Let’s look more closely at this strange coincidence.
Look at the passage below. Some of the words are in bold. Without reading in detail, decide which of the words match the following definitions.
TEN AMAZING COINCIDENCES
The Wreck of the Titan by Morgan Robertson
Morgan Robertson wrote about the Titanic…14 years early!
Long before the famous film Titanic was made, an American writer called Morgan Robertson wrote a rather unsuccessful book called The Wreck of the Titan. The story was about the sinking of a big passenger ship.
The incredible thing is…
Robertson’s The Wreck of the Titan was published in 1898, 14 years before the Titanic was even built. The similarities between his story and the real disaster are really improbable. In the novel, the Titan was described as “the largest ship afloat”, “like a first-class hotel”, and “unsinkable”. Both ships were British, made of steel, about 800 feet long, and both sank after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic in April, around midnight.
What’s even more unbelievable
In the book, the Titan hit an iceberg 400 miles from the coast of Canada at a speed of 25 knots. The real Titanic hit an iceberg 400 miles from Canada at 22.5 knots. Considering that the Atlantic Ocean is about 40 million square miles, it seems impossible that Robertson could guess so exactly what later happened.
The weirdest thing of all
Even stranger were details that were irrelevant to the story but still match what really happened. For example, both the Titan and the Titanic had too few lifeboats for all the passengers. This was an odd thing to include because in the novel the ship sank immediately, so lifeboats didn’t affect the plot. Was it just a coincidence, or did Robertson somehow know the future?
Double check that you understand these words below.
These words are negative adjectives. You can add a prefix to many adjectives to make them negative. See if you can work out some of the rules for creating negative adjectives.
Listen to how these words are pronounced:
Now practice saying these words out loud: