Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 660, Work-Related Injuries.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 660.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Go to ESLPODcom to download a learning guide that goes with this episode.
That includes a complete transcript of everything we say, not just the dialogue, as well as vocabulary definitions, sample sentences and additional definitions, cultural notes and a few comprehension questions.
This episode is called Work-Related Injuries.
An injury is when you hurt yourself.
Let's get started.
I just went to a seminar about work-related injuries and I really have to rethink my workspace.
Work-related injuries?
It's not like we're doing heavy lifting every day.
We sit at our desks all day.
That's the problem.
Look at how you're slouching over your keyboard.
Poor posture can cause a lot of problems over time.
Aren't you always complaining about back pain?
Yeah, but... And look at how you squint at your computer monitor all day.
Aren't you always complaining about headaches?
Yes.
You're probably suffering from eye strain.
It's true that I sometimes have headaches.
It's no wonder.
Look at what we do all day.
Repetitive motion after repetitive motion.
Aren't you suffering from elbow pain right now?
I was this morning.
See what I mean?
We need better ergonomics in this office.
Okay.
Where do we start?
I think we need to sign up for a seminar on how to prevent work related injuries.
What do you have in mind?
How about this four day seminar?
But that seminar is in Florida.
Count me in.
Daryl or Daryl, I guess either pronunciation is possible says that he just went to a seminar about work-related injuries.
A seminar S-E-M-I-N-A-R is the same as a workshop, or we might call it a conference, or Usually it's one or two days, sometimes more.
Typically seminars are meant to teach you something.
So it's sort of like a class.
Almost every major profession has seminars.
I used to give seminars.
I used to do seminars for teachers several years ago, in talking about teaching reading to high school students.
That's one of the things I did before starting ESL podcast.
A seminar, then is a class where you go to learn something, and Daryl learned about work-related injuries.
Work-related means that it was somehow part of your job.
Well, in this case, it wasn't part of your job.
It's something that happened when you were working or, because you were working, something you did at work.
An injury is when you hurt yourself physically, or So work-related injuries would be things that would happen at work that cause you pain, that cause you to hurt yourself.
Daryl says, I really have to rethink my workspace.
To rethink, you should be able to guess, means to think again.
In English that prefix re before a word typically means to do it again, to do it over and over again.
Daryl needs to rethink his workspace.
Workspace, one word, is the area where you work, your desk, your office, and so forth.
This word has become popular in the last few years.
So has another word called workflow.
Workflow is the order in which you do things.
First I do A, then I do B, then I do C.
Daryl needs to rethink his workspace.
Kim asks, work-related injuries?
She's confused.
She doesn't understand why Daryl is talking about this.
She says it's not like we're doing heavy lifting every day.
Kim thinks of work-related injuries as being something that would happen if you were doing a lot of heavy lifting.
To lift something, L-I-F-T, means to pick it up and raise it up high.
Heavy means is, of course, the opposite of light, something that weighs a lot.
So heavy lifting is when you are moving, for example, big boxes of books or things that are very heavy and difficult that could cause you to, for example, hurt your back or your legs or arms.
Heavy lifting in general is often used to mean difficult work or a lot of work.
You could talk about a computer programmer who does the heavy lifting for a project.
He or she is the person that does most of the work.
That's another way of using this expression.
Kim says we sit at our desks all day, so they're not doing physically difficult work.
Daryl, however, says that that's the problem.
Look at how you're slouching over your keyboard, he says.
Because they sit at their desks all day, they also have other injuries...
In Kim's case, she's slouching over her keyboard.
To slouch S-L-O-U-C-H means to sit or stand in such a way that your back, your shoulders, your neck sort of curve forward slightly.
They make you appear... shorter than you actually are.
This is something you will see a lot with teenagers who are growing quickly.
They don't always do what we would refer to as standing up straight.
Sometimes a parent will say to their teenage son stand up straight, meaning don't slouch, don't lean over and pretend you're shorter than you are.
Stand up, put your head up, be as tall as you are.
That's what the expression means.
The opposite would be to slouch.
Poor posture, Darrell says, can cause a lot of problems over time.
Posture P-O-S-T-U-R-E is the way you hold your body in general, especially your what we would call upper body, from your waist to your head.
Good posture would mean to sit up straight, not to slouch.
Daryl says to Kim, aren't you always complaining about back pain?
Back here refers to the part of your body in between your waist and your shoulders.
In, of course, the back of your body.
If you have poor posture...
If you are slouching all the time, that might cause some pain in your back.
Back has many different meanings in English.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
Kim says, yeah, meaning yes, I do have back pain.
Daryl says, and look how you squint at your computer monitor all day.
To squint, S-Q-U-I-N-T, is when you partially close your eyes.
You don't close them all the way, but you're trying to see something better.
You're trying to focus better on something, or perhaps there's a very strong light and you can't open your eyes 100 completely.
So you close them a little bit.
We call that squinting, especially when you are trying to read something that is difficult to read.
It's too far away from you or it's written in too small of a font, of a print.
Kim squints at her computer monitor, her computer screen, And because of this, she has headaches.
These headaches, Daryl thinks, are because she is suffering from eye strain.
To suffer from means that you have some pain caused by something.
I suffer from a sore neck in the afternoons.
It hurts me.
Eyestrain is when your eyes feel tired or they are bothering you, probably because you are trying to maybe read with poor lighting or you are looking at your computer screen all day.
These things can cause problems with your eyes, eyestrain.
Kim says, it's true that I sometimes have headaches.
Daryl says, it's no wonder, meaning that's not surprising.
That is obvious.
It's no wonder.
Look at what we do all day, he says.
Repetitive motion after repetitive motion.
Repetitive comes from repeat, to do something over and over again.
Motion is just another word for movement.
So repetitive motion is doing the same movements.
Often we associate this with your hands or arms, over and over again.
Daryl says, aren't you suffering from elbow pain right now?
Your elbow is what we call a joint J-O-I-N-T that connects the two parts of your arm the part between your shoulder and your elbow and the part between your elbow and your hand, what we would call the forearm joint.
Elbow has a couple of different meanings, believe it or not.
If you don't believe me, take a look at our learning guide for some more explanations.
Kim said that she was suffering from elbow pain in the morning.
Daryl says, see what I mean?
Which means do you understand now what I am saying?
We need better ergonomics in this office.
Ergonomics is technically the study of how we use our bodies when we are working.
It's often used to talk about the way a chair is designed, or the height of your desk versus your chair doing things, so that you don't hurt yourself at work.
Kim says, okay, where do we start?
Where do we begin?
Daryl says I think we need to sign up for to register for a seminar on how to prevent work-related injuries.
To prevent means to stop something before it happens.
I prevented my wife from yelling at me by breathing, bringing home 12 roses, 12 red roses, to show her that I love her and that I'm sorry I forgot yesterday was her birthday.
I'm kidding, of course.
I would not forget my wife's birthday.
What kind of husband do you think I am, huh?
Well, Kim says to Daryl, what do you have in mind?
Meaning, what idea specifically do you have about going to a seminar?
Daryl says, how about this four-day seminar?
Kim says, but that seminar is in Florida.
Florida is the state in the southeast corner of the United States.
It is especially in the southern part, a place where people go on vacation because it is warmer than most of the rest of the US.
There's also a Disney World in Florida, though that's more in central Florida.
Daryl says, To recover from means to get better after being sick or to get stronger after an injury, after you hurt yourself.
Daryl is saying that the best way for he and Kim to recover from their injuries is to spend four days in Florida.
Kim agrees with him.
She says, count me in.
Count me in is a phrase used to show that you want to participate in the same thing that someone else is doing participating in, or you want to accept someone's invitation to do something.
Somebody says, I'm thinking of going to a concert tonight.
Do you want to go?
You could say, count me in.
Yes, I'm very interested in going, is what you're saying.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I just went to a seminar about work-related injuries.
I really have to rethink my workspace.
Work-related injuries?
It's not like we're doing heavy lifting every day.
We sit at our desks all day.
That's the problem.
Look at how you're slouching over your keyboard.
Poor posture can cause a lot of problems over time.
Aren't you always complaining about back pain?
Yeah, but... And look at how you squint at your computer monitor all day.
Aren't you always complaining about headaches?
You're probably suffering from eye strain.
It's true that I sometimes have headaches.
It's no wonder.
Look at what we do all day.
Repetitive motion after repetitive motion.
Aren't you suffering from elbow pain right now?
I was this morning.
See what I mean?
We need better ergonomics in this office.
Okay, where do we start?
I think we need to sign up for a seminar on how to prevent work-related injuries.
What do you have in mind?
How about this four-day seminar?
But that seminar is in Florida.
What better way to recover from any work-related injuries than spending four days and three nights in Florida?
Count me in.
Our scriptwriter, Dr. Lucy Say, never slouches and has perfect posture.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr. Lucy Say.
Hosted by Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
