Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast, number 686, Roles Within a Family.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 686.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It's a dialogue between Larissa and Vince talking about different vocabulary related to people in your family.
Let's get started.
I'm really nervous about meeting your family.
You don't need to be.
They'll love you, and you'll fit right in.
Okay, but I want to make sure I know everyone I'll be meeting.
Your grandmother Celine, is the matriarch of the family and your uncle Nick, is the black sheep of the family.
Is that right?
That's right, but none of us let on that Uncle Nick is considered the prodigal son.
He was really rebellious when he was young and left home when he was 17.
He came back 15 years later.
But nobody really knows what happened during that time.
He's always been a little eccentric.
I'll be sure to steer clear of Uncle Nick in that case.
Let's see.
You told me that he is the oldest and your Aunt Sue is the baby of the family.
Where does your Aunt Lily come in?
She's the middle child and is always the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong.
At least, that's what my grandfather has told me all these years.
That's your grandfather Albert, the patriarch of the family, right?
Yes, you've got it.
If I'm walking into the lion's den, then I want to be prepared.
Famous last words.
Our dialogue begins with Larissa saying to Vince, I'm really nervous about meeting your family.
Perhaps Larissa and Vince are boyfriend and girlfriend and Larissa is meeting his family for the first time.
Vince says, you don't need to be.
Meaning, you shouldn't be nervous.
There's no reason to.
To fit in or to fit right in means to become part of a group.
Usually because you have something in common, you share something with other members, maybe an interest, or you just have a similar personality to other people.
That's what Vince is saying, that Larissa will fit right in with his family.
They'll be comfortable with her.
Larissa says, okay.
She says your grandmother, Celine, is the matriarch of the family.
A matriarch.
M-A-T-R-I-A-R-C-H is the female leader or head of a family, or perhaps a family that includes uncles and aunts and cousins and grandchildren a large group of of people who are related.
The oldest woman in that set of relationships would be the matriarch.
Uncle Nick, she says, is the black sheep of the family.
Is that right?
The expression black sheep, like the animal sheep, refers to someone who is considered different than the rest of the family.
We think about sheep as normally being white.
Well, the black sheep is the different one, the one who doesn't quite fit in, if you will, with the rest of the members.
Maybe because they have done something wrong.
Maybe they have been a failure.
It's often used as a negative description of someone.
Every family seems to have a black sheep family.
I know our family does.
I won't say who that person is, however.
Maybe they're listening.
Vince says, He says none of us let on.
To let on means to let someone know that you know something, or to let someone know what you're thinking or what you're feeling.
I didn't let on that I was very much attracted to the girl sitting next to me.
I didn't indicate that in any way.
And of course, I never would because I'm married.
So that's the phrasal verb to let on.
Let has a couple of different meanings, and you can find those in the learning guide for this episode.
I should also mention that you will notice that we treat none here as a plural noun, not a singular noun.
We say none of us let on rather than none of us lets on.
There's a debate about that in English today.
Usage, currently both forms seem to be acceptable.
Traditionally, none was only considered singular.
But the language changes, and so we change along with it.
Continuing on here, Vince says that none of us let on that Uncle Nick is considered the prodigal son.
Someone who is prodigal P-R-O-D-I-G-A-L is someone who spends a lot of money and does things that the family doesn't approve of.
However, the expression prodigal son or prodigal daughter would be possible refers to a story from the Christian Bible.
That The story that Jesus tells about a man who leaves his family, goes to another place, spends all of his money and then, when he's poor, returns to his family.
And his father forgives him and welcomes him back into the family.
So when Vince refers to his uncle Nick as the prodigal son, he's emphasizing probably more of the negative aspects of his uncle going and spending a lot of money living a life the family didn't approve of.
But there's also an idea that he has come back to the family.
He says his Uncle Nick was really rebellious when he was young.
To be rebellious means to not accept authority.
Someone who doesn't follow the rules is someone who is rebellious.
Vince says that when Uncle Nick was young...
He left home when he was just 17 years old.
He came back 15 years later, but nobody really knows what happened during that time.
He's always been a little eccentric. eccentric e-c-c-e-n-t-r-i-c is someone who's a little strange, a little unusual, someone who has very different ideas and possibly behaviors from other people around them.
Larissa says, I'll be sure to steer clear of Uncle Nick in that case.
To steer, S-T-E-E-R. is a verb that we use to indicate how you are directing a car or a bicycle.
You can steer the car to the left or to the right or straight.
In fact, we call the round wheel in a car a steering wheel.
It comes from this verb to steer.
To steer clear means I'm not going to go anywhere near that person or that situation.
In this case, Larissa is going to steer clear of Uncle Nick.
She's going to stay away from Uncle Nick.
Then she says let's see, you told me that Uncle Nick is the oldest person And your Aunt Sue is the baby of the family.
Here, baby doesn't refer to a small child under the age of one or two.
It refers to the youngest person.
I, for example, am the baby of my family.
I am the youngest.
And of course everyone knows that the youngest is always treated badly, always discriminated against.
The older brothers and sisters don't like the baby of the family.
The baby of the family doesn't really get anything from his parents.
And that, of course, was my experience growing up.
So always feel sorry for the baby of the family.
So Vince's Aunt Sue is the youngest or baby of the family.
Then she asks, where does your Aunt Lily come in?
To come in here means to be included.
Really, it means what position or what place is Aunt Lily?
Is she the middle child?
Is she the third child, the fourth child, and so forth?
Vince says she is the middle child and is always the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong.
The middle child would be the second of three children or the third of five children.
The term more generally however, refers to someone who is not the oldest and not the youngest, someone in between or in the middle.
Vince says that...
Aunt Lily is always the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong.
A scapegoat one word is a person who is blamed for problems or bad things that happen, especially when that person is not actually responsible.
That person didn't do anything wrong.
But people say that he or she did.
They blame him or her.
This dialogue was written by a middle child who, of course, thinks that that's the reason that she was a scapegoat.
So you have to understand a little bit about the writer here.
Vince says at least that's what my grandfather told me all these years, meaning my entire life, for all of this time.
His grandfather told him that the middle child was always the scapegoat, someone who was unfairly or unjustly blamed.
Larissa says, that's your grandfather Albert, the patriarch of the family, right?
Patriarch is the male, the oldest male leader of a family, just like matriarch would be the oldest female member of the family.
Vince says, yes, you've got it, meaning yes, you understand, you are correct.
He says, I'm impressed you remembered so much about my family.
To be impressed means that you have a very positive evaluation of someone else or you are very positively affected or influenced by what you have heard or experienced.
Someone says, wow, I'm impressed how good your English is.
That means that they are congratulating you really, saying that your English is quite good, and I think that that is a good accomplishment, a great accomplishment.
Vince is impressed that Larissa remembers all of this about his family.
Larissa says...
The lion's, L-I-O-N, apostrophe S, den, D-E-N, is the place where a lion sleeps or a lion lives.
However...
Larissa says that, in effect, going to meet Vince's family is a dangerous situation.
Finn says, don't think of it that way.
They're all going to love you.
Larissa says, famous last words.
The phrase famous last words is used to express your disagreement with what the other person just said, especially when you think that the opposite might happen and that if we just wait a little longer, the opposite of that will happen.
Something bad will happen.
For example, if you are nervous about going in someone else's car because you think the car isn't safe And the driver of the car says oh, don't worry.
We won't have any problems.
You could say famous last words, meaning I think there will be a problem.
Why are they your last words?
Well, the idea is that you will be killed. the ultimate bad thing will happen to you.
And therefore what that person says will be their last word, because suddenly something bad will happen.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I'm really nervous about meeting your family.
You don't need to be.
They'll love you and you'll fit right in.
Okay, but I want to make sure I know everyone I'll be meeting.
Your grandmother Celine, is the matriarch of the family and your Uncle Nick, is the black sheep of the family.
Is that right?
That's right, but none of us let on that Uncle Nick is considered the prodigal son.
He was really rebellious when he was young and left home when he was 17.
He came back 15 years later, but nobody really knows what happened during that time.
He's always been a little eccentric.
I'll be sure to steer clear of Uncle Nick in that case.
Let's see.
You told me that he is the oldest and your Aunt Sue is the baby of the family.
Where does your Aunt Lily come in?
She's the middle child and is always the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong.
At least that's what my grandfather has told me all these years.
That's your grandfather Albert, the patriarch of the family, right?
Yes, you've got it.
I'm impressed you remembered so much about my family.
If I'm walking into the lion's den, then I want to be prepared.
Don't think of it that way.
They're all going to love you.
Famous last words.
I hope you're impressed by today's dialogue.
That's because it's by our scriptwriter, the middle child, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
