Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1046, Types of Luggage.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1046.
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 about types or kinds of luggage what you use to transport your clothing when you travel.
Let's get started.
Ma'am, where would you like these suitcases?
The three-wheeled suitcases should go next to the bed and the garment bag should be hung up in the closet.
Where is my expandable bag?
Do you mean this duffle bag?
Yes, you can leave that right there.
Hmm, where is my carry-on?
All I see is my checked baggage.
I thought I gave you my carry-on, too.
You did, ma'am, and it's right here.
Oh, good.
When can I expect my trunk to arrive?
Your trunk?
You had a trunk?
Yes, I had a trunk.
Didn't you see it at the airport?
Uh, no.
I must have overlooked it.
You mean you left behind my trunk?
Who knows what has become of it by now?
I'm sure I'll be able to find it and deliver it here to you.
I knew I should have used a luggage forwarding service.
You might consider traveling light next time, ma'am.
What did you say?
Nothing.
I'm going to fetch your trunk as we speak.
I should hope so.
Our dialogue is between a woman named Leona and her driver.
A driver is a person who usually drives you around in a car.
You could have a driver if you're a rich person, for example.
You don't want to drive, so you have a driver, someone who drives you from place to place.
The driver says to Leona ma'am, which is a polite way of addressing a woman.
Somewhat formal however, where would you like these suitcases?
A suitcase is the same as a piece of luggage.
It's a container in which you put your clothing and other things that you are using and that is used to transport those items to wherever you're going when you travel.
Leona says the three-wheeled suitcases should go next to the bed.
A wheeled, W-H-E-E-L-E-D, suitcase is a suitcase that has, are you ready?
Wheels, yes.
A wheeled suitcase has wheels on it so that you can roll it along the ground.
Back when I was growing up, most suitcases did not have wheels on them.
Instead, you bought this separate little device called a luggage carrier and you put your pieces of luggage on that.
Now, luggage companies have gotten smart and they put the wheels right on the suitcases right on the pieces of luggage.
Leona says that the wheeled suitcases should go next to the bed.
She continues, the garment bag should be hung up in the closet.
A garment, G-A-R-M-E-N-T, is a piece of clothing.
So a garment bag is a special piece of luggage that is only used typically for transporting clothing.
Usually a garment bag is long.
You are able to put a suit in it or a dress in it, and then you fold it over so that it doesn't get all wrinkled.
Wrinkled W-R-I-N-K-L-E-D is when you put your clothes in a certain way that causes them to not be flat, to have a bunch of lines in them.
A garment bag is a large bag then that is used for transporting usually a suit or a dress, some sort of formal clothing, although it doesn't have to be.
The verb to hang up is used to describe the action where you are putting something, say a piece of clothing, into a closet.
You want the piece of clothing to hang down vertically.
Usually you put it on something called a hanger H-A-N-G-E-R.
A hanger is a triangular piece of metal or plastic that has a little round hook on the top.
You put the clothing on the hanger and then you put that hook over a bar or a what we would call rod R-O-D in your closet.
This keeps your clothes, once again, from getting wrinkled.
A garment bag typically has hangers inside of it and or it has a hook on the top that you can use to hang it in a closet.
That's what Leona means when she tells the driver that the garment bag should be hung up in the closet.
Hung is the past participle of hanged.
Leona then asks, where is my expandable bag?
Expandable E-X-P-A-N-D-A-B-L-E comes from the verb to expand, which means to make bigger, to make something larger.
An expandable bag, then would be a piece of luggage that you could make bigger if you had more things to put in it.
It will get bigger for you, if you will, usually because the material is soft and will expand, or because there is some additional space in the piece of luggage that you can use if you need more room.
The driver says, do you mean this duffel bag?
A duffle, D-U-F-F-E-L, bag is an example of an expandable bag, typically.
It is a soft cloth bag, usually in the shape of a round tube.
We often associate duffel bags with people transporting their clothing back and forth, say to a gym to exercise, but it could also be used just to transport a large amount of clothing or other items when you travel.
Duffel bags have a zipper on the top that opens and allows you to put things in and take things out of the bag.
Leona says yes.
You can leave that right here.
Hmm, where's my carry-on?
A carry-on is a small suitcase that you can bring with you on the plane to either put in front of you in the seat in front of you, underneath it, or above you in what are called the overhead bins B-I-N-S.
That's a piece of carry-on luggage.
Most airlines in the United States allow you to bring one piece of carry-on luggage when you get on the plane.
Your big suitcases have to be typically checked, which is another way of saying.
They're put in the plane but below, where the passengers are, in the bottom part of the plane.
Leona in fact refers to the checked baggage in the very next sentence.
She says, all I see is my checked baggage.
Once again, your checked baggage is baggage that you give to the airline and the airline puts it underneath the plane and then gives it back to you.
You hope, when you arrive to wherever you're going.
Leona is looking for her checked baggage.
She says, I thought I gave you my carry-on, too.
The driver says, you did, ma'am, and it's right here.
Leona says, oh, good.
When can I expect my trunk to arrive?
A trunk T-R-U-N-K here refers to a large box that has hard sides on it and a top on that is used for transporting a large amount of books, clothing or other items for travel.
Trunks or travel trunks aren't very popular anymore.
You usually will see them in movies, old movies about people who are traveling either by ship or by plane.
They're not very easy or convenient to move around.
People have trunks in their homes however, to store things, especially clothing that they're not wearing currently.
My mother used to keep all of the winter clothing in trunks in our attic in the very top part of our house so that it wouldn't take up space in the rooms.
She would then, of course, take it down and bring the clothing to us when the weather got cold, which unfortunately, in Minnesota, was often.
The driver says, your trunk, you had a trunk.
He's surprised that Leona is asking about it.
Leona says, yes, I had a trunk.
Didn't you see it at the airport?
The driver says, no, I must have overlooked it.
To overlook, O-V-E-R-L-O-O-K, something, here means to overlook.
Ignore or to miss something.
You didn't see it.
You didn't notice it.
Leona says, you mean you left behind my trunk?
The phrasal verb to leave behind something, or to leave something behind means not to take something with you when you take all of the other items.
It's something usually that you've forgotten.
I left my wallet behind in the hotel room.
I forgot to bring it with me.
Leona is a little angry with her driver.
She says, who knows what has become of it by now?
The expression what will become of something is used when you're worried about something and you're not sure what will happen.
You may be worry about your son or daughter.
What will become of my son if he doesn't get a job?
What will become of my daughter if she doesn't study in school?
You're worried about their future.
The driver says I'm sure I'll be able to find it that is the trunk and deliver it or bring it here to you.
Leona says, I knew I should have used a luggage forwarding service.
To forward, F-O-R-W-A-R-D something, means to send it to another person.
We use that term in email, for example.
When we forward a message to someone, we are taking a message someone sent to us and sending it to somebody else.
A luggage forwarding service would be a special service that takes your luggage and transports it to the place where you're going.
So, instead of you bringing your luggage to the airport and having to worry about it, you give it to someone else at your house, they take it to the airport and it's transported to the place where you're traveling.
Most people don't do this.
It's probably much more expensive, but you could do it.
The driver says to Leona, You might consider traveling light next time, ma'am.
The driver is being somewhat rude here.
He's telling Leona that she should travel light next time.
To travel light means to bring fewer items, to not bring as many suitcases.
Leona says, what did you say?
She's obviously upset with the driver, angry with the driver.
The driver says nothing.
I'm going to fetch your trunk as we speak.
The driver realizes his mistake and he doesn't repeat what he said to Leona.
Instead he just says nothing, meaning I didn't say anything, or what I said wasn't meant for you, or I didn't really mean what I said.
The driver says, I'm going to fetch, F-E-T-C-H, your trunk as we speak.
To fetch something means to get something and bring it back.
We often use that verb with a dog when we throw a ball and the dog runs after the ball and brings it back to us.
We sometimes will use that verb to describe that action.
We'll even yell at the dog, fetch, meaning run after the ball, get it, and bring it back.
More generally however, it means to go and get something and bring it back, typically to another person.
I will fetch your purse, dear.
I will go and get your purse for you and bring it back to you, my loveliness.
That's what I say to my wife every day.
The driver is going to fetch Leona's trunk.
As we speak, he says.
The expression as we speak means right now, right away, immediately.
Leona responds, I should hope so.
That expression, I should hope so, is when you say when you are annoyed, upset, or angry.
And you are expressing your desire that something happen, especially something done by someone else.
So, for example, if you're at a restaurant and the waiter charges you too much for your meal, the waiter brings you your bill, your check, and you look at it and you say oh, this is wrong.
The waiter says, oh, I'm sorry, sir, I'll change that right away.
You might respond, I should hope so, if you're very upset or very angry.
However, I don't recommend using this phrase normally because there's...
An idea of not just being angry but being somehow superior to the other person, that you are above the other person and that the other person has done something very wrong, something that has hurt you even.
So it's not an expression you would normally use in daily conversation.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Ma'am, where would you like these suitcases?
The three-wheeled suitcases should go next to the bed and the garment bag should be hung up in the closet.
Where is my expandable bag?
Do you mean this duffel bag?
Yes.
You can leave that right there.
Hmm.
Where is my carry-on?
All I see is my check baggage.
I thought I gave you my carry-on, too.
You did, ma'am, and it's right here.
Oh, good.
When can I expect my trunk to arrive?
Your trunk?
You had a trunk?
Yes, I had a trunk.
Didn't you see it at the airport?
Uh, no.
I must have overlooked it.
You mean you left behind my trunk?
Who knows what has become of it by now?
I'm sure I'll be able to find it and deliver it here to you.
I knew I should have used a luggage forwarding service.
You might consider traveling light next time, ma'am.
What did you say?
Nothing.
I'm going to fetch your trunk as we speak.
I should hope so.
We don't want to overlook the wonderful work of our scriptwriter, 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.
