Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 819, Athletes Behaving Badly.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 819.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
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This episode is a dialogue between Connie and Walt about people who play sports professional athletes.
Let's get started.
I just got a call from Ron's agent.
He's in hot water again.
Not again.
What did he get up to now?
He got into another fight outside of a bar and he's in police custody right now, cooling his heels.
I don't know what he was thinking.
It's the off season, so I can understand him wanting to blow off some steam.
But doesn't he realize what he's doing to his image and reputation?
They don't call him the bad boy of basketball for nothing.
I guess it's our job to do some damage control.
Yeah, and fast.
Once the press gets a hold of this, they'll have a field day.
It's going to be a long night.
Not as long as Ron's.
Serves him right.
Our dialogue begins with Connie saying I just got a call, meaning I just received a telephone call from Ron's agent.
An agent.
A-G-E-N-T is a representative of a person whose job it is to represent, usually an athlete, that is, a sports player, a musician, a model, an actor, a writer.
Many of these people have agents.
They're sort of business people who represent them, who take care of their business negotiations and business contracts for them.
Connie says he's in hot water again, meaning Ron is in hot water.
To be in hot water means to be in trouble, to have a lot of difficulties, to have done something wrong and now you have problems.
While it says not again, what did he get up to now?
The expression to get up to something is a phrasal verb meaning to become involved in something, usually something bad, something that you should not be doing.
What did he get up to now?
Well, Connie says that he, Ron, got into another fight outside of a bar.
A fight is when you hit someone else.
A bar, of course, is a place where people drink alcohol.
So it's not surprising that there are fights outside of bars.
And that's what happened to Ron.
Now, Connie says, he's in police custody.
To be in police custody, C-U-S-T-O-D-Y, means that the police came and they arrested you.
They are holding you.
They won't let you go.
Usually they take you to a jail or to what we would call a police station.
If you get in trouble, that can happen to you.
That's what happened to Ron.
Connie says he's in police custody right now, cooling his heels.
This expression, to cool, C-O-O-L, your heels, H-E-E-L-S, means to spend time calming down.
When you're very angry or very emotional, someone might say to you you need to cool your heels.
Your heel is the part of your foot, the bottom back part of your foot, But the expression to cool your heels perhaps means that you need to be running around less.
In any case, it means that you need to calm down.
You need to be less angry, less emotional.
Connie says, I don't know what he was thinking, meaning I'm not sure why he did this.
Walt says it's the off season.
The off-season is when a sport is not being played.
For example, baseball is played between, say, April and October.
That means that November December January February, the first part of March, that's the off season.
That's when there isn't any professional baseball games, or there aren't any professional baseball games.
That's the off season.
Walt says it's the off season, so I can understand him wanting to blow off some steam.
The expression to blow off some steam.
S-T-E-A-M means to release negative emotions or extra energy or stress in some way.
Let's say you come home from work and you had a bad day, a very stressful day.
So you decide to go for a run.
You're going to jog around your neighborhood in order to relax, to blow off some steam.
That's the idea.
Walt says, doesn't he, Ron, realize what he's doing to his image and reputation?
Walt is asking why Ron is doing these crazy things like getting involved in a fight outside of a bar and then getting arrested or taken by the police.
He asks whether Ron realizes what all of this is doing to his image.
Your image, I M A G E, is the way other people look at you.
It's the way other people see you.
Reputation is very closely related to that.
That's what other people think about you.
Your reputation is what other people think.
You may have a reputation for being a funny person.
That means other people, when they think of you, think, oh yeah, he's funny.
We want to have a good reputation, of course, and not a bad reputation.
But Ron is getting a bad reputation by doing all of these stupid things.
But sometimes professional athletes do stupid things.
Connie says This phrase they don't call someone something for nothing is used to emphasize that someone has earned or deserves the image and reputation that they have.
So for example, Someone may be a very good singer, and they stand up and they sing a wonderful song.
And you say to your friend, they don't call him the best singer in the world for nothing.
Meaning there's a reason why people think he's a good singer, and he just demonstrated it.
So when somebody does something that shows that whatever their image or reputation is is true, that is when we would use this expression.
So Ron is known, he has the reputation for being the bad boy of basketball.
Basketball, of course, is the sport of.
To be a bad boy means to be a boy or a man whose actions are often breaking the rules.
Somebody who doesn't care what other people think of him.
Somebody who does things that are wrong or that are bad.
Connie says, I guess it's our job to do some damage control.
Damage is when you hurt something.
Damage control is when there's a problem or a negative situation and somebody tries to make it so that it isn't as bad as it might be.
Someone who tries to stop the problem from getting any bigger or any worse.
So let's say we have a famous singer or a famous actor and they have a drug problem or they get arrested for doing something bad, something wrong.
Their agents, their representatives, will try to do some damage control.
They'll try to talk to the newspapers and magazines and say well, he was having a bad day or he's really sorry about what happened.
That's damage control.
That's trying to protect and save this person's reputation from getting any worse.
Walt says, yeah, and fast, meaning we need to do some damage control quickly.
Once the press gets a hold of this, they'll have a field day.
The expression to get a hold of something means to get information, to find out about something, to obtain information that might be difficult to get.
The press refers to the media newspapers magazines, television reporters, etc.
To have a field day is an expression meaning to have a lot of fun doing something without any limits or any restrictions.
We're going to have a field day at Starbucks by drinking all the coffee we possibly can.
We're going to the cafe and we're going to have a field day.
This expression is often used, as it is in this dialogue, to talk about what will happen if somebody finds out about some secret, negative or damaging information.
Television stations find out that Ron had a fight.
They'll have a field day, meaning they'll really make fun of him.
It will be a very damaging time because they found out this information.
Connie says it's going to be a long night, meaning we're going to have to stay up late in order to do this damage control, making phone calls and so forth.
Walt says, not as long as Ron's, meaning Ron will have an even more difficult night because of course he is being held by the police.
Connie then says, serves him right.
The expression serves him right or serves them right or serves her right is used when you are expressing love.
Your opinion that when something bad happened to someone they deserved it.
It was because they did something wrong that they are getting a negative consequence for their behavior or for their actions.
So somebody starts drinking and they start driving and then the police stop them and arrest them.
You might say, well, serves them right, meaning they deserve that because they did something bad.
They did something wrong.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I just got a call from Ron's agent.
He's in hot water again.
Not again.
What did he get up to now?
He got into another fight outside of a bar, and he's in police custody right now, cooling his heels.
I don't know what he was thinking.
It's the off-season, so I can understand him wanting to blow off some steam.
But doesn't he realize what he's doing to his image and reputation?
They don't call him the bad boy of basketball for nothing.
I guess it's our job to do some damage control.
Yeah, and fast.
Once the press gets a hold of this, they'll have a field day.
It's going to be a long night.
Not as long as Ron's.
Serves him right.
She has the reputation for being the best ESL script writer in the world. and she deserves it.
That's our own Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
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 2012 by the Center for Educational Development.
