Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 877.
Cheering someone up.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 877.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
That didn't sound very beautiful.
I'm sorry.
Our website is beautiful.
It's at ESLPOD.com.
This episode is a dialogue between Eleanor and Porter about trying to make someone happy who is sad, trying to cheer them up.
Let's get started.
Isn't it a beautiful day?
The sun is shining.
The birds are singing.
It's good to be alive.
Okay, Pollyanna, go spread good cheer somewhere else.
What's wrong with you?
You must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed.
I'm just having a bad day.
No, make that a bad month.
Nothing is going my way.
Cheer up.
Every cloud has a silver lining, and it's no use crying over spilled milk.
Spare me your platitudes, and let me wallow in my own misery.
I can't do that.
If your work isn't going well, then practice makes perfect.
You'll just do better next time.
It's not my work.
My biggest problem right now is easy to fix.
How?
Our dialogue begins with Eleanor saying to Porter, Eleanor's very happy, but Porter is not.
Porter said, Okay, Pollyanna, go spread good cheer somewhere else.
Pollyanna, P-O-L-L-Y-A-N-N-A, is the name of a character from a novel back in 1913 called Pollyanna.
Pollyanna was always happy, always cheerful, always optimistic.
Now it's used to describe someone who's like that.
She's a Pollyanna.
It's sometimes used as almost an insult however, to someone who's too happy, who's too cheery, who's too optimistic.
Cheer, C-H-E-E-R, As a verb, it means to make someone happy who is sad.
As a noun, it means happiness.
To spread good cheer means to make other people happy by smiling, by talking to them, and so forth.
That's spreading good cheer, spreading happiness, giving other people happiness.
Eleanor says, what's wrong with you?
You must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed.
To wake up on the wrong side of the bed means to be in a very bad mood.
I'm not sure exactly why we have this expression.
Maybe if you wake up and you get out of bed on the wrong side, you'll hit a wall or you'll fall over, or I don't know.
But that's the expression, to wake up on the wrong side of the bed.
The bed, of course, is something that you sleep in at night.
Porter says, I'm just having a bad day.
No, make that a bad month.
The expression make.
That is used when we want to correct something we just said, especially if we are talking about numbers.
Porter says that nothing is going his way.
To go your way is means to go as you have planned it, to go as you want it to go, to be successful at something that you are attempting to do.
That's to go your way.
Don't confuse this with another expression, to go your own O-W-N way.
To go your own way means to do something different from everyone else, to do something that is not like anyone else.
I think there was actually a song back in the 70s by Fleetwood Mac.
You can go your own way.
Go your own way.
I think a woman sang it, though.
Anyway.
Too much coffee today, Jeff.
Porter says that nothing is going his way.
Eleanor says cheer up.
Be happy.
To cheer up is a phrasal verb.
Like a lot of phrasal verbs, it is used to add emphasis.
Instead of just saying cheer, we would say cheer up.
You're telling someone to be happy, to get happier.
Eleanor says, This is an old expression.
An old saying, every cloud has a silver lining.
A cloud is what's up in the sky.
That's where rain comes from.
The expression a silver lining means something that is good.
For a cloud to have a silver lining means that even if it's a bad thing that is happening like a cloud where it might rain, there's something good that may come out of it.
It's not completely negative.
There's always some positive thing that you can find when something bad happens.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Eleanor is telling Porter that he needs to cheer up because, even though he's having a bad month, something good will come from this bad month.
She then uses another old expression.
It's no use crying over spilled milk.
It's no use means it's no good.
It doesn't help you. crying over spilled milk.
To cry over something is to cry because of something.
Milk is what you get from, say, a cow that you drink.
I have milk every morning with my cereal.
Spilled means that The milk was in a glass, for example, and you hit the glass and the milk fell on the ground.
That would be spilled milk.
You spilled it.
The expression.
Putting all these things together, it's no use.
Crying over spilled milk means it doesn't help worrying about something that already happened.
You can't go back and change it.
You can't go... back and do something different.
That's not possible.
You can't change history, so you just have to worry about the future.
Porter says, Spare me your platitudes and let me wallow in my own misery.
Spare, S-P-A-R-E, me, means...
Stop doing something or more typically, stop giving me this information.
Stop talking to me about what you are talking about.
I don't want to hear it anymore.
It's uninteresting or it's boring or I disagree with it.
Spare me your lecture.
Spare me your advice.
I don't want to hear it.
Porter says, spare me your platitudes.
A platitude.
P-L-A-T-I-T-U-D-E is an expression or a statement that is very common, that everyone says and it's no longer very interesting.
It's like saying, today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Today is the day that you will continue living.
Well, yes, that's true, but it's really not very interesting.
That would be a platitude.
Another word for platitude is a cliché.
C-L-I-C-H-E.
A cliché is an expression that everyone uses so that it doesn't really mean anything anymore.
Porter said, says to Eleanor, let me wallow in my own misery.
To wallow W-A-L-L-O-W means to enjoy being sad, usually because you're trying to get sympathy or attention from other people.
He wallowed in his sadness.
He sat there looking sad but in a way hoping other people would notice he was looking sad so they would pay attention to him.
Porter says, let me wallow in my own misery.
Misery M-I-S-E-R-Y is suffering sadness, often because you are sick or you don't have enough money.
Eleanor says, I can't do that.
If your work isn't going well, then practice makes perfect.
That's another old expression.
Practice makes perfect means that if you do something enough times, you will get better at it.
You will get perfect at it.
Eleanor says, you'll just do better next time.
Porter then says, it's not my work.
He's not sad because of his work.
Eleanor says, is it your girlfriend?
If your girlfriend isn't being nice to you, then there are plenty of fish in the sea.
The expression there are plenty of fish in the sea, S-E-A is used to to tell men and women who are single, who perhaps don't have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or who have one that isn't very good, that there are other men and women out there, that you don't have to just stay with this person, that there are many different fish in the sea, there are many different men and women that you can go out and find and date.
Eleanor says don't you see?
Whatever the problem is, it's not the end of the world.
The end of the world is a phrase used to mean the worst possible thing that can happen.
But Eleanor says it's not the end of the world.
It's a bad thing, but it's not the worst possible thing that can happen.
Porter says, my biggest problem right now is easy to fix.
Easy to fix means easy to solve.
Eleanor says, how?
And then we hear the door slam.
This is Porter walking away from Eleanor and slamming the door.
When you slam, S-L-A-M, the door, you close it very loudly so that it makes a loud noise.
Usually we do this when we're angry at someone or when we're trying to get away from someone.
And Porter, I guess, is trying to get away from Eleanor.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Isn't it a beautiful day?
The sun is shining, the birds are singing.
It's good to be alive.
Okay, Pollyanna, go spread good cheer somewhere else.
What's wrong with you?
You must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed.
I'm just having a bad day.
No, make that a bad month.
Nothing is going my way.
Cheer up.
Every cloud has a silver lining, and it's no use crying over spilled milk.
Spare me your platitudes and let me wallow in my own misery.
I can't do that.
If your work isn't going well, then practice makes perfect.
You'll just do better next time.
It's not my work.
Is it your girlfriend?
If your girlfriend isn't being nice to you, then there are plenty of fish in the sea.
Don't you see?
Whatever the problem is, it's not the end of the world.
My biggest problem right now is easy to fix.
How?
How?
Her scripts usually spread good cheer.
I speak of our own scriptwriter, Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
