Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 927, Being Tidy and Messy.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 927.
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.
Become a member of ESL Podcast by going to our website.
This episode is a dialogue about being tidy and messy, referring to how you organize your things and perhaps your life.
Let's get started.
It is beyond me how you and Oscar can be roommates.
You're very tidy and he's, well, a slob.
It's not always easy, but we're making it work.
Isn't Oscar really messy all the time?
Whenever I see him his clothes are rumpled and his hair is unkempt.
His room is really cluttered but he keeps the common areas in passable condition.
I do have to straighten up fairly often.
And I sometimes have to pick up after him, but that's because I'm pretty nitpicky.
That's very tolerant of you.
Well, we have set up a system so that if things get too messy, I have some recourse.
Really?
What's your system?
Oscar and I agreed that every time he leaves a big mess, I can find him.
That seems kind of drastic, but maybe it works for you guys.
Yeah, it keeps the place pretty clean.
Still, knowing Oscar, you must have had to find him a lot.
Let's just say that my next vacation will be in Monte Carlo.
Carol says to Felix When something is beyond you, You mean it's impossible for you to understand or it is very difficult for you to understand.
It's beyond me how someone that ugly has a girlfriend that beautiful.
It's beyond me.
I don't understand it.
Actually, here in Los Angeles, that's because he has a lot of money.
Carol says it's beyond her how Felix and Oscar can be roommates.
To be roommates means to be two people who are living together in the same apartment or who are in the same home and who are not in a romantic relationship with each other.
They're not married.
They're not boyfriend and girlfriend.
They're simply two people, perhaps friends, perhaps not, who are living in the same apartment.
Here in Los Angeles, it's very common for people to move here and look for a roommate, look for someone who will help them pay the rent on the house or the apartment that they're renting.
You may know this person from some job or some class you took in school, but it may be someone you have never met before.
It's always a little difficult trying to find the right roommate.
Carol says, you're, meaning you, Felix, very tidy, and he's, well, a slob.
To be tidy, T-I-D-Y, means to be very neat and organized.
Everything is where it's supposed to be.
Everything looks very organized.
The opposite of that would be messy, M-E-S-S-Y.
Someone who is messy is someone who is disorganized, someone who is not neat, not organized.
The noun for a person who is messy is a slob, S-L-O-B.
It's a pretty insulting term to call someone a slob.
To be a slob means to be messy, perhaps even dirty, someone who is very disorganized.
Felix says it's not always easy, but we're making it work.
That is, we're making it function.
We're managing to succeed even though it's difficult.
Carol says, isn't Oscar really messy all the time?
Whenever I see him, his clothes are rumpled and his hair is unkempt.
When we say your clothes are rumpled, R-U-M-P-L-E-D, we mean that they are not smooth.
The other word we would use here is wrinkled, W-R-I-N-K-L-E-D.
If you have a shirt, for example, that's wrinkled, it has sort of like lines in it.
It's not smooth and flat the way it should be.
That's what Carol is referring to when she describes Oscar's clothes as being rumpled.
Carol also says that Oscar's hair is unkempt.
U-N-K-E-M-P-T To be unkempt means that you haven't taken care of your hair.
It's messy.
Maybe it's dirty.
It's not combed or brushed so that it looks nice.
I don't have this problem anymore.
But when I did... have hair, that is, I would make sure that I combed it in the morning at least.
By the end of the day however, my hair was probably looking pretty unkempt, not taken care of very well.
Felix says, Oscar's room is really cluttered.
To be cluttered.
C-L-U-T-T-E-R-E-D means that you have a lot of things in a small amount of space, a lot of unnecessary objects that make a space, an area, seem very disorganized, very messy.
That's clutter.
Some people have closets where they put things.
They don't know where to put somewhere else, but they don't want to throw them away.
So they keep them, they store them, we would say, in a closet.
The closet then becomes very cluttered.
It's full of all sorts of things.
It's disorganized.
My guess is most of us have a closet like that somewhere.
Oscar has a very cluttered room. but he keeps the common areas in passable condition.
Felix and Oscar each have their own bedroom in this apartment.
In addition, there are common areas.
Common areas are areas in an apartment or a house or a building where everyone can go.
Areas that Anyone can use the living room, the kitchen, the dining room.
These would be examples of common areas in an apartment.
Felix describes the common areas as passable.
When we say something is passable, P-A-S-S-A-B-L-E, we mean it's acceptable.
It's satisfactory, but it's not great.
It's not wonderful.
It's okay.
Felix says, I do have to straighten up fairly often, and I sometimes have to pick up after him.
But that's because I'm pretty nitpicky.
To straighten up is a phrasal verb meaning to organize, to make neat.
We might also use the verb to tidy up, using tidy as a verb instead of an adjective.
So Felix says he has to straighten up fairly often, meaning very often, a lot.
And Felix says, I sometimes have to pick up after him.
To pick up after someone means to clean up someone else's mess, basically to put away the other person's things.
If you have a three-year-old child or a two-year-old child, the child may play with some toys and then fall asleep.
Well, then you have to pick up after someone.
You have to pick up his clothes, pick up his toys, and put them away.
In my house growing up, my mother told us we had to pick up after ourselves.
Everyone had to pick up their own mess.
When you have 11 children, that becomes necessary.
Felix sometimes has to pick up after Oscar, but that's because...
He's pretty nitpicky.
To be nitpicky means to be very demanding, to want to have things in a very specific way.
Someone who is nitpicky, is looking for very small errors, very small mistakes.
Someone who wants everything to be absolutely 100% perfect.
That is how Felix describes himself.
Carol says, that's very tolerant of you.
To be tolerant T-O-L-E-R-A-N-T means to accept things that you don't like or accept people whom you don't like.
Carol thinks Felix is being very tolerant of Oscar.
Felix says, well, we have set up a system so that if things get too messy, I have some recourse.
Felix and Oscar have set up some sort of system, some sort of agreement where, if things get too messy,
Felix has some recourse, R-E-C-O-U-R-S-E.
To have recourse means to have something that helps you in a very difficult situation or something that protects you in a difficult situation.
Carol says, really?
What's your system?
Felix says Oscar, and I agreed that every time he leaves a big mess, a large mess, I can fine him to fine.
F I N E means to demand that someone pay you money for something they did wrong.
If you drive too fast on the freeway, the police will give you a ticket to.
Basically, they're giving you a fine.
They're saying you have to pay money because you were driving too fast on the freeway.
Carol says that seems kind of drastic.
Drastic, D-R-A-S-T-I-C, means extreme.
Having very, what we might call, far-reaching consequences.
If, for example, you discover there's a problem with your phone bill and you decide that You're going to throw your phone into the river or into an ocean because you're just so angry about this problem.
That would be a very drastic action, something that would be very dramatic, something that would be too dramatic in a way, something that would be too extreme.
I mean, why don't you just call the telephone company and fix the problem?
Carol thinks that Felix and Oscar's system is a little drastic.
She says, but maybe it works for you guys, for you two men.
Felix says, yeah, it keeps the place pretty clean.
Carol says, still knowing Oscar, because I know Oscar, I know that you must have had to fine him a lot.
Felix says, let's just say that my next vacation will be in Monte Carlo.
Felix has had to fine Oscar many times.
That's what Carroll is referring to.
In fact, he's had to fine Oscar so much that he's gotten a lot of money.
That's why he says at the end of the dialogue that his next vacation will be in Monte Carlo.
Monte Carlo, as many of you may know, is a famous part of Monaco in Europe, where people go to gamble.
The idea here is that you would have to have a lot of money in order to go to Monte Carlo.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
It is beyond me how you and Oscar can be roommates.
You're very tidy and he's, well, a slob.
It's not always easy, but we're making it work.
Isn't Oscar really messy all the time?
Whenever I see him, his clothes are rumpled and his hair is unkempt.
His room is really cluttered, but he keeps the common areas in passable condition.
I do have to straighten up fairly often and I sometimes have to pick up after him, but that's because I'm pretty nitpicky.
That's very tolerant of you.
Well, we have set up a system so that if things get too messy, I have some recourse.
Really?
What's your system?
Oscar and I agreed that every time he leaves a big mess, I can find him.
That seems kind of drastic, but maybe it works for you guys.
Yeah, it keeps the place pretty clean.
Still, knowing Oscar, you must have had to find him a lot.
Let's just say that my next vacation will be in Monte Carlo.
She's one of the tidiest people I know.
I speak of our wonderful scriptwriter, Dr. Lucy Say.
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.
