Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 935, Showing Signs of Age.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 935.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is a dialogue between Julian and Vera about getting old.
Let's get started.
What is that?
Another gray hair?
My hair is already thinning on top.
I don't need more gray hairs.
I think salt and pepper hair looks great on men.
It makes them look distinguished.
It makes them look old.
Thank God I don't have a receding hairline yet.
When you get to be my age, you won't worry so much about graying hair.
There are a lot of other things to worry about.
Like what?
Forget I mentioned it.
Showing signs of age isn't something to be lamented.
It's natural and part of maturing as a person.
It gives you character.
Stop being evasive.
Like what?
Okay, like wrinkles and age spots, deafness and memory loss.
Gee, thanks.
If I ever need to talk someone off a ledge, I'll give you a call.
Julian begins by saying, What is that?
Another gray hair?
A gray hair is a hair that has changed color because someone is getting old.
It's usually not gray.
It's more like white hair.
If you have a lot of white hair or gray hair, it may mean not always, but it may mean that you are getting old.
Julian says, my hair is already thinning on top.
The verb to thin, T-H-I-N, refers here to hair that is falling out of your head, out of the top of your head, what we would call your scalp, S-C-A-L-P.
Your scalp is the skin on the top of your head.
As you get older, sometimes the hair begins to fall out and doesn't grow back.
So you have less hair on the top of your head than you did when you were younger.
This is certainly true for people like me.
Julian says, I don't need more gray hairs.
Vera says, The expression salt and pepper hair refers to Hair that is both black and white.
Some of it is black or brown.
Some of it is white due to the grain of the hair.
Salt, of course, is white.
Pepper is black.
So that's where we get the expression salt and pepper hair.
That's what Vera is talking about.
She thinks that salt and pepper hair looks great on men.
It makes them look distinguished.
To be distinguished means to be dignified.
If you are distinguished, you get respect from other people.
It looks like you are someone of importance, someone who has authority.
Julian doesn't agree with Vera.
He says it makes them look old, meaning the salt and pepper hair makes men look old.
He says, thank God I don't have a receding hairline yet.
Your hairline.
H-A-I-R-L-I-N-E is what separates, on the top of your head, the part where you have hair and the part where there is just skin.
So if you start at your eyes and you move up on the top of your head, past your forehead, most people eventually will have hair somewhere at the top of the head.
The line that separates the hair from the skin that has no hair is called your hairline.
The verb to recede, R-E-C-E-D-E, means to move back.
A receding hairline then is a hairline that appears to be moving back, because you're losing more and more hair on the front part of your head.
Julian says he does not have a receding hairline yet.
That word yet means that he expects probably someday that that will happen as well.
Vera says when you get to be my age, when you are as old as I am, you don't worry so much about graying hair.
There are a lot of other things to worry about.
Julian says, like what?
He means, give me some examples of other things I have to worry about as I get older.
Vera says, forget I mentioned it.
She says forget, I mentioned it because she's communicating to Julian that he doesn't really want to know that the news is very bad and he will probably be better off not knowing this bad news.
She says, To show signs of age means to see changes in your physical appearance that indicate that you are getting older.
That could mean getting gray hair again.
It could mean losing your hair.
It could mean that your skin is not as soft as it used to be.
It could mean that you are not able to run as fast as you used to.
There could be a lot of signs of old age.
It could mean repeating things that you just said a minute ago.
There could be a lot of signs of old age.
It could mean... Wait a minute.
Am I repeating myself?
Vera says that old age is not something to be lamented.
To lament L-A-M-E-N-T means to feel sad about something, especially something that you may have lost.
Another word we use here would be to mourn, M-O-U-R-N.
Usually mourning is something you do when someone dies.
You feel sad that you have lost that person.
Lamenting is a more general term that could be used to describe the loss of anything or the feeling of sadness because something has been lost or something bad has happened.
Vera says it's a natural part of maturing as a person.
It gives you character.
Vera is talking about showing signs of age.
She says it's natural and part of maturing as a person.
She's saying that it's a normal part of getting older and wiser.
To mature.
M-A-T-U-R-E means to become older, but also to become wiser, to know more than you did when you were young.
Vera says it gives you character, C-H-A-R-A-C-T-E-R.
Character here means personality, something that makes you different from other people.
In this context, it's a positive thing.
To have character means to be a good person.
It's a compliment to say that someone has a lot of character.
Vera says that showing signs of age gives you character.
Julian then says stop being evasive.
To be evasive.
E-V-A-S-I-V-E means to hide something, to not give a clear, direct answer to someone's question.
Julian repeats the question, like what?
He's asking for examples of other things one has to worry about as one gets older.
Vera says, okay, like wrinkles and age spots, deafness, and memory loss.
Wrinkles, W-R-I-N-K-L-E-S, are small folds, we call them, in your skin.
They're sort of like small lines on your skin that form as you get older.
I have lots of wrinkles already.
And I'm only 29.
Another thing you get when you get older, according to Vera, are age spots.
Age spots are small areas on your skin that have a different color than the skin around it.
It's often caused by being out in the sun too much.
If you live in a place like Los Angeles, you may be out in the sun more than people in other parts of the country, which is why you may see more people with age spots in California than you do in Minnesota, where it is less sunny.
Vera says a couple of other problems of getting old are deafness and memory loss.
Deafness, D-E-A-F-N-E-S-S, is the inability to hear.
When you can't hear anything, that is a sign of deafness.
Beethoven, the great composer, was partially deaf and got more deaf as he got older, I believe.
Memory loss we've already talked about is when you forget things, when you can't remember something.
That's memory loss.
Julian says, gee, thanks.
That expression, gee thanks, is used sarcastically here.
Julian isn't really thanking Vera.
He's not happy that Vera told him this information.
But to be fair to Vera, she did tell Julian that he didn't want to hear this bad news.
That's why she was being evasive.
Julian says, if I ever need to talk someone off a ledge, I'll give you a call.
A ledge.
L-E-D-G-E is something you see on some buildings outside of a window or somewhere on the wall on the side of the building.
A ledge is a horizontal... space that comes out from the wall.
It's at 90 degrees from the wall.
The wall is vertical.
It goes up and down.
A ledge is horizontal.
It goes out from the side of the wall.
Sometimes the ledge is big enough that you can actually walk on it.
Now, if you are out on the ledge, however, you may be trying to kill yourself.
You may be trying to jump off the ledge and kill yourself.
So that's the meaning behind Julian's statement here.
If I ever need to talk someone off a ledge.
To talk someone off a ledge would be to convince someone not to kill himself, to come away from the ledge, to come back into the building, to be safe.
Julian is making a joke here.
He is saying that Vera is very depressing.
Her news is very depressing.
And he would not want her to be talking to someone else who was depressed and who perhaps was trying to kill himself because she is so depressing.
That's why he says if I ever need to talk someone off a ledge, I'll give you a call.
He's being sarcastic again.
He's making a joke.
He's saying really, I will not call you because you are so depressing.
The person will probably want to jump off the ledge after talking to you instead of coming back into the building.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
What is that?
Another gray hair?
My hair is already thinning on top.
I don't need more gray hairs.
I think salt and pepper hair looks great on men.
It makes them look distinguished.
It makes them look old.
Thank God I don't have a receding hairline.
Yet.
When you get to be my age, you won't worry so much about graying hair.
There are a lot of other things to worry about.
Like what?
Forget I mentioned it.
Showing signs of age isn't something to be lamented.
It's natural and part of maturing as a person.
It gives you character.
Stop being evasive.
Like what?
Okay, like wrinkles and age spots, deafness and memory loss.
Gee, thanks.
If I ever need to talk someone off a ledge, I'll give you a call.
She is a woman of great character, our scriptwriter.
I speak, of course, of the wonderful 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.
