Covering for a friend Lesson 436 of the everyday course of Mova's primary school: 31 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 .
0 Ben's mate Jamie kicked a ball through the classroom window in Liverpool. 1 The teacher asked Ben if he'd seen who. 3 Ben said «I didn't see.» The camera showed Jamie — and Ben standing right next to him. 4 The teacher was disappointed in Ben too. 5 Ben said later he wished he'd just said «Ask Jamie, sir.» 6 Covering means lying or staying quiet to protect a friend. 7 You don't have to tell on a friend for every small thing, but lying for them is different, and it often drags you in. 9 Josh said Liam's phone in class was his; the teacher took Josh's phone for the day, and Liam didn't even say thanks. 10 Ella agreed to say Niamh was at her house; Niamh was really in town with older kids, and when the mums talked, both girls were in trouble. 11 Some covering is about real wrong. 12 Grace in Toronto saw Ava take a chocolate bar without paying and told the shopkeeper «We didn't take anything, eh.» The shop had a camera and called both mums; Grace felt sick for days. 13 «I didn't take anything» — said only about yourself — would have been honest. 15 When his dad came round, Leo saw the cut and told the truth. 16 When someone has been hurt, covering is never right. 17 Silence can cover too. 19 Kiri in Rotorua said nothing when her mum asked about the storm; she and her friend had gone to the creek, which flooded. 20 Weeks later Mum found muddy jandals (flip-flops) with creek weed on them, and told her the creek had swept a dog away that day. 21 Not all help is lying. 22 Alfie lent his friend his own PE kit and sat out PE himself. 23 Nobody lied about anything; Alfie just took the trouble, and his friend bought him a doughnut. 24 Helping a friend with your own sacrifice is different from lying for them — know the difference. 25 Covering means lying or staying silent to protect someone who did something wrong. 28 Lying for a friend often gets you into the same trouble, the friend may not even thank you, and the friend learns nothing. 29 Giving a false alibi about where someone was can put them in danger if something goes wrong. 30 Lying for someone who stole makes you part of it; speak only for yourself. 31 When someone has been hurt, covering is never right, because the hurt person needs grown-ups to know. 32 When a whole group stays silent, everyone may be punished, and the person who did it can end it by owning up. 33 Saying something technically true to hide the truth is still a kind of trick. 34 A secret about danger, like playing by a flooding creek, is not yours to keep. 35 Helping a friend at your own cost, like lending your kit, is kindness, not lying. 36 To «grass» (UK) means to tell on someone; «sound» (Liverpool, Ireland) means good or all right; «jandals» (NZ) are flip-flops; Canadians often end a sentence with «eh», meaning «right?». ← previous Boasting cousins and made-up holidaysnext → When not to keep a friend's secret↑ back to Everyday This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/436-covering-for-a-friend/