Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 624, Advantages and Disadvantages in Life.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 624.
© transcript Emily Beynon.
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This episode is called Advantages, which are things that help you in some situation, and disadvantages, things that hurt you in life.
Let's get started.
Doesn't it make you sick?
We bust our butts around here and the boss brings in his nephew to be the new manager.
You never know.
He may be a good boss.
I doubt it.
He's getting this opportunity just because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
He didn't have to pull himself up by his bootstraps like the rest of us.
I'm going to wait and see how he is as a manager.
I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised.
If you're a blue blood like he is, born into privilege and old money, you can do no wrong.
That's not true.
He'll be held accountable for how this department performs.
But when does somebody like me get a break?
Okay, I was born on the wrong side of the tracks.
I grew up in a white trash neighborhood.
So what?
You can complain all you want, but it doesn't change the situation.
He's the new boss, and we work for him.
Get used to it.
Not on your life.
Our dialogue begins with Andy saying to Nia, doesn't it make you sick?
The expression to make someone sick.
In this context, means to become very angry, to cause very negative emotions in someone.
When you see something that you think is very wrong, you would say that makes me sick.
Or it makes me sick to think that there are children who need food in this world and don't have it.
There are a couple of different meanings, however, using the words of this expression.
Those can be found in our learning guide.
Andy says The expression to bust B-U-S-T, your butt B-U-T-T means to work very hard to do a lot of work.
Your butt is that which you sit on.
It's an informal term that is short for buttocks.
To bust usually means to break, and so basically you're saying you're working so hard.
However, the boss brings in his nephew to be the new manager.
The nephew would be the son of the boss's brother or sister.
Nia says, you never know, which is a general expression meaning you may be wrong.
We don't know.
He may be a good boss, this nephew.
Andy says, I doubt it.
Andy is upset because he thinks that one of the employees should be promoted to manager, should be made manager because they have been working very hard in the company.
Andy says he, this nephew, is getting this opportunity because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
This is an old expression.
To be born with a silver spoon in your mouth means that you were born into a rich family.
You grew up in a family that had a lot of money.
It's usually used to make some sort of negative comment about a person, how they don't deserve what they have or how they have not worked very hard.
Andy says that this nephew of the boss's didn't have to pull himself up by his bootstraps like the rest of us.
This is another old but common expression.
To pull yourself up, meaning to lift yourself up, by your bootstraps.
Your bootstraps are literally little round holes that you use to put on your boots.
They're in the back of the boot on the bottom.
But the idea of the expression is that you work very hard to improve your situation in life.
You work very hard to get better, even though you don't have very much money or a lot of things to help you.
You don't have a lot of advantages.
Andy says that everyone else in the company had to work hard to get what they have.
They had to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Nia says, I'm going to wait and see how he is as a manager.
She's saying we should wait and see what happens.
To be surprised means that you are not expecting certain things to happen.
Pleasantly means nicely.
So to be pleasantly surprised is to have something unexpected happen that you like.
And he says if you're a blue blood like he, is born into privilege and old money, you can do no wrong.
Some more expressions here to talk about social and economic advantages of some people versus others.
Blue blood refers to a person who belongs to the richest, most wealthy part of a society, the most powerful, the most respected.
We would call it the upper class.
Privilege.
P-R-I-V-I-L-E-G-E is another word for advantage, something that you have, that no one else has.
It's also, for example, used in talking about things that you can do if you are a member of a certain group.
One of the privileges of being a member of the golf club is that you get to play golf for free.
Well, you don't have to pay for each game.
You have to pay for your membership.
So privilege is another word for advantage.
Again, it is often used to describe social or economic advantages.
Old money refers to money that has been in your family for a long time, wealth that your family has had for many years.
Here in the United States, the Rockefeller family would be perhaps considered a family of old money.
Not perhaps, they definitely would be.
The Ford family, Ford Motor Company Money has been in their family for many years, many generations, the grandfather, the great-grandfather and so forth.
So old money refers to a rich and powerful family that has been rich for many years.
And he says if you're a blue blood like this nephew and you are born into privilege and old money, meaning when you are born you receive immediately these advantages.
You can do no wrong.
The expression to do no wrong means that you are unable to make a mistake.
It also means, more commonly, that when you do make a mistake, no one will pay attention.
It will be forgiven or ignored by other people.
Some parents think their children can do no wrong.
So when someone complains to them about their children for example, children who are yelling and screaming in the street when someone complains, some parents will say oh, that wasn't my child.
That is impossible.
Their child can do no wrong.
Well, let me tell you, they can.
Moving on.
Nia says that's not true.
The nephew will be held accountable for how this department performs.
The expression to hold someone accountable means to make someone responsible and accept the results or consequences of his or her actions.
Basically, it's another way of saying you will be punished or rewarded for based on what you do.
So if you do a good job, you'll be rewarded.
But if you do a bad job, you will be punished.
Maybe you'll lose your job.
That's to hold someone accountable.
Andy says To get a break means to get an opportunity to do something, to have some good luck and to be finally able to do something you want to do.
We often talk here in Los Angeles about actors and actresses getting a break in the movies or in television.
They get the opportunity to work and show how good they are or how bad they are.
Andy says, okay, I was born on the wrong side of the tracks.
This old expression, again pretty common to be born on the wrong side of the tracks T-R-A-C-K-S means to be born in a bad part of the town or city where you live.
People who are poor, who don't have nice houses, where there's a lot of crime.
This would be the wrong side of the tracks.
Tracks here refers to the railroad tracks, and railroads, like modern highways and freeways, were often built in cities and divided the city.
And often on one side of that divide there were people who were poor and on the other side were people who had more money.
That's true here in Los Angeles in some ways.
The major East-West freeway, the 10 freeway, the Santa Monica freeway, does divide the wealthy north part from the poor south part, at least in some parts of the city.
So Andy says he was born on the wrong side of the tracks.
I grew up, he says, in a white trash neighborhood.
So what?
White trash neighborhood is an informal and somewhat rude, somewhat not nice phrase to refer typically to someone who is white, who is Caucasian, who is poor, has very little education, doesn't have a good job or doesn't have a job at all.
White trash is a pretty Insulting term to refer to someone in that condition.
Andy, however, somewhat unusually describes himself this way.
And then he says, so what?
Which is a phrase we use to say that something is not important.
I don't have a degree from Harvard.
So what?
You're saying, it doesn't matter.
I don't care.
Andy says that he's worked hard to get where he is now.
That guy, meaning the nephew, hasn't paid his dues like I have.
The expression to pay your dues D-U-E-S means to spend a long period of time working in a job that is not very well paid.
That is perhaps not very important.
You do that for a long time so that eventually you will end up with you will wind up with you will get a better job at the end of working so hard at these not-so-important jobs.
That's to pay your dues.
Nia says you can complain all you want, all you'd like, but it doesn't change the situation.
He's the new boss and we work for him.
Get used to it.
To get used to U-S-E-D-T-O, two words means to become accustomed to something, to see something as normal, as common, as ordinary.
I'm trying to get used to the silence outside me where I am recording, because school has started and all the lovely children are back in school.
That's a wonderful thing.
Here in the United States, we have what is called compulsory schooling.
You must go to school between the ages of 6 and 16 approximately.
It's a wonderful thing for me.
And he says, get used to it, not on your life.
This is a common expression informally.
We say not on your life to mean that something is impossible.
Something will never happen under any circumstances.
Are you going to go to John's party today?
You say, not on your life, meaning absolutely not.
That will never happen.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Doesn't it make you sick?
We bust our butts around here, and the boss brings in his nephew to be the new manager.
You never know.
He may be a good boss.
I doubt it.
He's getting this opportunity just because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
He didn't have to pull himself up by his bootstraps like the rest of us.
I'm going to wait and see how he is as a manager.
I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised.
If you're a blue blood like he is, born into privilege and old money, you can do no wrong.
That's not true.
He'll be held accountable for how this department performs.
But when does somebody like me get a break?
Okay, I was born on the wrong side of the tracks.
I grew up in a white trash neighborhood.
So what?
I've worked hard to get where I am now.
That guy hasn't paid his dues like I have.
You can complain all you want, but it doesn't change the situation.
He's the new boss, and we work for him.
Get used to it.
Get used to it?
Not in your life.
Our scriptwriter busts her butt every day here at ESL Podcast.
That person is, of course, Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
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 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
