Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 699 Dealing with the Paparazzi.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 699.
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.
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This episode is called Dealing with the Paparazzi.
These are photographers who try to take pictures of famous people.
Let's get started.
I suppose that's the price of fame.
You do have the most popular podcast in the world.
But there's such a pain in the neck.
They don't just take pictures.
They chase me in my car and follow me into restrooms, trying to corner me.
It's an invasion of privacy.
You're right, but look on the bright side.
The paparazzi give you plenty of exposure.
They keep your name and your face in the spotlight.
It would be fine if they just took a few candid shots while I'm at dinner or at the store.
But they try to take photos when I'm out of town, trying to catch me doing something I shouldn't.
At least that's good news for your wife.
She can call off that private detective she hired to follow you from city to city.
A dialogue begins with Fredo. saying to Amanda, I feel like a prisoner in my own home.
A prisoner is someone who is in prison, which is the same as jail.
When the government, the police arrest you and keep you in a building that's called the prison and you are a prisoner.
Fredo says he feels like a prisoner in his own home.
I can't step outside meaning I can't go outside my house without the paparazzi snapping pictures of me.
The paparazzi P-A-P-A-R-A-Z-Z-I are photographers who try to take pictures of famous people and sell them to newspapers and magazines.
The paparazzi are snapping pictures of Fredo.
To snap, S-N-A-P, here means to take a photograph, to use a camera to take a picture.
You can say, I'm going to take a picture, or you could say, I'm going to snap a picture.
They mean the same thing.
Snap also is the sound that you make with your fingers when you put them together quickly like this.
That's also to snap.
Fredo said, they stake out my house 24 hours a day.
To stake S-T-A-K-E out is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to watch some place or some person escape.
In a hidden, secret way, you're trying to observe what this person is doing, without the person knowing that you are watching.
The price of fame, or being famous, are the disadvantages or negative consequences of being famous.
The disadvantages constitute or make up the price of fame.
Amanda says, Fredo says, but there, meaning the paparazzi, there's such a pain in the neck.
To be a pain in the neck means someone or something is bothering you, is annoying you, is making you very uncomfortable.
My boss is a pain in the neck.
That means he annoys me.
He makes me mad.
He upsets me.
He gives me a lot of trouble.
Pain in the neck is the nice way of saying it.
Some people might also say pain in the butt.
B-U-T-T.
Your butt, of course, is what you sit on.
And other people use other words for but that we won't mention here on the podcast.
Pain in the neck, then, is an informal expression, meaning someone or something that is annoying.
Fredo says, they don't just take pictures, these paparazzi.
They chase me in my car and follow me into restrooms.
To chase C-H-A-S-E means to follow someone, usually in their car, but it could be riding a bicycle or running after you.
The person is usually moving very fast, trying to catch you, trying to get you before you leave.
Fredo says that the paparazzi chase him in his car and follow him into restrooms or bathrooms, trying to corner him.
To corner someone means to put someone in a position where that person can't leave because there's nowhere else to go.
You could do that physically.
You could corner someone, make sure that they can't leave.
Usually you do that when you want to talk to them or do something they don't want to do.
You can also corner someone in a more general sense of not giving them very many options, limiting their ability to do other things that you don't want them to do.
Fredo says, it's an invasion of privacy.
Privacy is related to the word private, which means secret, hidden.
Other people don't know about what you want to keep secret or keep hidden.
Sometimes people say I'm a very private person, meaning they don't like to talk about their personal life with other people.
The word invasion I-N-V-A-S-I-O-N is usually when some group of soldiers, people in the military, the army, the navy, go into some place and take it over.
But here invasion of privacy means someone is going into your private life, is finding out about things that they have no right to know.
Amanda says, you're right, but look on the bright side.
To look on the bright side is an expression meaning to see the advantages of what may seem like a bad situation.
To be positive, to be optimistic.
If you lose your girlfriend or your boyfriend, you should always look on the bright side.
There are other men and women out there in the world for you.
Or if someone steals your car, you have to look on the bright side.
You will now get more exercise by walking.
See, there's always a positive thing that can be said of a negative situation.
Amanda says, the paparazzi give you plenty of exposure.
To be in the spotlight means to get a lot of attention from other people.
The newspapers and the television programs, for example.
That's to be in the spotlight, to get a lot of attention.
Fredo says it would be fine.
It would be okay if they just took a few candid shots while I'm at dinner or at the store.
Candid, C-A-N-D-I-D, can mean very honest.
But when we're talking about photography...
It's a picture of someone who isn't posing for the picture.
They're not looking a certain way or smiling a certain way.
A candid photograph is one where typically, you don't even know that you're being photographed or you don't act any different because you are being photographed.
A shot is another word for a picture.
So candid shots would be pictures of someone who doesn't know they're being photographed or doesn't care, doesn't act any differently.
Fredo says that the paparazzi try to take photographs of him when he's out of town, meaning visiting another city, trying to catch me doing something I shouldn't.
To catch someone means to watch them and find out what they're doing.
That might be wrong, usually something they're trying to hide or keep secret.
The teacher caught one of her students cheating.
Caught is the past tense of catch.
Or you could say the father caught his daughter talking on the phone late at night.
She wasn't supposed to.
She was supposed to be sleeping.
The father caught her.
Fredo says that the paparazzi are trying to catch him doing something wrong, doing something he shouldn't do.
Amanda says, at least that's good news for your wife.
She can call off that private detective she hired to follow you from city to city.
To call off is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to end something, to cancel, to abandon, to tell someone you don't need them to continue doing what they were doing.
If you have dogs to protect you in your house and they start to chase someone who is coming to your house, they start to go after them.
The person may yell call off your dogs, meaning tell your dogs to stop attacking me.
Call off is often used for investigations or searches.
The police called off their search for the missing dog.
They stopped looking for the dog.
Why were they looking for the dog?
I don't know.
Or you could say the baseball game was called off last night because of rain.
It was canceled.
Or the man called off his wedding.
He decided he wasn't going to marry the woman he said he was going to marry.
That's not very nice.
Amanda says that the wife of Fredo can call off that private detective she hired.
A private detective is someone whose job it is to find out secret information about you, usually by taking pictures of what you are doing.
This is something a wife might do if she thinks her husband is going with another woman.
She may hire or employ a private detective to follow him.
Amanda is making a joke, of course, saying that because the paparazzi are always taking pictures of Fredo, his wife doesn't have to worry about him going with another woman we would say cheating on her because they will find out if he does.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Own home.
I can't step outside without the paparazzi snapping pictures of me.
They stick out my house 24 hours a day.
I suppose that's the price of fame.
You do have the most popular podcast in the world, but there's such a pain in the neck.
They don't just take pictures, they chase me in my car and follow me into restrooms trying to corner me.
It's an invasion of privacy, You're right, but look on the bright side.
The paparazzi give you plenty of exposure.
They keep your name and your face in the spotlight.
It would be fine if they just took a few candid shots while I'm at dinner or at the store, but they try to take photos when I'm out of town, trying to catch me doing something I shouldn't.
At least that's good news for your wife.
She can call off that private detective she hired to follow you from city to city.
At the end of every ESL podcast episode, we try to put our script writer in the spotlight.
That's because it's our wonderful Dr Lucy Say who is bringing you, Writing for You, these wonderful scripts.
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.
