Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast, episode 641, Sharing with Others.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 641.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Visit our website at eslpod.com.
Download a learning guide for this episode on our website.
This episode is called Sharing with Others.
It's a dialogue between Benny and Julia, with a lot of vocabulary related to sharing things with other people.
Let's get started.
Mom says we're supposed to share.
I know.
I'm divvying up the candy right now.
Just hold your horses.
I want to do it.
I want to make sure I get my fair share.
I called dibs on dividing up the candy, remember?
You snooze, you lose.
That's not fair.
I wasn't here when Mom came home.
Bummer for you.
Okay, I'm done.
Here's your share and here's mine.
Hey, the two piles aren't equal.
You definitely got the lion's share.
You do that to me every time.
That's not fair.
What are you going to do about it?
I'm going to tell.
You're such a baby.
Okay, if you don't run to mom, I'll let you call shotgun the next time we go anywhere in the car.
You will?
You promise?
I cross my heart and hope to die, okay?
All right, but I still want my fair share of the candy.
Okay, I've evened out the piles.
Satisfied?
Yeah.
And can I do the divvying up next time?
Don't push your luck.
Benny and Julia are clearly children in our dialogue.
Benny says to Julia, Of course, he says that mom says that gives him some authority.
To share means to let someone else have or use something that belongs to you or part of something that belongs to you.
Julia says, I know.
I'm divvying up the candy right now.
Just hold your horses.
To divvy D-I-V-V-Y up is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to divide something or group of something into two smaller groups or three smaller groups, at least two.
You're deciding how something is going to be shared or distributed.
It could be money here.
It's candy.
You could also talk about divvying up the work on a project.
I'll do this part.
You do that part.
Julia tells Benny to just hold his horses.
To hold your horses is an informal phrase used to ask someone to be more patient, to wait.
It's sort of a thing that you would say to perhaps a friend, a family member.
It's also implying that you are being impatient.
If someone keeps asking you questions over and over again and they don't stop and you tell them just hold your horses, will you?
You're saying, in a way, stop bothering me so much.
Wait.
I'll tell you when I'm ready.
That's the idea here.
Benny says, I want to do it, meaning I want to divvy up the candy.
To get your fair F-A-I-R share means to get everything that you should receive, that you're supposed to receive.
To get what is, we would say, coming to you.
That is, what belongs to you or should belong to you.
Julia says, I called dibs on dividing up the candy.
Remember?
You snooze, you lose.
To call dibs, D-I-B-S. is a very common phrase used especially by children.
It means I get to use this thing or I get to have this thing and you cannot have it.
For example, you are renting a hotel room with a friend and there are two beds.
You walk into the hotel room and you say, I called dibs on the bed near the window.
Notice the preposition on, which usually appears after this phrase.
Julia says, I called dibs on dividing up the candy.
Dividing here is the same as divvying up.
To call dibs is something children do a lot.
For example, if you are driving in a car and there are several children, as was the case when I was a child, if there were five or six, even seven of us going in the car, someone would call dibs on the front seat.
They would say, I get to go to the front seat.
This is typically done before the action is going to take place, that is, before the event.
Although mostly popular among children, this expression is still heard among adults today.
I've heard it, probably used it.
Julia says to Benny, you snooze, you lose.
You can also say, if you snooze, you lose.
To snooze, S-N-O-O-Z-E, means to fall asleep.
The idea of you snooze, you lose means that if you are late sleeping Or if you wait too long, you may miss the opportunity to do something or to get something.
So if the children come home and there's a cake or a pie sitting on the table and the children immediately go and cut themselves a piece, Then another child comes five minutes later and there's no more cake or pie left.
One of the children may say to the person, to the kid who arrived late, You snooze, you lose.
You were late.
Therefore, you missed the opportunity to do something or, in this case, to eat something.
Julia was the first to call dibs on divvying up the candy.
And now it's too late for Benny to say that he wants to do it.
Benny says that's not fair.
That's not right.
That's not reasonable.
Fair, F-A-I-R, has a lot of different meanings.
Some of those can be found in our learning guide.
Benny says, I wasn't here when mom came home.
In other words, when the candy arrived, he wasn't there to call dibs.
Julia says, basically, that's too bad.
She says, bummer for you.
A bummer, B-U-M-M-E-R, is a popular, informal word used to show disappointment.
It's the same as too bad, but it's a little more informal.
You still hear this expression or this word quite a bit.
I don't think it is as popular as it was maybe 20, 25 years ago, but you will still hear it quite a bit.
That's a bummer, you could say, or simply bummer.
In this case, Julia says, bummer for you.
Okay, I'm done.
Here's your share, and here's mine.
Benny says, hey, the two piles aren't equal.
A pile, P-I-L-E, says, is a group of things, one on top of the other.
You could have a pile of clothing.
You put a shirt, and then on top of that you put some pants, and then socks, and then underwear, and so forth.
That would be a pile of clothing.
You could have a pile of newspapers or a pile of papers on your desk.
This is a pile of candy, but the piles are not equal.
Pile has a couple of other meanings as well.
Once again, the learning guide will help you with those.
To be equal means to be the same.
And what Benny is saying is that his pile of candy is obviously not as big as Julia's pile.
Benny also complains that Julia definitely got the lion's share.
A lion is an animal.
You've probably seen them on television or in a zoo.
The lion's share, however, means the larger part of something, the majority, more than 50%.
Julia and Benny, in other words, did not split the candy equally.
I should say Julia did not split it equally.
She gave herself the lion's share, the biggest part.
Benny says, you do that to me every time.
That's not fair.
Julia says, what are you going to do about it?
How are you going to change the situation?
Benny says, I'm going to tell.
To tell in this dialogue means to let someone know about something bad the other person has done.
This meaning is typically one you would find among children.
If a little child says, I'm going to tell...
He means, I'm going to tell on you.
I'm going to tell mom or dad that you did something wrong.
Julia says, you're such a baby.
Okay, if you don't run to mom, if you don't go tell mom what I did, I'll let you call shotgun the next time we go anywhere in the car.
To call shotgun, S-H-O-T-G-U-N, one word, means to say that you are going to ride in the front seat of the car, not the driver's seat, but the other seat, which we sometimes call the shotgun seat.
I guess if you were going hunting or going to kill someone, the person who wasn't driving would be holding the gun.
That's all I can think of.
In any case, to call is the same here as to call dibs on.
To call shotgun means I get to sit in the front of the car.
Again, it's something that you would find especially among children, but adults could use this expression as well.
To call means I get to do that.
And the first person who calls shotgun is the person who gets to ride in the front seat.
Julia says that she will let Benny sit in the front seat next time.
Benny says, you will?
You promise?
Julia responds, I cross my heart and hope to die.
To cross your heart and hope to die is a promise.
It's an informal phrase, again often used by children to show that they are being honest, that they really mean what they are saying.
I cross my heart and hope to die.
You're saying, you must believe me.
I am telling you the truth.
Benny says, all right, but I still want my fair share of the candy.
Julia says, okay, I've evened out the piles.
To even out is a phrasal verb meaning to make two things equal in size.
In this case, the two piles of candy.
Then Julia says, satisfied?
Meaning, are you happy now?
Are you satisfied, Benny?
Benny says, yeah.
And can I do the divvying up next time?
So now he's asking for something else.
He wants to be the one to divide the candy the next time there is candy.
Julia says, don't push your luck.
To push your luck is a phrase meaning to ask for too much, to ask for too many things, especially after you have already asked for something.
So you go to your boss and you say, boss, I want to raise a dollar an hour.
The boss says, okay.
And then you say, and I also want two more weeks of vacation.
Your boss may say, don't push your luck, meaning you've already asked for something.
Don't keep asking for something else.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Mom says we're supposed to share.
I know.
I'm divvying up the candy right now.
Just hold your horses.
I want to do it.
I want to make sure I get my fair share.
I call divs on dividing up the candy, remember?
You snooze, you lose.
That's not fair.
I wasn't here when Mom came home.
Bummer for you.
Okay, I'm done.
Here's your share, and here's mine.
Hey, the two piles aren't equal.
You definitely got the lion's share.
You do that to me every time.
That's not fair.
What are you going to do about it?
I'm going to tell.
You're such a baby.
Okay, if you don't run to mom, I'll let you call shotgun the next time we go anywhere in the car.
You will?
You promise?
I cross my heart and hope to die, okay?
All right, but I still want my fair share of the candy.
Okay, I've evened out the piles.
Satisfied?
Yeah.
And can I do the divvying up next time?
Don't push your luck.
It's never a bummer to listen to the scripts written by our wonderful script writer, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again 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.
