exam room. Doctors whirled
around and asked where she had been shot (since they saw no
blood.) She said "my head," and the doctors found a mass of the
oozing white substance the woman had first noticed.
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Upon inspection the doctors realized that the white substance
wasn't part of her brain but was instead a lump of biscuit dough
(the kind in a can) that had exploded from the heat of her car!
Legend
Biscuits for Brains Assignment
1. Look up the meaning of the following words :
The elderly
She was terrified
A shoot-out
A jolt
A wet oozing mess
The emergency room
She rolled the windows up tightly
A safety-precaution
The white substance
2. Why did the lady roll up the windows of her car in the heat ?
3. Which basic human fear(s) is/are behind this story ?
4. Kies een van de volgende twee opdrachten


Re-tell the story as if you were a nurse or doctor in the emergency room where the old
lady was treated.
Make a new version of this legend by changing one or two of the ingredients
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Urban Legend 4
The sauce that didn’t taste so nice.......
An Austrian family had moved to North America. Of course they kept in
constant touch with their European relatives. Letters and parcels
regularly made their way from one country to another.
After a long period of silence, a small box arrived from the United States.
Inside, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, was a jar of grey powder.
There was no letter, but since many of the previous parcels had
contained ready-to-make packaged mixes, the European family members
thought that this powder, too, was a mix that had to be prepared by
simply adding water. The sauce was made and served, but it wasn't the
best they had eaten!
Several days later, a letter arrived from the U.S. explaining that the
father had died, and because he had always been homesick, he wished
his ashes to be spread over his home town. Grandma hoped that the rest
of the family would not be inconvenienced and that the letter would get
to them before the ashes, which were being sent separately in a jar and
were securely wrapped in tissue paper.
About this tale ;
This tale has circulated both as a legend and as a joke and always it contains the
following themes :


The consumption of a disgusting substance while the consumer thinks it is something
quite different.
Often the disaster is caused by unfamiliarity with modern technology
This urban legend was widespread in the years just after the end of World War II,
when European families often received food shipments from relatives living abroad
(and powdered food products were fairly new). The two main variants of this story
involve a relative in an English-speaking country (e.g., Canada, Australia, the United
States) shipping home the ashes of a family member who fled Britain to escape the
war, or a relative in America sending the remains of an immigrant family member
back to a country in continental Europe. (In the first version we often find the
delayed letter; the second version often features the note that has to be translated.)
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Legend 4
The sauce that didn’t taste so nice Assignment
1. Zoek in de tekst hoe er staat in het engels :
Ze bleven constant contact houden met hun europese verwanten
Er werden regelmatig pakjes verstuurd van ’t ene land naar ’t andere.
Zorgvuldig verpakt in zacht papier…
Kant-en-klaar mengels in pakjes
Hij wilde graag dat zijn as over zijn geboorteplaats zou worden uitgestrooid…
Oma hoopte dat de rest van de familie het niet vervelend zou vinden…
2. Which basic human fear(s) is/are behind this story ?
3 Vertaal deze urban legend in het Nederlands. Je moet het verhaal ‘vrij vertalen’ zodat
het ook in het Nederlands als een grappig verhaal klinkt.
Urban Legend 5
Watch out for the woman in white
Butler Cemetery is located outside of Westland and along Henry
Huff Road. It is a deserted and abandoned spot and if the stories of
the local folk are to be believed, a very haunted one.
The cemetery is neglected and in poor condition, overgrown with
weeds and choked with grass and fallen tree limbs. A wire fence
that runs around it is grown over with vines and a rusty gate is
broken at the entrance. There are no structures nearby, save for a
deserted house, so it is easy to imagine why this cemetery has
gotten such a reputation as a haunted place. Are the stories here
simply imagination at work.... or something supernatural?
A witness reported a few years ago that he encountered a woman
in white crossing the road in front of the cemetery. He swerved to
avoid her and she vanished right in front of his eyes. A year later,
he saw this woman again and this time, she was in the graveyard
itself. He claimed to see her standing next to a tall monument and
nearby was another apparition. This ghost was that of a man
wearing some sort of uniform. He stopped his car for a closer look
and the two figures faded away. Thinking that someone might be
playing a trick on him, he quickly searched the area for either
people or automobiles, but found nothing.
The stories of ghosts in the cemetery still continue today and
researchers have pointed out that there have been an inordinate
number of auto accidents along the stretch of road near the
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cemetery..... perhaps these drivers were swerving to avoid a
woman in white who wanders out across the road?
(Assignment: see Legend 6)
Urban Legend 6
The Spiral Staircase
While I was a student at the University of Birmingham I came
across a local ghost legend. I lived for two years in a student hall
of residence known as University House in Edgbaston, Birmingham.
I kept hearing stories about a female ghost appearing on the spiral
staircase in the main hall at around 3am each morning. She would
appear at the top of the stairs and then walk down into the library
where people had felt a presence. One girl told me how she had
been studying late one night when she had heard footsteps coming
towards the library - the corridors outside were stone and the
library floor itself was wooden. The footsteps stopped outside the
door and then started again as though they were inside the room
itself. The girl said she had to pinch herself a few times before
fleeing the room in a state of panic. Other sightings of the ghost
have included students who were ill in bed. They have reported
waking up to see a figure in white at the bottom of their bed. The
result of a fevered imagination you may say. I would have agreed.
After hearing all these stories, several friends of mine decided to
research the history of the House. They discovered that it was
taken over as a hospital base in the first world war. Among records
of incidents which took place around that time, it was reported that
a young nurse had fallen to her death while running down the main
staircase during a bomb alert. Her uniform was white.
Legends 5 and 6
Assignments
Watch out for the woman in white and The spiral staircase
1. Look up the meaning of the following words and learn them :
cemetry
Haunted
To swerve
To vanish
To fade away
inordinate
to wander
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2. Which basic human fear(s) is/are behind this story ?
3 In the first alinea there are two words that say something about the loneliness of the
cemetry . Which words ?
4. Kies een van de volgende drie opdrachten :
5.

In de tweede alinea wordt de ‘cemetry’ beschreven… Beschrijf in het Nederlands
hoe het er uitziet. Laat het zo spannend mogelijk klinken.

Make a drawing of the cemetry as you imagine it and write a scary sentence
underneath it.

Write a poem about a (ghost) woman in white… (try to use words from the text)
Look again at “The spiral staircase”
Why is the last alinea important for the story?
6. Look again at ‘Beware the woman in white’. Write a last alinea for this legend which
has the same effect as the last alinea in ‘The spiral staircase… ‘
Urban Legend 7
The Dead Professor
A female student at the Adelaide Univeristy campus was up all
night finishing an assignment that had to be in before the next day.
The deadline for it was 12 o'clock that night, and it had to be in the
'assignment completion' box outside the English Department on
the University campus. The student finished the assignment with
little time to spare and quickly ran off to the university to hand it
in. It was nearly 12o'clock and, of course, it was raining. By the
time the student reached the Napier Building, where the English
Department was located, she was soaked.
The student decided to take the lifts as the English Department
was on the sixth floor. The student became a little spooked when
she noticed that the building was mostly empty -all the lights were
off, all the doors were closed and nobody was around. When the
student got out at the English Department floor (the sixth) she did
note that the light was on in the last room at the end of the hall
several doors away from the English Department's 'assignment
completion' box.
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Jenny de Bode-van Vuren
The student handed in her assignment and pressed the button for
the elevators to come to her floor. By the time that the elevator
arrived a lecturer had come out of the door at the end of the hall,
turned off the light and was running to catch the elevator that the
student was on. The student was wet, cold, and a little self
conscious about just the two of them being in the lift at this time of
night when no one else was around, so when the lecturer wanted
to step into the elevator she pressed the 'close doors' button
saying "sorry you'll have to take the next one". The lecturer had a
shocked and terrified look on his face as the doors closed but the
student tried to put it out of her mind, running out of the building
to get home to avoid having an argument with him.
The next day the student came to the university to apoligise to the
lecturer for being rude, but found his door locked. When she went
to the English Department to find out where he was they said that
he had had a heart attack last night and was found by one of the
cleaners in the morning. Apparently the heart attack had not been
that serious but he had been unable to press the button to call the
lifts and collapsed outside of them. By the time the morning came
he had died.
It is said that when you are waiting for the lifts late at night in the
Napier Block at the Adelaide University they will always take you to
the sixth floor where the English Department used to be (this does
happen often), and if you look in the mirrors at the back of the lifts
when the doors close you will see the shocked, terrified face of the
lecturer who had the heart attack.
Also it is said that on really rainy nights at the university if you
look from outside the Napier block at the sixth floor around 12
o'clock you will see the light at the end of the hall flash on and off
several times as if the ghost of the lecturer shows his frustration.
Incidently I have spoken to the lecturer that now operates out of
the office at the end of the hall on the sixth floor and she says that
sometimes she leaves the light on just to continue the urban
legend. But also she complains that often late at night when it is
rainy the office does become very cold ...
I ‘m sending you this story because me and a few friends were
wandering through the university late one night and dropped by
the Napier block to see if the lights flickered - they did. (Of course
we had consumed large amounts of alchohol.)
Legend 7 The dead professor Assignment
1. Give three reasons why the student felt ill at ease (slecht op haar gemak) when she
entered the building to post her assignment.
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Jenny de Bode-van Vuren
2. What was the reason that she closed the liftdoor in the professor’s face?
3. The student felt guilty the next morning. From which words from the text can you see
that?
4. What must have made her even more guilty ?
5. Which other spooky things happen at the University of Adelaide since this event ?
For die-hards only.
Want More ? Go to the Urban Legends reference pages or Urban Legends research
centre on the Internet.)
and...as you see in this newspaper-cutting...the legends still go on....)
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urban legends
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Jenny de Bode-van Vuren
TOEVOEGING
Mijn leerlingen (de bovenbouw van een Vrije School) hadden veel plezier met
deze opdrachten.
De hierna volgende tekst heb ik als binnenkomer gebruikt.
We hebben eerst de tekst met de foto samen gelezen en daarover
gediscussieerd. Bijna alle leerlingen dachten dat het verhaal waar was. Slechts
enkelen twijfelden.
Daarna heb ik de tweede tekst uitgedeeld waaruit blijkt dat het allemaal fake is.
Iedereen komt dan met verhalen van andere zaken die ze gehoord of gezien
hebben, meestal op Internet.
Pas daarna introduceer ik het begrip ‘Urban Legend’ en ‘link’ dat natuurlijk
meteen aan het populaire programma ‘Myth Busters’op Discovery.
Zelf vond ik het erg leuk om de ‘legends’bij elkaar te zoeken en de opdrachten
er bij te maken. Ik hoop dat anderen er goed gebruik van kunnen maken.
Met vriendelijke groet,
Jenny de Bode - van Vuren.
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urban legends
tekstthema met opdrachten
Jenny de Bode-van Vuren
The Garfield of your dreams
Rodger Delaney, a former employee with AECL* in Chalk
River, Canada could start a career as breeder of a new type
of cat. Relaxing in his spacious home on the shores of the
Ottawa River, Mr. Delaney remembers how 15 years ago he
befriended two stray young cats on the old AECL research
buildings at Chalk River. The kittens had appeared in late
summer and apparently had gotten under a security fence
around the old laboratories that stood abandoned since the
late 1950's. With the help of his tuna sandwich, Mr. Delaney
was able to coax the kitties close enough so that he could
pick them up. As a real animal lover, he did not want to
place the kittens in the local Animal Rescue Society. In this
rural area, cats of all stripes and ages that are unwanted are
humanely put to death after a few days.
Later that evening his wife Louise and their two children,
Nicole and Kelly, came to a family decision to keep the
kittens which they named Lost and Found. Lost turned out to be female and Found a
male. When nature finally took it's course, a litter of kittens was born 6 years later. One
of the litter was a big white female with unique black markings on her side and tail.
Something about the kitten captured the hearts of the family and while her siblings
eventually found homes with other people, Snowball stayed with the Delaneys.
In the 9 years of her life, Snowball's size has seemed to ‘snowball’. She is no ordinary
cat, she measures 1.72 m from nose to tail and weighs 42,5 kg.
"She started out as a big kitty and she just seemed to keep growing. She always
meowed for more food and would climb up on the kitchen sink to eat food which I forgot
to put in the fridge. Chicken is her favorite. Once I left a cooked chicken on the table
that I was going to use for a picnic, an hour later the chicken was gone", Louise said.
"We knew that Snowball wasn't an ordinary cat when the neighbour's German Shepherd
dog ran yelping away when he first met her. She just isn't afraid of any animals. After we
found a half eaten rabbit out by the garage, we decided that maybe Snowball should be
kept fenced in. We soon discovered that we can keep Snowball in the yard, but we
couldn't keep rabbits from Snowball. At least it kept the food bills down!" Rodger
laughed. "Like all female cats she is very territorial, but with us she is just a big kitten"
he said.
So what does a 42 kg cat eat? Snowball goes through about 1 pound of cat food a day,
along with cooked chicken, supplemented with rabbits and birds that Rodger hunts in the
autumn. "She likes fish a lot, so I don't throw them back any more." Snowball often
accompanies Rodger when he goes fishing on the Ottawa river, eagerly peering over the
side of the boat as soon as his line goes tight.
We asked the family what they think is the cause of Snowball's size.
Rodger says "Well, the vet thinks it could be her thyroid, but she isn't fat, she's just a
real big cat. I think maybe her parents got into something at Chalk River that they
shouldn't have...."
*AECL = Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.
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Jenny de Bode-van Vuren
(This text belongs to your theme Urban Legends)
TRUE ?
No, the photo isn't real, and it does not show what the text says it does. The text was
somebody's creative writing, and it was added to the photo later on.
A.
The AECL said about it :
Mr. Robert Delane, the owner of this cat, is not a former employee of AECL
and the AECL Chalk River buildings have certainly not been abandoned for the
past fifty years!
We do not know whether or not the size of the cat in the picture is accurate. If it
is true, the size can likely be caused to a thyroid condition, as described in the
article.
(The joke here is that AECL, the organization for which Snowball's owner supposedly
worked, is Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, and at Chalk River in Ontario there are a
couple of their research reactors. The explanation that is given for Snowball's
tremendous size is that "maybe her parents got into something at Chalk River that
they shouldn't have," (And Chalk River is the name of the so called “abandoned
nuclear facility”.)
B.
Turning to the Guinness Book of World Records, we find that they mention the world's
largest domestic cat as a male cat from Queensland, Australia, a tabby named Himmy
who was 24 kg and was 96 cm long.
C. According to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, the picture actually shows a man from
Edmonds, Washington, named Cordell Hauglie and his cat Jumper, and the photo was
manipulated with PhotoShop to create the effect of a cat of much larger-than-ordinary
size.
Mr. Hauglie said : "My daughter wanted to send an electronic photo of her cat to her
friend. I fiddled about with the photo a bit. When we sent it to her friend, we never
dreamed anyone would believe the photo was real."
He's had many laughs over the analysis of the photo. Some viewers are sure the cat
appears stuffed, while others say it's standing, not being held. Some people suggest the
man in the photo doesn't look as if he's holding a 40-kilogram object.
The truth is, he isn't. His son held up the cat for one photo, proving you can suspend a
cat in that fashion, and Mr. Hauglie stood in the same light for the next picture.
So....don’t believe everything you see.......
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