Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 116, Holiday Travel.
You're listening to English as a Second Language podcast episode 116.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
The topic of today's podcast is going to be traveling and specifically traveling for the holidays.
Let's go.
It's hard to avoid traveling over the holidays, but the experience I had last week really takes the cake.
I flew back to Tucson, Arizona to be with my wife's family, as we do every Christmas.
I got to the airport an hour and a half before my flight, which I thought would be plenty of time.
When I got there, though, I saw that the security line was out the door.
Because it was the holidays...
People were traveling with a lot of extra packages.
It took twice as long as it normally would to get to the front of the line.
When I finally got to the gate, I found that my flight had been oversold.
The gate agent was looking for people to voluntarily give up their seats for a later flight in exchange for a 100 travel voucher.
If she didn't get enough volunteers, she would have to bump people from the flight.
Luckily, several people took her up on the offer and the rest of us boarded.
What a hassle!
I love the holidays, but I don't love holiday travel.
We're talking today about traveling and specifically about flying in an airplane.
The title of our podcast is Holiday Travel.
Holiday, H-O-L-I-D-A-Y, means something different in the United States than in Great Britain.
In American English, a holiday is usually an official day that the government says you don't have to work.
So that would be a day like Independence Day, the Fourth of July, or Christmas, or New Year's Day.
These are all official holidays.
In Great Britain, a holiday is a vacation, what we would call in the United States a vacation where you go away somewhere with your family for two weeks.
Now you can take a vacation in addition to your holiday, but in the United States, holiday doesn't mean a vacation necessarily.
It just means a day that you don't have to work.
Now, in December, we have the Christmas holiday.
There are some who celebrate Hanukkah in the Jewish calendar, and there are, of course, New Year's Day celebrations.
So the holidays when someone uses that plural, at least in the United States, they mean the Christmas Hanukkah, New Year's.
That whole time is called the holidays.
In fact, some people even include Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Day at the end of November as the beginning of the holidays.
Well, we are talking about holiday traveling and we begin by saying that it's hard to avoid traveling over the holidays.
It's hard to avoid means, of course, it's difficult not to do something.
And with that particular expression it's hard to avoid.
The verb that comes after is in the ing form.
So it's hard to avoid traveling.
It's hard to avoid talking to my sister.
It's hard to avoid paying your taxes.
It's very hard to avoid dying.
So these are all verbs that take the ing.
I also said that the experience, what happened to me last week, really takes the cake.
The expression to take the cake C-A-K-E.
To take the cake means that it was the worst possible or it was in addition to all of the other problems.
It was even more of a problem.
Something that is the worst example of an experience would really take the cake.
I go to the dentist and I have to get my teeth fixed.
I have to have work done on my teeth.
And when I am finished, the bill is $1,000.
So in addition to having the pain of going to the dentist, I have the pain of paying $1,000.
That really takes the cake.
It means it's even worse than an other problem.
I flew back to Tucson, and Tucson is a small city in Arizona, which is next to California.
Tucson is in the middle of the desert.
Arizona is a desert state.
And I was going to go back to be with my wife and her family, as we do, as we always do every Christmas.
And I got to the airport early, an hour and a half before my flight, which I thought would be plenty of time.
Plenty, P-L-E-N-T-Y, means a lot, more than enough.
So plenty of time.
When I got there, though, the security line was out the door.
The security S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y line is the line you have to stand in, to be in, so that you can go through the x-ray machine and make sure you don't have any weapons or any bombs or anything else.
Well, the line was out the door.
When we say something is out the door, we mean that people are standing outside of the building.
The line is so long, it goes from inside all the way outside to the building.
And at Los Angeles International Airport there are actually, I think, eight terminals, eight places where planes can pull up, eight different parts of the airport.
And usually during the holidays, the security line is out the door in many of those terminals, many of those areas.
Well, one of the reasons that it was taking so long to get through security to get through, meaning to pass through security was people had a lot of packages.
Packages, P-A-C-K-A-G-E-S, here means boxes, things that are gifts for other people.
Usually in the holidays that's what the packages are.
Well, it took twice as long as it would normally to get to the front of the line.
Twice as long, three words, twice meaning, of course, two.
So twice as long means two times the amount of time it would normally take to get to the front or the beginning of the line.
When I got to the gate, the G-A-T-E, the gate is in the airport.
That's the door where you go out to get into the airplane.
So you go to the gate, that area, and I found out that my flight had been oversold.
Oversold is all one word.
Over and sold, O-V-E-R-S-O-L-D.
Oversold means that the airplane company, the airline as we call it, has sold too many tickets.
And this is something that happens in the United States.
I don't know about other countries.
The airline thinks that it can sell more tickets than it has seats, because people are always canceling or changing their flights.
So they're guessing, they're betting, and that some people will not come to the flight.
So they have 100 seats, but they sell, for example, 110 seats.
So if all 110 people actually get on that flight or try to fly that flight, then they have oversold.
And when they oversold the gate agent and the agent A-G-E-N-T is the person who works for the airline.
The person working there at the gate has to ask people if they would give up their seats.
To give up your seat means that you will volunteer.
You will say, okay, I won't go on this flight.
And usually they give you something if you do that.
They give you something in exchange for your seat.
The expression in exchange for means you give me something, I give you something.
In exchange for $10, I give you, you give me your car.
That's not a very good deal.
In exchange for a $100 travel voucher, and a travel voucher, a voucher is V-O-U-C-H-E-R.
A voucher is like a, it's kind of like a coupon or a certificate.
It's a piece of paper that says you have $100.
It's not a $100 bill.
It's not $100, but it's worth $100.
And we use that term voucher for travel tickets that the airline gives you if you give up your seat.
Well, if you don't have enough people giving up their seat, then the airline has to bump people.
To bump someone from a flight, bump, B-U-M-P, means to say you can't go.
And the airline has the right legally to bump people if they sell too many tickets, which surprises people when it happens.
It has happened to me.
I was flying once from St.
Paul, Minnesota to I think it was Dallas Texas, and I was bumped from my flight, meaning I was told you can't go on this flight, we have too many people.
Well, luckily, several people took up the gate agent's offer.
They took her up on the offer.
To take someone up on an offer means that you accept whatever, whatever idea that they present to you.
So someone says why don't we go to the beach this afternoon?
Because it's a beautiful day here in beautiful Los Angeles and I'll buy you lunch.
And she says, oh, okay, I'll take you up on your offer.
It means I agree to do that.
Well, after other people took up the gate agent's offer for travel vouchers, the rest of us boarded.
And to board means just to get onto the airplane.
I end the story by saying, what a hassle.
What a hassle.
H-A-S-S-L-E.
What a hassle means what a pain, what a problem.
Something that causes a lot of problems is a hassle.
Now let's listen to the story, this time at a native rate of speech.
It's hard to avoid traveling over the holidays, but the experience I had last week really takes the cake.
I flew back to Tucson, Arizona to be with my wife's family as we do every Christmas.
I got to the airport an hour and a half before my flight, which I thought would be plenty of time.
When I got there, though, I saw that the security line was out the door.
Because it was the holidays, people were traveling with a lot of extra packages.
It took twice as long as it normally would to get to the front of the line.
When I finally got to the gate, I found out that my flight had been oversold.
The gate agent was looking for people to voluntarily give up their seats for a later flight in exchange for a 100 travel voucher.
If she didn't get enough volunteers, she would have to bump people from the flight.
Luckily, several people took her up on the offer and the rest of us boarded.
What a hassle.
I love the holidays, but I don't love holiday travel.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on DSL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2006.
