Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 821, Eating Contaminated Food.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 821.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from beautiful Los Angeles, California.
How are you doing today?
Are you happy?
Are you sad?
Let's hope you're happy.
If not, let's listen to this dialogue and maybe that will make you happy.
It's about eating contaminated food, food that has something wrong with it.
And there's nothing happier than the subject of contaminated food.
Let's get started.
It's fine.
There's nothing wrong with it.
It tastes like it's tainted or something.
Don't you detect a funny metallic taste?
No, it's perfectly fine.
Just eat it.
I swear there's something off about this food.
I'm not eating adulterated food.
There's probably poison in here and we're both going to die a terrible death.
There is nothing poisonous or toxic in this food.
I made it myself.
Did you make sure that the milk wasn't sour and that none of the ingredients were spoiled?
I'll probably die from botulism.
There's nothing spoiled, tainted, toxic, or poisonous in this food.
Are you going to eat that or not?
I think I'll pass.
Then hand it over.
I'm hungry.
I've never met such a hypochondriac before.
I'm not a hypochondriac.
I'm just a little paranoid.
Our happy dialogue begins with Rachel saying, this tastes funny.
You see, funny.
It's already a happy dialogue.
We have the word funny.
Well, funny in some cases can mean something that makes you laugh.
He's very funny.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
But funny.
Here, when we're talking about the way something tastes in your mouth, means strange or unusual, usually in a bad way, meaning there's something wrong with it.
It might make you sick.
It might kill you.
It's a weird phrase, but we use the word funny with the verb taste when we mean food has some unusual, usually bad taste.
Sergei says, it's fine.
There's nothing wrong with it.
There's nothing wrong with the food, Sergei says.
Rachel, however, says, it tastes like it's tainted or something.
It tastes like it has the taste in my mouth of something that is tainted.
T-A-I-N-T-E-D
Tainted is another word for contaminated.
It means something, some food or drink contains something that is harmful or poisonous.
It's not safe to eat or drink it.
Rachel says, don't you detect a funny metallic taste?
To detect D-E-T-E-C-T means to be able to identify the presence or existence of something, to be able to tell, if you will, that it's there.
Don't you detect, can't you taste a funny metallic taste?
Metallic, M-E-T-A-L-L-I-C, comes from the word metal.
So something that tastes like metal, which of course is not a very nice taste.
Sergei says, no, it's perfectly fine.
Perfectly here means completely.
No problem.
Just eat it, he says to Rachel.
Rachel says, I swear, meaning I believe, I really believe, there's something off about this food.
When we say the food is off...
We mean it's not quite right.
We can use this expression.
There's something off about this television program, or there's something off about the way I'm feeling.
It's not quite right.
It's wrong.
But it's difficult to say exactly what the problem is.
If you say there's something off about this food, you mean it doesn't taste good.
You're not sure what the problem is, but you know there's something wrong with it.
Rachel says, I'm not eating adulterated food.
Adulterated, A-D-U-L-T-E-R-A-T-E-D, means the same as tainted or contaminated.
Usually however, adulterated means that something was actually added to the product, to the food or the drink.
Someone actually put something in there that was contaminated.
Sometimes it is done on purpose, and that's the idea here that someone put something in there that makes it not the food you think it is.
Rachel says, there's probably poison in here, and we're both going to die a terrible death.
Didn't I tell you this was going to be a happy dialogue?
There's probably poison.
P-O-I-S-O-N means there's probably a substance here that will kill us or hurt us if we eat it or drink it or perhaps even touch it.
Poison is something, some substance, some chemical substance often that kills you.
A terrible death would be a horrible way to die.
A very slow and painful death might be a terrible death.
Well, Rachel is probably not serious, but you don't really know.
Maybe there is poison and they will die a terrible death.
Sergei says there's nothing poisonous or toxic in this food.
Toxic, T-O-X-I-C, is the same as poisonous.
It contains some substance that will kill you or that will hurt you.
It has something that will injure you or perhaps kill you.
Sergei insists that there's nothing wrong with the food.
He says, I made it myself.
I made this food.
Rachel said did you make sure that the milk wasn't sour and that none of the ingredients were spoiled?
Sour, S-O-U-R, here means gone bad.
When you have a food or a drink that is not eaten quickly enough, sometimes it will go sour.
It will go bad.
It will spoil, S-P-O-I-L.
Well, if you put milk out in the sun, eventually the milk will sour.
It will change so that you can't eat it or drink it anymore.
That's what Rachel is asking Sergei if he used milk that was not sour and that none of the ingredients were spoiled.
Ingredients are the things you use to make a certain kind of food.
So if you're making lasagna, an Italian dish, You would have pasta and perhaps tomato sauce and vegetables and meat and cheese.
These are ingredients for that particular dish, that particular kind of food.
Rachel is asking Sergei if he made sure that none of the ingredients were spoiled.
Remember, spoiled means they've gone bad.
We might say they're rotten.
When you wait too long to eat a certain kind of food...
It could spoil.
It would no longer be able to be eaten.
That's the idea.
Rachel then says, I'll probably die from botulism.
Botulism, B-O-T-U-L-I-S-M.
Thank you very much.
Or if something happens and the food somehow gets this bacteria in it, it could kill you.
It's a kind of food poisoning.
Well, that's what Rachel says here.
I'll probably die from botulism.
Well, Rachel, come on, Rachel.
I mean, she's sort of what we would call a drama queen.
A drama queen is someone who is always very dramatic about something, who always exaggerates things.
Oh, it's so hot in here.
I think I will die.
That would be kind of someone who's a drama queen, someone who thinks that something bad is going to happen to her, or someone who a woman who exaggerates problems that she has, who always is making things worse than they actually are.
Sergei says, there's nothing spoiled, tainted, toxic, or poisonous in this food.
Are you going to eat that or not?
Rachel says, I think I'll pass.
To pass means I'm not going to do it.
To decide not to do something is to pass.
Sergei says, then hand it over.
Hand it over is a somewhat rude way of saying give me that.
Give that thing to me.
If you are being robbed by a thief, someone has a gun and comes up to you and wants your money.
He may say hand it over, meaning give it to me right now.
That's what Sergei says.
Hand it over.
I'm hungry.
I've never met such a hypochondriac before.
A hypochondriac is a person who believes that he or she has many diseases, even when they don't have any diseases.
This is the kind of person who reads about something in the newspaper and says, oh, I have that.
I have that sickness.
That's me.
And they start to feel sick even when there's nothing wrong with them.
That's a hypochondriac.
Rachel says, I'm not a hypochondriac.
I'm just a little paranoid.
Paranoid.
Paranoid P-A-R-A-N-O-I-D is when you're very worried and anxious about something because you think someone else is trying to hurt you.
You think someone else is trying to kill you or maybe just follow you around.
Someone who's paranoid thinks everyone is trying to get him.
And that's what Rachel is, in addition to being a drama queen.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
This tastes funny.
It's fine.
There's nothing wrong with it.
It tastes like it's tainted or something.
Don't you detect a funny metallic taste?
No, it's perfectly fine.
Just eat it.
I swear there's something off about this food.
I'm not eating adulterated food.
There's probably poison in here and we're both going to die a terrible death.
There is nothing poisonous or toxic in this food.
I made it myself.
Did you make sure that the milk wasn't sour and that none of the ingredients were spoiled?
I'll probably die from botulism.
There's nothing spoiled, tainted, toxic, or poisonous in this food.
Are you going to eat that or not?
I think I'll pass.
Then hand it over.
I'm hungry.
I've never met such a hypochondriac before.
I'm not a hypochondriac.
I'm just a little paranoid.
There's nothing off about our dialogues.
That's because they're written by the wonderful Dr. Lucy Say.
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.
