Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 576, Using Unfair Influence.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 576.
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 Using Unfair Influence.
Let's get started.
Hello, I'm Josie Kim.
Hi, I'm Kurt West.
Thanks for agreeing to meet with me.
You mentioned on the phone that you can help us get that government contract we're bidding on.
Is that right?
Absolutely.
I'm sure I can be of service to your company and secure that contract without too much difficulty.
I appreciate your confidence, but can you tell me more about how you plan to do that?
I think the less said, the better.
Let's just say that I have friends in high places.
Come on, you know how business is done on Capitol Hill.
If you line the right pockets, it's not difficult to pull some strings to get what you want.
Are you suggesting that our company use bribery to get preferential treatment on our bid?
I'm simply saying that backroom deals are business as usual in the government.
If you're suggesting that we hire you to do influence peddling, I can tell you now that we're not interested.
Corruption may be rampant in government, but we're not willing to do anything unethical to get a contract.
Suit yourself, but without somebody like me doing your dirty work...
There's no way you're going to win that contract.
That may be, Mr. West, but that's a chance we're willing to take.
Our dialogue begins with Josie saying, Hello, I'm Josie Kim.
Kurt says, Hi, I'm Kurt West.
Josie says, Is that right?
A contract is a legal agreement between two people or two groups, where one of the parties, as they're called, one of the people or the groups, agrees to give something, to do something for the other group or person, and that other party gives them money or something else of value.
Josie is talking about a government contract that her business is bidding on.
To bid, B-I-D, means to offer to do something, in this case for a particular amount of money.
Often the government has work that it needs done and it has businesses do that work.
But the businesses have to bid.
They have to say I'll do it for this much, I'll do it for that much.
And then the government picks the best bid, sometimes the cheapest or the one that will do the most for the money.
To bid has other meanings in English as well.
Take a look at our learning guide for those.
Kurt says, absolutely, meaning yes, we can help you get that government contract.
He says I'm sure I can be of service to your company and secure that contract without too much difficulty.
To be of service to someone means to be useful, to be helpful to that person.
To secure here means to get, to obtain.
Secure has other meanings in English.
Those, guess what, are in the learning guide.
Josie says, I appreciate your confidence.
But can you tell me more about how you plan to do that?
So Josie wants to know how Kurt can help her company get this government contract.
And Kurt says, I think the less said the better.
This expression or phrase the less said the better is is used to indicate that you don't want to give a lot of information, a lot of details about something, perhaps because the details would be about something bad unethical, immoral or wrong in some way and the other person doesn't need to know that information.
Sometimes the phrase is simply used to mean that I don't want to talk about it, or that's not something that we want to talk about because perhaps it's embarrassing to someone.
The less said, the better.
Kurt says, let's just say that I have friends in high places.
To have friends in high places means that you have personal or professional relationships with people who have a lot of power.
Perhaps you know the governor of your state.
If I knew our current governor, Schwarzenegger, I would say that I have friends in high places.
Josie says, I'm not sure I understand you.
Kurt says, come on, meaning be reasonable.
Don't joke with me.
You know how business is done on Capitol Hill.
Capitol Hill is in Washington, D.C.
It's where the building, the Capitol building, is located, where you have the US representatives and the US senators.
They meet in the Capitol building.
So when someone says Capitol Hill, they're referring to the Senate and the House of Representatives, or simply the Congress, which is another word for those two groups.
Kurtz says if you line the right pockets it's not difficult to pull some strings to get what you want.
To line L-I-N-E the right pockets means to give money to powerful people so that they will make a particular decision or take a particular view on something.
You're basically influencing them illegally, unethically, by giving them money.
This is a type of what we would call more generally corruption, where people in the government are taking money or houses or vacations or whatever in exchange for making certain decisions to help the people who gave him or her that money.
That's what it means to line someone's pockets.
He says it's not difficult to pull some strings to get what you want.
The phrase to pull some strings means to do something in secret, something unusual, perhaps unethical, to influence a person or a situation.
It doesn't always have to be something that is illegal or To pull some strings means simply to use your influence, your power to get something done.
But with Kurt, we kind of think that it probably is unethical.
Josie says B-R-I-B-E-R-Y is the illegal practice of giving money to politicians or other decision makers to make them do what you want to do.
So it's to line someone's pockets, as we said earlier.
That's bribery.
And the verb is to bribe.
Preferential treatment means someone is going to be favorable toward you.
They're going to make decisions that help you or your organization.
Again, if this is done because they received a bribe, then that would be illegal and unethical.
Kurt says, I'm simply saying... that backroom deals are business as usual in the government.
A backroom.
One word deal is an agreement that happens in secret without people knowing about it, certainly without the general public, the average person, knowing about it.
Business as usual here means the way things have always been done in this particular kind of business or in this type of organization, in this case the government.
Kurt is saying that the government always has these secret agreements, these secret deals.
That's business as usual, as normal business.
Josie says if you're suggesting that we hire you to do influence peddling, I can tell you now we're not interested.
Influence.
Peddling P-E-D-D-L-I-N-G is again the illegal practice of using your authority or your power as a way to get money or favors from other people.
Josie is saying that her company is not going to give Kurt money so that he can go bribe government officials.
She says Corruption is, as we mentioned before, dishonest behavior by people who have a lot of power, especially governments.
Rampant behavior.
R-A-M-P-A-N-T means very common, not unusual.
Often a negative thing that's very common.
Unethical means wrong. immoral, often illegal.
But unethical doesn't necessarily mean it's illegal, but it does mean that it's wrong.
It's against the common understanding of right and wrong.
Kurt says, suit yourself, meaning you can do what you want to do.
I don't care.
Suit yourself.
But without somebody like me doing your dirty work, There's no way you're going to win that contract.
Dirty work here means doing things that are not pleasant, perhaps are wrong, but that you are going to have to do.
Kurt says that if you don't do this, if you don't bribe the government officials, you won't win the contract.
The contract will not be given to you.
Josie says that may be Mr West, that may be correct.
She means but that's a chance we're willing to take, meaning that's a risk that we are willing to take.
Perhaps we won't get the contract, but we won't do anything illegal or unethical.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Hello, I'm Josie Kim.
Hi, I'm Kurt West.
Thanks for agreeing to meet with me.
You mentioned on the phone that you can help us get that government contract we're bidding on.
Is that right?
Absolutely.
I'm sure I can be of service to your company and secure that contract without too much difficulty.
I appreciate your confidence, but can you tell me more about how you plan to do that?
I think the less said the better.
Let's just say that I have friends in high places.
I'm not sure I understand you.
Come on.
You know how business is done on Capitol Hill.
If you line the right pockets, it's not difficult to pull some strings to get what you want.
I'm simply saying that backroom deals are business as usual in the government.
If you're suggesting that we hire you to do influence peddling, I can tell you now that we're not interested.
Corruption may be rampant in government, but we're not willing to do anything unethical to get a contract.
Suit yourself, but without somebody like me doing your dirty work, there's no way you're going to win that contract.
That may be, Mr. West, but that's a chance we're willing to take.
I do, in fact, have friends in high places.
I know the script writer here at the Center for Educational Development, 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 Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
