Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1298.
Claiming credit for an invention.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1298.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
This episode is a dialogue between Kitty and Alberto about saying that you... came up with or created a new idea or a new thing when you didn't.
Let's get started.
Wait a second.
We invented the machinator.
It was one of the most important technical achievements of our country.
What?
You can't claim credit for the machinator.
We beat you to it.
You may have invented the precursor to the modern-day machinator, but we're the ones who are the recognized inventors.
That's disputed.
Just because we didn't document the achievement doesn't mean it didn't happen.
You mean it's a case of if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
I don't think so.
The fact is you can try to rebut our claims all you like, but you still have no proof.
The proof is in the pudding.
Don't we make the best machinators in the world today?
That's beside the point.
Okay, I will concede that your country makes the best machinators today, if you'll concede that we invented it.
Never.
This dialogue is all about inventions.
I-N-V-E-N-T-I-O-N-S Inventions, as a word, comes from the verb to invent.
To invent means to create or develop something that has never been made before.
Usually inventions are physical things, things that you make with your hands or with a machine.
That's normally how we would think of an invention, though I suppose nowadays, with software and computer programming, we might think of it a little differently.
In any case, Our dialogue begins with Kitty saying to Alberto, wait a second, meaning stop.
We invented the machinator.
It was one of the most important technical achievements of our country.
Kitty is saying that we meaning she or someone from her country invented this machine or this thing called a machinator.
We're not sure what a machinator is, and it's not important.
What is important is that Kitty believes that it was one of the most important technical achievements of her country.
A technical achievement would be some great accomplishment, some great thing that involves technology or tools that makes life better in some way.
A technical achievement would be, for example, the invention of the television or the smartphone or the wireless radio.
Alberto says, what?
He's very surprised.
He says, you can't claim credit for the machinator.
We beat you to it.
So it appears that Kitty and Alberto are from two different countries.
And Alberto is saying that we, by which I think he means his country or someone from his country, invented the machinator, and therefore Kitty's country can't claim, C-L-A-I-M, credit, C-R-E-D-I-T.
To claim credit is to say that you are responsible for something that was done and that therefore, you should receive the praise or the recognition or the reward for it.
You can claim credit for an idea just as well as for an invention.
Usually, when we use this expression to claim credit, we're saying that someone falsely claimed credit, that someone said that he invented something or he thought of something when he really didn't, just so that he could get the praise or recognition for it.
So let's say you and your coworker a person you work with, are talking about an idea that you have.
Well, later your co-worker goes to your boss and claims credit for that idea.
Says that she thought of the idea.
That would be an example of claiming credit for something.
Alberto says that Kitty's country cannot claim credit for the machinator.
He says, we beat you to it.
To beat B-E-A-T someone to something means to do something before another person does, or to be the first group or first person to do a certain thing.
The Americans beat other countries to the moon.
They got there before other countries landed on the moon.
Kitty says, you may have invented the precursor to the modern day machinator, but we're the ones who are the recognized inventors.
Kitty uses the word precursor, P-R-E-C-U-R-S-O-R.
A precursor is something that happens before another event and that leads to it in some way, or is responsible for the later event that takes place.
For example, the typewriter.
The manual typewriter was in some ways the precursor to modern computer word processors, computers that did the same thing as a typewriter, only in a better or different way.
Kitty says that Alberto's country invented the precursor to the modern-day or current machinator, this strange and unknown machine.
But we're the ones who are the recognized inventors, she says.
To be recognized means that you are acknowledged or seen by others as having done a certain thing or to have accomplished a certain thing.
We might say, this runner is recognized as the fastest man in the world.
Everyone knows him and agrees that, yes, he is the fastest man in the world.
Alberto says that's disputed.
Something that is disputed D-I-S-P-U-T-E-D is something that people do not agree on, or something that is controversial.
That is, people have different opinions about it and often disagree, sometimes with great emotion about it.
Alberto says, just because we didn't document the achievement means doesn't mean it didn't happen.
To document D-O-C-U-M-E-N-T something is to write it down or to do something that makes a permanent or visible record of it.
Nowadays we might record a video to document something happening.
The word document is often used to describe pieces of paper that have writing on them or any kind of writing, such as a Microsoft Word document.
That would be an electronic file that has information, written information on it.
To document as a verb however, means more generally to do something to record a certain event in a permanent way that others can go and look at to see that it actually happened.
Alberto says just because we didn't, we did not document the achievement that is the invention of this machine, does not mean it didn't happen.
It's kind of hard to understand that sentence because there are a lot of negatives there.
Basically, what Alberto is saying is that, Even though we didn't record it or document it, it still happened.
Just because there's no evidence doesn't mean it didn't happen.
It did happen, even though there is nothing to show or prove it happened.
Kitty then uses a famous expression in English about this exact situation.
She says.
This expression is used sometimes as to question whether something has value or meaning if no one is actually there to see it or hear it.
The obvious answer to this question, of course, is yes.
Things make sounds even though no one is there to hear the sound waves that move through the air.
The expression is sometimes used jokingly, as though it were some sort of great philosophical question.
A forest, F-O-R-E-S-T, is a large group of trees in a single area.
Alberto says I don't think so, meaning I don't think this is an example of that case of the tree falling in the forest and no one being around to hear it.
Kitty then says the fact is, you can try to rebut our claims all you like, but you still have no proof.
The expression the fact is is often used to emphasize that you are telling the truth or that what you are saying is a fact.
It is real.
It is true.
The verb to rebut R-E-B-U-T means to present an opposing view or opinion of something, to argue against something.
Usually, we use this verb after another person has disagreed with us.
So we present an argument and the other person presents an another argument against ours.
We then rebut his argument.
So it's usually, if you will, the third time that the question has been addressed, although it's not always used quite in that technical manner the way we might use it in a formal debate or disagreement about a topic.
I published a scientific article about vocabulary not too long ago and someone wrote an article disagreeing with me.
I then was allowed to rebut his argument.
I wrote a second article disagreeing with the things he said about my article.
Who was right?
Who was correct?
Well, I was, of course.
Kitty says that Alberto and his country can try to rebut her country's claims.
C-L-A-I-M-S all they like.
A claim is when you say something is true.
Kitty says, however, that Alberto has no proof.
P-R-O-O-F.
Proof is evidence, something that shows that you are correct.
It could be documents or other things that show that you are telling the truth.
Alberto then uses another popular expression in his response, although it doesn't make a lot of sense.
He says the proof is in the pudding.
P-U-D-D-I-N-G.
The word pudding in British English is often used simply to mean what in American English we would call dessert D-E-S-E-R-T.
Something sweet that you eat at the end of a meal.
For short, it's sometimes simply called a pud, P-U-D.
In American English, a pudding is one kind of dessert, a particular kind of dessert that that often has what we would call a creamy consistency.
It has a creamy texture or feel to it.
In any case, the expression the proof is in the pudding means that whether you are right or not is determined by whether you are successful.
If something actually works, then that is the proof.
The proof or the evidence that you are correct is that something works.
The reason Alberto says that here is because he then claims that his country makes the best machinators in the world.
And if that's true, therefore, he thinks, they must have invented the machinator.
Of course, that isn't really logical, but that's what Alberto is saying.
Kitty, however, says that's beside the point.
The expression to be beside, B-E-S-I-D-E, the point, P-O-I-N-T, means it's not important.
It's not related to this topic.
It's irrelevant, we might also say.
Something that is irrelevant is something that doesn't matter.
It's not important, especially when you are arguing about something or trying to make a case for something.
Kitty says, I will concede that your country makes the best machinators today.
To concede C-O-N-C-E-D-E means to admit that something is true when earlier you said it wasn't true.
You said it was false.
To say, okay, you're right, I was wrong about this.
Kitty says that she will concede that Alberto's country makes the best machinators today.
But she will only concede that she will only agree to say she was wrong if Alberto concedes that her country invented the machinator.
And Alberto says never, meaning no, he will not agree to that statement.
He will not concede that Kitty's country invented the machinator.
What is the machinator?
Well, it's a mystery.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Wait a second.
We invented the machinator.
It was one of the most important technical achievements of our country.
What?
You can't claim credit for the machinator.
We beat you to it.
You may have invented the precursor to the modern-day machinator, but we're the ones who are the recognized inventors.
That's disputed.
Just because we didn't document the achievement doesn't mean it didn't happen.
You mean it's a case of if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
I don't think so.
The fact is, you can try to rebut our claims all you like, but you still have no proof.
The proof is in the pudding.
Don't we make the best machinators in the world today?
That's beside the point.
Okay, I will concede that your country makes the best machinators today, if you'll concede that we invented it.
Never.
Our scriptwriter is, or should be, recognized as one of the great scriptwriters on the internet.
I speak, of course, of the wonderfully talented Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
