The built-in gets function simply reads a line and returns it as a string. The chomp method from class String trims the line terminator. The prompts are generated with ordinary prints lacking a final newline.

# Get the parts of speech
print "Please enter a past-tense verb: "
verb = gets.chomp
print "Please enter a noun: "
noun = gets.chomp
print "Please enter a proper noun: "
prop_noun = gets.chomp
print "Please enter a an adverb: "
adv = gets.chomp

# Make the sentence.
print "#{prop_noun} got a #{noun} and\n#{verb} #{adv} around the block.\n"

Similarly, the to_f method of class String converts the input string to a floating-point number.

print "Triangle height: "
h = gets.to_f;
print "Triangle width: "
w = gets.to_f;
area = 0.5*h*w
print "Triangle height ", h, " width ", w, " has area ", area, "\n"

Ruby generally uses line breaks instead of semicolons to separate statements. Lines can be continued by using a \ at the end, but this is rarely needed. If the line ends with pretty much anything that suggests there should be more, Ruby will continue on to the next line. This includes such things as ending with an operator, or inside parentheses or something else which needs to be closed.

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