            Unit 4

Text
    In big cities like New York, you can find homeless women with shopping bags wandering on the streets. They choose to live in an isolated, mistrustful world of their own. They are called lady hermits or just shopping-bag ladies.

 Lady Hermits Who Are Down But Not Out
    Every large city has its shifting population of vagrants. But in most cases these are men, usually with an unhealthy appetite for alcohol. Only New York, it seems, attracts this peculiar populace of lone and homeless women who live in an isolated, mistrustful world of their own.
    Shopping-bag ladies do not drink. They do not huddle together for warmth and companionship like bums. They do not seem to like one another very much. Neither are they too keen on conventional people. Urban hermits, one sociologist has called them. They will send their days and nights in the same neighborhood for months on end, then disappear as inexplicably as they came. They know the hours when restaurants put their leftovers in the garbage cans where they search for food. And local residents, seeing the same bag lady on the same corner every day, will slip her some change as they pass.
    Shopping-bag ladies do not overtly beg, but they do not refuse what is offered. Once a shopping-bag lady becomes a figure of your neighborhood, it is as hard to pass her by without giving her some money as it is to ignore the collection box in church. And although you may not like it, if she chooses your doorway as her place to sleep in the night, it is as morally hard to turn her away as it is a lost dog.
    There are various categories of bag ladies: those who live on the streets, claiming they enjoy the freedom from constraints of society; those who became homeless because a relative died or because they couldn't keep up rent payments, and they didn't know where to go or how to apply for relief; and quasi bag ladies who have an anchor point  a sister or brother whom they can visit once in a while to take a bath.
    Most shopping-bag ladies seem to be between the ages of 40 and 65. They wear layers of clothes even in summer time, with newspapers stuffed between the layers as further protection against bad weather In general, the more bags the ladies carry the better organist bad weather. In general, the more bags the ladies carry the better organised they are to cope with life on the streets.
    "You may think I have a lot of garbage in these bags," one shopping-bag lady volunteered over lunch in a church soup kitchen, "but it's everything I need. Extra clothes, newspapers for the cold." Shopping-bag ladies are not very communicative and take general conversation as an intrusion. But after a while, warmed by chicken soup, she began to speak. 
    "The place is nice," she volunteered, "people are friendly. Most New Yorkers are very cold. I have sisters in the city, but when you grow up, each goes his own way. Right?"
    "I go out a lot because of my teeth. You know how it is: you pick up something in a restaurant and your teeth turn rotten, no matter how careful you are. People aren't considerate. The restaurants don't wash the glasses properly, and before you know where you are you have caught it. That's what happened to me. I don't like meeting people until I have this dental work done. So I go out to forget my troubles. I sit a little while somewhere, have something to eat at one of these places, then go wherever I have to go. I take all my things with me because you can't trust people."
    The story of the dental work was a typical shopping-bag lady fantasy. Psychiatrists say that even after long interviews shopping-bag ladies are still at a loss to separate truth from imagination.
    One quasi bag lady spends about eight hours every day at the foot of the main escalator in a railroad station, although she rents a room in a cheap hotel in the neighborhood. One of the priests from the nearby church found this lodging for her after he discovered that she was entitled to a small disability pension which she had never claimed. But every day from about nine to five, she still takes a milk crate and sits by the station escalator, not doing anything or talking to anyone. It's like a job to her. 
    No one knows how many shopping-bag ladies there are in New York. The figure is going up. Some priests, nuns and researchers spend a great deal of time shepherding or observing shopping-bag ladies and are doing what they can to better the life of the lady hermits who are down.
      
            NEW WRODS
    hermit
n.  person who avoids other people and lives alone  ʿ

    shift
vi. move from one place, position, etc. to another תƣƶ

    vagrant
n.  person who lives a wandering life with no steady home or work 

    appetite
n.  desire or wish, esp. for food ʳθ

    attract
vt. draw towards oneself 

    attraction n.
  
    attractive a.

    peculiar
a.  unusual; strange صģֵ

    populace
n.  population; the common people

    lone
a.  without other people or things ¶

    isolate
vt. separate from others ʹ룬ʹ

    mistrustful
a.  lacking confidence or trust

    shopping-bag
n.  

    huddle
vi. crowd together һ

    warmth
n.  the state or quality of being warm

    companionship
n.  ¹ϵꣻһȺ

    companion n.

    bum
n.  wandering beggar 񣬽л

    keen
a.  eager, anxious to do things ĵģ

    conventional
a.  following accepted practices, customs, and standards ϰ׵ģѰ

    convention
v.  ϰף

    sociologist
n.  a person who studies societies and human behavior in groups ѧ

    neighborhood
n.  a group of people and their homes forming a small area within a larger place ַ

    inexplicably
ad. in a way not capable of explanation

    leftovers
n.  (used with a pl, v.) food remaining uneaten after a meal

    garbage
n.  waste material; rubbish; scraps of food to be thrown away

    garbage can
    dustbin Ͱ

    resident
n.  person living in a place permanently, not just a visitor 

    slip 
vt. give or pay secretly ĸ

    overtly
ad. publicly 

    collection
n.  the gathering of money at a religious service; money collected ļ裻ļ

    collection box
    a box for the collection of money, esp. one passed from hand to hand in church 

    doorway
n.  ſڣŵ

    morally
ad. with regard to right behavior 

    category
n.  class 

    claim
vt. declare to be true; ask for as a right; take as a rightful owner ƣҪ 

    constraint
n.  sth. that limits one's freedom of action 

    rent
n.  money paid regularly for the use of a room, building, or piece of land 
vt. pay at regular times for the use of (property)

    payment
n.  the amount of money (to be) paid

    relief
n.  help given to people in trouble ȼ 

    quasi
a.  half; seeming 룬׼

    anchor
n.  ê

    layer
n.  

    stuff
vt. fill tightly with ѡ

    protection
n.  the act of protecting or the state of being protected

    protective a.

    cope
vi. deal successfully with a difficult situation ԸӦ

    volunteer
vt. tell or say without being asked; make a willing offer Ըṩ

    voluntary a.

    soup
n.  

    communicative
a.  ready and willing to talk or give information Ը⽻̸

    communication
n.  ͨѶ

    conversation
n.  (an) informal talk ̸

    intrusion
n.  coming unasked and unwanted (often suggesting rudeness and invasion of privacy)ַ

    rotten
a.  having gone bad õģ

    considerate
a.  thoughtful of the rights or feelings of others µ

    dental
a.  of or for the teeth

    wherever
conj. in, at, or to whatever place

    fantasy
n.  any strange mental image or illusion; wild imagination ͷ

    psychiatrist
n.  doctor who treats mental and emotional disorders ҽ

    loss 
n.  the act or example of losing sth.

    escalator
n.  Զ¥

    priest
n.  ʦʿ

    lodging
n.  a (temporary) place to live ʱסʹסʹ 

    entitle
vt. give the right to Ȩ

    disability
n.  the condition of being unable to perform a task or function because of a physical or mental impairment ˲

    pension
n.  regular payment made (by a government or a company) to sb. old, retired, or disabled Ͻݽ𣻸

    crate
n.  a plastic or wooden tray divided into sections for carrying bottles of milk, beer, etc. ¨

    nun
n.  Ů

    shepherd
vt. take care of guide or direct (people) like sheep 

    better
vt. improve

         PHRASES & EXPRESSIONS
  keen on
  interested in, fond of

  on end
  continuously 

  pass by
  go past; pay no attention to  ӡ߹

  turn away
  refuse to allow (sb.) to enter ֮

  keep up 
  maintain; continue
 
  once in a whole
  sometimes; but not often ż

  in general
  in most cases; usually ͨ

  cope with
  deal effectively with ڴ

  not matter how/what, etc.
  however, whatever, etc.

  at a loss
  uncertain what to do or say; confused ֪룻

  be entitled to 
  have the right to 
