Idioms, word pairs and conditionals

Idioms from the story:

• take issue with: disagree with;
• give vent to: express a strong feeling openly;
• stand on one's own feet: be independent;
• be wound up: stop operating (of a company);
• meet one's match: meet someone equal in skill or strength.

Some pairs of words are easily confused:

• alternately (by turns, one after the other) and alternatively (as another choice);
• successfully (with success) and successively (one after another, in a row);
• respectfully (with respect) and respectively (in the order already mentioned).

Conditionals about things that are not real:

• Unreal present: if + past tense, would + verb. 'If I had a car, I would drive to school.' (I do not have one.)
• Unreal past: if + had + past participle, would have + past participle. 'If it had rained, the match would have been cancelled.' (It did not rain.)

Catastrophe theory, used in the story, was developed by the French mathematician René Thom in the 1960s. It studies how small changes can cause sudden, large shifts, such as a ship suddenly capsizing when it leans just a little too far.