Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 811, A Heckler at a Sports Game.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 811.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there to become a member of ESL Podcast.
When you do, you can download our learning guides.
You can also take a look at our ESL Podcast, special courses in Business and Daily English and our ESL Podcast blog.
This episode is a dialogue between Lou and Alexa, who are watching a sports game.
Let's get started.
Boo!
Boo!
Your team sucks!
Sit down and stop heckling the visiting team.
You're making a fool of yourself.
I'm supporting our team.
If I keep taunting the players on the other team, they may lose their concentration and we'll gain an advantage.
If you keep this up, we'll get kicked out of the stadium.
We won't get kicked out.
Get into the spirit of the game and start yelling at the other team with me.
Hey, it's working.
Look at that pathetic attempt to score.
You guys are a bunch of babies.
Stop that.
Look, security is coming this way.
They just want to catch a glimpse of the person who has the guts to stand up for our team.
Woo!
Woo!
If anyone asks, I don't know you.
Lou begins our dialogue by saying, Boo!
Boo!
Your team sucks!
Lou is at a sports game and he's yelling at the other team.
This is something, of course, that some sports fans like to do when they go to a game.
They like to yell at the opposing or opposite team, the team that is not your team.
Boo is a word that we yell loudly when we want to show our disapproval or dislike of some sports team.
It could also be in some other sort of performance.
It could even be in a musical or theatrical performance in a theater.
Lou says, your team sucks.
This verb to suck, is a rather rude informal word, meaning to be very bad at something or to be terrible.
It's a very negative way of describing someone.
If you say this sucks, you mean this is terrible, this is awful.
It's a pretty strong word, not a vulgar word, but certainly one that you wouldn't want to use in a business meeting.
Alexa says sit down and stop heckling the visiting team.
You're making a fool of yourself.
Alexa is telling Lou to sit down and to stop heckling.
To heckle, H-E-C-K-L-E, means to make...
Rude comments, unkind comments, interrupting someone when they're speaking or when they're performing.
So if you are going to a performance of a comedian and the comedian's telling jokes and you don't like the comedian,
You may yell things back at him or her, insulting him or her.
That would be heckling.
Well, that's what Lou is doing.
He's heckling the visiting team, the sports team that has come from somewhere else to play where your sports team normally plays.
Alexa says that Lou is making a fool of himself.
To make a fool of yourself is to do something that makes you look stupid, that other people look at and laugh at.
Lou says, I'm supporting our team.
I'm trying to help our team.
If I keep taunting the players on the other team, they may lose their concentration and will gain an advantage.
To taunt T-A-U-N-T means to say something that is mean, something that is rude, trying to get someone to react to you, trying to get you to get mad.
We might also use the verb to tease, T-E-A-S-E.
Well, Lou thinks that he's taunting the players on the other team, the visiting team, so that, if he does, they will lose their concentration.
Your concentration is your ability to focus, to think about only one thing and ignore all the other things.
To lose your concentration means to not be able to do that.
Lou thinks that his taunting will give his team an advantage, that they'll gain an advantage.
To gain an advantage is to do something that will give you a better position or better situation, so that you are more likely to, in this case, win.
Alexa says, if you keep this up... will get kicked out of this stadium.
To keep something up, or to keep up something here, means to continue to do something, especially something that is difficult or challenging.
To keep up can also have other meanings in English, and those can be found in our learning guide.
Alexa says to Lou that if he keeps up his heckling, they will get kicked out of the stadium.
To be or to get kicked out means forced to leave a place even though you want to stay there.
So if you go to a restaurant and you start yelling at people and screaming and swearing, the owner will probably kick you out.
He will say, hey, you, get out of here.
You can't stay here.
Sometimes bars, places that serve alcohol, have special people that will kick you out, that will remove you physically if you cause problems.
They're called bouncers.
Well, Alexa is afraid they will get kicked out of the stadium, S-T-A-D-I-U-M.
A stadium could also be called an arena, A-R-E-N-A.
Basically it's a large building, usually without a roof on the top, that has a lot of seats around, often in a circle, could be in a square, but usually in a circular formation.
That is watching some sort of sports game in the middle of the stadium.
You could have a baseball stadium.
You could have a football stadium.
Many cities have separate stadiums for football and baseball.
Some just have one.
Some stadiums are also used for rock concerts, because often you can put 20000 or 50000, sometimes as many as 100 or 150000 in a single stadium.
I believe the Los Angeles Coliseum can hold about 110,000 people.
The Coliseum is an example of a stadium.
Lou says we won't get kicked out.
Get into the spirit of the game, he tells her, and start yelling at the other team with me.
To get into the spirit of something means to do what other people are doing, to have the same excitement and enthusiasm as they have.
To yell, Y-E-L-L, means to shout, to speak in a very loud voice.
Lou says, hey, it's working, meaning his heckling is working.
Look at that pathetic attempt to score.
Pathetic, P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C, here means very sad or miserable, terrible.
To score means to earn a point in a game.
In baseball, you can score if you hit the ball out of the ballpark, what's called a home run.
In American football you score when you take the ball one of your players and you run across what's called the goal line.
Lou, again yelling at the other team, says, you guys are a bunch of babies.
Alexa says stop that.
Look, security is coming this way.
Alexa is telling Lou that the security officers, the people whose job it is to keep the stadium safe and secure and to be not crazy, they're coming this way.
They're coming toward Alexa and Lou.
Lou says they just want to catch a glimpse of the person who has the guts to stand up for our team.
The phrase to catch a glimpse, G-L-I-M-P-S-E, means to see something for a very brief moment, very quickly.
In this case, Lou is saying that the security guards want to come over and see him because he has the guts to stand up for his team.
G-U-T-S.
Here means courage bravery, the willingness to do something difficult when it is a perhaps scary or frightening situation.
To stand up for something means to defend or protect someone who is perhaps being attacked or in a difficult place or situation.
Well, of course, we don't think Lou is correct.
The security guards are probably not interested in catching a glimpse of him because he has guts.
Alexa says, if anyone asks, I don't know you.
She's saying she doesn't want to be associated with Lou.
Lou's probably had a little bit too much beer during the game.
That happens in American stadiums.
Sometimes people drink a little too much and then they start yelling.
Of course, if you've watched a soccer match in some countries, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Sit down and stop heckling the visiting team.
You're making a fool of yourself.
If you keep this up, we'll get kicked out of the stadium.
We won't get kicked out.
Get into the spirit of the game and start yelling at the other team with me.
Hey, it's working.
Look at that pathetic attempt to score.
You guys are a bunch of babies!
Stop that!
Look, security's coming this way.
They just want to catch a glimpse of the person who has the guts to stand up for our team.
Woo!
Woo!
If anyone asks, I don't know you.
Even if you heckle us here on ESL Podcast, we'll never kick you out.
That's because we can't hear you.
Thanks to our script writer, Dr. Lucy Say, for her wonderful scripts.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2012 by the Center for Educational Development.
