Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 837, Driving While Calling and Texting.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 837.
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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I'm trying a lower voice today.
I'm going to try to talk like that.
Kind of like Elvis.
Well, not like Elvis.
This episode is a dialogue between Pamela and Josh, who are calling and texting and doing all sorts of things when they shouldn't be doing them.
Let's get started.
Did you see this tweet from Sarah?
She's so funny.
Hold on.
I'm texting Lance.
I want to make sure he knows where we're meeting up.
Hello?
Oh, hi, Lance.
Did you get Josh's text?
You didn't?
Let me IM you.
Bye.
I wonder why Lance didn't get my text.
I sent it from the same number I normally use.
Hello?
Jessica, where have you been?
I've been emailing you for three days.
I thought you'd fallen off the face of the earth.
What?
You've been on vacation with your parents and you've been incommunicado, with no web access and no phone signal.
That's mind-blowing!
Ask Jessica whether she got my text.
I'm really starting to worry about my account.
Better yet, I'll text her a photo of us right now.
Say cheese.
Cheese.
What was that?
It's just a reckless driver.
Just change lanes.
No, I'm not.
How can I be driving when I'm so busy texting?
Pamela and Josh are talking.
Pamela says, Did you see this tweet from Sarah?
She's so funny.
A tweet.
T-W-E-E-T is a message of 140 characters, sort of like 140 letters and spaces, that is sent through a service called Twitter T-W-I-T-T-E-R, which many of you are probably familiar with.
I've been on Twitter since, oh, 2006, maybe 2007.
ESLPOD, of course, is where you can find us on Twitter.
Pamela... is talking about a tweet, a message that she got from a friend of hers, we assume, Sarah.
Josh says, hold on, wait a minute.
I'm texting Lance.
To text T-E-X-T is to send a short text message on your telephone, on your cellular telephone, your mobile phone, to someone else.
Josh says, I want to make sure he, his friend Lance, knows where we're meeting up.
To meet up is a phrasal verb that really just means to meet someone, but meet up with a UP at the end is a little more informal.
Usually it means we're going to go and we don't have any particular plans.
It's not business meeting, it's more of an informal social meeting, we might say.
Pamela answers her cell phone and says hello, oh hi Lance, did you get Josh's text?
Did you receive the text that Josh just sent you?
You didn't let me.
I am you bye.
I am, or as a verb to I am, means to send someone an instant message.
I am stands for instant message or instant messaging.
A lot of online programs allow you to send I ams and they get to the other person immediately.
Josh says, I wonder why Lance didn't get my text.
I sent it from the same number I normally use.
The same number here means the same phone number.
And in some ways, Josh is saying from the same phone or the same phone account.
Number has a lot of different meanings in English, however.
Take a look at our learning guide for some more of those.
Pamela's cell phone rings again, and she says, Hello, Jessica, where have you been?
I've been emailing you for three days.
I've been sending you emails, electronic messages you send through your computer, of course.
Pamela says, I thought you'd fallen off the face of the earth.
This is an old expression to fall off the face of the earth means to disappear for a period of time without telling anyone where you're going, without communicating with your family or your friends.
She fell off the face of the earth.
She just disappeared.
No one knows where she is.
Pamela says... to Jessica that she thought Jessica had fallen off the face of the earth.
Of course, we don't hear what Jessica is saying.
We just hear what Pamela is saying on the phone.
She says, what?
You've been on vacation with your parents and you've been incommunicado, with no web access and no phone signal.
The term incommunicado I-N-C-O-M-M-U-N-I-C-A-D-O means that you are not able to communicate with other people, that you are not able to be in contact with other people.
You don't have a phone, or in this case, In Jessica's case, she didn't have any web access.
Web here means internet.
She didn't have any ability to connect to the internet, to get on an internet connection.
She had no web access and no phone signal, meaning wherever she was, there was no cellular or mobile phone signal, no ability to use your phone, because there simply isn't any equipment from a mobile telephone company that you can communicate with.
Pamela says that's mind-blowing.
Mind-blowing, B-L-O-W-I-N-G, is something that is very surprising.
Something that is very hard to believe.
Something that's almost extraordinary.
It's almost impossible.
That's mind-blowing.
Or that was a mind-blowing movie.
We can also use this as a verb, to blow someone's mind.
Boy, that really blew my mind.
Blew, B-L-E-W, is the past tense of blow.
It's irregular.
It blew my mind.
It was something that surprised me or shocked me, something I wasn't expecting.
Josh then says to Pamela, Ask Jessica whether she got my text.
I'm really starting to worry about my account.
Better yet, I'll text her a photo of us right now.
Say cheese.
Better yet is an expression that means...
Even better.
We use it to emphasize that what we are going to say next is even a better idea than the idea we just told you.
So for example, I may say, let's go to the movies.
Better yet, let's go to Hollywood and make a movie or be in a movie.
You see, the second idea is better than the first.
Why just go to a movie when you can come here to Hollywood in Los Angeles and make a movie, right?
Well, that's the general idea of better yet.
Josh says that he's starting to worry about his account.
He's not sure if his text messages are being sent out properly from his phone number, from his phone account.
So he suggests sending Jessica a photo of Josh and Pamela.
And so he takes a photo, a photograph, a picture of himself and Jessica.
And when you take a photograph in English of someone else and you want them to smile, we use the word cheese.
So say cheese, because when you say the word cheese, C-H-E-E-S-E, a type of food, you have to open your mouth and you can see your teeth when you say that word.
Pamela says cheese smile.
And then we hear the brakes squealing.
To squeal, S-Q-U-E-A-L, is a very high-pitched sound.
You heard the sound in the dialogue.
Squeal is a verb we would use to describe noise that is being made by tires of a car or automobile when you suddenly have to stop.
The tires are, of course, the four circular pieces of rubber on each corner of the car that go on the wheels.
When you have to stop, suddenly your tires may squeal.
Or if you leave suddenly, you suddenly try to go fast when you are not moving.
You go fast, quickly that could cause your tires to squeal, to make a noise.
Basically, it's the noise made by the wheel against the street.
Pamela says what was that?
Josh says it's just a reckless driver.
Now, of course, we hadn't really realized in the dialogue until now that Pamela and Josh are driving while they're doing all of this tweeting and texting and IMing and phone calling and taking photos.
A reckless R-E-C-K-L-E-S-S is someone who's not careful, who's not cautious, who's doing something dangerous.
And of course, the joke here is that Josh and Pamela are doing something very dangerous.
Well, at least Josh is if he's driving.
And he's saying that the other driver was being reckless.
Josh says, just change lanes.
So Josh is telling Pamela to move to a different part of the road.
A lane is a section of a road.
Here in Los Angeles, we have freeways, highways that have three, four, five lanes on each side.
So there are five places that a car can go in a certain direction.
Pamela is being told by Josh to change lanes, to go from one lane to another, one section of the road to another.
Well, of course, we thought that Josh was driving, and that's what Pamela says.
You change lanes.
You're the one driving.
Josh says, no, I'm not.
How can I be driving when I'm so busy texting?
Josh is saying he can't be the one driving because he's texting.
Of course, the joke here which is not such a joke is that it can be very dangerous to be doing all these things while you're driving.
Here in the United States, especially here in California, it is now illegal to be texting and driving at the same time.
The amazing thing is you actually have to tell people not to do that.
People are so stupid they don't realize that you shouldn't be texting and driving at the same time.
But people are stupid everywhere, and apparently especially here in California.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Did you see this tweet from Sarah?
She's so funny.
Hold on.
I'm texting Lance.
I want to make sure he knows where we're meeting up.
Hello?
Oh, hi, Lance.
Did you get Josh's text?
You didn't?
Let me IM you.
Bye.
I wonder why Lance didn't get my text.
I sent it from the same number I normally use.
Hello?
Jessica, where have you been?
I've been emailing you for three days.
I thought you'd fallen off the face of the earth.
What?
You've been on vacation with your parents and you've been incommunicado, with no web access and no phone signal.
That's mind-blowing.
Ask Jessica whether she got my text.
I'm really starting to worry about my account.
Better yet, I'll text her a photo of us right now.
Say cheese.
Cheese.
What was that?
It's just a reckless driver.
Just change lanes.
You change lanes.
You're the one driving.
No, I'm not.
How can I be driving when I'm so busy texting?
All of her scripts are mind-blowingly good.
That's Dr. Lucy Say we're talking about.
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.
