Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1029, Types of Vandalism.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1029.
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 about vandalism when someone does something to damage someone else's property.
Let's get started.
Did you hear what happened to the Romeros?
No.
What?
They went on vacation for a week and vandals broke a couple of windows in the back of their house and tagged their living room walls with graffiti.
That's terrible.
There are always punks who like to egg houses in this neighborhood for fun, but this is much more serious.
I think things are getting out of hand.
Every week or two, we hear of incidents of people having their tires slashed or their cars keyed.
And the Jamesons had their flower beds trampled and a small fire set on their lawn three weeks ago.
This neighborhood is really going downhill.
What should we do about it?
What do you mean?
I think we should start patrolling the streets at night.
You mean organize a neighborhood watch?
Wouldn't that be dangerous?
If you're worried, when you see something suspicious, call the police.
And you think they'll come in time to catch them?
The police are known for quick response times in this neighborhood.
Then we'll go after them ourselves.
You mean be vigilantes?
I'm not sure that would be wise.
Why not?
If Clint Eastwood can do it, so can I. Go ahead, punk.
Make my day.
Our dialogue begins with Jim saying to Helene The Romeros refers to a family with the last name of Romero.
Notice we put an S at the end.
That's very common if you are referring to an entire family.
So my family might be referred to as the McQuillans, with an S at the end.
You could also say the McQuillan family.
Helene says, no, what?
What happened?
Jim says they went on vacation for a week and vandals broke a couple of windows in the back of their house and tagged their living room walls with graffiti.
The Romeros went on a vacation and while they were gone, vandals broke a couple of windows.
A vandal, V-A-N-D-A-L is a criminal who destroys or damages someone's property, something that belongs to someone else.
These vandals broke a couple of windows in the back of the Romero's house and tagged their living room walls with graffiti.
To tag, T-A-G, Here refers to painting your name or your organization's name or symbol on a wall.
This is something that unfortunately you see a lot in big cities all around the world.
Usually young men who go around with paint cans and put their name or often strange symbols on public walls or the walls of buildings.
Graffiti G-R-A-F-F-I-T-I refers to either writing or drawing things that is placed illegally or without permission on someone's wall.
It could be also on someone's vehicle, on your car, for example.
Helene says that's terrible.
There are always punks who like to egg houses in this neighborhood for fun, but this is much more serious.
The word punk P-U-N-K here refers to a young person again often young men or young boys who break the law and do other things to bother people around them.
It's a negative way of describing someone.
Punk also refers, of course, to a kind of music from the late 1970s, when a I was in high school.
Helene says there are always punks who like to egg houses.
To egg, E-G-G, means to throw eggs at a building.
You're obviously throwing raw eggs, eggs that have not been cooked.
And of course, if you throw an egg against a wall, it's going to break and make a mess.
So the verb to egg means to throw eggs, but not in a good way although I'm not sure if there is a good way to throw eggs at something but rather in order to create a mess and to damage the wall.
Sometimes Not that often young people as a joke will egg someone's house.
It's a very bad thing to do.
The other thing that young people do sometimes although I, of course, have never done this is to TP someone's house.
To TP means to take toilet paper, which is also called TP paper, and throw it on someone's house, or often on a tree or a bush around someone's house.
Helene says this is much more serious than just egging someone's house, because they actually broke into the house.
Jim says, I think things are getting out of hand.
The expression to get out of hand means to become out of control or to become a serious problem.
We use this expression when a situation seems to be slowly getting worse, until such a point where the problem becomes serious.
Jim says, every week or two we hear of incidents of people having their tires slashed or their cars keyed.
An incident is a case of an event.
In this case, we're talking about cases of people having their tires slashed.
To have your tires slashed S-L-A-S-H-E-D is to have someone take a knife or some sharp object and punch a hole in your tire so that you don't have any air left in your tire.
To key K-E-Y someone's car is to take a key any key and walk along the side of the car and scrape the paint off of the car.
Of course, both slashing tires and keying cars would damage a car.
It's certainly not something nice to do.
You are, in fact, ruining the property of the person.
Helene says, and the Jamesons had their flower beds trampled and a small fire set on their lawn three weeks ago.
A flower bed is an area in your lawn or in your garden where there are flowers.
That To trample T-R-A-M-P-L-E means to step on something, especially a plant, and in doing so kill the plant or at least flatten the plant so that it is no longer sticking up out of the ground.
Helene continues, this neighborhood is really going downhill.
The expression to go downhill, D-O-W-N-H-I-L-L, means to become worse.
When you're talking about a situation going downhill, you are referring to a situation that is becoming worse, that is deteriorating.
To deteriorate means the same as to go downhill, to become worse.
Jim then asks, what should we do about it?
Helene says, what do you mean?
Jim says, I think we should start patrolling the streets at night.
To patrol P-A-T-R-O-L means to either walk or drive around an area to make sure that no one is causing any problems, to look for dangerous or illegal activities.
Normally, we talk about the police patrolling an area to make sure that it is safe.
In fact, we call the cars that police drive around patrol cars because they are out patrolling.
They're out looking to make sure that the area is safe.
Jim is suggesting that they start patrolling the streets at night.
Helene says, you mean organize a neighborhood watch?
A neighborhood is an area within a city.
To watch, of course, means to look at, to see.
A neighborhood watch however, is a group of people in a certain neighborhood that agree to pay attention, if nothing else, to the area in which they live.
And if they see anything that looks wrong, that might be illegal or suspicious, they call the police.
A lot of big American cities have organizations called neighborhood watches that basically try to make everyone in the neighborhood aware of who lives there and who doesn't and to report any problems immediately to the police.
I mentioned that you look for things that are suspicious, and that's exactly what Jim is talking about.
Jim says, if you're worried when you see something suspicious, call the police.
Suspicious S-U-S-P-I-C-I-O-U-S is something that makes you think that it may be illegal or harmful, even though you're not exactly sure.
Helene says, and you think they'll come in time to catch them?
Helene doubts that the police would arrive in time in order to arrest or investigate any problems that she reports.
Helene says, the police aren't known for quick response times in this neighborhood.
A response time would be the amount of time needed for someone to react to something, especially when we're talking about the time from which you make a request for police or an ambulance and the time that the police or the ambulance arrives at your house.
That would be the response time.
Jim says, then we'll go after them ourselves.
To go after someone is a phrasal verb meaning to run after or to pursue someone, with the idea of catching the person and holding them and perhaps even punishing them.
To go after more generally can mean to attack someone.
But here it really means to run after a person and try to catch that person.
Helene says, you mean be vigilantes?
I'm not sure that would be wise.
Helene doesn't think it's wise or a good idea to become vigilantes.
A vigilante V-I-G-I-L-A-N-T-E is someone who is not a member of the police, who tries to catch and punish criminals, even though the person doesn't have the legal authority to do that.
Jim says, why not?
Meaning, why shouldn't we become vigilantes?
If Clint Eastwood can do it, so can I.
Clint Eastwood, as some of you may remember, starred in some movies where he played a vigilante.
These were movies back in the 1970s.
I'm thinking here especially of the movie called, in English, Dirty Harry.
Jim finishes our dialogue by saying, Using one of the expressions, the famous lines from the Clint Eastwood movie Go ahead punk, make my day.
When you say go ahead, you are inviting the other person to do something.
But sometimes you're saying it when you don't really want the person to do something.
But you're not going to stop the person from doing it if he wants to.
The expression, make my day, is used to challenge someone to a fight.
So if I have a gun and you want to punch me with your fist, I may say, go ahead, make my day.
Meaning, If you punch me, I will, in this case, shoot you with my gun.
Make my day normally means to make you happy, to do something that makes your day better, but obviously we're using it here in a somewhat different way.
We're saying that the opportunity to punish you would make me happy.
And that, of course, is the way a vigilante might feel, since a vigilante is trying to punish criminals even though he doesn't have the authority to do so.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Did you hear what happened to the Romeros?
No, what?
They went on vacation for a week and vandals broke a couple of windows in the back of their house and tagged their living room walls with graffiti.
That's terrible.
There are always punks who like to egg houses in this neighborhood for fun, but this is much more serious.
I think things are getting out of hand.
Every week or two, we hear of incidents of people having their tires slashed or their cars keyed.
And the Jamesons had their flower beds trampled and a small fire set on their lawn three weeks ago.
This neighborhood is really going downhill.
What should we do about it?
What do you mean?
I think we should start patrolling the streets at night.
You mean organize a neighborhood watch?
Wouldn't that be dangerous?
Yes.
If you're worried when you see something suspicious, call the police.
And you think they'll come in time to catch them?
The police are known for quick response times in this neighborhood.
Then we'll go after them ourselves.
You mean be vigilantes?
I'm not sure that would be wise.
Why not?
If Clint Eastwood can do it, so can I. Go ahead, punk.
Make my day.
There's nothing suspicious or illegal about our scripts, I hope.
That's because they're written by our wonderful script writer, 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.
