¶ one- Katharine Gun spent the first three years of her life in Durham

• spend can be classified as a ditransitive prepositional verb because of the way it is used in sentences such as Jill spent three hours on her make-up or Harry spends a lot of money on Jill. (Compare with: Harry accused Sam of wasting money or Jill introduced Dick to Jane.) This classification has to be qualified however because, as it is used in the text, it is best classified as an ordinary transitive (i.e. monotransitive) verb. There is a slight difference in meaning between the transitive and ditransitive uses. When the verb is used ditransitively there is a purposive connection between the direct and prepositional objects: Jill used the time as she did because she wanted to improve her appearance but the fact that Katharine spent the first three years of her life in Durham does not indicate that she had any purpose in doing so.Th e purposive meaning can also be expressed using a non-prepositional ditransitive form where the indirect object is an ing clause. For example Jill spent three hours cleaning her stove or Harry spent thousands of dollars taking Jill to restaurants. It is also worth noting that the only direct objects that can complement spend are noun phrases (or ing clauses) referring to periods of time or amounts of money.

¶ two- Katharine grew up in Taiwan.

• grow up is an intransitive phrasal verb. It refers to the process of becoming physically and mentally mature. Because the meaning includes the idea of mental maturity, adults who are behaving like children are often told to ‘grow up.’ There is a cognate noun, a grown-up which is a collogquial way of referring to an adult. It is used most commonly by children, or adults who are speaking from a child’ point of view. There is a connected transitive phrasal verb (separable), bring up, which means “to look after someone who is growing up.” For example: Jane was brought up by her aunt.

¶ two- her university entrance exams

• the headword of this noun phrase is ‘exams’ it is modified by two noun-modifiers, ‘university’ and ‘entrance.’

¶ two- the GCHQ does electronic surveillance.

• The basic meaning of ‘surveillance’ is ‘watching someone or something.’ The most common use of the word is to refer to secretly watching people to prevent them from doing something wrong—or something you don’t want them to do. In recent years, due to the increasing prevalence of video cameras ‘surveillance’ very frequently appears in the phrase ‘electronic surveillance’ When it is used in this context, the word tends to have a negative connotation, but it can also be used with a completely neutral connotation as, for example, in speaking of ‘medical surveillance’—regularly checking the condition of someone with a medical problem.
• etymology: ‘surveillance’ comes from the French word ‘surveiller’ meaning ‘to watch over.’ (The prefix ‘sur’ means ‘over’ and ‘veiller’ means ‘to watch.’)

¶ two- domestic and foreign

‘Domestic’ here means ‘in the same country.’ So ‘domestic surveillance’ is surveillance of communications coming from inside the UK. When it is used in this way, ‘domestic’ is the antonym of ‘foreign.’
• In another sense, the word refers to things and events inside people's houses. ‘Domestic appliances’ like ordinary stoves and refrigerators are constrasted to ‘industrial’ equipment and ‘domestic violence’ can be constrasted to ‘street violence.’ ‘Domestic animals’ are animals such as dogs, cats, horses, pigs and sheep which have been tamed and bred by humans for use as food, for help with work, or for keeping as pets.
etymology: ‘domestic comes from the Latin word ‘domus’ meaning ‘house.’