Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast number 1184, Being Boastful.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 1184.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in... Los Angeles, California.
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On this episode we're going to hear a story about someone who is very boastful, who likes to talk about how great he is.
Let's get started.
My boss is a complete blowhard.
He likes to boast about his accomplishments and acquisitions every chance he gets.
Unfortunately, I seem to be his favorite audience.
You won't believe what I did over the weekend.
I went mountain climbing and skydiving.
What I wanted to say was, Ugh, spare me.
But what I said instead was, Oh, really?
How exciting.
It doesn't take much encouragement to get him going.
And I found time to test drive the new McHugh sports car yesterday.
I'm thinking of buying one.
Do I really look that gullible?
I knew that the boss didn't have that kind of money, but I didn't let it show on my face and simply said That's a very impressive car.
I have my eye on a luxury vacation condo by the lake.
Some lucky girl will get to stay there with me.
Now I knew he was blowing smoke, but what could I say?
I just muttered, lucky girl, and left it at that.
What was the point of all that unless...
Our story begins with Lucy saying, My boss is a complete blowhard.
A blowhard.
B-L-O-W-H-A-R-D. is a person who likes to talk about why he is so great.
A person who likes to brag, B-R-A-G.
To brag means to talk about your accomplishments in such a way that you want to impress other people.
You want other people to know how great you are.
He likes to boast about his accomplishments and acquisitions every chance he gets, Lucy says.
Again, she's talking about her boss who likes to boast, B-O-A-S-T.
To boast means the same as to brag. accomplishments, A-C-C-O-M-P-L-I-S-H-M-E-N-T-S, are things that you have done, good things that you have done because you have worked hard or because of some skill you have.
To graduate from college is an accomplishment.
It's a good thing that you have done because of your hard work and skill.
The boss also likes to boast about his acquisitions, A-C-Q-U-I-S-I-T-I-O-N-S.
Acquisitions is just a fancy word for things that you have bought and now own, or things that you have obtained.
Perhaps someone gave it to you, but usually an acquisition is something that you bought, or We usually use this word in talking about businesses buying other businesses.
The verb is to acquire, A-C-Q-U-I-R-E.
Interestingly, we also use this term in language development, in talking about how people interact, acquire languages, how they get new languages, and we use the noun acquisition.
But here we're talking about acquiring or getting things.
Every chance he gets is an expression that means whenever he has the opportunity, at every possible moment.
This could refer to something that is good or bad.
It could refer simply to how often you like to go running.
I go running every chance I get, meaning every opportunity I can, I go out and I run.
Or I like to eat Italian food every chance I get.
I like to go to an Italian restaurant whenever I have the opportunity.
Well, Lucy's boss likes to boast about his accomplishments and acquisitions every chance he gets.
She continues, Unfortunately, I seem to be his favorite audience.
An audience, A-U-D-I-E-N-C-E, is someone who is listening to you or watching you.
Usually we use the word audience to refer to a group of people at a performance.
It might be going to a play, or it could also refer to people watching a movie in a movie theater.
We would call that the audience, or people watching the same television program at home.
In this case, it simply means the people who are listening to the boss.
Then we hear the boss speak, who sounds a lot like me, even though I'm not Lucy's boss.
The boss says The expression you won't believe is when you are about to tell someone something that is surprising.
I went mountain climbing and skydiving, the boss says.
Mountain climbing.
C-L-I-M-B-I-N-G is when you go up the side of a mountain, usually holding on to the rocks that are part of the mountain, in order to pull yourself up.
I've never been mountain climbing, but I did try rock climbing once, which is similar, except you go up the side of a rock, not a mountain.
I tried it for about oh 15 minutes.
I was with a friend whom I was working with at the university and her sister.
Her younger sister, who was very attractive, was visiting her from France.
And so we went out to a rock in the middle of the desert, actually out in what we call the high desert here in Southern California, up by Yucca Valley.
We tried to go rock climbing and the younger sister, now this is before I was married, okay?
The younger sister, she put on her equipment and she started climbing up.
And I thought, well, if she can do it, I can do it.
So I started to climb up the mountain or climb up the rock.
But here I thought, well, I have to be strong.
I have to, you know, impress the girl, right?
Make her think that I'm a strong man who can climb rocks.
And I had never gone rock climbing.
The point of the story is I was terrible at it and I didn't get more than like 10 feet.
And well, she went back to France and I never got her telephone number.
Let's just put it that way.
Okay, back to the story.
The boss went mountain climbing and skydiving.
Skydiving S-K-Y-D-I-V-I-N-G is when you jump out of a plane and fall down to the earth, but before you actually hit the earth, you open a parachute, which is something that catches the air and prevents you from killing yourself.
And no, I never went skydiving.
So Lucy's boss is boasting about the things he did this weekend.
She says to herself, of course, what I wanted to say was, uh, spare me.
The expression spare me means that you don't want to hear what the other person has to say.
Lucy continues, But what I said instead, instead of spare me, was, Oh, really?
How exciting!
It doesn't take much encouragement to get him going.
To get someone going means to get another person to do something that they like to do or that you want them to do.
It means to encourage someone to get them to do something.
In this case, it was getting the boss to talk more about himself.
He continues.
To test drive a car means to go out to a car dealer and a business that sells cars and drive a car to see if you like it or not.
Lucy says, do I really look that gullible?
To be gullible, G-U-L-L-I-B-L-E, means that you are easy to fool.
You are easy to trick.
It's easy to make you believe something that isn't true.
Why does Lucy think that the boss thinks that she's gullible?
Because she explains I knew that the boss didn't have that kind of money, meaning he didn't have enough money to buy a McHugh sports car, which is very expensive, you know.
She says but I didn't let it show on my face, meaning I didn't do something that would make him realize that I knew that he was lying.
Instead, she simply said, that's an impressive car.
The boss continues, I have my eye on a luxury vacation condo by the lake.
To have your eye, E-Y-E, on something means you are thinking about buying something.
You are interested in it and you've been investigating it.
Maybe you've been reading the reviews online about it and thinking about what you would do if you bought it.
The boss has his eye on a luxury, meaning a very expensive, a very nice luxury.
Vacation condo, C-O-N-D-O.
Condo is short for condominium.
It's basically an apartment in a building, but you own it.
Depending on where you live.
In the United States, the word apartment is usually just used for a place that you are renting.
In some cities, perhaps, such as New York, you'll talk about buying an apartment.
Here in Los Angeles, I think we would say buying a condo, even though it might be the exact same thing.
The boss says.
Lucy then says to herself To blow smoke S-M-O-K-E is to exaggerate and perhaps to lie.
To say something is either bigger or better than it actually is or simply not to tell the truth.
What could I say, she says.
I just muttered lucky girl and left it at that.
To mutter M-U-T-T-E-R means to say something quietly so that the other person doesn't actually hear you.
You say it to yourself, even though you say it out loud.
Lucy obviously doesn't think that any girl that would be with her boss is lucky, so she's being sarcastic when she says lucky girl.
She says she left it at that.
To leave it at.
That is a phrase we use to mean I'm not going to say anything else, even though I could, even though there's more I could say, I'm going to stop talking about it right now.
At the very end of the story, she wonders why the boss is boasting to her like this.
Then she perhaps realizes, she says, what was the point of all that?
Unless the point, P-O-I-N-T, is the purpose, the meaning.
She's beginning to realize that perhaps the boss is trying to get her interested in him.
Perhaps he is, we would say, hitting on her.
To hit on a woman or man means that you are trying to get that person interested in you.
You are trying to get that person to date you, you know, by going rock climbing with them.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
My boss is a complete blowhard.
He likes to boast about his accomplishments and acquisitions every chance he gets.
Unfortunately, I seem to be his favorite audience.
You won't believe what I did over the weekend.
I went mountain climbing and skydiving.
What I wanted to say was, ugh, spare me.
But what I said instead was, oh really?
How exciting.
It doesn't take much encouragement to get him going.
And I found time to test drive the new McHugh sports car yesterday.
I'm thinking of buying one.
Do I really look that gullible?
I knew that the boss didn't have that kind of money, but I didn't let it show my face and simply said That's a very impressive car.
I have my eye on a luxury vacation condo by the lake.
Some lucky girl will get to stay there with me.
Now I knew he was blowing smoke, but what could I say?
I just muttered, lucky girl, and left it at that.
What was the point of all that?
Unless You should listen to the dialogues of Dr Lucy?
Say every chance you get.
If you do, your English will improve very quickly.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks 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 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
