Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1168, Reading Contracts Carefully.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1168.
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 Barbara and Sean about reading a contract, a legal document, a legal agreement very carefully.
Let's get started.
Just sign on the dotted line and be done with it.
Didn't your parents ever teach you to read every document carefully before you sign it?
Not when the contract is boilerplate.
All of the terms are standard.
No, they're not.
Did you notice in the fine print that if the agreement is cancelled, we're on the hook for additional charges?
Really?
No, I guess I missed that.
If you had gone through this document with a fine tooth comb, as I have, you would have noticed that there are loopholes for the other side to end the contract at any time.
I guess I overlooked those.
And there are contingencies for problems on their end, but not on ours.
Wow.
I didn't realize they were trying to screw us.
Maybe we shouldn't do business with them.
Relax.
This is par for the course with this kind of contract.
They try to sneak in all kinds of things, and it's our job to find them.
We just have to be vigilant, that's all.
Do you think this is going to take much longer?
They're waiting in the other room to finalize the agreement.
It'll take as long as it takes.
What do you think that cot is for?
Barbara says to Sean, just sign on the dotted line and be done with it.
Barbara is telling Sean to sign his name, to put his signature on some sort of contract, some sort of an agreement.
A contract, C-O-N-T-R-A-C-T, is an agreement between two or more people or two or more groups.
It usually is used to refer to something that is what we would say legally binding B-I-N-D-I-N-G, meaning that you are required by law to do what you say you're going to do in the contract and if you don't you could be punished.
Or Barbara is telling Sean to sign on the dotted D-O-T-T-E-D line.
It used to be in many written contracts that there was a line on which you put your signature.
Now there's still a line on most contracts, but it was more common, I guess, in the old days to make it a dotted line, meaning it wasn't a uninterrupted line that you would draw with a pencil.
Rather it was basically a series of short lines or small points which we would call dots.
And these little dots were on the paper in the form of a line, and you would put your name on that line.
To sign on the dotted line then means to sign the contract.
Sean says, didn't your parents ever teach you to read every document carefully before you sign it?
Sean is surprised that Barbara wants him to sign this contract without reading it carefully.
Barbara says, not when the contract is boilerplate. boilerplate b-o-i-l-e-r p-l-a-t-e one word is language that is used in some document that is very common that is used in many different documents of this sort and Nowadays, we would say you basically copy and paste the text.
That is, it is text that is used in all the contracts or in all the documents of this sort.
And therefore, the idea is that you don't really have to read it every time.
Once you read it, you don't need to read it again, because it's going to be the same in the next contract or the next document.
Barbara continues, all of the terms are standard.
The terms T-E-R-M-S of a contract are the things that the contract says you have to do or the other person has to do.
They are requirements of the agreement.
To be standard means that they are usual.
There's nothing different about them that you wouldn't normally expect in a contract of this type.
Of course, we're not exactly sure yet what the contract is.
Sean says, no, they're not, meaning the terms are not standard.
They're not the usual ones you would expect.
He then asks did you notice, did you see in the fine print that if the agreement is cancelled, we're on the hook for additional charges?
The fine print P-R-I-N-T of a document or an agreement is is the specifics of an agreement that often in certain legal contracts actually appear in a smaller font size, in a smaller size.
The word fine here refers to the size of the letters, the print, in the contract.
In some contracts, there are some words that are written larger than others.
The words that are written in the smaller print or the fine print often contain very important details about the contract that many people don't read.
The fine print can also refer in general to the specifics or the details of any agreement, even if they are not actually written in smaller font sizes.
Sean says that if the agreement is cancelled, that is, if it is ended before it is supposed to end, we're on the hook for additional charges.
The expression to be on the hook.
H-O-O-K means you are responsible, usually financially responsible for something.
If there is something in the agreement that says that if you cancel the agreement you have to pay a fine, that is, you have to pay the other person some money.
That's an example of being on the hook for something.
It's usually some term in the agreement that requires you to pay something if certain things happen, such as the agreement being canceled.
Barbara is surprised.
She says, Really?
I guess I missed that, meaning I didn't see that.
Sean continues.
If you had gone through this document, that is, if you had read this document with a fine-tooth comb, as I have, you would have noticed that there are loopholes for the other side to end the contract at any time.
The expression to go through something with a fine F-I-N-E hyphen tooth T-O-O-T-H comb means to look at something very carefully to make sure you don't miss anything.
Notice once again the use of the word fine here to mean small.
A comb is is something you would normally use on your hair to keep it straight.
A man would use a comb to make sure that his hair is flat against his head.
I don't use a comb anymore since I don't have any hair.
If I did, however, I might use a fine tooth comb.
The teeth of a comb, like the teeth in your mouth, are things that extend down from the top.
A comb has a number of different little pieces of plastic or whatever the comb is made of, that are used in order to make the comb work to go through your hair.
So a fine-tooth comb would be a comb that has many small close-together, usually teeth that are used to comb put the hair back into place anyway.
Here the expression just means to look at something very carefully.
A loophole L O O P, H O L E is something in a law or in an agreement, such as a contract, that is not very clear and that could be used to benefit one side or the other.
In this case, Sean is saying that there are loopholes in the contract so that the other party or the other group of people who are signing the contract can end it at any time.
The word party, P-A-R-T-Y, when we're talking about a contract, can refer to a single person or to a group of people.
Barbara again says Here means not to understand the importance of something or simply not to have seen something because you didn't look carefully.
Sean then says, And there are contingencies for problems on their end, but not on ours.
A contingency C-O-N-T-I-N-G-E-N-C-Y in a contract is something that says what will happen in the future under certain conditions.
So, for example, a contract might have a contingency that says that if you are unable to pay the money that you owe in this contract, you may have to pay an additional fine, an additional amount of money, to the other party in the contract.
There are contingencies in this contract that Sean and Barbara are talking about.
That will help the other side, the other party in the contract.
That's what Sean means by problems on their end, but not on ours.
Barbara says wow, I didn't realize they meaning the other people in the contract were trying to screw S-C-R-E-W us.
To screw someone is a vulgar term that I wouldn't normally recommend you use, but it means to be very unfair to someone, to try to cheat another person, to do something that wouldn't be very nice.
A better way of saying this, a more polite way, would be to take advantage of us or to try perhaps even to cheat us.
Barbara says, maybe we shouldn't do business with them.
Sean says, however, relax, meaning don't worry.
This is par for the course with this kind of contract.
For something to be par.
P-A-R for the course C-O-U-R-S-E means for something to be normal, something to be common or standard, something to be expected.
It's actually a term from the game of golf.
Par is the normal score, the standard score that you would expect on a given hole in golf.
Golf is normally a game that is divided up into basically 18 parts.
Each part of the game requires you to hit a ball into a hole.
What is par for the course is what is the normal score that people would get for this particular golf course.
Every golf course is a little different.
Some are easier, some are harder.
Anyway, back to the story.
We use the term par for the course simply to mean standard, normal, usual.
Sean continues, And it's our job to find them.
We just have to be vigilant, that's all.
To sneak S-N-E-A-K in something means to try to get something in a in this case contract, without the other person noticing.
To try to do it in secret.
Sean says that he and Barbara have to be vigilant, V-I-G-I-L-A-N-T.
To be vigilant means to be very careful about something, to be aware of what is happening, to be looking out for problems or even danger.
It means, in a sense, to stay awake, to be aware of what is going on.
In this case, to be very careful in looking at the contract.
Barbara says, do you think this is going to take much longer?
They're waiting in the other room to finalize the agreement.
So now we understand that Barbara and Sean are in the same building as the other person or people who are part of this contract, and that they are waiting in the other room to finalize F-I-N-A-L-I-Z-E the agreement.
To finalize means to finish or complete something.
Sean says, however, it'll take as long as it takes.
That expression it will take as long as it takes means that you, in a way, don't have any control over the time, or I'm going to take as long as I need to do this right.
It's that second meaning that Sean, I think, is trying to convey here.
He's saying he's going to take his time.
He's going to look at this closely, even if it takes a long time.
It'll take as long as it takes.
Sean says what do you think that cot is for a cot?
C o t is a portable folding bed.
It's what you might use, for example, if you go camping.
It's what might be used, for example, in the military.
When you have lots of different people in a single place and you don't have beds for everyone, you may have these portable beds called cots.
I once slept on a cot for about six months when I didn't have a place to stay when I was a younger man in my 20s.
That's a long story.
I'll tell you that some other time.
Sean is sort of making a joke, or maybe not.
He's saying that they're going to be there so long they may have to sleep in that room, and that's what the cot is for, because it's going to take a long time for Sean to finish looking at this contract.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Didn't your parents ever teach you to read every document carefully before you sign it?
Not when the contract is boilerplate.
All of the terms are standard.
No, they're not.
Did you notice in the fine print that if the agreement is cancelled, we're on the hook for additional charges?
Really?
No, I guess I missed that.
If you had gone through this document with a fine-tooth comb, as I have, you would have noticed that there are loopholes for the other side to end the contract at any time.
I guess I overlooked those.
And there are contingencies for problems on their end, but not on ours.
Wow.
I didn't realize they were trying to screw us.
Maybe we shouldn't do business with them.
Relax.
This is par for the course with this kind of contract.
They try to sneak in all kinds of things, and it's our job to find them.
We just have to be vigilant, that's all.
Do you think this is going to take much longer?
They're waiting in the other room to finalize the agreement.
It'll take as long as it takes.
What do you think that cot is for?
There's nothing boilerplate about our dialogues here on ESL Podcast.
They're all new, all original, every time.
Thanks to the wonderful work... our bar script writer, Dr. Lucy Say.
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 2015 by the Center for Educational Development.
