Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1167, Birth Order and Sibling Rivalries.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1167.
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 Nancy and Yasmani about what order you were born in your family, what number you were among your brothers and sisters, and if that's really important.
Let's get started.
Isn't this a great time of year?
Families get together over the holidays.
Maybe it's nice for some families, but I dread my family get-togethers.
How come?
I have a big family and there has always been a lot of sibling rivalry.
I'm sure that was true when you were growing up, but you've all grown out of it, haven't you?
Not us.
The firstborn still thinks he's in charge.
The middle children still act up to get attention, and the baby of the family is still rebellious.
Yes, but when we get together, we compete to show up the others.
We brag, argue, and nitpick.
It's rather pathetic, actually.
They've always left us to our own devices.
We just fight it out amongst ourselves.
Oh, we love each other.
But we compete with each other, too.
It's complicated.
Then I should be glad to be an only child.
That's right.
Count your blessings.
Nancy says to Yasmani, isn't this a great time of year?
Families get together over the holidays.
The holidays in the United States is a term we use to refer to November and December, when there are two major holidays in the US or three major holidays in the US Thanksgiving at the end of November and then Hanukkah and Christmas in December.
Yasmani says, maybe it's nice for some families, but I dread my family get-togethers.
To dread, D-R-E-A-D, means to be worried about something, to not want something to happen.
To dread is...
The opposite of to look forward to.
If you look forward to something, you want something to happen.
You desire something to happen.
To dread is the opposite.
To dread is to be afraid that something will happen or worried about something that might happen.
A get-together is a...
Informal gathering of people, usually for some social reason a birthday party, a Christmas celebration or simply time for people to come together and relax, talk and have a good time.
The noun get together comes from the phrasal verb to get together.
Yasmani dreads his family get-togethers.
Nancy asks, how come?
How come is another way of saying why.
Yasmani responds, I have a big family, and there has always been a lot of sibling rivalry.
Your siblings, S-I-B-L-I-N-G-S, are your brothers and sisters.
Sibling is a general term for brothers and sisters.
It's not that common in conversational English.
Normally, someone will refer to his brothers or his sisters or simply say, my brothers and sisters.
But if you want a single term for that, it would be sibling.
Your siblings are your brothers and sisters.
When you say sibling, you're not specifying if it's a brother or a sister.
Yasmany says there has always been a lot of sibling rivalry.
Rivalry, R-I-V-A-L-R-Y, refers to competition.
We talk about rivalry between two sports teams.
There is a rivalry between the San Francisco Giants baseball team and the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.
When those two teams play there's a lot of emotion involved in the crowd and among the players, because they have always played each other and tried to be the best team, tried to beat the other team.
Yasmany says there is rivalry among his siblings, his brothers and sisters.
Nancy says, To grow out of something means...
Because you're older to no longer do something or like something or have something.
When I was in high school, sometimes, though not very often, I liked to play video games.
But eventually I grew out of it.
When I got to college, it no longer interested me anymore.
I grew out of playing video games.
Usually, we use the expression to grow out of something when we're referring to an activity that we associate with children or teenagers or younger people.
Nancy is saying that surely Yasmani and his siblings have grown out of all of this rivalry they had when they were children, and Yazmani says however, no.
He says, not us, meaning no, we have not.
The firstborn still thinks he's in charge.
The middle children still act up to get attention.
And the baby of the family is still rebellious.
The firstborn is, unsurprisingly, the oldest child, the first child to be born in a family.
The firstborn still thinks he's in charge, Yasmani says.
To be in charge, C-H-A-R-G-E, means to be in a position of authority or control, to be the person who's, in effect, the boss, the one who is responsible for telling other people what to do.
The middle children would refer to the children in a family that has at least three children who are neither the oldest nor the youngest.
So in a family of four children there is an oldest child, a youngest child and then the two other children would be, I guess, the middle children.
In my family, where there are 11 children, There are nine middle children, although in my family we divide our family into the oldest four, the youngest four and the middle three.
I, of course, am in the youngest four and, in fact, am the baby of the family.
The baby of the family doesn't refer to someone who is actually still under two years of age, but rather to the youngest child in the family.
It's often said however, as a way of indicating that perhaps that youngest child has certain privileges or that he's treated somehow differently, more special perhaps, than the other children.
This was never the case for me, of course.
Yasmany mentions how the middle children in his family act up to get attention.
To act up is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to behave in certain ways, to behave badly so that someone will pay attention to you or will notice you.
The baby of the family in Yasmany's family is rebellious, R-E-B-E-L-L-I-O-U-S.
Rebellious comes from the verb to rebel, R-E-B-E-L.
To rebel means to resist someone else's authority, to refuse to do what someone else says you should do, especially someone else in power.
Nancy says that's true in a lot of families.
Yasmany says yes, but when we get together, when my family comes together and is in the same room at the same time, we compete to show up the others.
To show up someone is a say it with me two-word phrasal verb meaning to do or say something to show that you are better than another person.
You are superior to another person.
So if your son comes home from school and says I got a B on my test and your daughter says well, I got an A on my test, your daughter may be trying to show up your son to demonstrate that she is superior to your son.
Yasmany says we brag, argue, and nitpick.
It's rather pathetic, actually.
Yasmany says he and his siblings brag, B-R-A-G.
To brag means to say something about yourself that makes you look better than everyone else, or to say something that you have done that is wrong.
That will make other people think that you are wonderful or successful.
There are, of course, always people who like to brag, who like to talk about how wonderful they are.
Some people think all Americans like to brag.
I think that might have a little bit of truth in it.
To nitpick N-I-T-P-I-C-K means to criticize other people for very small mistakes or faults or errors.
To say something is pathetic means P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C, in this case means that it's so bad you almost feel sorry for the people that they are so perhaps insecure or mean or miserable that they have to act that way.
Sometimes we use this adjective pathetic to mean inadequate, in such a way that it's almost laughable or you almost feel sorry for the person.
If someone tries to throw a ball 50 feet and the ball only goes 10 feet because the person doesn't know how to throw a ball, you might say well, that was pathetic, that was really so terrible.
You almost feel sorry for the person.
Nancy asks how do your parents handle all that?
Meaning, how do your parents react?
How do they view or take care of this situation?
Yasmani says, they've always left us to our own devices.
To leave someone to his own devices D-E-V-I-C-E-S means to let someone do something without interfering, without doing anything to influence his actions or decisions.
Often, this expression is used when someone does something that you don't think is a good idea, or when someone shows bad judgment or makes a bad decision.
You might say, for example children, when left to their own devices, will watch television all day instead of studying for school.
We're saying there that if we don't do anything to influence them or to control them, perhaps children will make bad decisions.
I'm not saying that's true, but that's one possible use of that expression.
And it is typically used when you're describing a situation in which someone doesn't make a very good decision.
Yasmani says we just fight it out amongst ourselves, meaning we just fight and our parents don't do anything about it.
Nancy says, so there's no loving bond between the siblings?
A bond, B-O-N-D, here would mean a close relationship or connection between people.
Yosemite says, oh, we love each other, but we compete with each other, too.
It's complicated, he says, meaning it's a situation that's difficult to explain, perhaps.
Nancy says, then I should be glad to be an only child.
Yasmany agrees with Nancy.
He says, Yes, you should be glad you are an only child.
Count your blessings, he says.
The expression to count your blessings B-L-E-S-S-I-N-G-S means to be grateful for, or appreciative of, the good things that you have.
Interestingly enough, I don't think anyone who comes from a larger family would actually say what yasmani says.
I've never met anyone who comes from a family of more than three or four children who thinks that it would have been better had his family only had one child.
But of course i'm the youngest of 11, so maybe i'm thinking if my parents only had one child it wouldn't have been me.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Isn't this a great time of year?
Families get together over the holidays.
Maybe it's nice for some families, but I dread my family get togethers.
How come?
I have a big family, and there has always been a lot of sibling rivalry.
I'm sure that was true when you were growing up, but you've all grown out of it, haven't you?
Not us.
The firstborn still thinks he's in charge, the middle children still act up to get attention and the baby of the family is still rebellious.
That's true in a lot of families.
Yes, but when we get together, we compete to show up the others.
We brag, argue, and nitpick.
It's rather pathetic, actually.
How do your parents handle all that?
They've always left us to our own devices.
We just fight it out amongst ourselves.
So, there's no loving bond between the siblings?
Oh, we love each other, but we compete with each other, too.
It's complicated.
Then I should be glad to be an only child?
That's right.
Count your blessings.
We count our blessings that we have the wonderful Dr Lucy Say to write these wonderful scripts for us.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan, the baby of the family.
Thanks for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
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.
