Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1,227, Altering Clothing.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 1,227.
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 listen to a dialogue between Mom and Saad about changing the size of your clothing.
Let's get started.
Put on these pants and this shirt.
Come over here and stand still.
I need to alter your brother's clothes to fit you.
Oh, Mom.
Hurry up.
I need to let down the hems and take up the sleeves.
I don't think I have to take in the pant legs, but I might have to let out the waist a little.
Ouch!
Sorry, but you need to stop moving around or your hem will be uneven and your seams will be crooked.
You and your brothers are growing so fast.
I feel like a full-time tailor.
Are we done?
No, we're not.
Stay right there.
You can help me iron a crease into this shirt before I put it through the sewing machine.
Oh, Mom.
Don't oh, Mom me.
This machine doesn't seem to be working.
I hope I don't have to stitch all these by hand.
Mom, since I'm growing so fast, I'll probably grow out of these clothes in a couple of months.
Let's wait until after my growth spurt to alter them.
And what will you wear in the meantime?
High waters?
No, shorts.
We have in this dialogue a mother and her son.
The mother says to her son, put on these pants and this shirt.
Come over here and stand still.
The mother is telling the son to put on a pair of pants and a shirt and then to walk over to her and stand still.
Stand still means don't move.
Don't move your arms or your legs or any part of your body.
The mother says, The mother is going to alter some clothing.
To alter A-L-T-E-R means to change or modify something, especially when we are referring to clothing.
You alter clothing so that it fits, F-I-T-S, you better.
It is the correct size for you.
To fit means to be the correct size for you when referring to clothing.
Mom wants to alter the brother's clothing to fit her son, Saad.
The son says, oh, mom.
He says it in a way that indicates he's complaining.
He doesn't like what his mother is doing.
The mother, however, says, hurry up.
I need to let down the hems and take up the sleeves.
To let L-E-T down in this case means to increase the length of something such as the length of the pants.
Pants are, of course, articles of clothing that you wear over your legs.
If a pair of pants are too short, sometimes you can let down the hem, H-E-M, of the pants.
The hem is the bottom of the pants, which often has more material, more of the pant leg underneath.
If you take out the hem, the sewing that is on the bottom of the pant leg, there is often more material that can be pulled down to make the pants longer.
That's what mom is doing in our dialogue.
She's going to let down the hems.
She also is going to take up the sleeves.
The phrasal verb to take up is the opposite of the phrasal verb to let down when we're talking about clothing.
To take up means to shorten something, to decrease the length of something.
In this case, mom wants to take up the sleeves, S-L-E-E-V-E-S.
The sleeves are the parts of a shirt that go over the arms.
If you put on a shirt that is too big for you, the sleeves might be so long they go over your hands.
In that case, you would need to take up the sleeves.
You would need to shorten them.
Mom wants to take up the sleeves in Saad's brother's clothes so that they fit him.
She says I don't think I have to take in the pant legs, but I might have to let out the waist a little.
There are two more phrasal verbs that mom uses here in talking about altering clothing.
They are to take in and to let out.
To take in means to make something smaller around, especially when we're talking about the waist of pants or of a skirt.
If you, for example, lose weight and you are now skinnier...
Your pants will be a little loose around the middle of your body, around your waist.
You might have to take in your pants.
That is, you might have to change them so that the waist is smaller.
Let's hope that is a problem you have.
However, if you gain weight, if you get fatter, you might have to let out the waist of the pants.
To let L-E-T out means to make the waist bigger.
Sometimes it's not possible to let out the waist of a pair of pants.
Sometimes you just have to buy a new, bigger pair of pants.
Mom doesn't think she'll need to take in the legs of the pants.
She doesn't think she'll need to make the pant legs smaller, but she might have to let out the waist a little for her younger son.
Saad says ouch.
Ouch is the word we use when we are expressing pain, if someone hurts us.
We may say ouch, O-U-C-H.
Mom says sorry, but you need to stop moving around or your hem will be uneven and your seams will be crooked.
To be uneven, U-N-E-R, V-E-N means to be not straight.
To be uneven is the opposite of to be even, which is straight.
You want the bottom of your pants, the hems of your pants, to be even, not uneven.
Another word for uneven is crooked, C-R-O-O-K-E-D.
Something that is crooked is something that is not in a straight line, something that is not even.
There's another meaning of the word crooked, which is to be someone who is dishonest, who takes money honestly, illegally.
Many politicians around the world are crooked.
Their dishonest by taking money and doing things because someone gave them money.
Here however, crooked just means not straight.
Not even mom is worried that because her son keeps moving around while she's trying to measure and make alterations up the clothing, The seams of the clothing will be crooked.
Seams.
S-E-A-M-S refers to the line of sewing where two pieces of the material what we call fabric F-A-B-R-I-C come together in a piece of clothing.
So if you look at a pair of pants, if you look at the legs of the pants, there will be a seam, a place where the material or the fabric is sewn together is connected.
That's called a seam.
Mom says, you and your brothers are growing so fast, I feel like a full-time tailor.
A tailor, T-A-I-L-O-R, is a person who sews clothing professionally, who gets paid to sew clothing.
A tailor is often a person who makes clothing as well.
For example, if you want to buy a nice professional suit, a suit coat and pants.
You might go to a tailor and have a suit made professionally.
That will cost you a lot of money.
You might go to a tailor just to have your clothes altered, just to have them changed so that they will fit better.
A tailor then, is someone who works and gets paid for doing the kinds of things that mom is doing for free in our dialogue.
And many moms have done for free, including my own.
The son says, are we done?
Mom says, no, we're not, meaning we are not finished.
Stay right there.
You can help me iron a crease into this shirt before I put it through the sewing machine.
A crease C-R-E-A-S-E is a line in clothing that is made by using what's called an iron I-R-O-N.
And iron is a hot piece of metal that you put over clothing so that the clothing is flat.
Sometimes, especially for a pair of formal pants, you want a crease in the pants.
You want a line that you can see in the fabric.
Mom is going to have Saad do a crease in the shirt piece.
She wants him to do this before she puts the shirt through the sewing machine.
The sewing S-E-W-I-N-G machine is a machine that sews or puts two pieces of fabric together with something called thread T-H-R-E-A-D.
Thread is like a very thin piece of string that you would use in clothing in order to put two pieces of fabric or material together.
Once again, the son goes, oh mom, he's complaining again.
Mom says, don't oh mom me, meaning don't say that to me.
Don't complain to me.
This machine doesn't seem to be working.
Mom says, I hope I don't have to stitch all these by hand.
To stitch S-T-I-T-C-H means to connect two pieces of fabric or material by putting the thread in into the material in the form of a circle.
You typically take a sharp metal object called a needle and you put it into the material with a piece of thread tied onto it and you take the needle and pull it in and out of the material, forming little circles.
That's stitching the material or the fabric together.
Mom says she's going to have to stitch all of these by hand.
By hand means using her own hands, not using the sewing machine.
Saad says Mom, since I'm growing so fast, I'll probably grow out of these clothes in a couple of months.
To grow out of clothes means to get bigger, so that you will no longer be able to wear a certain piece of clothing.
When children grow up, they grow out of the clothing they have and have to get new, bigger clothing.
The son is saying that he's growing so fast that...
He's going to grow out of the clothes that mom is working on right now in a couple of months.
He says The term growth spurt S-P-U-R-T refers to a period of time when a child grows very quickly.
Even in a few months, the child gets taller or bigger.
Saad is saying that mom should wait and not alter these clothes right now and instead alter them after he has another growth spurt.
Mom says, and what will you wear in the meantime?
Meaning, what will you wear between now and the end of your next growth spurt?
She says, and what will you wear in the meantime?
High waters?
Hi.
H-I-G-H.
Waters.
W-A-T-E-R-S.
Are pants that are too short for you.
Pants that end several inches above the ankle.
They're called high waters because, of course, if you were walking through the street and there was a lot of water in the street, your pants wouldn't get wet because they are so high up on your legs.
Her son isn't proposing to wear the pants as highwaters.
He says no shorts, meaning he wants his mother to make the pants into a pair of shorts.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Oh, Mom.
Hurry up.
I need to let down the hems and take up the sleeves.
I don't think I have to take in the pant legs, but I might have to let out the waist a little.
Ouch.
Sorry, but you need to stop moving around or your hem will be uneven and your seams will be crooked.
You and your brothers are growing so fast.
I feel like a full-time tailor.
Are we done?
No, we're not.
Stay right there.
You can help me iron a crease into this shirt before I put it through the sewing machine.
Oh, Mom.
Don't oh-mom me.
This machine doesn't seem to be working.
I hope I don't have to stitch all these by hand.
Mom, since I'm growing so fast, I'll probably grow out of these clothes in a couple of months.
Let's wait until after my growth spurt to alter them.
And what will you wear in the meantime?
Highwaters?
No, shorts.
We wouldn't alter a word of the wonderful dialogues by our wonderful 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 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
