The rumour that grows Lesson 167 of the world course of Mova's primary school: 26 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 Monday: "Mr Hughes has a cold." Tuesday: "Mr Hughes is really ill." Wednesday: "Mr Hughes is in hospital." Thursday: Mr Hughes walks in with a cup of tea. 1 Each person told the story a little bigger, and nobody checked the start. 2 A rumour is a story passed from person to person without anyone checking it. 3 Like the game of Chinese whispers (also called telephone), every telling can change it: words get dropped, details get added, and the boring version gets more exciting. 4 One mouse in the canteen becomes "rats everywhere, the school's closing". 5 A boy kept in at break becomes "expelled". 6 "Kai's ringtone is annoying" loses one word and becomes "Kai is annoying". 7 A late coach becomes "the coach company went bust". 8 Fear makes rumours stick. 9 Once kids hear the toilets are haunted, a dripping tap and a creaky door "prove" it. 10 And "everyone knows Leo cheated" sounds like a fact, until you ask, "Who saw it?" and nobody did. 11 The fix: go back to the start, ask the person who was there, and trust the right source, like the school office. 12 Kids take the mickey out of the runaway story: "Expelled? 13 I'm literally right here eating crisps." 14 A rumour is a story passed on without being checked; it often grows or changes each time it is told. 15 Chinese whispers (also called telephone) is a game that shows how a message changes as it passes along a line. 16 When a story sounds huge, it usually got bigger on the way; the boring first version is usually closest to the truth. 17 Ask "Who saw it?" and go back to the person who started it. 18 Losing or changing one small word can change a whole meaning; grown-ups call this taking things out of context. 19 If someone says "they said this about you", ask the person directly and kindly before getting upset. 20 For school news the right source is the school office, letter or website, not a rumour on the bus or from another school. 21 Expulsion, being sent away from a school for good, is very rare and serious. 22 Rules like "walk, don't run" exist so people don't crash into each other in corridors. 23 A swallowed cherry stone usually just passes through the body; trees need soil and light, not a tummy. 24 Old buildings creak, and pipes knock when water moves through them; a boring explanation is more likely than a ghost. 25 Saying someone cheated without proof is unfair; if nobody saw it, drop it. ← previous "Everyone has one!": the crowd is not a reasonnext → The whole class punished, and "you didn't say no"↑ back to World This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/167-the-rumour-that-grows/