The chairman's praiseworthy plans were unlikely to materialize. (praiseworthy: commendable, laudable, admirable; materialize: happen, occur, emerge) His estimate showed a small insufficiency of funds, but its real weakness was the magnitude of an overlooked cost. (insufficiency: inadequacy, deficiency, shortage; magnitude: size, extent, scale) A delivery van cost money to run even when the driver worked without pay.
The volunteer, a mechanic who described himself as semiliterate and could add a column in his head, wrote the mileage beside the sum. (semiliterate: partly literate, barely literate, partially literate) The committee's most prominent member asked when literacy and arithmetic had become separate gifts. (prominent: eminent, notable, distinguished) The mechanic replied that he had always been one person. The questioner's discomfiture was an unintended repercussion. (repercussion: consequence, aftereffect, ramification)
They invited him to set the delivery strategy. (strategy: plan, approach, scheme) His first proposal was to combine two weekly trips. The plan left them with just enough money to offer reading lessons to anyone who asked. He was first through the door.