Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 533, Making Funeral and Burial Arrangements.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 533.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development right here in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is called Making Funeral and Burial Arrangements.
Reiko and Lucas are having a conversation about what will happen when they die, what they want done with their body after they die.
So we'll have vocabulary related to death.
On that happy note, let's get started.
Not me.
I'm just the opposite.
What?
You don't want to be buried in a beautiful casket with a big headstone?
Better yet, how about being interred in a mausoleum?
You've got to be kidding me.
Why would I want all of that hoopla?
I'm dead.
What difference would it make to me?
It's not for you.
It's for the mourners.
Having a ceremony and a burial will help them grieve.
Not my friends and family.
The less fuss, the better for them.
Most of my family is buried in simple grave sites in non-denominational cemeteries.
What's the fun in that?
I think you're forgetting one thing.
We're talking about death.
It's not supposed to be fun and games.
Raikou begins our dialogue by saying, when I die, I want a big funeral.
A funeral is a ceremony that you have after a person dies.
It is a way of allowing people to say goodbye.
Funerals have been around for as long as we have any sort of recorded history in almost every culture.
Sometimes the funeral is religious.
Sometimes it is not.
Reiko says she wants a big funeral.
She says the more mourners, the better.
A mourner.
M-O-U-R-N-E-R is a person who is very sad because someone they know has died usually a friend or a member of the family, or it could just be someone they know very well.
To mourn, as a verb, means to feel sad because someone has died.
You're remembering that person.
Often mourners wear at least in Western traditions black if they are in mourning, that is, if they are observing the time of sadness, of grief, of sorrow after someone has died.
Reiko says, the more mourners the better meaning.
She wants as many people there mourning her as possible.
Lucas says, Not me.
I don't agree.
I'm just the opposite.
I don't want any kind of funeral or wake.
A wake, W-A-K-E, is a period of time after death but before a funeral.
When people get together to remember the person, often there's food at awake.
It depends on whether it's held in someone's home, which was the old tradition, or in what we would call a funeral home.
A funeral home is a place that prepares the body after it dies, but before it goes into the ground, before it is buried.
Wakes can sometimes have a religious aspect to them as well.
When someone dies the night before the funeral, there's often a wake there where people can go and talk to each other, talk to the family members, say some prayers for the person who has died.
That's one kind of wake.
Wake has a number of different meanings.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
Lucas says, I don't want any kind of funeral or wake.
I just want to be cremated and to have my ashes scattered.
There's usually two things that you do with the body once someone dies.
One option is to bury the body, that is to dig a hole in the ground and put the body in the hole.
Usually you put it in a box before you put it in the hole.
The other option is to cremate, C-R-E-M-A-T-E.
When someone is cremated, the body is burned until the only thing left you have are what are called ashes gray colored powder that is left.
Those ashes are sometimes then put into a small container, which is called an urn, U-R-N.
Well, Lucas doesn't want to be buried.
He wants to be cremated and to have his ashes scattered.
To scatter S-C-A-T-T-E-R means to spread something around, put a small amount of something over a large area.
To scatter one's ashes means to take the ashes after the body has been burned.
You take what is left of the body, the ashes, and you throw it, perhaps over a lake or in the ocean, or
Out in the trees, it depends on what your preference is.
Some religious traditions don't allow the scattering of ashes.
It's not part of the funeral.
But some people have done this and continue to do this take their burned ashes remains and scatter them somewhere.
Scatter has a couple of different meanings.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
Ryko says what?
You don't want to be buried in a beautiful casket with a big headstone?
We talked about the verb to bury and to put the body into the ground.
This is the traditional way that funerals were conducted.
This is what you typically did at least in the United States up until recently.
You would have a funeral.
I'm not sure if it is still the most common way of getting rid of the body.
Perhaps cremation has become more popular.
I'm not sure.
The casket, C-A-S-K-E-T, is the box that you put the dead body in before it goes into the ground.
A headstone, sometimes called a tombstone.
Tomb is another word for the place where you put a body is a piece of stone, typically that has your name on it, often the day that you were born and the day that you died, or the year that you were born and the year that you died.
Sometimes the headstone or gravestone has something about the person.
He was a wonderful husband and father.
On my headstone, it will say, he is no longer in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
That's a headstone.
Ryko says, how about being interred in a mausoleum?
We mentioned how the body in a casket is typically put into the ground.
But there's also another option with a body and a casket, and that is to put the casket into a mausoleum.
A mausoleum is a small building that is used to hold the bodies of dead people.
Often this was done with a very rich family, for example.
There are some churches that have mausoleums.
The Catholic Cathedral here in Los Angeles has a mausoleum underneath the church where you can buy a place to have your body put.
To inter, I-N-T-E-R, means to bury the body or to place it in a mausoleum.
It's a special verb that we use when we're talking about funerals.
Sometimes the actual placing of the body in the ground or in the mausoleum is called the internment.
Lucas says, you've got to be kidding me.
Why would I want all of that hoopla?
Hoopla.
H-O-O-P-L-A means a lot of excitement, a lot of attention, a great deal of activity, many things going on.
It's a Perhaps too much excitement, too many things going on.
When someone is celebrating, they may have a party with a lot of hoopla, a lot of things going on music and dancing, that sort of thing.
Here Lucas simply means he doesn't want to go to all of this trouble after he dies, or at least someone else go to that trouble.
He says, I'm dead.
What difference would it make to me?
Ryko says, it's not for you.
It's for the mourners.
Having a ceremony and a burial will help them grieve.
To grieve G-R-I-E-V-E means you are feeling sad because someone has died or you perhaps have lost something important.
Reiko is saying that the funeral is to help your friends and family grieve, to get through this sadness, to let the sadness be expressed.
Luca says Once again, we have this expression as we had earlier in the dialogue when we heard the more mourners, the better.
Here we have the less fuss, the better.
This way of expressing things means simply that it would be better if we had more mourners, or it would be better if we had less fuss.
Fuss, F-U-S-S, means a lot of unnecessary activity or excitement.
Lucas says his family and friends don't want all of that.
Most of my family is buried in simple grave sites in non-denominational cemeteries.
A grave site is a place where the body is buried.
We mentioned before the word tomb.
A grave site is similar to that.
A cemetery is a large place where there are many different bodies buried.
Denominational refers to a particular type of church or religious organization.
In the Christian tradition.
That would include Anglicans Methodists Baptists, Catholics and so forth.
Those are all different denominations.
A non-denominational cemetery would be a cemetery for anyone regardless of their religion.
Ryko says, what's the fun in that?
Meaning, that's not very interesting.
Lucas says, I think you're forgetting about one thing.
We're talking about death.
It's not supposed to be fun and games.
The expression fun and games means things that are not very serious, that are only meant to have a good time.
Ryko says that being cremated and having one's ashes scattered is not very fun and Lucas says well, it's not supposed to be fun because we're talking about something that is sad, which is death.
At least, that's Lucas's view.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
When I die, I want a big funeral.
The more mourners, the better.
Not me.
I'm just the opposite.
I don't want any kind of funeral or wake.
I just want to be cremated and have my ashes scattered.
What?
You don't want to be buried in a beautiful casket with a big headstone?
Better yet, how about being interred in a mausoleum?
You've got to be kidding me.
Why would I want all of that hoopla?
I'm dead.
What difference would it make to me?
It's not for you.
It's for the mourners.
Having a ceremony and a burial will help them grieve.
Not my friends and family.
The less fuss, the better for them.
Most of my family is buried in simple grave sites in non-denominational cemeteries.
What's the fun in that?
I think you're forgetting one thing.
We're talking about death.
It's not supposed to be fun and games.
Writing scripts is not all fun and games.
Just ask the script writer for this episode, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I am 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.
