Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 645, Shaving Your Face.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 645.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
A learning guide for this episode that will help you improve your English and make your day a little happier.
This episode is called Shaving Your Face.
It's a story about me shaving, that is removing hair from my face.
Let's get started.
I forgot to set my alarm last night and I woke up later than usual.
I was tempted to skip my morning shave, but I hate having long stubble all day.
I like to be clean shaven every day.
I'm the kind of guy who gets a five o'clock shadow early in the afternoon, so if I skipped my morning shave,
I'd look like I was growing a beard by the end of the day.
I went into the bathroom and picked up my shaving cream.
I lathered up my face and checked to see that my razor was sharp and that I didn't need to replace the razor blades.
There's nothing worse than trying to shave with a dull razor.
I tried using an electric razor for a while, but I could never get a close enough shave.
I tried to focus on shaving my neck, chin, and cheeks.
I was in too much of a hurry, though, and nicked myself on the neck.
I hate it when that happens.
I knew I was in too much of a hurry, but I was going to be really late.
Oh, I did it again.
This time I nicked myself on the chin.
Okay, I said to myself, slow down.
You'd rather be a little late to work than to end up with a face full of potholes, right?
I begin the story by saying that I forgot to set my alarm last night.
To set your alarm is to change the settings on your alarm clock so that it makes a loud noise at the time you want to get up.
Most of us have some sort of alarm clock next to our beds that helps us wake up with a loud noise or perhaps music.
The verb we use is to set, S-E-T, your alarm.
Well, I forgot to set my alarm, which means that the alarm clock did not ring.
Notice the verb ring with alarm clocks.
And therefore, I woke up later than usual.
In real life, I rarely use an alarm clock.
I'm almost always up early around 5.30, 6 o'clock.
But if it's something very important, then I might use my alarm clock if I'm traveling and need to get up very early.
I say that I was tempted to skip my morning shave.
To be tempted is to have a strong desire, usually to do something bad, something that you know you should not do.
The chocolate cookies tempted me.
I really wanted to eat one, even though I didn't need the extra sugar and fat.
Well, I was tempted to skip, meaning not to do something I normally do.
My morning shave.
Shave is removing the hair, usually from your face, or it could be from some other part of your body.
Many women shave their legs, for example.
I shave my head in addition to my face, that is, the top of my head.
So I was tempted to skip my morning shave, but I hate having long stubble all day.
Stubble S-T-U-B-B-L-E are very short stubs, pieces of hair that grow usually on your face after you shave.
So you shave your face and then the next day you'll have very little pieces of hair.
We call that hair stubble, especially if it is something that appears right after you shave.
I hate having long stubble all day, I said.
I like instead to be clean shaven.
Shaven is shave with an N at the end.
It's the past participle.
Clean hyphen shaven says, is an adjective meaning that my skin is smooth.
I don't have any hair coming out of my body where I shaved.
So clean shaven is that you completely remove the hair by shaving it.
I say that I'm the kind of guy, I'm the type of man.
A 5 o'clock shadow means that you get a dark color on your face by the end of the day because your hair is already growing back.
Five o'clock would mean five o'clock in the afternoon, so that by the time you are finished working you already look like you need to shave.
Some men grow their hair very quickly.
Truth is, I'm not actually someone who would get a five o'clock shadow early in the afternoon, but that's what the story says.
I continue saying if I skipped my morning shave, I'd look like I was growing a beard by the end of the day.
A beard, B-E-A-R-D, is something you get by letting your hair on your face grow, not shaving it.
It especially refers to the hair on the cheeks and around the jaw, as well as on the upper neck.
The hair immediately underneath your nose would be called a mustache, M-U-S-T-A-C-H-E.
So we sometimes refer to these together.
Some men have a beard and a mustache.
Some people just have a mustache.
And there are some men who just have a beard or a small beard.
That has become popular.
By the way, in British English, mustache, like a lot of words, is spelled slightly differently.
There's an O in the word, M-O-U, instead of just M-U.
In American English there's no O.
I say that I went into the bathroom and picked up my shaving cream.
Shaving cream is something that you put typically on your face or wherever you are shaving, so that it's easier to remove the hair.
It makes the hair a little softer.
It makes it easier for you to shave it.
Shaving cream is typically white.
I lathered up my face... and checked to see that my razor was sharp.
To lather l-a-t-h-e-r up is another one of those famous two-word phrasal verbs that we talk about so much.
It means to put a lot of soap or cream on your skin and move it around.
Move your hand against the skin so that there is a foam that comes up, a foam with little bubbles in it.
The air makes it foam up, we would say.
So that's to lather up.
That's what a man will do before he shaves his face.
I also checked to see that my razor was sharp.
The razor R-A-Z-O-R is a small tool that you hold in your hand that has a very sharp piece or pieces of metal at one end.
It's like a little stick, and you use that to shave the hair off of your face.
The little sharp pieces of metal that actually cut the hair off of your face are called razor blades.
B-L-A-D-E-S.
A razor blade that is sharp will cut the hair off easily.
A razor blade that is dull, that has been used many times, will not cut the hair off easily and might cause you to cut your skin, to actually cut your face, so that it's bleeding, so that there is blood coming out.
That's not normally what we want to happen.
So you always want to get a sharp razor blade to put on your razor.
Razor is the whole thing.
Razor blade is just the thin pieces of metal.
I have disposable razor blades, which means you use them a few times and then you throw them out.
There are even disposable razors where the razor blade is part of the one-piece razor and when you're done with it you throw the whole razor out.
Normally however, you have a razor and then you have razor blades that you put on and take off as they get dull.
I tried using an electric razor for a while, but I could never get a close enough shave.
An electric razor, you probably know, is an electronic tool that you can use to shave.
Normally you don't have to put shaving cream on.
Some men like it because it's convenient.
My father always used to shave with an electric razor.
I actually did try for a while, but I really didn't like it.
I could not get a close enough shave.
In other words, it always left little pieces of hair, and I didn't like that.
I wanted to be clean-shaven.
I tried to focus on shaving my neck, my chin, and my cheeks...
I was in too much of a hurry.
I was going too fast and nicked myself on the neck.
To nick N-I-C-K here means to accidentally cut your skin with a razor blade, causing it to bleed, causing blood to come out of it.
Men sometimes nick themselves.
They have little cuts in their neck or on their face when they shave.
You have to be careful when you shave, of course.
The verb nick has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at the learning guide for some more examples.
You can also find some additional meanings of the word shave in the wonderful learning guide.
Well, I nicked myself on the neck.
I hate it when that happens, I say.
That's a popular expression.
I hate it when that happens.
I hate when that situation is present, when that thing happens.
Sometimes people say it kind of as a joke, but that's literally what it means.
You don't like this situation.
Well, this time I nicked myself on the chin, the end of the chin, your jawline, the part that is right underneath your mouth.
It's sort of where the face and the neck come together, right underneath your mouth and nose.
Okay, I said to myself, slow down, go more slowly.
You'd rather be a little late to work than to end up with, or to have the result of, a face full of potholes.
A pothole, P-O-T-H-O-L-E, one word, is a large hole in a road or a street that is caused by many cars going back and forth.
Here I'm using it as a joke to say that I would have a face full of potholes means that I would have little cuts all over my face, just like holes in a street.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I forgot to set my alarm last night and I woke up later than usual.
I was tempted to skip my morning shave but I hate having long stubble all day.
I like to be clean shaven every day.
I'm the kind of guy who gets a 5 o'clock shadow early in the afternoon.
So if I skipped my morning shave, I'd look like I was growing a beard by the end of the day.
I went into the bathroom and picked up my shaving cream.
I lathered up my face and checked to see that my razor was sharp and that I didn't need to replace the razor blades.
There's nothing worse than trying to shave with a dull razor.
I tried using an electric razor for a while, but I could never get a close enough shave.
I tried to focus on shaving my neck, chin, and cheeks.
I was in too much of a hurry though and nicked myself on the neck.
I hate it when that happens.
I knew I was in too much of a hurry, but I was going to be really late.
Oh, I did it again.
This time I nicked myself on the chin.
Okay, I said to myself, slow down.
You'd rather be a little late to work than to end up with a face full of potholes, right?
I'm never tempted to skip listening to these ESL podcasts because the script is written by our very own Dr, Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again on ESL Podcasts.
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.
