Cat Memes

Intro

Meow! Are you fanatically obsessed with cats? If you are, you probably know about many famous cats on the Internet, like Grumpy Cat and Business Cat. Cat fans can spend hours looking at funny pictures on Reddit. They can watch short videos of cats doing just about anything: climbing, playing, and even sleeping. There are so many cat fans in the world that cat memes have gone viral.

But what if you don’t like cats? Maybe, you prefer dogs. Maybe, you use the Internet to look up recipes or learn about food. Maybe, you like sports videos or reading about celebrities. One thing is for sure. If you are fanatical about something, you can find it on the Internet.

Romeo and Jessica are talking about cat memes. Find out what they think in this English lesson.

Dialogue

Romeo: I don’t know what you like to do for fun, but I love, I mean, I am fanatically obsessed... I have to follow... every cat meme. There’s this one I saw the other day, and the cat was climbing on the curtain. It went all the way up, and I swear, it was literally climbing on the ceiling.

Jessica:  I think it’s so silly that people are using their cats to make videos, and then these videos go viral.

Romeo:  That’s what’s supposed to happen!

Jessica:  I guess I’m not with it in this digital age. I prefer puppy pictures…

Romeo:  Aww.

Jessica:  And puppy memes… Although, there is one cat meme I really like, Business Cat. 

Romeo:  Business Cat?

Jessica:  That’s pretty funny.

Romeo:  I’m not familiar with Business Cat.

Jessica:  A cat with a tie. It’s pretty funny. I don’t know if you’re following Reddit and following all of the threads about Business Cat?

Romeo:  No, I don’t do that. You’ve got to do all those other websites, the ones that have all the fourteen-second videos.

Jessica:  Oh, like Vine.

Romeo:  Yeah, because then you get bored. Like Vine, yeah, definitely.

Jessica:  All right, well, maybe you will peak my interest with cat videos and Grumpy Cat.

Romeo:  Yeah, I would love to. Let’s do it.

Discussion

Romeo loves cat memes. His favorite thing to do for fun is go online and watch cat videos. He spends so much time on Vine that he says he is obsessed! He tells Jessica about a funny cat video that he saw the other day.

Jessica is not interested in watching cat videos. She thinks it is weird that pictures and videos of people’s cats have gone viral. She prefers looking at pictures of puppies. However, she does like Business Cat because he wears a tie and is pretty funny. Jessica agrees that Romeo has peaked her interest. Maybe, she will look at more cat memes in the future.

Do you prefer cats or dogs? Do you ever spend time on Vine or Reddit?

Grammar Point

Adverbs

When Jessica tells Romeo about Business Cat, she says, “It’s pretty funny.” She uses an adverb.

Adverbs are words that modify or describe other words. They can modify verbs, as in, “He speaks softly.” Or they can modify adjectives, as in, “This room is quite large.” Or they can even modify other adverbs, as in, “He walked very slowly.”

You can turn many adjectives into adverbs by adding -ly to the end, as in quietly, quickly, slowly, or gladly. But be careful! This isn’t true 100 percent of the time. For example, this doesn’t work for adjectives that already end in -y, such as happy. The adverbial form of happy is happily.

Adverbs can come at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence. You can say, “Quickly, she ran down the street,” or, “She ran quickly down the street,” or, “She ran down the street quickly.” However, you should never put an adverb between a verb and its object. You can say, “I hungrily ate an apple,” but not, “I ate hungrily an apple.”

Jessica says Business Cat is “pretty funny.” Pretty is a unique word because it can act as an adverb or an adjective. Jessica is using it as an adverb because it modifies the adjective funny. If Jessica had said, “I think cats are pretty,” she would be using the word pretty as an adjective.

Which is correct, “I am very happy that you’re here,” or, “I am happy very that you’re here”?

                                                                                         

Vocab

with it expr.

Definition : aware of new information; knowledgable

Example : Danny is definitely with it as far as movies go. He can tell you every new movie that’s coming out in theaters and whether you should see it.

………………………………………………….

digital age expr.

Definition : time of progress in digital technology; modern era

Example : In the digital age, I can use my phone to facetime with people from other countries.

……………………………………………………

thread n.

Definition : series of comments about the same topic, on a website or forum

Example : I spent hours yesterday commenting on a thread about Harry Potter.

……………………………………………………

Vine n.

Definition : website and app where people can share short videos

Example : I love to watch prank videos on Vine.

…………………………………………………….

fanatically adv.

Definition : in an obsessive way; in the way of a huge fan

Example : I pay attention fanatically to Game of Thrones.

………………………………………………………

obsessed adj.

Definition : thinking about something all the time

Example : I was so obsessed with getting in shape that my friends got really annoyed with me.

………………………………………………………….

Reddit n.

Definition : name of a website where people share videos, pictures, and stories; online forum

Example : He loves to post pictures of his dog on Reddit.

…………………………………………………………….

follow v.

Definition : watch something regularly online; subscribe to

Example : I follow twitter every day.

……………………………………………………………

go viral expr.

Definition : become popular by sharing on the Internet

Example : We are hoping the video will go viral and we will become famous.

…………………………………………………………….

peak one's interest expr.

Definition : make someone interested in something

Example : That show about pizza really peaked my interest in cooking.