Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1,271.
Disapproving of a remarriage.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1,271.
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 Ellie and Laurent about disapproving or not liking someone marrying a second time.
Remarrying, we would say.
Let's get started.
I just got off the phone with my mother and she dropped a bombshell.
What did she tell you?
Are your parents divorced?
No, my mother is a widow.
My father passed away eight years ago.
Oh, I'm sorry.
You don't approve of your prospective stepfather?
Uh, don't use that term.
I don't like or dislike him.
It's just that my mother should not be remarrying, period.
She should stay true to my father's memory.
After eight years?
Theirs was a picture-perfect marriage.
How could she forget about it and take up with this other guy?
Don't you want your mother to move on and be happy?
By replacing my father with this new guy?
I'm sure she's not trying to replace him.
She just wants a new love in her life.
Can't you just be happy for her?
I'm never betraying my father's memory.
Well, no.
I can stay true to my father's memory and still get married.
Yes.
This episode is about someone getting married again.
It could be for the second time.
It could be for the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh time.
But I think we're just talking about the second time here.
Ellie begins by saying to Laurent, I don't believe it.
I just got off the phone with my mother, meaning I just was talking on the telephone to my mother and she dropped a bombshell.
The expression to drop D-R-O-P a bombshell is B-O-M-B-S-H-E-L-L means to make a very surprising, shocking announcement.
To tell someone some news that is usually bad news and very surprising news.
Ellie says her mother dropped a bombshell, meaning told her some very surprising news.
Lauren says, what did she tell you?
Ellie responds, she's thinking of remarrying.
To remarry R-E-M-A-R-R-Y means to marry again, and either after you have had a divorce meaning you've ended a previous marriage with your husband or wife or after your husband or wife has died.
Laurent says, are your parents divorced?
To be divorced means D-I-V-O-R-C-E-D, means to marry and then to end your marriage legally, to go to the government and say, I am no longer married to this woman, or I'm no longer married to this man.
Well, of course, you both have to declare that you're not married, although in many states in the US, probably in most states, even if you don't want to be divorced, you can have your marriage ended by your husband or wife.
Ellie says her mother is not divorced.
Her mother is a widow.
W-I-D-O-W.
The term for a man would be a widower, W-I-D-O-W-E-R.
A widower is a man whose wife has died.
There are many more widows in the world than widowers, because women tend to live longer than men.
Men are probably more likely to marry a woman younger than them than a woman is to marry a man.
I'm not sure what the statistics are on that.
That's just my impression, what i think is true.
In any case, Ellie's mother is a widow.
She says her father passed away eight years ago.
The expression to pass, P-A-S-S, away, means simply to die.
But it's a nicer way of saying to die.
You may ask a friend of yours, when did your father pass away?
That sounds better than saying, when did your father die?
It depends on the situation, but to pass away is usually considered a more polite way of saying die.
Laurent says, oh, I'm sorry.
Once again, it might be the case that if you didn't know that someone's friend or, in this case, parent has died and the person tells you, you might say oh, I'm sorry, or I'm sorry to hear that.
You don't approve of your prospective stepfather, Laurent says.
To approve means to think something is good or acceptable.
I approve of him means I think he's a good person or I think he's acceptable, for whatever the situation is.
Lalonde is asking Ellie if she approves of her prospective P-R-O-S-P-E-C-T-I-V-E stepfather, S-T-E-P-F-A-T-H-E-R.
Perspective means potential, something that might happen in the future.
The term stepfather is used to refer to a man who marries a woman who already has children.
In some cases, the man will legally make himself the father of those children.
We would call that man their, or the children's, stepfather.
Ellie says, oh, don't use that term.
The term is a word, in this case, the word stepfather.
She then says, I don't like or dislike him.
It's just that my mother should not be remarrying, period.
Ellie doesn't hate the new boyfriend of her mother.
However, she does not think her mother should be remarrying, period.
P-E-R-I-O-D.
The word period here means is used to mean at all.
It's a word that we use for emphasis.
A period, of course, is a small little round dot that goes at the end of a printed sentence in a book or in a document.
It indicates the end of something.
But when someone says it in a sentence like this, he means a to use that word as emphasis to say at all or completely.
In England, in British English, they call a period a full stop.
And they use that term, full stop, the same way we use the word period in English.
Ellie says that her mother should stay true to her father's memory.
To stay true to something means to remain loyal and faithful to something.
To remember something in such a way that you don't deny it or reject it.
Stay true to your wife.
That means don't go out and try to find a new woman.
You must stay loyal to her.
You must be faithful to her.
You must only be with her and love her.
That would be staying true to a person.
In this case, Ellie thinks that her mother should stay true, not to her father, since her father is dead now, but to her father's memory M-E-M-O-R-Y.
Memory is how you remember someone, the idea about how someone was in your mind.
Laurent says, after eight years?
He thinks that Ellie is asking too much of her mother to not get married just because the mother loved her father.
Ellie says theirs, meaning their marriage her mother's and father's was a picture-perfect marriage.
Picture-perfect is a term that means ideal, one that was without any problems.
How could she forget about it and take up with this other guy, Ellie says.
Ellie is saying here that she is surprised her mother would get married again, because to her that means that she has forgotten about her father.
She uses the term take up with to describe her mother getting involved in this new romantic relationship.
However, we often use that expression to take up with in a negative way when we don't approve of or agree with someone starting a romantic relationship with another person.
Laurent says, don't you want your mother to move on and be happy?
The phrasal verb to move on means to end one thing and begin a new thing.
It is especially used when we're talking about romantic relationships.
You end one relationship and then you forget about that one and find a new romantic relationship.
That's called moving on.
We also use that phrasal verb to mean simply to continue on to something new, to stop talking about or worrying about what has happened in the past or with one particular issue.
We move on.
We continue on to a new thing.
Ellie says, "...by replacing my father with this new guy."
She thinks her mother is moving on by replacing the memory of her father.
To replace, R-E-P-L-A-C-E, means to start using one thing instead of another thing.
Laurent says, I'm sure she's not trying to replace him.
Laurent is telling Ellie that he doesn't think her mother is trying to replace her father.
He says she just wants a new love in her life.
Ellie says, my father was the love of her life.
The love of your life is the person you think you are meant to be with, the one and only person with whom you should be or toward whom you could have a deep kind of love.
Ellie says, this other guy, meaning her mother's new boyfriend, is a pale substitute.
A substitute.
S-U-B-S-T-I-T-U-T-E is a replacement for something, when you use one thing instead of something else.
Pale, P-A-L-E, here means something that is inferior or worse than the original.
So a pale substitute would be something or someone that is not nearly as good as the thing or person replaced.
Laurent says, can't you just be happy for her?
Ellie says, I'm not betraying my father's memory.
To betray, B-E-T-R-A-Y, someone or something, means not to be true to or loyal to that person.
If someone tells you a secret and then you say okay, I won't tell anyone else, and you the next day go and tell five other people, you have betrayed your friend.
You have betrayed the person who gave you that secret or told you that secret.
You were not loyal or faithful to that person.
Someone who sells secret information to another government betrays his country, is not faithful to his country.
Ellie does not want to betray her father's memory.
Laurent says, does that mean you'll never marry?
Ellie says, well, no, I can stay true to my father's memory and still get married.
Laurence says so, can your mother, meaning your mother can also get married and stay true to her father's memory.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I don't believe it.
I just got off the phone with my mother, and she dropped a bombshell.
What did she tell you?
She's thinking of remarrying.
Are your parents divorced?
No, my mother is a widow.
My father passed away eight years ago.
Oh, I'm sorry.
You don't approve of your prospective stepfather?
Ugh, don't use that term.
I don't like or dislike him.
It's just that my mother should not be remarrying, period.
She should stay true to my father's memory.
After eight years?
Theirs was a picture-perfect marriage.
How could she forget about it and take up with this other guy?
Don't you want your mother to move on and be happy?
By replacing my father with this new guy?
I'm sure she's not trying to replace him.
She just wants a new love in her life.
My father was the love of her life.
This other guy is a pale substitute.
Can't you just be happy for her?
I'm never betraying my father's memory.
Does that mean you'll never marry?
Well, no.
I can stay true to my father's memory and still get married.
So can your mother.
We hope you approve of the wonderful scripts we have on our podcast.
They're written by our wonderful 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 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
