You must be pulling my leg!

[Torsten]

Have you ever had the feeling that somebody is pulling your leg when they tell you a story you can't believe? Well, the following essay contains a number of interesting expressions such as 'hoax', 'duped' and 'conned'. In a certain way, the mass media are constantly trying to trick large parts of the population and most people fall for it, don't you think? Here is the essay: You're pulling my leg, aren't you?
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Test Of English for International Communication
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[Suzerain_p]

That's a great essay. In my country ( Vietnam), people don't pay much attention on 1st April so there aren't many interesting hoaxes like yours. However, during the time at my university, young students love to play trick on other, then they started to remember April Fool. I will tell you one of the hoax we perpetrated when we were living in the dormitory of our university. Our room (16 girls) made friend with another room(16 boys). The boys were cute, smart and arrogant. They were always proud that no one was smart enough to pull their legs. This spurred us (girls) to give these guys a lesson.
On April 1st, we planned to have a badminton contest between 2 rooms. We played for over 3 hours. When we came back our room, we continued our plan that one small and skinny girl pretended to fell into a faint.

All the girls look at each other frighteningly.Some cried out :" she has heart disease. Oh Gosh, we forgot to prevent her from playing such a long time". Some cried out " someone call an ambulance, please!" We tried to make everything in stumble so that the boys didn't have time to think or consider anything. Their face turned pale. And they are too scared to remember the phone number of ambulance. At that time (2003), cell phone wasn't popular in my country, then they had to go out to the post office or a phone box to make a phone call. When the boys were about to go, we said: "look, her heart beat again! Thanks god!" then we turned to the boy: "just call a taxi to bring her to the hospital". Whenever I thought about this detail, I can't stop myself from laughing. It's really ridiculous to say "just call a taxi" but these so called smart guys didn't see anything wrong. They are totally gullible.

As soon as taxi came, our little girl waked up and she gave the boys very gentle smile, raised her hand as if she was worship: "oh, you save my life. Now I am better. Thank you very very much". The boys immediately recognized they were conned. And the girls burst out laughing... The bad thing was all of us had to put up with the anger of the taxi driver and the boy had to pay.

It's years after that events but we still laugh about that. Last year I called one of the boy in that room on April 1st, when he heard my voice, the first thing he said was " Hey Phuong, whatever you said today I will not believe!"

[NinaZara]

That was very naughty of you girls. I agree boys can be a little bit arrogant at times, but it is also their nature to worry (and come to the rescue?) whenever there's a damsel in distress around.

[Ahmed1977]

I really make good use of these articles

[Swangchuk]

it was very good

[Anisia]

Thank you very much for the essay.It was great:)It was fun to read it, really

[Jihad]

well Alan ,
your are always amazing in your writing ! i keep dreaming to be able to be such good writer , but i guess it's something that is called a talent ... so either you have it or not so thank you very much for sharing with us your talent

the nicest thing (for me ) about your style that your using words which i find very important ,and 'd be needed in many communications occasionaly .... it's just that there is this phrase that caught my attention and i saw it several times in other artcles ,without undersanding it specifically . It's :THE VERY MONTH !
can you tell me about the meaning of it , when could it be used and if it has origon ,please ?!
so thanks again , and please keep it up coming , even if you would need to pull our legs

[Alan]

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Hi Jihad,

Glad you like the newsletters. 'Very' can of course be used as an adverb suggesting 'to a great extent/to a high degree' as in: You'll find the advanced exercises very difficult.

In the phrase 'the very month' it's used as an adjective to indicate here 'itself' 'actual' 'this and not another'. Sometimes it can be used to describe a person you've been talking about as in: And here is the very man coming towards us. You know the one i was describing to you a few minutes ago.

Alan
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[Savitha]

hi !
You are really great! Your choice of words for writing the essay is really good. These essays gives me an opportunity to improve my vocabulary.
April 1 is a day on which people don't take seriously on the tricks played on them. Here in India, mostly school children and college goers make it a point to play pranks.
Thanks for sharing your experience with us! Keep writing and we keep enjoying !
regards
savitha

[Prezbucky]

I don't mind if you pull my left leg, but I've broken my right ankle and had half of the meniscus removed from my right knee, so please don't pull my right leg.

And do NOT pull my finger. Those who've seen Beavis & Butthead know what's up with that.


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Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Licha]

Dear,Torsten.
Thank you for sharing Alans' essay.It is very interesting,I enjoyed reading the story
and now I know the meaning of pulling someone's leg.
Thank you,
Licha.

[Prezbucky]

The essay belongs to (just one) Alan, so it is Alan's essay.

(just FYI)
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Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Rabiul]

Interesting! learn through fun!!!!!!!!

[Jazeer]

That was a wonderful essay. I welcome more of this kind in future. Thanks for that.

[Tomy_Ng]

Hi Mr torsten
i'd thanks to you very much because you've made this website for everybody who love english to learn english togehter in this forum.
my name is tommy
i comes from indonesia.i loves to study english languages but sometimes i was wrong to pronounce english words,how can i improve my pronouncitaon and i've difficultly respond someone who talked english to me,what shall i do?
thank you.if any wrong with my words please helping me to correctly