Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 998, Meeting a New Neighbor.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 998.
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 Nancy and Eric about meeting a new neighbor.
Let's get started.
Hello there.
Hello.
Hello.
I'm Nancy, your neighbor across the street.
You're new to the neighborhood.
Yes, I just moved in last weekend.
That's nice.
How are you settling in?
Fine, thanks.
Would you like to come over and have a cup of coffee?
I can give you the scoop on the neighborhood and give you some tips on places to go and things to do in this area.
Thanks, but I'm kind of busy right now.
I'll take a rain check.
No problem.
Stop by any time.
We have quite a few social events in the area that you might be interested in.
I'm not much of a joiner.
I tend to keep to myself.
Oh, but we couldn't let you do that.
I'm appointing myself your new social secretary.
As a new resident in a small town, you should know that everyone will want to meet you.
You'll be inundated with invitations.
I can help you sort them out.
I appreciate your offer, but if I have to fend off neighbors, I'll do it myself.
Well, suit yourself.
I don't recommend turning down too many invitations or you'll get the reputation for being a recluse.
That's okay with me.
I'd rather not be the subject of talk among the busybodies.
Busybodies?
Well, some people.
Our dialogue begins with Nancy saying to Eric, Hello there, hello.
Hello there is just an informal way of saying hello.
We usually use that when we don't see someone and then suddenly we see them and we're indicating that we can see them.
Eric says, hello.
Nancy says, I'm Nancy, your neighbor across the street.
Your neighbor is the person who lives either right next to you or very close to you.
Nancy says you're new to the neighborhood, meaning you have not been in this area before.
Eric says, yes, I just moved in last weekend.
To move in means to move to a new location.
You can move in or you can move out.
Nancy says, that's nice.
How are you settling in?
To settle S-E-T-T-L-E in is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to begin to feel comfortable in a new place, to begin to feel like this new place is now familiar to you.
Eric says, fine, thanks.
He's settling in just fine.
Nancy then asks, would you like to come over and have a cup of coffee?
To come over is a phrasal verb meaning to come to my house or to come to where I am.
Nancy says, The scoop, S-C-O-O-P, refers to...
Information, what we might call inside information, information that is not available to everyone.
If someone says I want to give you the scoop on our new boss, he's saying I want to give you information about our new boss that nobody else knows or that perhaps few people know.
Nancy invites Eric over to give him the scoop on the neighborhood.
Notice the preposition on comes after scoop.
If you're going to give someone the scoop, you're going to give them the scoop on something or on someone.
So the preposition on almost always follows scoop.
Eric says, thanks, but I'm kind of busy right now.
I'm kind of busy means I'm somewhat busy.
I'll take a rain check, he says.
To take a rain, R-A-I-N, check, is to say...
I can't do that right now, but I will do it in the future.
When someone offers you something and you can't do it immediately, you might say I'll take a rain check, meaning not now, but maybe later, maybe at a different time, at a later time.
Nancy says, no problem. meaning that's okay.
Stop by anytime.
To stop by, B-Y, means to stop at someone's house or where someone is.
You can stop by anytime place.
Really, I'm going to the grocery store and on my way there, before I go there, I'm going to stop by at the gas station and fill up my car with gas.
That's also another way of using stop by.
Here Nancy is using stop by to mean come over to my house whenever you want.
She says we have quite a few social events in the area that you might be interested in.
A social event would be like a party or anything, where a group of people get together and have a good time.
Eric says however I'm not much of a joiner.
The word joiner J-O-I-N-E-R refers to a person who likes to participate in group activities, who likes to join groups to do things.
Eric says he is not much of a joiner, meaning he doesn't like to join groups and spend time with other people.
I guess.
He says, I tend to keep to myself.
To keep to yourself means to be a private person, a person who doesn't like talking about himself or giving information about himself.
Nancy says, oh, but we couldn't let you do that.
I'm appointing myself your new social secretary.
Nancy is telling Eric that she won't let him keep to himself, basically.
She's going to appoint herself his new social secretary.
To appoint yourself is to say I am going to do this particular job or this particular role even though no one has asked me to do it.
That is appointing yourself.
We often use this in a joking way when someone says I'm going to appoint myself the king of this house and everyone must do what I say.
I tried that.
It doesn't work so well with the queen of my house.
Anyway, Nancy has appointed herself the new social secretary.
A social secretary is a person whose job it is to manage someone's social appointments where they go to lunch, the parties they attend, and so forth.
Normally, only a very rich or important person would have a social secretary.
Someone who would handle things that were not related to the person's business life but to his or her personal life.
Nancy continues.
As a new resident in a small town, you should know that everyone will want to meet you.
A resident is a person who lives in a particular area.
Nancy is saying that because Eric is new to the area, other people will want to meet him.
She says, you'll be inundated with invitations to be inundated.
I N U N D A T E D means to be flooded by or to have a lot of something too much of something.
I am inundated with emails every morning.
That means lots of people email me, too many people.
I can't possibly respond to all of them.
That's to be inundated.
Nancy is saying Eric will be inundated with invitations from other people in this small town where he has moved to.
She says, I can help you sort them out.
To sort S-O-R-T something out is a phrasal verb meaning to look at a large amount of something, a large amount of information, for example, and decide how to categorize it, how to organize it.
That's what Nancy is suggesting she do for Eric.
Eric says, I appreciate your offer, but if I have to fend off neighbors, I'll do it myself.
To fend F-E-N-D off is a phrasal verb meaning to protect or defend yourself against someone or something, especially if someone is attacking you.
Eric, of course, doesn't think his neighbors are going to attack him.
He's sort of making a joke, saying if he gets a lot of people who want to contact him, he'll be able to take care of it himself.
He will be able to fend off neighbors by himself.
Nancy says, well, suit yourself.
That expression, suit, S-U-I-T, yourself, means...
If that's the way you want to do it, then go ahead.
It's usually said when someone offers help to another person and the other person rejects it, the other person says no and the person who offered the help feels a little offended or a little upset that the other person didn't accept his help.
So that's probably why Nancy is saying suit yourself.
She's saying well, I tried to help you, but you say you want to do it a different way.
So that's okay, fine.
But she's also saying that that's probably not a good decision.
In a way, it's a criticism of Eric.
She's saying by this little expression, suit yourself that you are making the wrong decision and you will probably have negative consequences because of it.
That's a lot to say in two words, but that is in fact what Nancy is saying here, I think.
She says I don't recommend turning down too many invitations or you'll get a reputation for being a recluse.
To turn down an invitation is to say no to something, to reject something.
Reputation, R-E-P-U-T-A-T-I-O-N, is how other people perceive you, how other people see you, the opinions that other people have of you.
Nancy is saying that if Eric turns down a lot of invitations from his neighbors and He'll get a reputation for being a recluse.
R-E-C-L-U-S-E.
A recluse is a person who spends most of his or her time alone without talking to other people.
Eric says, however, that's okay with me.
I'd rather not be the subject of talk among the busybodies.
A busybody, B-U-S-Y, B-O-D-Y, is someone who gossips about other people, someone who wants to know what's going on in other people's lives, even though it isn't any of his or her business.
You have no reason to know what is happening with your neighbor's marriage.
If you try to find out, you're probably being a busybody.
You're trying to get information about the private lives of other people that you have no right to know and shouldn't be interested in.
However, sometimes it's very interesting what's happening with our neighbors.
But we should not be busybodies.
Nancy is insulted by this term because it is an insulting term.
If you say to someone, you're a busybody, that's an insulting term.
That's a criticism of that person.
Nancy says, busybodies.
Well, some people that expression some people is used to show how you are shocked by, by what someone has said or what someone has done.
You can't believe it.
And that's what Nancy is saying here.
She is shocked that Eric would basically insult her when she thought she was just trying to be nice to Eric.
And I have to say, I think Eric is being a little Cruel here.
Nancy might be a busybody, but it's probably not a good idea to insult your neighbors the first time you meet them.
Unless your neighbor is a cat.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Hello there.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello.
I'm Nancy, your neighbor across the street.
You're new to the neighborhood.
Yes, I just moved in last weekend.
That's nice.
How are you settling in?
Fine, thanks.
Would you like to come over and have a cup of coffee?
I can give you the scoop on the neighborhood and give you some tips on places to go and things to do in this area.
Thanks, but I'm kind of busy right now.
I'll take a rain check.
No problem.
Stop by any time.
We have quite a few social events in the area that you might be interested in.
I'm not much of a joiner.
I tend to keep to myself.
Oh, but we couldn't let you do that.
I'm appointing myself your new social secretary.
As a new resident in a small town, you should know that everyone will want to meet you.
You'll be inundated with invitations.
I can help you sort them out.
I appreciate your offer, but if I have to fend off neighbors, I'll do it myself.
Well, suit yourself.
I don't recommend turning down too many invitations or you'll get the reputation for being a recluse.
That's okay with me.
I'd rather not be the subject of talk among the busybodies.
Busybodies?
Well, some people.
She has the reputation for being the finest podcast script writer on the internet.
I speak, of course, of our one and only script writer, 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 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
