Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 524, Talking About Failure.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 524.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is called Talking About Failure.
It's a dialogue between Akiko and Jerry, using vocabulary that we would employ, that we would use regularly when talking about things that go wrong, things that fail.
Let's get started.
It was a complete flop.
I don't believe it.
You spent weeks working on that presentation.
It wasn't the presentation that bombed.
It was my big idea.
Leona called it a retread of what I presented last year, and she was not in the least impressed.
Ouch, that's pretty harsh.
What did the others say?
Overall, the response was dismal.
Everyone else was trying to be tactful, but it boiled down to the fact that they thought it was pathetic.
I'm sure that's not true.
And if they didn't jump up and down about the idea right away, they're bound to come around after you give them more details.
I don't know.
Come on, aren't you the same guy who told me that you didn't know the meaning of the word quit?
That was before this morning's presentation.
Are you giving up on your great idea?
No, I guess not, but it'll take some reworking.
Good, then you won't give up.
I guess not.
What the heck?
I'm only risking more humiliation and failure, right?
That's the spirit.
Akiko begins by asking Jerry, how did your presentation go over this morning at the meeting?
The phrasal verb to go over here means how did people like it?
How was it received?
Did people think it was good or bad?
Something that goes over well is something that is good.
Something that goes over poorly, obviously, is something that is bad.
So we use this expression to go over when we're talking about a presentation, perhaps a performance.
It might also be used in asking someone about something that they told somebody that might have been difficult for them to accept.
Jerry says, F-L-O-P.
Flop is a slightly informal way of saying failure, something that didn't work as you planned, something that didn't work correctly.
Again, usually used to describe a performance of some sort or a presentation.
We might say, the movie was a flop.
We mean the movie was a failure.
Nobody liked it.
It wasn't popular.
It didn't make any money.
Akiko says, I don't believe it.
You spent weeks working on that presentation.
Akiko doesn't think it was a flop.
Jerry, however, insists it wasn't the presentation that bombed.
To bomb in this context means to fail when some event or project doesn't work as well as you had hoped.
Once again, we can use the example of a movie.
The movie bombed.
It means it wasn't very successful.
A television show, a performance, a comedy routine, somebody telling jokes those are all things that can bomb.
Both the word bomb and flop have different meanings in English.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations of those two terms.
Jerry says that the presentation didn't bomb.
It was his big idea.
In other words, it wasn't the way he presented it, it was what he was saying, the content, the idea behind his presentation.
Leona called it a retread of what I presented last year.
A retread here means something that is repeated from a previous project or a previous idea, that It's usually an insulting term, a negative term saying that it wasn't original.
Jerry says that Leona was not in the least impressed.
Not in the least means not at all, not even a little bit.
Are you enjoying your new job?
And you say, not in the least.
It's horrible and I want to quit.
That's usually what I say when I start a new job.
Akiko says, ouch.
That's pretty harsh.
When someone says, ouch, in a situation like this, they mean, oh, that must hurt.
Ouch is a word we use to express pain.
If somebody punches you or you hit your arm on the door, you might say, ouch.
It's when something hurts.
Well, this comment of Leona's certainly hurt Jerry.
Akiko says, ouch.
That's pretty harsh.
Harsh in this case means very negative words. perhaps rude, something that is very direct.
If you go up to a man and say, excuse me, you're really ugly.
Well, that's pretty harsh.
Jerry says that the response overall from the other people at the presentation was dismal.
Dismal, D-I-S-M-A-L, means not good, very bad, depressing, negative.
You might describe the weather as dismal, or you might describe a book as dismal.
Jerry says that everyone else was trying to be tactful.
To be tactful, T-A-C-T-F-U-L, means to be very polite, to tell someone something with a lot of respect, but usually it's bad news.
You're criticizing someone.
You're saying something bad about them, but you're trying to be nice about it.
You're trying to say it in a nice way.
That's being tactful.
Jerry says that it boiled down to the fact that they thought his idea was pathetic.
To boil down to something means to be the same as something else.
To give a summary of something, to get down to the very necessary, the important details of something.
You may have lots of different reasons for buying a new car, but you probably have one or two reasons that are most important.
So if you take away all the other ideas, all the other things you could consider, these are the things that are most important.
So that's what it means to boil down to.
I like the color of the car.
I like the seats.
But it boils down to the price.
That's the most important thing.
It's the most essential element.
Jerry said it boiled down to the fact that they thought his idea was pathetic.
P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C.
Something that is pathetic makes you feel sad because it is such a sad, useless thing.
It's something that deserves your sympathy.
Something that is pathetic is so bad that you feel sorry for the person who's doing it or who's experiencing it.
That was how bad Jerry's idea was, I guess.
We're not told what his idea was.
Akiko says, I'm sure that's not true.
And if they didn't jump up and down about the idea right away, they're bound to come around after you give them more details.
When you say somebody jumps up and down about something, you mean they're very excited about something.
To be bound to means to be certain to happen, something that is very likely going to happen.
What Akiko is saying here is that, even though the other people at Jerry's presentation weren't excited about it they didn't jump up and down right away they're bound to come around.
After you give them more details, they're very likely to come around.
To come around here means to finally agree with someone, even if you had a different opinion originally.
My wife asks me to wear a green shirt because she thinks it looks good on me.
I don't like the idea, but finally I come around to it.
I decide, okay, I'll wear the green shirt.
I'll wear anything my wife tells me to wear.
That's the way it works.
So here Akiko is saying that the people are going to eventually like his idea once they get more details, more specific information about it.
Jerry says, I don't know.
He's doubtful.
Akiko tries to cheer him up, tries to make him happy by saying, come on.
The expression.
He didn't know the meaning of the word and then you put in the word is a common one to say that a person is the opposite of whatever that word is.
So if Jerry doesn't know the meaning of the word quit, that means he's never going to quit.
He's going to continue on, the opposite of quitting.
Jerry says that that was before this morning's presentation, meaning that's what he said before he made the presentation, but he no longer thinks that.
Akiko says, are you giving up on your great idea?
To give up means to abandon, to say, okay, I'm not going to do that anymore.
Jerry says, no, I guess not, but it'll take some reworking.
To rework something means to improve it, to revise it, because it's not good enough yet.
Akiko says, good, then you won't give up.
And Jerry says, I guess not.
What the heck?
The expression what the heck is a phrase used to show that you plan on doing something even though it might not be successful.
I'm not a very good bowler.
I don't know how to bowl.
But what the heck?
I'm going to play a game with my friend because it's fun, even though I'm going to do a bad job at it.
What the heck?
So Jerry says, what the heck?
I'm only risking more humiliation and failure, right?
Humiliation is when you are very embarrassed by something or someone.
So Jerry is saying, well, I'm probably not going to succeed.
I'm probably going to fail, but I'm going to try anyway.
Of course, it's not a good thing to think about being humiliated.
So Jerry is kind of joking here.
Akiko says, that's the spirit.
That's the spirit is normally an expression we use to encourage someone else.
To make them have the right attitude.
But here and often now it's used sarcastically.
That is, Akiko's making a joke.
Jerry doesn't seem to be very enthusiastic about his plan.
He thinks it's going to cause him to fail.
And Akiko is making fun of his negative view, saying oh, that's the spirit, when of course she means the opposite.
That's not the spirit.
That's not the attitude that he should have.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
How did the presentation go over this morning at the meeting?
It was a complete flop.
I don't believe it.
You spent weeks working on that presentation.
It wasn't the presentation that bombed.
It was my big idea.
Leona called it a retread of what I presented last year, and she was not in the least impressed.
Ouch.
That's pretty harsh.
What did the others say?
Overall, the response was dismal.
Everyone else was trying to be tactful, but it boiled down to the fact that they thought it was pathetic.
I'm sure that's not true.
And if they didn't jump up and down about the idea right away, they're bound to come around after you give them more details.
I don't know.
Come on.
Aren't you the same guy who told me that you didn't know the meaning of the word quit?
That was before this morning's presentation.
Are you giving up on your great idea?
No, I guess not.
But it'll take some reworking.
Good.
Then you won't give up.
I guess not.
What the heck?
I'm only risking more humiliation and failure, right?
That's the spirit.
The dialogue for this episode was not in the least a flop.
That's because it was written by 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.
