Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 527, Describing Men's Bodies.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 527.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is ESLPOD.com.
Go there to download a learning guide for this episode that contains all of the vocabulary definitions, sample sentences, additional definitions, comprehension questions, cultural notes and a complete transcript of this episode.
This episode is called Describing Men's Bodies.
It's a dialogue between Justin and Katrina, talking about the way that men and women look at their bodies.
Let's get started.
What are you ogling at?
I'm watching those guys working across the street.
Those construction workers?
Yeah, those prime examples of manhood.
There's not a flabby gut in the bunch.
I'm pretty sure they wouldn't appreciate you watching them as though they were pieces of meat.
Hasn't anyone ever told you not to objectify the opposite sex?
What?
I'm not objectifying anybody.
I'm just admiring their six-packs and guns.
Look at those long, lean bodies.
Stop it.
It's demeaning.
And on behalf of all men out there, I'm really offended.
It's disgusting.
Is it disgusting to have a picture of Megan Fox on the wall in your office?
That's different.
How?
It's her personality I admire.
You could have fooled me.
Justin begins by saying to Katrina...
What are you ogling at?
To ogle someone or to ogle at someone means to look at someone in a way that shows that you are interested in them, possibly even sexually interested in them.
It's usually something that someone doesn't want you to do.
Often it's done with someone you don't know, but it could be someone you know as well.
You don't want your college professor ogling at his female students, for example.
Katrina says.
So Katrina is looking at some men, presumably attractive men, who are working across the street from where she is.
Justin says, A construction worker is a person whose job it is to help build new buildings or roads or bridges, someone who works outdoors, someone who does physical labor, physical work, building or constructing something.
To construct means to build.
So we have construction workers.
Katrina says, yeah, those are prime examples of manhood.
Something that is prime is something that is the best.
So a prime example would be a perfect or very good example of something.
During the 1980s, I was a prime example of what my father used to call a professional student.
That's sort of a joking term.
Someone who's a professional student is someone who stays in school usually college for a very long time.
I was in school for almost eight years finishing my bachelor's degree, which is normally finished in four.
I'm not too smart, you see.
So I became a professional student.
It's a long story.
I'll tell you some other time.
Getting back to our dialogue, Katrina says those men, those construction workers, are prime examples of manhood.
Manhood is the characteristics of a man, usually someone who is strong, someone who is responsible.
Manhood can refer also to the physical attractiveness perhaps of a man.
Katrina seems more interested in the physical features or physical aspects of these men.
She says there's not a flabby, F-L-A-B-B-Y, gut, G-U-T, in the bunch.
To be flabby means to have too much fat.
If your arms are flabby, they have a lot of fat on them and if you move them quickly you may see the fat move.
That's to be flabby.
A gut is another word for your stomach, the middle part of your body and front of your body, or rather in the front part of your body.
Your stomach, what we would sometimes call your tummy.
This is the gut.
This is the middle part of your body.
The word gut has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
To say someone has a flabby gut means that perhaps they've been drinking too much beer, they've been eating too many donuts or McDonald's hamburgers and they have a lot of fat in front in their stomach area.
A bunch means a group of people or a group of things.
So Katrina says there's not a flabby gut in the bunch.
She means that none of the men have a flabby gut, meaning they're in good physical condition.
Justin says.
Justin is saying that these men, if they knew that Katrina was looking at them just for their physical aspect, just for their physical appearance, would not appreciate it.
They would not want that to happen.
That's what Justin says.
Pieces of meat is an expression here to mean only for the physical aspect, only for the physical beauty of someone.
It's a negative way of describing this.
We don't want to look at people as though they were pieces of meat.
They're human beings with personalities and minds and so forth.
But Justin is saying that that's the way Katrina is looking at these men.
Justin says, To objectify O-B-J-E-C-T-I-F-Y means to treat a person, a human being, as though they were an object, as though they were just a physical thing, and not referring or not being concerned about their personality, who they were inside and so forth.
Now, there's a little bit of a switch a little bit of a reversal happening here.
Things are a little backwards than they would normally be.
Normally we think about men objectifying women, looking at women just for their physical beauty.
Here we have Katrina looking at the men and objectifying them, making them as though they were just physical objects.
The opposite sex would be whatever you're not.
So if you're a man, the opposite sex would be a woman.
If you're a woman, the opposite sex would be a man.
So Justin says, hasn't anyone ever told you not to objectify the opposite sex, not to do that?
Katrina says, what?
I'm not objectifying anybody.
Katrina uses a couple of different informal expressions in describing a man's body.
The first one is a six-pack.
A six-pack normally refers to a way of buying beer where you buy six cans of beer and they're held together by a plastic strap.
This is called a six-pack.
But here the word or expression six-pack refers to the abdominal muscles of a man who is very healthy, very athletic, very strong.
Abdominal refers once again to the stomach, the stomach area.
And if you have a very strong man who exercises his abdominal muscles, you can see the six muscles under the skin which is considered to be very healthy, very athletic looking.
So a man's six pack would be his abdominal muscles that were in good shape, good condition, even though we normally use the word six-pack to refer to beer.
If you drink a lot of six-packs, you probably won't have a six-pack.
That is, if you drink a lot of beer, you won't have those abdominal muscles showing.
Guns here means the biceps, which are the large muscles in your upper arm.
They're between your elbow and your shoulder.
And if you take your arm and you put it at a 90 degree angle, at a right angle, and you stress your muscles, you will see your biceps.
And of course, for a man to have big biceps is to be considered usually more attractive.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, our governor, has big biceps, although I'm not sure he's attractive.
Lean means with very little fat.
Someone who doesn't have a lot of fat on their body is lean.
We also talk about pieces of meat, such as beef, being lean, not having a lot of fat on them.
So Katrina says that she's admiring the men's six-packs and guns.
Guns has a couple of different meanings, however.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
Guns is also a pretty informal expression.
It would probably be used more as a joke than anything else.
Katrina says, look at those long, lean bodies.
Justin says, stop it.
It's demeaning.
And on behalf of all men out there, I'm really offended.
It's disgusting.
Something that is demeaning is something that is embarrassing or shameful, something that is showing less respect to the other person than they should.
To be demeaning to someone means not to treat them with respect.
Justin says On behalf of means speaking for a larger group of people representing, in this case, all men.
That's what Justin is trying to do here.
He says I'm really offended, meaning he's insulted, he's angered by something that someone has said or done.
Of course most men would not be offended if a woman looked at him and thought that he was attractive.
But again, there's a little bit of a reversal going on here.
Justin says it's disgusting.
Something that's disgusting is something that is unattractive unpleasant, makes you feel uncomfortable or dirty, something that is gross.
All of these would be ways of describing disgusting.
It's a very negative way of describing something.
If you go to a restaurant and you say, oh, the soup was disgusting.
That means it was absolutely terrible.
It was horrible.
The worst you've ever had, perhaps.
Katrina says, She's talking to Justin, who has a picture of...
A famous actress, someone who's very considered by some men not me sexually attractive, a woman by the name of Megan Fox.
Well, Justin has a picture of this woman on the wall in his office.
Katrina is saying that, well, Justin does exactly what he says Katrina should not do.
Justin says, that's different.
Katrina says, how?
How is it different?
Justin says, it's her personality I admire.
Personality is one's character, the way one treats other people, the way one talks to other people, the way you think about things.
All of these are part of your personality.
Of course, Justin here is really making a joke because he doesn't have a picture of her, if he admires her personality.
He has a picture of her because he thinks that she's attractive.
Katrina says you could have fooled me.
The expression you could have fooled me is a sarcastic phrase used when you don't really believe what someone else says.
Someone says, I really love going to the dentist.
When you know that person hates going to the dentist, you could say, oh well, you could have fooled me.
It looks like you had a horrible time at the dentist last year.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
What are you ogling at?
I'm watching those guys working across the street.
Those construction workers?
Yeah, those prime examples of manhood.
There's not a flabby gut in the bunch.
I'm pretty sure they wouldn't appreciate you watching them as though they were pieces of meat.
Hasn't anyone ever told you not to objectify the opposite sex?
What?
I'm not objectifying anybody.
I'm just admiring their six-packs and guns.
Look at those long, lean bodies.
Stop it.
It's demeaning.
And on behalf of all men out there, I'm really offended.
It's disgusting.
Is it disgusting to have a picture of Megan Fox on the wall in your office?
That's different.
How?
It's her personality I admire.
You could have fooled me.
On behalf of everyone at ESL Podcast, I want to thank the script writer for today's script, a prime example of a wonderful writer, Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2009 by the Center for Educational Development.
