Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number nine hundred and sixty-seven.
Feeling embarrassed.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode nine hundred sixty-seven.
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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On this episode, we're going to hear a dialogue between Lois and Roger about being embarrassed.
Let's get started.
Please don't embarrass me at the party tonight.
Me?
Embarrass you?
I'd never do that.
You have, though, more than once.
Name one.
At the Johnson's party, you danced on the table while singing I Am Woman.
I was being the life of the party.
Everybody thought it was funny.
It was humiliating.
Didn't you notice more than one person cringing and the awkward silence in the room when your song ended?
No, I didn't.
But I did notice Malik laughing his head off and the Johnsons smiling.
That's because Malik has your sense of humor and the Johnsons were humoring you.
They were trying to put a good face on your impromptu performance.
I'm not going to be a wallflower just because you can't take a joke.
My exuberant personality is what gets us invited to so many parties.
Yeah, right.
Can I at least get you to promise not to sing? and disappoint my audience?
Not a chance.
Lois begins by saying to Roger, Please don't embarrass me at the party tonight.
To embarrass E-M-B-A-R-R-A-S-S someone means to make someone feel uncomfortable, to make them feel perhaps self-conscious.
Lois is asking Roger not to embarrass her at the party tonight.
Roger says me embarrass you.
I'd never do that.
Notice Roger says me instead of I In informal English.
In situations like this, we often use me instead of I, even though I is the grammatically correct form.
Lois says.
You have though, more than once meaning.
You have in fact embarrassed me more than one time.
Roger says, name one, meaning give me a specific example.
Lois then gives him a specific example.
She says, at the Johnson's party, you danced on the table while singing I Am Woman.
The Johnsons are probably friends of Roger and Lois.
At the party that was held at the Johnsons' house, Roger got up on top of a table and started dancing and singing the song I Am Woman.
I Am Woman is a song from the 1970s by, I believe, Helen Reddy.
I am woman, hear me roar, your number's too big to ignore.
I really don't know this song since I am not a woman.
Roger says, I was being the life of the party.
That expression, the life of the party, means the person who is always very entertaining.
Someone who is always making jokes, perhaps.
Roger says everybody thought it was funny.
Lois disagrees.
She says it was humiliating.
Humiliating.
Humiliating.
H-U-M-I-L-I-A-T-I-N-G is something that is very embarrassing, extremely embarrassing, something that makes you feel ashamed in front of other people, something that makes you feel really bad in front of other people.
Lois thought that Roger's singing was humiliating.
She says Didn't you notice more than one person cringing and the awkward silence in the room when your song ended?
To cringe C-R-I-N-G-E means to have a very negative feeling caused by being embarrassed when someone does something unpleasant or difficult to watch.
If your friend is doing something very badly, like singing or dancing, You might cringe, you might feel embarrassed for that person because they're doing something that is very embarrassing.
Lois says there were people cringing at Roger's performance his singing and dancing and there was an awkward silence in the room when his song ended.
Silence is the absence of noise when it is completely quiet.
Awkward.
A-W-K-W-A-R-D is something that is uncomfortable, something that people don't like, often in a certain situation.
An awkward silence would be when people don't say anything when you would expect them to say something.
So, for example, if your friend sees you at a bar and you're with your friend's girlfriend, he might come up to you and not say anything.
There would be a very awkward silence.
He might hit you, but the situation would certainly be considered awkward.
Roger says, no, I didn't, meaning no, I didn't notice.
I didn't see people cringing or notice the awkward silence.
I did notice Malik laughing his head off and the Johnsons smiling.
To laugh your head off is to laugh very loudly for a long period of time because you think something is very, very funny.
Lois says The phrase sense S-E-N-S-E of humor, H-U-M-O-R refers to the kinds of things that someone thinks are funny, the kinds of things that someone would laugh at.
That's your sense of humor.
Some people laugh at very obvious physical humor or physical comedy people falling, people falling down the stairs or falling over.
Some people think that's funny.
That's their sense of humor.
Other people think other things are funny.
Each of us has our own sense of humor, our own set of things that we find funny.
Lois explains to Roger that Malik was laughing his head off because he has Roger's sense of humor.
The Johnsons, however, were humoring Roger.
To humor someone as a verb means to do or say something to make the other person happy, to make sure the other person doesn't get angry.
Usually the verb is used to indicate that the person is pretending, doesn't really believe what they're saying, or perhaps is not trying to cause any problems.
So they're just agreeing with the other person.
If someone is humoring you, they don't really agree with you or they don't really believe perhaps, the things they are saying to you.
But they don't want you to get angry or upset, so they say those things anyway.
Lois says, they were trying to put a good face on your impromptu performance.
To put a good face on something means something similar to humor someone.
It means to pretend to be happy or satisfied with something, to try to be positive about something rather than negative.
Impromptu, I-M-P-R-O-M-P-T-U, means without any planning.
We might also use the word spontaneous.
Something that is impromptu is something that you do that you didn't plan to do.
You just decided to do it suddenly.
Roger says, I'm not going to be a wallflower just because you can't take a joke.
A wallflower.
W-A-L-L-F-L-O-W-E-R is a person who is very shy, who doesn't talk to other people, especially at a party or a large gathering.
To take a joke means to think something is funny, especially when people are laughing at you.
If someone says you can't take a joke, he means that you don't think things are funny that everyone else thinks are funny.
Roger says, my exuberant personality is what gets us invited to so many parties.
Exuberant means with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement.
Roger is saying that it is because he is so Exciting and interesting that he and Lois get invited to so many parties.
Lois doesn't believe this at all.
She says, yeah, right.
Notice that, even though it sounds as if she were agreeing with Roger, in fact she is disagreeing with Roger.
We know that by the way that she says this expression, yeah, right.
Lois says, can I at least get you to promise not to sing?
Roger replies, and disappoint my audience?
Not a chance.
To disappoint someone is to make someone feel sad by not meeting their expectations, by doing something less than what people thought you would do.
Roger says his audience, that is, the people who will watch him sing and dance, would be disappointed if he didn't do his singing.
That's why he ends the dialogue by saying, not a chance, meaning no way.
There is no possibility of that happening.
In this case, of Roger not singing.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Please don't embarrass me at the party tonight.
Me embarrass you?
I never do that.
You have, though, more than once.
Name one.
At the Johnson's party, you danced on the table while singing I Am Woman.
I was being the life of the party.
Everybody thought it was funny.
It was humiliating.
Didn't you notice more than one person cringing and the awkward silence in the room when your song ended?
No, I didn't.
But I did notice Malik laughing his head off and the Johnsons smiling.
That's because Malik has your sense of humor, and the Johnsons were humoring you.
They were trying to put a good face on your impromptu performance.
I'm not going to be a wallflower just because you can't take a joke.
My exuberant personality is what gets us invited to so many parties.
Yeah, right.
Can I at least get you to promise not to sing?
And disappoint my audience?
Not a chance.
Our scriptwriter is always the life of the party.
That's because she's the wonderful, witty, exuberant 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 Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
