Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast, number 600, Talking About Sight.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 600.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development at.
Thank you,
This episode is called Talking About Sight, about how you see and vocabulary related to seeing.
Let's get started.
This medication I'm taking is messing with my vision.
Everything is blurry.
I can't.
I have to give a presentation this afternoon, and I can't flake out on my co-workers.
What good are you to them if you're blind as a bat?
Everybody else will have crystal clear vision, so all I have to do is to put in an appearance.
Things may not be as sharp as I'd like them to be, but I can still make out people and objects, as long as they're really big.
I can see well enough.
I only see double if I move my head like this.
Whoa!
At this point, I don't care if you have x-ray vision.
That medication is affecting more than your vision.
It's impairing your better judgment.
Sue begins our dialogue by saying, this medication I'm taking is messing with my vision.
Everything is blurry.
Medication is just another word for medicine or a drug that you take to help your health.
To mess with is an informal expression meaning to interfere with something or someone.
To make something more difficult for someone.
To get in someone's way in order to make something more difficult for them.
You may say to someone, don't mess with me.
That's a rather strong statement.
You're saying...
If you interfere with me or what I'm trying to do, I am going to do something bad to you.
I am going to perhaps hurt you.
Here however Sue, just means that the medication is interfering with or affecting in a negative way her vision.
Vision V-I-S-I-O-N is another word for eyesight, which means how well or how poorly you're able to see things.
If you have what we might call perfect eyesight, we would say you have 20-20 vision, meaning you are able to see without any glasses.
Well, Sue does not have 20-20 vision.
She says everything is blurry, B-L-U-R-R-Y.
When things are blurry, they are unclear.
We would say they are not in focus.
Your eyes can't see them clearly.
It's sort of like there are clouds around them or you can't see where one thing begins and another ends.
Another adjective we might use in this situation when talking about vision is fuzzy, F-U-Z-Z-Y.
Blurry is probably more common, however.
Hamid says, that's a good reason for you to stay home from work today.
He's telling her that she should not go to work because her vision is blurry.
Sue, however, says, I can't.
I can't stay home.
I have to give a presentation this afternoon.
The expression to flake F-L-A-K-E out is a two-word phrasal verb meaning not to do something you are supposed to do, especially something you are supposed to do with another person.
For example, you say that you are going to go to a movie with your friend and that you will meet at the movie theater.
But then you decide you're not going to go to the movie and you don't even tell your friend.
That would be to flake out.
Even if you did tell your friend, that could also be considered flaking out, especially if you do it at the last minute, meaning right before the actual time you are supposed to go to the movie.
We can also use the verb to flake to mean the same thing, but to flake out is probably more common.
The two-word phrasal version.
Sue is giving a presentation with some of her co-workers people with whom she works, and so cannot stay home.
Hamid says, what good are you to them if you're blind as a bat?
What good are you to them means how are you going to help them if you are blind as a bat?
This is an old expression in English.
To be blind means to be unable to see.
A bat means So to be blind as a bat means that you cannot see.
You're unable to see very well.
Sue says everybody else will have crystal clear vision.
Things that are crystal C-R-Y-S-T-A-L clear are things that are very clear, very easy to see or very easy to understand.
You can use this not just for vision purposes.
You can also use it to talk about an explanation, for example.
This explanation is crystal clear.
I can understand it easily.
We hope these explanations are crystal clear to you.
Sue says all she has to do is to put in an appearance.
To put in an appearance means to show up, to be seen in a particular place, even if you don't do anything important, even if you don't stay there very long.
My friend is getting married.
I don't really want to go to the party after the wedding, what we call the wedding reception.
But I need to put in an appearance at the church where he's getting married.
I need to go there and be seen.
Sue says, things may not be as sharp as I'd like them to be, but I can still make out people and objects, as long as they're really big.
Sharp here means easy to see, easy to understand, clearly defined, something similar to crystal clear.
Sharp, however, has several other meanings in English, and those can be found in our learning guide.
She says that she can still make out people and objects.
To make out is a two-word phrasal verb.
That means to be able to see something when it is otherwise difficult to see, usually because it is too far away.
You see someone walking toward you, but they are far away and you can't make out if it's a man or a woman.
You can't see clearly enough.
Hamid says I don't think your coworkers are going to want you to blindside them today with your strange behavior.
To blindside, one word, means to surprise someone, but in a bad way, in a negative way.
We were all blindsided when Jenna shared the company's secrets with the television reporters.
We were all surprised in a very negative way.
Hamid says that Sue will blindside her colleagues, her coworkers, if she can't see.
He says, you're going to do more harm than good.
The expression to do more harm than good means that your actions or words will hurt.
Sue says Whoa.
Whoa.
To see double means to see two images of something.
If you have too much to drink or you have taken some medicine, you may start to see double, at least some kinds of medicine.
Sue says that she is seeing two of everything.
She only has that problem when she moves her head in a certain way, but when she does this, she appears to be affected by it.
She says, which is a way of expressing that you are experiencing something strange or something unusual.
Hamid says i don't care if you have x-ray vision, that medication is affecting more than your vision.
X-ray vision is the ability to see through objects, to see what's inside of something.
If you go to the doctor and the doctor thinks that you may have broken a bone, say in your arm or leg, they may take an x-ray.
They may take a special picture which can see inside, if you will, your arm or leg.
To have x-ray vision is just another way of saying to have incredibly good eyesight and magically good eyesight.
I think Superman had x-ray vision.
He could see inside of things.
I'm not sure.
I'll have to ask him when I talk to him again.
Hamid says the medication, the drugs that Sue is taking, is impairing her better judgment of.
To impair I-M-P-A-I-R means to make something worse, to make something not as good as it would normally be.
Talking on a cell phone while you are driving impairs your ability to drive.
That's true.
In fact, some research says that talking on the cell phone and driving is as bad as drinking and driving.
Both of those things impair your ability to drive.
Your better judgment is your ability to know what is right and wrong, or what you should do or say in a particular situation.
Hamid is saying that the medication is impairing Sue's better judgment.
She's not able to think clearly because of the drugs she's been taking.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
This medication I'm taking is messing with my vision.
Everything is blurry.
That's a good reason for you to stay home from work today.
I can't.
I have to give a presentation this afternoon and I can't flake out on my co-workers.
What good are you to them if you're blind as a bat?
Everybody else will have crystal clear vision, so all I have to do is to put in an appearance.
Things may not be as sharp as I'd like them to be, but I can still make out people and objects, as long as they're really big.
I don't think your coworkers are going to want you to blindside them today with your strange behavior.
You're going to do more harm than good.
I can see well enough.
I only see double if I've moved my head like this.
Whoa!
At this point, I don't care if you have x-ray vision.
That medication is affecting more than your vision.
It's impairing your better judgment.
Don't mess with the writer of today's script.
That's because it was Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here at ESL Podcast.
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.
