Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1,112, Doing Impressions.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 1,112.
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 Edison and Kay about imitating someone else's voice.
Let's get started.
I'm paying you less and working you harder.
What are you complaining about?
You sound just like Justine.
You really have a gift for doing impressions.
But maybe we should shut the door.
Oh, I'm not worried about Justine hearing me.
She's my boss, but she's not the boss of me.
We all know what they say.
I'm not sure Justine would see it that way.
It sounds more like mockery to me.
I think it's all in the tone.
It's a simple parody of how she normally addresses the staff.
It's all done in good fun.
It's not mean-spirited.
Then she would need to learn to laugh at herself.
It's healthy for the ego.
Whatever you say, boss.
You're always right, boss.
Who was that supposed to be?
Remember what you said about imitation being the highest form of flattery.
That was supposed to be me?
Me?
Me?
Edison begins our dialogue speaking in a high-pitched voice.
A high-pitched voice is a voice that sounds very high.
We normally associate a higher-pitched voice with a woman. and a lower-pitched voice with a man.
So high and low-pitched are the terms we use.
Edison, who is a man, speaks in a high-pitched voice in order to imitate or sound like another person at his job.
He says, I'm paying you less and working you harder.
What are you complaining about?
He's pretending as though he were this other woman by the name of Justine.
Edison is pretending that Justine is asking him what he is complaining about.
To complain, C-O-M-P-L-A-I-N, is to talk about things you don't like about something the problems with something it could be your meal at a restaurant it could be your job it could be just about anything Some people like to complain.
They like to talk about the negative aspects of things.
Or they like to tell other people about these problems in the hopes that they will be fixed.
Kay laughs at Edison's imitation of Justine's voice.
She says, you have a gift for doing impressions.
But maybe we should shut the door.
To do impressions.
I-M-P-R-E-S-S-I-O-N-S is to imitate someone's voice, usually to be funny, usually as entertainment.
There are many famous comedians who imitate other famous people in order to make a joke about those people.
Some people are very good at imitating or sounding like another person.
That is, some people are very good at doing impressions.
Kay thinks however, that she and Edison should shut or close the door so that presumably their boss doesn't hear them making fun of her.
Edison, however, says, oh, I'm not worried about Justine hearing me.
She's my boss, but she's not the boss of me.
This is an interesting phrase.
Not the boss.
B-O-S-S of me is used to assert your independence, to say to someone that that person doesn't have authority over you.
A boss is a person who is a manager, who is in charge of you at your workplace.
The expression not the boss of me however, can be used in pretty much any context where one person is trying to tell another person what to do, as if the person had authority.
You might say to your brother you're not the boss of me if your brother tells you how to act or behave.
For some reason, Edison recognizes that Justine is his boss, but says that she's not the boss of him, perhaps meaning that he can make his own decisions even though she is the boss.
Kay says what would she meaning Justine, say if she saw you imitating the way she walks and the gestures she makes?
Doing impressions is usually related to imitating or copying someone's voice, but you may also copy a person's gestures.
Gestures, G-E-S-T-U-R-E-S, are the movements that you make with your body, especially your hands.
Edison says we all know what they say.
Imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?
There's an old expression, imitation is the highest or best form of flattery.
F-L-A-T-T-E-R-Y.
The form of something is a kind of something, a type of something.
Flattery is when you tell another person how good they are in order to make them feel good, but often in order for the person to do you a favor or to get the person to do you a favor.
The expression imitation is the highest form of flattery or the best form of flattery refers to the idea that if you copy someone else, You're not doing it because you want to steal something from him or her.
You're doing it almost as a compliment to that person to say, see, you've done such a great job.
I'm going to do the same thing.
And in doing that, I am praising you in a way.
I am telling you how good you are at what you did.
Of course, if you are doing impressions of another person in order to make fun of that person, it is very unlikely that person will consider what you are doing flattery.
But back to our story.
Kay says, I'm not sure Justine would see it that way.
She doesn't think that Justine would agree with Edison that this is a form of flattery.
Kay says M-O-C-K-E-R-Y comes from the verb to mock M-O-C-K, which means to make fun of someone in a cruel, mean way, to imitate someone in a way that makes them look bad or that makes fun of them that we might also say ridicules them.
Kay is saying that Edison's imitations and impressions are going to be interpreted by Justine as mockery.
She says, I think it's all in the tone, T-O-N-E.
The tone, when referring to your voice, refers to the qualities of the voice, including whether it's high pitched or low pitched, whether there's warmth, whether there's strength.
It's the particular way in which your voice sounds when you are saying something.
We all know that you can say something to someone that would make the person mad or happy, depending on the tone.
For example, if you said to your girlfriend, Oh, you're crazy.
You say it in such a way that you're kidding or joking and your girlfriend knows it.
But if you say to your girlfriend, You're crazy.
Your girlfriend will probably have a different reaction because you're using a different tone in your voice.
Edison says it's a simple parody of how she normally addresses the staff.
A parody, P-A-R-O-D-Y, is...
An imitation of a person, but usually involves some sort of exaggeration in order to be funny.
Normally we think of this word parody as it relates to some performance on a television show or in a movie, where they're making fun of something in a way that exaggerates it.
So, for example, if a politician normally scratches his head when he talks or A parody of that perhaps would be a comedian who stands up and takes both hands and moves them up and down on the sides of his head in order to make fun of this politician.
The comedian is exaggerating it.
He's trying to imitate the person in a way that would be funny.
Parody doesn't involve just physical actions.
It can also be the language you use.
Edison says his impressions of Justine are a simple parody or exaggeration for comic effect of how she normally addresses or talks to the staff, the people who work at the company.
It's all done in good fun.
It's not mean-spirited, he says.
To do something in good fun is to do something funny without being mean, without trying to hurt someone.
The opposite of in good fun would be, in fact, mean-spirited.
Something that is mean-spirited is something that is unkind or cruel, something that is funny but also not very nice.
Kay says, of course not meaning.
Of course you're not doing this in a mean-spirited kind of way, but she might take it the wrong way.
To take something the wrong way is to understand something in the wrong way, especially in a way that makes you feel offended or angry.
It means to misinterpret something, to take something the wrong way.
If someone says to you, wow, what happened to all of your hair?
Well, you might take that the wrong way.
You might think the person is making fun of you because you are bald.
Not sure what the right way to take that would be, however.
Maybe there are some things you say that can only be taken one way, no matter how the person says it.
Anyway, Edison says that Justine needs to learn to laugh at herself.
To laugh at yourself means to find things that you do funny, especially mistakes that you make.
Edison says, it's healthy for the ego.
Your ego.
E-G-O is your sense of self-confidence self-respect, how you believe yourself to be as a person.
Kay says, whatever you say, boss, you're always right, boss.
That's Kay imitating someone.
Edison says, who was that supposed to be?
Kay says, remember what you said about imitation being the highest form of flattery?
Kay is obviously trying to imitate Edison and show him that sometimes doing impressions of other people are not funny and they don't take them to be funny.
They don't take them as a form of flattery.
Edison says, that was supposed to be me, me.
He doesn't think that Kay's impression is very funny.
Of course Kay is trying to show him that Making fun of other people by doing impressions of them can often be considered mean-spirited, even if you think it's all in good fun.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I'm paying you less and working you harder.
What are you complaining about?
You sound just like Justine.
You really have a gift for doing impressions.
But maybe we should shut the door.
Oh, I'm not worried about Justine hearing me.
She's my boss, but she's not the boss of me.
What would she say if she saw you imitating the way she walks and the gestures she makes?
We all know what they say.
Imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?
I'm not sure Justine would see it that way.
It sounds more like mockery to me.
I think it's all in the tone.
It's a simple parody of how she normally addresses the staff.
It's all done in good fun.
It's not mean-spirited.
Of course not, but she might take it the wrong way.
Then she would need to learn to laugh at herself.
It's healthy for the ego.
Whatever you say, boss.
You're always right, boss.
Who was that supposed to be?
Remember what you said about imitation being the highest form of flattery.
That was supposed to be me.
Me.
Me.
I have nothing to complain of when it comes to our 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 2015 by the Center for Educational Development.
