Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1060, Disposing of Sensitive Documents.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1060.
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 Marcus and Rebecca about disposing of or getting rid of sensitive documents, pieces of paper or files that have information you would not want other people to know.
Let's get started.
Alright, let's get started.
These documents won't sort themselves.
I really don't think sorting through documents is the best use of my time.
Can't the company find an intern to do this?
We have confidential information in these files and, unless we want a security breach, only people who are authorized to see it are allowed to do this job.
Lucky us.
Okay, we need to purge these files of outdated material.
Let's start by sorting them into two piles for either retention or destruction.
And then what?
Then we have to further sort the destruction pile, either for disposal in the recycling bin or to be shredded.
And who are the lucky people who get to do the shredding?
We get that honor, too.
You're kidding.
I'm all for safeguarding confidential information.
But couldn't we just burn it all in a giant bonfire?
And who do you think would be responsible for doing that and for extinguishing the wildfire?
We start.
Marcus begins our dialogue by saying to Rebecca, Alright, let's get started.
All right here means okay.
Let's begin.
These documents won't sort themselves.
To sort S-O-R-T is to organize a group of items or things together, dividing them into smaller groups or putting them in some sort of order.
For example, if you had a bunch of books, you could put the books in alphabetical order.
The books that begin with an A would go first, the books that begin with a B would go second, and so forth.
You can sort things into many different kinds of orders.
This is what Marcus and Rebecca are doing, but they're sorting documents, which is a general term for either pieces of paper or possibly electronic files on your computer.
Rebecca says, I really don't think sorting through documents is the best use of my time.
Rebecca is saying that she's an important person.
She has more important things to do than this rather simple task, this rather easy job of sorting documents.
Can't the company find an intern to do this, she asks?
An intern.
I-N-T-E-R-N is a person, often a college student, who is working in a temporary position, usually receiving little, or sometimes no pay, no money, in order to get experience in a particular job or a particular kind of job.
An internship is a job where you work as an intern, either paid or unpaid, meaning you don't get any money.
Marcus says we have confidential information in these files and unless we want a security breach,
Confidential, C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L, means...
Information that is secret or private or that you don't want anyone else to have.
Marcus is saying that there is confidential information in these files.
And, unless we want a security breach, only people who are supposed to see this information should be allowed to sort the documents.
A security S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y breach B-R-E-A-C-H is when you have a I guess we could describe it break in security.
When somehow something that is secret is no longer secret.
Someone finds a way of getting that information.
This is insecurity. as you know, a huge problem nowadays on the internet.
When companies have a security breach, people thieves come in and steal the information often credit card numbers from the company.
So security breaches are very serious, or at least they can be very serious.
That's why Marcus is saying that We don't want to let just an intern get access to this confidential information.
He says only people who are authorized to see it are allowed to do this job.
To be authorized A-U-T-H-O-R-I-Z-E-D means to be allowed, to be permitted to, To have permission to do something.
That's the meaning of the term authorized.
Rebecca says somewhat sarcastically, somewhat jokingly, lucky us.
I say sarcastically because she doesn't really believe that it's lucky that she and Marcus have to do this sorting.
She's making a joke.
To say something that has the opposite meaning is to use sarcasm or to be sarcastic.
Marcus says, okay, we need to purge these files of outdated material.
To purge P-U-R-G-E means to get rid of something, to throw something away.
Outdated refers to something that is no longer current, something from the past, often something that no longer works or is no longer useful.
Marcus says let's start by sorting them, meaning the files, into two piles for either retention or destruction.
A pile P-I-L-E is the same as a stack S-T-A-C-K, which is a group of things placed one on top of the other.
You could have a pile of papers on your desk like I have.
I'm looking at a pile of papers that I have to look at.
I don't want to look at them, but it's part of my job.
Marcus is dividing these documents into two piles.
One pile is for the files that they are going to keep or retain.
The word retention, R-E-N-T-E-N-T-I-O-N, comes from the verb to retain, meaning to keep something.
The opposite, in this case, of retention is destruction.
Destruction, D-E-S-T-R-U-C-T-I-O-N, comes from the verb to destroy, D-E-S-T-R-O-Y, which means to get rid of something, to throw something out, possibly even to rip it up or to burn it.
Rebecca asks, and then what?
What do we do after we put these documents into these two piles?
Marcus says, then we have to further sort the destruction pile, either for disposal in the recycling bin or to be shredded.
Further, F-U-R-T-H-E-R, means to do more of something, to continue doing something.
In this case, they have to continue sorting the destruction pile into two groups.
One for files that they will put in the recycling bin and another for files that need to be shredded.
Recycling bins, B-I-N-S, are containers where you put usually paper that is going to be reprocessed.
It's going to be used again somehow.
You can dispose of documents in one of two ways.
To dispose, D-I-S-P-O-S-E, means to get rid of.
You can get rid of the documents or dispose of them by putting them in a recycling bin, where they're not destroyed.
Somebody could, for example, go into the recycling bin and read one of the documents.
Or you can shred the document.
To shred S-H-R-E-D is to rip the document up, the piece of paper up into small little pieces so nobody can read what was on the piece of paper.
We use this verb to shred when we're talking about paper.
A shredder is a machine that shreds things.
Rebecca says, and who are the lucky people who get to do the shredding?
Shredding is not a very interesting or exciting job.
So Rebecca is once again being sarcastic here when she says lucky people.
She means just the opposite, unfortunate people.
Marcus says, we get that honor too.
An honor.
H-O-N-O-R is, in this case, a privilege, something that you are given because you've done something well or in recognition of some accomplishment that you have.
Once again, though, sarcasm is at work here.
Marcus isn't saying that this is really an honor.
He's saying the opposite.
Rebecca says, you're kidding, meaning you're joking.
I'm all for safeguarding confidential information, but couldn't we just burn it all in a giant bonfire?
To safeguard, S-A-F-E-G-U-A-R-D, all one word, means to protect something, to keep something safe.
Rebecca is saying that she wants to keep this confidential, secret information safe because But she doesn't think that they have to go through and shred every single piece of paper.
Instead, she proposes or suggests another idea, which is to burn the paper in a giant bonfire.
A bonfire.
B-O-N-F-I-R-E is basically a large fire that's outdoors, often in the An area in the woods, where the fire won't damage anything around it.
When I was a child growing up in Minnesota, especially out in the areas outside of the city, you would often see bonfires, especially in the fall, in the autumn, in September, October and November.
People would burn the leaves from the trees in a giant bonfire.
I think they don't allow that anymore, or at least in most areas that's not allowed, but it was certainly something that we did when we were growing up.
Well, that's what Rebecca wants to do.
She wants to create a big fire and just burn all of this paper.
Marcus says and who do you think would be responsible for doing that and for extinguishing the wildfire?
We start.
Marcus is reminding Rebecca that to create a bonfire would still be work and, more importantly, it would be dangerous.
A wildfire.
W-I-L-D-F-I-R-E is a very large fire that burns through a forest or other areas in ways that you can't control very easily.
We have wildfires here in California, Southern California, quite frequently, and many times these fires burn down homes.
They can be quite dangerous.
What do you do with a wildfire?
Well, you have to put the fire out, and the verb we use for that concept is to extinguish, E-X-T-I-N-G-U-I-S-H.
To extinguish a fire means to make the fire stop burning, to put the fire out, we would say.
Marcus is reminding Rebecca that if they create a bonfire, they'll probably start a wildfire, and then they would have to put the fire out.
So it wouldn't really save them very much work.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Alright, let's get started.
These documents won't sort themselves.
I really don't think sorting through documents is the best use of my time.
Can't the company find an intern to do this?
We have confidential information in these files.
And unless we want a security breach, only people who are authorized to see it are allowed to do this job.
Lucky us.
We need to purge these files of outdated material.
Let's start by sorting them into two piles for either retention or destruction.
Then we have to further sort the destruction pile, either for disposal in the recycling bin or to be shredded.
We get that honor, too.
You're kidding.
I'm all for safeguarding confidential information, but couldn't we just burn it all in a giant bonfire?
And who do you think would be responsible for doing that and for extinguishing the wildfire?
We start.
There's nothing outdated about the English that you learn here on ESL Podcast.
That's thanks to the wonderful scripts written by our wonderful script writer, 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.
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.
