Here is an extract adapted from a one-act play. In this extract, angry neighbors who think Joe the Inventor’s new spinning machine will make them lose their jobs come to destroy Joe’s model of the machine.

You’ve just seen how contracted forms can make a written text sound like actual speech. Try to make this extract sound more like a real conversation by changing some of the verbs back into the contracted forms. Then speak out the lines.

[The door is flung open, and several men tramp in. They carry sticks, and one of them, HOB, has a hammer.]

HOB	Now, where is your husband, mistress?
MARY	In his bed. He is sick and weary. You would not harm him!
HOB	We are going to smash his evil work to pieces. Where is the machine?
SECOND MAN	On the table yonder.
HOB	Then here is the end of it! [HOB smashes the model. Mary screams.]
HOB	And now your husband!
MARY	Neighbours, he is a sick man and almost a cripple. You would not hurt him!
HOB	He is planning to take away our daily bread….we will show him what we think of him and his ways!
MARY	You have broken his machine…. You have done enough….