Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 516, Naming and Appointing Officials.
This is English as a Second Language podcast number 516.
© BF-WATCH TV 2021
The Learning Guide is an additional help to improve your English even faster.
This episode is a dialogue between Goran and Anne.
It is about...
When you have official appointments in a company or in a government, when someone takes a new job, takes a new position, we have some particular vocabulary we use that will be discussed in this dialogue.
Let's get started.
Who do you think will be appointed to succeed Ramon on the board?
I don't know whom they'll pick to fill the position, but I know who the candidates are.
The higher-ups have been quietly vetting three people to make sure they don't have any skeletons in their closets.
Really?
Who are they?
I'm not at liberty to say, but I think at least two of the candidates are people outside of the inner circle.
You mean we might actually get a new board member who's not buddy-buddy with the higher ups?
All I can say is that two outsiders are under consideration.
Wow, that's huge.
Can you at least tell me if the remaining candidate is the interim board member?
Everybody thinks he has the inside track.
I can't tell you that.
The selection is being kept under wraps until next Thursday.
I've already let slip too much.
Yeah, and I'm not sinking this ship.
Our dialogue begins with Goran asking Anne...
To be appointed means to be named or chosen, usually for some leadership position.
To succeed can mean to be successful, but here it means to follow someone.
We often use this in talking about, for example, the president.
We have certain rules in our laws about what happens if the president were to die.
There is what is called presidential succession.
It comes from this verb to succeed when it means to take the place of.
So Gorin is asking Anne who she thinks will be appointed named, to succeed Ramon on the board, probably the board of directors of a company.
Anne says, I don't know whom they'll pick, but But I know who the candidates are.
To fill a position or to fill a job means to find someone to take that job, to put someone in that job.
We need to fill the position of secretary.
We need to find someone to work in that position.
And when we fill it, that means we've found a person.
Anne says, The candidates here mean the people who are being considered for a particular position.
We use that word also in government.
You have different presidential candidates.
But you can also have candidates for a position.
When I worked at the university, every year usually we would have candidates.
Ann says the higher-ups have been quietly vetting three people.
The higher-ups refers to someone who works in management, a decision-maker, a leader.
The expression is sort of informal, but you will hear it in business context sometimes.
Vetting means to talk to different people, look at their information and decide who is really the perfect person for this job, who has the qualifications for this job and who is not qualified.
To vet is the verb, V-E-T.
Once again.
We use this sometimes in government when the president appoints important members of his government.
There is someone who does the vetting, someone who looks into the background, usually to make sure that there isn't anything bad in their past that would cause a problem.
So Ann says the higher-ups have been quietly vetting three people to make sure they don't have any skeletons in their closets.
This is what I was just talking about.
The expression skeletons in their closets refers to secrets about their past that might be damaging or embarrassing, things that would make them unqualified to take the job or position.
So, for example, if you go and rob a bank and spend five years in prison and then you apply for a job, if they investigate your past, your background, they will find a skeleton in your closet, meaning they will find something that is negative about your background.
The word skeleton refers to a human being's bones without anything else on them or not considering anything else.
If you had a skeleton in your closet, you probably killed someone and then hid them in your closet, which I don't recommend.
You should bury them somewhere else.
Gorin says, who are they?
Anne says, I'm not at liberty to say.
When you say, I'm not at liberty to say, you're saying, I can't tell you.
I'm not able to tell you.
I'm not free to tell you.
It's a somewhat formal expression.
Anne continues, but I think at least two of the candidates are people outside of the inner circle.
The expression inner circle refers to a small group of people who work together or who have the same information about something.
What Ann is saying here is that two of the people they are considering for the position aren't people who are currently working at the company or currently at a leadership position in the company.
Among those who are in the inner circle, the group of leaders most probably.
Gorin says you mean we might actually get a new board member who's not buddy-buddy with the higher-ups.
To be buddy-buddy means to be a close personal friend of someone, to have a very close relationship with someone.
It's sometimes used in a negative way to say oh well, he's buddy-buddy with the boss, so the boss likes him a lot.
That would mean he's very friendly with the boss, but not in a way that I really like, or perhaps I'm a little jealous of him.
Gorin obviously thinks that someone who is buddy-buddy with the higher-ups is not the best person for the job.
Anne says.
All I can say is that two outsiders are under consideration, meaning they're being considered, they're being discussed, they're a possibility.
Gorin says, wow, that's huge.
That's huge is an informal expression, meaning that it is very important or it could be very important.
It's an expression that has become more popular in the last probably 10 or 15 years.
Wow, that's huge.
Gorin says, If you are interim, I-N-T-E-R-I-M, you are temporarily in a position.
You are in a position, but you are not necessarily going to stay there.
So if your president of your company resigns, they may appoint an interim president until they have a chance to find the perfect person.
So they will put someone there who they know won't be there for very long or at least has to apply for the job formally and be interviewed and vetted just like any other candidate.
Here, Gorin was referring to an interim board member.
Everybody thinks he has the inside track.
To have the inside track is to have an advantage in getting a job, usually because you know somebody in the company.
If I was interviewing at the university and I was friends with one of the professors there, I might have an inside track, meaning I have an advantage over all the other candidates because I have this relationship already with one of the professors.
Anne says, I can't tell you that.
The selection is being kept under wraps until next Thursday.
To keep something under wraps.
W-R-A-P-S means to keep it secret, not to tell other people about it.
Ann says, I've already let slip too much.
To let something slip, S-L-I-P, or to let slip something, would mean to accidentally share a secret.
To tell someone something that you didn't mean to tell them, something that is secret, that you weren't supposed to tell them.
The word slip has a couple of different meanings in English, as does the word fill that we talked about earlier.
For both of those, take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
Gorin says, don't worry, my lips are sealed.
Your lips are the opening to your mouth.
On the front of your face, you have an upper lip and a lower lip.
To seal something means to close it.
So when someone says, my lips are sealed, they mean I will not open my mouth.
I will not tell anyone.
Ann says, they'd better be, meaning you better not tell anyone.
You know what they say about loose lips.
The expression loose lips refers to people who talk too much, who tell people secrets.
There's an old expression, loose lips sink ships.
To sink means to, in this case, take a ship or a boat and make it go down into the water which, of course, is not what you want your boat or ship to do.
I believe the expression comes from World War I, When you said loose lips sink ships.
Back then the idea was that you shouldn't tell anyone if you are working in the military, for example, what the plans are or anything about military secrets, because there could be other people who are your enemies spies listening and that could hurt people who are on those ships.
Of course, that would happen in a war.
The enemy would find out where your ship is because you were telling secrets and that could give them the opportunity to sink the ship.
So Anne says, Gorin says, yeah, and I'm not sinking this ship.
I'm not going to damage anything or hurt anything by telling anyone anything that I know.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Who do you think will be appointed to succeed Ramon on the board?
I don't know whom they'll pick to fill the position, but I know who the candidates are.
The higher-ups have been quietly vetting three people to make sure they don't have any skeletons in their closets.
Really?
Who are they?
I'm not at liberty to say, but I think at least two of the candidates are people outside of the inner circle.
You mean we might actually get a new board member who's not buddy-buddy with the higher-ups?
All I can say is that two outsiders are under consideration.
Wow, that's huge.
Can you at least tell me if the remaining candidate is the interim board member?
Everybody thinks he has the inside track.
I can't tell you that.
The selection is being kept under wraps until next Thursday.
I've already let slip too much.
Don't worry.
My lips are sealed.
They'd better be.
You know what they say about loose lips.
Yeah, and I'm not sinking this ship.
I'm pretty sure our script writer doesn't have any skeletons in her closet.
That's because it's Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr. Lucy Say.
Hosted by Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2009 by the Center for Educational Development.
