Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 892.
Preparing for a busy season.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 892.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is a dialogue between Yuko and Reisa about getting ready for being busy at your work or whatever activity you do.
Let's get started.
We're gearing up for the busy season.
We don't want to get caught with our pants down like we did last season.
Last season we had an unusual number of visitors because of the unseasonably warm weather.
We can't expect lightning to strike twice.
We have to prepare for every contingency.
If we get a flood of visitors...
We need to be able to handle the surge in traffic.
These three months are our peak months anyway, so we should expect an upswing in business soon.
But what if people don't come in large numbers as you're anticipating?
All of these extra supplies will go to waste.
No, they won't.
Most of this stuff isn't perishable, so we'll just save it for the next time we get a rush of visitors.
Or maybe I'll just invite my buddies over at the end of the season and we'll have a party.
So when you said that we had to plan for every contingency, this was what you meant.
Exactly.
Exactly.
We begin with Yuko saying to Ressa, what's all this?
All this would mean there are a lot of things that you see and you want to know, in this case, what they are.
Well, Ressa says, we're gearing up for a busy season.
To gear up for something is an expression that means to prepare for something, to get ready for something.
To gear up for would mean to prepare for some event, often something that will be difficult or that will require a lot of work.
In this case, Rasa says we're gearing up for a busy season.
Busy means very occupied, lots of things to do.
Season refers to a certain time of year or a certain period when some particular activity happens.
We have four seasons, fall, winter, spring, and summer.
But you could also have the baseball season, which is a period of time that lasts from early April to late October.
We could talk about the Christmas season in December.
So season can mean any period of time.
Ressa says they are gearing up for the busy season.
The expression to get caught with your pants down is a somewhat humorous, a somewhat funny expression that we use to mean to be found in an embarrassing situation, an uncomfortable situation that we weren't prepared for.
If you can think of someone whose pants suddenly fall down to their ankles and you can, of course, well see their underwear, this would be somewhat embarrassing.
To be caught with your pants down means to be found in a situation that is embarrassing and that you weren't prepared for.
Yuko says last season we had an unusual number of visitors because of the unseasonably warm weather.
Yuko is talking about last season, meaning last year or the last time they had a period related to this activity.
And we're not sure yet exactly what this activity is.
Yuko says they had an unusual number of visitors because of the unseasonably warm weather.
Something that is unseasonable is something that is not to be expected normally during that time of year.
Typically, we're talking about the weather.
It's warmer than it is normally.
It's unseasonably warm this Christmas time.
Normally, it's colder or it's unseasonably cold today. in the summertime.
Normally it's warmer.
So when the weather is warmer or colder than it would normally be, if the temperature that is were warmer or colder than it would normally be, we might call that unseasonable weather.
Yuko says they had unseasonably warm weather last season.
She says, we can't expect lightning to strike twice.
This is another old expression.
Lightning is the electrical discharge that comes out of a cloud, a storm cloud.
Usually with lightning, you have a loud sound called thunder.
To strike just means here to hit lightning.
So when we say lightning strikes, we mean lightning hits the ground or comes in contact with something on the ground, often a building or a tree or a pole.
For some reason it is believed because lightning strikes perhaps doesn't happen very often that lightning will not hit the same place twice, at least in the same storm.
So what Yuko is saying in this expression we can't expect lightning to strike twice is is that this is a very unlikely event.
It probably won't happen.
The chances of it happening are very small, we might say.
Ressa says, C-O-N-T-I-N-G-E-N-C-Y is one of many possible events.
You're not sure what's going to happen.
It might rain today or it might be sunny.
You have to be prepared for the contingency, the possibility that it will rain.
So you bring an umbrella with you or you wear a raincoat.
Ressa says, if we get a flood of visitors meaning if we get a lot of visitors, a lot of people coming to us We need to be able to handle the surge in traffic.
A surge S-U-R-G-E is a sudden increase, a significant increase in something.
Traffic T-R-A-F-F-I-C is means in this case the number of people who are coming.
We often talk about traffic related to cars and how crowded the roads are.
But traffic can also mean, especially when talking about, for example, a store.
It can mean the number of people who come in and out of the store.
Ressa says these three months are our peak months anyway, so we should expect an upswing in business soon.
The peak, P-E-A-K, is the highest.
In this case, the month where they get the most business, the most number of visitors.
So this is their peak month, or these three months are their peak months, their busiest months.
Ressa says, we should expect an upswing in business soon.
An upswing, U-P-S-W-I-N-G, is an increase, a sudden increase usually.
Yuko says, but what if people don't come in large numbers as you're anticipating?
In large numbers means a lot of them, a very high value, many.
Anticipate means to expect, to predict, to believe that something will happen in the future.
I anticipate I will meet a beautiful woman and fall in love and get married.
Wait a minute.
I'm already married.
I already met a beautiful woman and fell in love.
Aw, isn't that nice?
Well, Yuko is not talking about falling in love.
She's talking about getting a large number of people that will come into wherever Yuko and Reisa are working.
Yuko says all of these extra supplies will go to waste.
To go to waste.
W-A-S-T-E means not to be used, to be thrown out, to be put in the trash, to go to waste.
Yuko is saying that if we don't get a large number of people, then all of these extra supplies, all of these things that you bought here anticipating there would be a lot of people, will go to waste.
Ressa says, no, they won't.
Most of this stuff isn't perishable.
Perishable, P-E-R-I-S-H-A-B-L-E, means it is likely to go bad.
It is likely to spoil.
It is likely that it won't be any good.
Usually this word is used when talking about food.
If you have a gallon of milk and you put it out into the sun...
Eventually, it will spoil.
It will change in a way that you can no longer drink it.
There are some foods that you can prepare in a certain way so that they will last a long time.
Canned food, for example, could last months, even years in a can.
You could still open it up and eat it.
Imperishable food is food that you cannot do that with.
Food that if you don't eat it in a day or two or you don't keep it in, for example, the refrigerator, it will spoil.
It will go bad.
Risa says that most of this stuff, most of these things that he bought, So we'll just save it for the next time we get a rush of visitors.
Or maybe he says Ressa is suggesting that if they don't use all of these supplies, which appear to be food supplies, he will invite his friends over and they will eat them.
Yuko says, so when you said that we have to plan for every contingency, this was what you meant.
Yuko is saying oh, so the possible situation that you were preparing for included not getting very many visitors and therefore having to have a party in order to eat all of the supplies.
Ressa says, exactly, meaning yes, that is exactly what I was thinking.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
What's all this?
We're gearing up for the busy season.
We don't want to get caught with our pants down like we did last season.
Last season we had an unusual number of visitors because of the unseasonably warm weather.
We can't expect lightning to strike twice.
We have to prepare for every contingency.
If we get a flood of visitors we need to be able to handle the surge in traffic.
These three months are our peak months anyway, so we should expect an upswing in business soon.
But what if people don't come in large numbers as you're anticipating?
All of these extra supplies will go to waste.
No, they won't.
Most of this stuff isn't perishable, so we'll just save it for the next time we get a rush of visitors.
Or maybe I'll just invite my buddies over at the end of the season and we'll have a party.
So when you said that we had to plan for every contingency, this is what you meant.
Exactly.
She writes scripts in large numbers, and all of them good.
I speak, of course, of our wonderful own scriptwriter, 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 right here on ESL Podcast.
