Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1020, Making Verbal Mistakes.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1020.
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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And take a look at our ESL podcast blog on our website, where we give you some additional free lessons in English every week.
This episode is a dialogue between Omar and Faith about making mistakes when you peek.
I mean, speak.
Let's get started.
What's so funny?
I'm editing Paul's speech so that it can be posted on our website, but I didn't realize how many verbal mistakes he made.
Were there a lot?
Yeah, he mispronounced the last name of the manager in charge of new products, for one.
He also stumbled over the name of the new products.
I did notice that he had a few problems with delivery.
That's putting it lightly.
He stuttered when trying to list the product's features.
It's true that some of the verbiage was written like tongue twisters, but I thought he would have had it down cold by now.
I noticed he made a few slips of the tongue, but I didn't notice all that.
I guess I wasn't listening too closely.
But what were you laughing about when I walked in?
Paul made a Freudian slip.
Instead of saying that innovation is our bread and butter, he said that it was our bed and butter.
Maybe that's why he had so many flubs.
His mind was elsewhere.
I think you'll have plenty of material for a blooper reel.
That's true.
In fact, if this were a film, I'd have more outtakes than usable footage.
Our dialogue begins with Omar laughing.
Faith asks him, what's so funny?
Notice she could have said, what's funny?
But in this situation, it would be more common to say, what's so funny?
Meaning, what are you laughing at?
What do you think is so funny that you are laughing?
Omar says, I'm editing Paul's speech so that it can be posted on our website.
But I didn't realize how many verbal mistakes he made.
The word verbal, V-E-R-B-A-L, means with spoken words.
We might also say oral, O-R-A-L.
Verbal or oral means that you say it, not write it.
So Omar seems to be the video editor for this company and he's noticing a lot of mistakes in one of the videos.
He's editing a video of someone named Paul who's giving a speech.
Faith says, were there a lot, meaning were there a lot of verbal mistakes?
Omar says, yeah, he mispronounced the last name of the manager in charge of new products, for one.
To mispronounce is to pronounce something or say something incorrectly, using the wrong sounds.
For one, at the end of this sentence, means for example, for instance.
It's a phrase we use when we are saying this is just one of many examples I could give you.
Omar says he mispronounced the last name of the manager in charge of or responsible for new products for one.
The idea is that he committed other mistakes as well.
Omar says he also stumbled over the name of the new products.
To stumble, S-T-U-M-B-L-E, over something is a phrasal verb meaning not to do very well at it.
To stumble over can also mean to be walking along and hit your foot on something and begin to fall.
That is literally to stumble over something.
Here it's used more to mean to make a mistake, especially when you're saying something, to have difficulty saying something.
Don't confuse this with another phrasal verb, to stumble on or to stumble upon, U-P-O-N.
That means to find something that you think is valuable or interesting, even though you weren't actually looking for it.
Omar says that poor Paul stumbled over the name of the new products for this company.
Faith says, I did notice that he had a few problems with delivery.
Delivery, D-E-L-I-V-E-R-Y, here means the way that you present information.
When we talk about the delivery of a speech, we're talking about how the speech was given, whether
Omar says that's putting it lightly.
Faith says that she noticed a few problems with Paul's delivery of his speech.
Omar says it was more than a few problems.
That's why he says that's putting it lightly.
When someone says that's putting it lightly, L-I-G-H-T-L-Y, or that's putting it mildly, M-I-L-D-L-Y, He means that you are understating the problem.
You are making the problem less serious than it really is.
You're perhaps being kind to this person by not indicating just how bad things were.
Omar says that Paul stuttered when trying to list the product's features.
To stutter S-T-U-T-T-E-R is to repeat the first sound of a word, not intentionally, but because perhaps you have some sort of difficulty in speaking, or perhaps just because you're very nervous.
When someone says, I went to the store, That's stuttering.
Paul stuttered when trying to list or give a list of the product's features, the things that the products had or the things that the products offered.
Omar says it's true that some of the verbiage was written like tongue twisters, but I thought he would have had it down cold by now.
There are several words and expressions there.
Let's begin with verbiage, V-E-R-B-I-A-G-E.
Verbiage refers to writing or speaking that contains too many words is often confusing or difficult to understand because the person is using lots of different words, perhaps to confuse you, or perhaps because he doesn't really know what he's saying.
And so he's just saying something.
Verbiage might also be applied to a text or a speech that had a lot of technical terms.
We're not sure which is the case here.
Omar says, it's true that some of the verbiage was written like tongue twisters, a tongue twister.
Twister T-W-I-S-T-E-R is a phrase that is difficult to say, usually because there are lots of different words that have similar sounds.
These are things that sometimes children like to say as a game.
An example would be, she sells seashells on the seashore.
If you try to say that very fast, you'll probably make a mistake in pronouncing it.
The importance is not the meaning of the sentence.
The sentence is about a woman who is selling shells, things that you find on the beach of an ocean, on the seashore, which is basically the edge of the ocean, the edge of the sea.
In any case, the important thing about a tongue twister is that it's difficult to pronounce.
That's another tongue twister, which I probably got wrong.
Anyway.
Omar says that some of the speech that Paul was reading was written like tongue twisters, meaning it was difficult to pronounce or difficult to say.
But, Omar says, I thought he would have had it down cold by now.
To have something down cold means to have it memorized, to know it perfectly, so that you don't make any mistakes.
Faith then says, I noticed he made a few slips of the tongue, but I didn't notice all that.
Once again, faith doesn't think that Paul's problems were as serious as mine.
What Omar is describing.
She says, Faith says, Faith says, Omar says Paul made a Freudian slip.
A Freudian, F-R-E-U-D-I-A-N, slip is a mistake that indicates what you were really thinking about.
When someone says something and they say the wrong words, that indicate or at least we think they indicate what the person was really thinking about.
Freudian obviously comes from the last name of the famous psychiatrist Sigmund Freud of the early 20th century.
Paul made a Freudian slip according to Omar, and Omar tells us what that slip or mistake was.
Omar says instead of saying that innovation is our bread and butter, he said that it was our bed and butter.
So Omar says that Paul was supposed to say innovation, The expression or the phrase innovation is our bread and butter.
Innovation is coming up with new things.
The expression bread and butter is actually quite common in English.
It means the way that you make a living, the way that you make money to live, to survive.
It may also refer to a company's most successful product, because that's the product, the thing the company sells, that makes the most money for the company.
Omar says that Paul was supposed to say bread and butter, but instead says bed, B-E-D, and butter.
Paul says bed instead of bread.
Often Freudian slips are associated with something, perhaps sexual, and that's probably why Omar calls this a Freudian slip.
Maybe Paul was thinking about his bed, perhaps going to sleep, rather than the topic that he was supposed to be talking about, which was the company's innovations.
Omar says maybe that's why he had so many flubs.
His mind was elsewhere.
A flub, F-L-U-B, is a minor mistake, a minor error.
Interestingly enough, the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater was a Disney film called Son of Flubber.
F-L-U-B-B-E-R.
A flubber would be someone who makes a lot of mistakes.
It's a word we don't use that often anymore in English conversation.
I was 12 years old, by the way, when I saw my first movie in a movie theater.
True story.
My parents didn't have money to take everyone to a movie theater, since there were 11 of us, 11 children, in our family.
Going to a movie would have been very expensive.
I actually went with a couple of friends of mine.
But this is not important to our story, is it?
Omar says that Paul's mind was elsewhere.
When we say your mind was elsewhere, we mean you were distracted and were thinking about something else instead of what you should have been thinking about and focusing on.
Faith says, I think you'll have plenty of material for a blooper reel.
A blooper, B-L-O-O-P-E-R, is similar to a flub or a slip.
It's a mistake.
Usually, we use this word when talking about mistakes that actors and actresses make when they are filming a movie or a television show.
A blooper reel is a short funny video that shows the mistakes that someone made when he or she was speaking.
Sometimes at the end of movies you'll see a blooper reel or on the DVD, back when people bought DVDs, which I guess soon will no longer be common.
There were often blooper reels on the DVD from the movie, from the filming of the movie.
Omar says that's true.
In fact, if this were a film, I'd have more outtakes than usable footage.
An outtake is O-U-T-T-A-K-E is a part of a video that was filmed but wasn't included in the final film or the final video, the final television show, perhaps.
Footage, F-O-O-T-A-G-E just refers to the recorded video for a movie or a television show.
I say video since most things that we film nowadays are done digitally.
Of course, in the old days, there used to be physical film that was in a camera.
And the word foot was used to describe the length of the film.
So footage would describe a part of the physical film, a part of the filming, if you will.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
What's so funny?
I'm editing Paul's speech so that it can be posted on our website, but I didn't realize how many verbal mistakes he made.
Were there a lot?
Yeah, he mispronounced the last name of the manager in charge of new products, for one.
He also stumbled over the name of the new products.
I did notice that he had a few problems with delivery.
That's putting it lightly.
He stuttered when trying to list the products' features.
It's true that some of the verbiage was written like tongue twisters, but I thought he would have had it down cold by now.
I noticed he made a few slips of the tongue, but I didn't notice all that.
I guess I wasn't listening too closely.
But what were you laughing about when I walked in?
Paul made a Freudian slip.
Instead of saying that innovation is our bread and butter, he said that it was our bed and butter.
Maybe that's why he had so many flubs.
His mind was elsewhere.
I think you'll have plenty of material for a blooper reel.
That's true.
In fact, if this were a film, I'd have more outtakes than usable footage.
There aren't any slips or flubs in the scripts written by our scriptwriter, 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 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
