Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1,301.
Describing very large and small sizes.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1,301.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
This episode is a dialogue between Ian and Shannon about describing the size of something.
Let's get started.
Oh, look at your team.
How cute.
You've recruited the puniest players you could find.
Are those your players?
They're humongous.
My players are the best around.
They're massive in size and massive in talent.
They'll crush your teeny tiny team without breaking a sweat.
Our teams are supposed to have players from the same age group.
So why is it that I have normal-sized players and yours are gigantic?
Something doesn't smell right.
It all comes down to recruitment.
I recruited the best players.
Are you sure you don't have a few ringers on your team?
Some who are a few years older than they're supposed to be?
Of course I don't.
I can't help it if the best players gravitated toward my team and to my better coaching.
Ready to be schooled?
I think I'd better give my team a pep talk first.
A few of them look like they're ready to bolt.
Or throw up.
Ian begins our dialogue by saying to Shannon...
Oh, look at your team.
How cute.
Normally the word cute is used to mean attractive in some way, but here Ian is using it sarcastically.
That is, he's using it in the opposite way we normally do in order to be funny.
He says you've recruited the puniest players you could find.
We soon learn that Ian and Shannon are coaches or managers of some sort of sports team.
Ian says to Shannon that she has recruited the puniest players.
To recruit R-E-C-R-U-I-T means to get someone to participate in an organization, a company or, as is the case in our dialogue, a team.
To recruit someone means to go and try to persuade that person to join your group.
Ian says that Shannon has recruited the puniest P-U-N-I-E-S-T players.
Puniest is the superlative form of puny, P-U-N-Y, which means very small and weak.
Puny would describe a person or perhaps an animal who was or that was very small and weak.
Shannon asks, Are those your players?
They're humongous.
Humongous, H-U-M-U-N-G-O-U-S, is a funny-sounding word that means extremely large.
We might also say huge, H-U-G-E.
A humongous player would be someone who's very tall and perhaps muscular or strong.
Ian says, my players are the best around, meaning the best anywhere.
They're massive in size and massive in talent.
Something that is massive.
M-A-S-S-I-V-E is something that is very large, very big and perhaps also very heavy, something that weighs a lot.
Ian says his players are massive in size, meaning how big they are, and massive in talent, meaning how good they are at what they do, how good they are as players of this game.
He says, they'll, meaning his players, crush your teeny tiny team without breaking a sweat.
Crush, C-R-U-S-H, as a verb means to destroy or to ruin something.
In this case however, it means to win a competition by a large score or to beat another team very badly, so that you win something with a much higher score than the other team.
Ian says his players will crush Shannon's teeny tiny team.
Teeny, T-E-E-N-Y, hyphen, tiny, T-I-N-Y, means very small.
The word tiny by itself means extremely small.
So teeny tiny means really, really, really small.
It's not a common term teeny tiny but you will hear people use it to describe something that is very, very small.
Ian is describing Shannon's team as teeny tiny.
He says his players will beat them without breaking B-R-E-A-K-I-N-G a sweat, S-W-E-A-T.
Sweat is the water or liquid that comes out of your body when you are very hot, perhaps because you are working a lot.
To break a sweat means to start sweating because you are working a lot.
You are working hard.
Ian is saying that his team will beat Shannon's team without breaking a sweat, meaning that they won't have to work very hard because they are so much better than Shannon's team.
Shannon says...
Our teams are supposed to have players from the same age group, meaning about the same age.
So why is it that I have normal size players and yours are gigantic?
Gigantic, G-I-G-A-N-T-I-C, means very large, huge.
It means the same, in this case, as humongous or massive.
Shannon is wondering why, if the players on their teams are supposed to be about the same age, why Ian's players are so much bigger than hers?
She says something doesn't smell right.
The expression something doesn't smell, S-M-E-L-L, right means something is suspicious.
The verb to smell is normally used to talk about the ability to detect or to sense the odor of something using your nose.
Your nose smells, your eyes see.
But when someone says something doesn't smell right, he means there's something wrong with this situation.
There's something suspicious about what is happening here.
Something isn't right.
Ian says it all comes down to recruitment.
The expression for something to come down to something else means it is a simple explanation or the main reason.
Something is true is because of this or that.
We could say, for example, doing well at school comes down to.
That would be the simplest explanation for why or how something is successful.
Ian says his success, the reason he has such big players, comes down to recruitment.
Recruitment is the noun that comes from the verb to recruit.
He means that he went out and got the best players.
He says, I recruited the best players.
Shannon asks A ringer R-I-N-G-E-R is usually an athlete, someone who plays a sport who is not eligible or shouldn't actually be on that team, usually because the player is too old to be on that team.
If you went to play basketball with your friends and you brought a professional basketball player with you as a member of your team, the other team would say well, he's a ringer.
He doesn't belong here.
He's, in this case, not qualified because he's obviously not same level, or he's not at the same level, as the rest of the players.
Ian says, of course I don't, meaning I don't have any players here who are ringers.
It does happen in American sports and amateur sports, especially for children and teenagers, that some teams try to get players who Ian says he's not doing that.
He says I can't help it, meaning it's not my fault or I'm not to blame if the best players gravitated toward my team and to my better coaching.
The expression to gravitate G-R-A-V-I-T-A-T-E toward something means to be interested in and want to have something to do with or, in this case, want to join this team.
He says the best players went to his team And to his better coaching.
To coach C-O-A-C-H means to give instructions to another person, to help that person do something better.
It's often used to describe the leader of a team.
That's the coach.
He or she is the person who doesn't play on the team, but helps the team be a better team, tells the team what to do.
Nowadays, we use this term coach outside of the world of sports.
You could have a business coach or a podcast coach, someone who helps you do better what you want to do.
Ian says then to Shannon, ready to be schooled?
To be schooled means to be taught a lesson.
Often it is used to mean to be shown in a somewhat aggressive way how you are wrong, or to be proven wrong.
Shannon says, I think I'd better give my team a pep talk first.
A pep, P-E-P talk is when you talk to your team to try to get them more excited about playing, to motivate them.
In American high schools, often before a big game, an important game, games such as a football game, the entire school will come together and have what's called a pep rally r-a-l-l-y.
My high school used to have these every year and The pep rally would be all of the students coming together in the gym and the athletic team would be there and we would all yell and shout and try to give the team motivation to play well in that game, whatever it was.
It sounds a little silly, but it is quite common in American high schools, or at least it used to be.
Also quite common is a coach giving a pep talk to his team to get them motivated.
Shannon wants to give a pep talk to her team.
She says, To bolt, B-O-L-T, means to run away quickly and suddenly.
Perhaps Shannon's players are afraid of Ian's team's players.
She says some look like they're ready to bolt and some look like they're ready to throw up.
To throw up is a two-word phrasal verb, meaning here to vomit, for the contents or what's inside of your stomach to come out through your mouth.
If you're very scared, of course that might happen.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Oh, look at your team.
How cute.
You've recruited the puniest players you could find.
Are those your players?
They're humongous.
My players are the best around.
They're massive in size and massive in talent.
They'll crush your teeny tiny team without breaking a sweat.
Our teams are supposed to have players from the same age group.
So why is it that I have normal-sized players and yours are gigantic?
Something doesn't smell right.
It all comes down to recruitment.
I recruited the best players.
Are you sure you don't have a few ringers on your team?
Some who are a few years older than they're supposed to be?
Of course I don't.
I can't help it if the best players gravitated toward my team and to my better coaching.
Ready to be schooled?
I think I'd better give my team a pep talk first.
A few of them look like they're ready to bolt.
Or throw up.
If you want a massive vocabulary, I suggest you listen to the wonderful scripts written by our wonderful script writer, Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks 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.
