Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 987, Taking Prescription Drugs.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 987.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
The website for this wonderful podcast is eslpod.com.
Become a member of ESL Podcast and download the learning guide for this episode.
This episode is a dialogue between Paula and Marcus about taking drugs medicine that the doctor has given you to take.
Let's get started.
Okay, I'm off to bed.
Wait a second.
Where are you going with all of those pill bottles?
My doctor prescribed a couple of medications to help me sleep.
Let me see those.
You have four different medications here.
This is a pain killer.
This is a sedative.
This is a tranquilizer and this is a stimulant.
I don't take that last one when I go to bed.
Not every night.
I saw more than one doctor.
They each gave me a different prescription.
How do you know they won't interact and produce side effects?
Yes, but does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?
But how will I fall asleep until then?
You're always telling me how boring I am.
I'll just regale you with stories of my youth.
Let's start at the beginning.
My earliest memory is Paula begins our dialogue by saying to Marcus Okay, I'm off to bed, meaning I'm going to go to sleep now.
Marcus says, wait a second.
Wait, where are you going with all of those pill bottles?
A pill.
P-I-L-L is usually a small, often round object.
That is, in fact, medicine that you put in your mouth and swallow.
That's one of the most common ways of taking medicine.
A pill bottle then would be a small bottle in which you keep your pills.
Paula says, My doctor prescribed a couple of medications to help me sleep.
To prescribe P-R-E-S-C-R-I-B-E is to write down a type of medication that a person should take.
Doctors prescribe drugs.
In fact, in the United States, only licensed doctors can prescribe drugs.
There are certain kinds of drugs that you could only get if a doctor says it's okay.
These are called prescription drugs.
Prescription comes from the verb to prescribe.
We also use this verb to prescribe more generally when people are talking about giving advice or recommendations to someone.
I prescribe three days of rest for you.
It's as though you were a doctor and you were giving someone a prescription.
You were telling them something that would be good for them to do.
Paula's doctor prescribed a couple of medications for her.
Medications refers to drugs, medicine, in this case, pills.
Medication is a general word for drugs that you are given to make you well.
Marcus says, let me see those.
You have four different medications here.
This is a painkiller.
This is a sedative.
This is a tranquilizer.
And this is a stimulant.
There are four different kinds of drugs mentioned here.
The first is a painkiller.
P-A-I-N-K-I-L-L-E-R.
One word.
A painkiller is a medicine that, you can guess, helps reduce pain.
Aspirin would be a painkiller.
Codeine would be a painkiller.
A sedative, S-E-D-A-T-I-V-E, is a medicine that calms you down.
It calms you down in order to make you sleep.
A sedative makes you sleepy.
A tranquilizer, T-R-A-N-Q-U-I-L-I-Z-E-R, is a medicine that makes you feel calmer.
It's a medicine that is given to reduce your anxiety, to make you less worried.
Tranquilizers are also used with animals to...
Make them less aggressive, to quiet them down, to calm them down.
My neighbor's dog, for example, when he's barking a little bit too much and my neighbors aren't home, give him a little tranquilizer.
Keep some calm.
You know what I'm saying?
A stimulant, S-T-I-M-U-L-A-N-T, is a drug that gives you more energy, that gets you more excited.
One of the most common substances that we take in the United States as a stimulant would be coffee caffeinated coffee because caffeine, which is a substance in coffee, is a stimulant.
It gets you more excited.
So people often have coffee, like I do, in the morning to wake them up.
Paula says, I don't take that last one when I go to bed.
She's saying she doesn't take a stimulant when she's going to bed because of course she wants to fall asleep, not wake up.
Marcus says, you mean you take the first three every night?
That is, the painkiller, the sedative, and the tranquilizer?
Paula says, not every night.
Marcus says I can't believe that your doctor would prescribe all three of these medications just to help you sleep.
Marcus doesn't understand why the doctor would give her three medicines to help her sleep.
He says, this seems like overkill.
Overkill, O-V-E-R-K-I-L-L, is too much of something.
For example, if you are a man and you are going out on your first date with a woman, it would be overkill to buy her roses, buy her a new car, buy her dinner and propose to marry her.
That would be way too much.
You would probably scare her away.
So guys, don't do that.
That's an example of overkill.
Paula said, I saw more than one doctor.
Now we understand how Paula got all these different prescriptions.
She saw different doctors.
Paula says, they each gave me a different prescription, each doctor.
Marcus says how do you know they won't interact with and produce side effects?
When we talk about drugs interacting, we're referring to how the two things will work together.
Sometimes drugs will give you worse problems if you take them together.
That's why you need to tell your doctor all the different drugs you are taking if you are seeing more than one doctor, as is the case with Paula.
Side effects are other things that the drug does to your body that isn't supposed to help you but that sometimes can't be avoided.
So, for example, when people take certain drugs for their allergies, the drugs make them sleepy.
This is a side effect.
That's not the reason you're taking the drug.
You're taking the drug because of your allergies.
But in addition, the drug may also have this side effect of making you sleepy.
I've had a few parents email me to tell me that my podcast in English makes their children sleepy, even though the children don't understand English.
So I guess I could be considered a tranquilizer.
My wife certainly thinks so whenever I talk to her.
Paula says...
I'm sure they're safe.
Paula thinks the drugs are safe because she got them from doctors, even though she got them from different doctors and didn't tell the doctors that she was getting these different drugs.
Marcus says yes, meaning yes, they were prescribed by doctors.
But does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?
This is an old expression meaning that one person is doing something and another person is doing something else, and neither one knows what the other one is doing.
So you could have some unexpected consequences.
Something bad could go wrong.
The left hand has to know what the right hand is doing.
In an organization or any group, everyone has to know what everyone else is doing typically.
Otherwise, you may cause problems for yourself.
Marcus says I'm confiscating these until you can talk to a doctor or pharmacist to make sure you don't overdose by taking all three of these at one time.
Marcus is saying that he is going to confiscate C-O-N-F-I-S-C-A-T-E these drugs.
To confiscate something means to take something away from someone.
Without the person's permission.
Usually someone in authority can confiscate something from another person.
A teacher in a high school classroom might confiscate a student's cell phone if the student is talking during class or texting or tweeting or Instagramming or whatever it is that high school students do nowadays.
That is an example of the verb confiscate.
The police might confiscate drugs from your car if they find them there.
So don't put them in your car.
Marcus says he is going to confiscate these drugs from Paula until Paula can talk to a doctor or pharmacist.
A pharmacist P-H-A-R-M-A-C-I-S-T is someone who prepares medicines, prepares drugs to give to people who have a prescription, who have permission from their doctors.
A pharmacist used to be called a druggist, although we don't use that term in the United States very much anymore. overdose, O-V-E-R-D-O-S-E, is when someone takes too much of a drug and dies often because of taking too much of the drug.
An overdose doesn't necessarily kill you, but it can kill you and it can be very dangerous if you take too many of a certain kind of drug or medicine.
Unhappily, some famous celebrities here in Los Angeles sometimes overdose on illegal drugs.
Marcus doesn't want Paula to overdose on these legal prescription drugs.
Paula says, but how will I fall asleep until then?
She's wondering how she is going to be able to fall asleep then.
From now until when she has the opportunity to talk to a pharmacist or doctor.
Marcus says, you're always telling me how boring I am.
I'll just regale you with stories of my youth.
To regale R-E-G-A-L-E here means to tell stories to someone in a funny and interesting way, or to provide some sort of amusement to someone by talking to them.
Marcus is joking, of course.
He's saying that Paula thinks he's boring, so he'll just tell Paula some stories about his youth.
Your youth, Y-O-U-T-H. are the years when you were growing up as a child.
Marcus says, let's start at the beginning.
My earliest memory is And then he, of course, starts telling Paula stories that are so boring that she will fall asleep.
Very much what happens to my wife.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Okay, I'm off to bed.
Wait a second.
Where are you going with all those pill bottles?
My doctor prescribed a couple of medications to help me sleep.
Let me see those.
You have four different medications here.
This is a painkiller, this is a sedative, this is a tranquilizer, and this is a stimulant.
I don't take that last one when I go to bed.
You mean you take the first three every night?
Not every night.
I can't believe that your doctor would prescribe all three of these medications just to help you sleep.
This seems like overkill.
I saw more than one doctor.
They each gave me a different prescription.
How do you know they won't interact and produce side effects?
A doctor prescribed each one.
I'm sure they're safe.
Yes, but does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?
I'm confiscating these until you can talk to a doctor or pharmacist to make sure you won't overdose by taking all three of these at one time.
But how will I fall asleep until then?
You're always telling me how boring I am.
I'll just regale you with stories of my youth.
Let's start at the beginning.
My earliest memory is...
If you want to improve your English, I prescribe listening to all of the dialogues written by our wonderful scriptwriter, Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2014 by the Center for Educational Development
