Exercise 11. Read the jokes and retell them in indirect speech

1. If an Englishman gets run down by a truck, he apologizes to the truck.

2. A foreign visitor to England is completely baffled by the language and struggles with the pronunciation of words such as "enough", "bough" and "though". He usually gives up altogether when he reads a local newspaper headline "Fete Pronounced Success".

3. An American tourist comes to London to stay at a top hotel. He picks up the phone one morning and asks for room service. He says, "I want three overdone fried eggs that are hard as a rock, toast that is burnt to a cinder and a cup of black coffee that tastes like mud."

"I'm sorry, sir," replies room service, "we don't serve breakfast like that." "Well, you did yesterday!"

4. An old woman from the country is visiting the big city for the first time in her life. She checks in at a smart hotel and lets the bellboy take her bags. She follows him but as the door closes, her face falls. "Young man," she says angrily. "I may be old and straight from the hills, but I ain't stupid. I paid good money and this room won't do at all. It's short of what I expected. It's too small and there's no proper ventilation. Why, there's not even a bed!" "Ma'am," replies the bellboy, "this isn't your room. It's the elevator!"