Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 701, Improving Your Looks.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 701.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Don't miss the learning guide for this episode.
That will help you improve your English much more quickly than if you don't have our learning guide.
This episode is called Improving Your Looks.
It's going to talk about physical features, things that may make you look more handsome or more beautiful.
Let's get started.
Where have you been?
Is she going to sign you?
She might.
She suggested a few improvements that are going to make me more saleable as an actress.
What did she suggest?
There's nothing wrong with your hair.
Well, she thought it could use some sprucing up.
She also recommended getting my teeth capped.
At the very least, she said I should have teeth whitening done.
Your teeth look nice and natural.
There's nothing wrong with them.
She also suggested getting a spray tan so I'd look healthier.
You already look healthy.
Is she crazy?
No, I think she's giving me good constructive criticism.
I want to make myself as saleable as possible.
It sounds like she wants to stamp out all of your individuality and turn you into a clone of every other actress out there.
I was thinking of taking her advice.
I want to be saleable.
You're a person, not a piece of meat.
Saleable shmailable.
Don't you even think about it.
Leo begins our dialogue by saying to Mai, where have you been?
Mai says, I've been meeting with an agent.
An agent in this case is a person who represents actors musicians, writers or other artists to try to find work for them.
Most actors here in Los Angeles in Hollywood, have an agent, someone who tries to find jobs for them and not jobs working as a waiter or waitress.
Agent has some other meanings in English as well.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
She says, she wants to become an actor.
Mai does.
But today I actually met with a real agent.
She thinks I have potential.
Potential means the possibility of being able to do something.
You're not doing it right now, but you have the ability to do it perhaps in the future.
Leo says, is she going to sign you?
To sign you is to create a contract, a legal agreement to work for this particular person.
We normally talk about athletes, professional athletes, singers, artists.
They sign with a certain company or, in the case of athletes, a certain team, and therefore have to work for them.
That's what Mai is referring to, or rather Leo.
He's asking the question, I guess.
Mai says she might.
She might sign me.
It's not clear.
We're not sure.
She says her agent suggested.
A few improvements to that are going to make me more saleable as an actress.
Saleable, S-A-L-A-B-L-E comes from the word sale, which is related to the verb to sell.
Saleable is the ability to be sold easily.
In the case of a person, it would be the ability to get a job or to get work because of your qualities or characteristics.
Mai says that her agent wants to make her more saleable as an actress.
Notice that she uses both the word actor and actress.
Traditionally, a woman was called an actress, a man was called an actor.
But more recently, the word actor has been used to describe both a man and a woman.
But women can still call themselves actresses.
The word actors could refer to a man or to a woman.
Mai says that her agent has suggested that she get some hair extensions to make her hair look longer and fuller.
Hair extensions are basically artificial hair not your own hair that you attach or put on your hair to make your hair look longer.
It's something that has become popular for women to do, although I'm thinking of getting some hair extensions myself.
First I have to get some hair, then I'll get the hair extensions.
The hair extensions will make Mai's hair look longer and fuller.
Fuller hair would be hair with more volume, hair that has a lot of shape.
It doesn't just hang down from your head.
It seems to move around more, perhaps.
That's fuller hair.
Leo says there's nothing wrong with your hair, meaning your hair is just fine the way it is right now.
Mai says, well, her agent thought it could use some sprucing up.
To spruce S-P-R-U-C-E up.
Something is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to make something look a little nicer, to improve the way it looks.
Normally we use this to talk about, for example, your house.
We clean it up, we make it look nicer.
Here it's being used to talk about Mai's hair.
So Mai says that the agent also recommended getting her teeth capped.
To cap, C-A-P your teeth means to go to the dentist and and allow the dentist to put little pieces over each of your teeth, basically covering your teeth with something that looks like teeth but is whiter and has a better appearance.
Mai says, at the very least, she said I should have teeth whitening done.
At the very least means the minimum that she should do would be to get some teeth whitening.
To whiten your teeth means to make them whiter.
Teeth whitening is when you put something on your teeth to make them whiter, especially if your teeth perhaps, are yellow or gray.
It makes your teeth look a little better.
Leo says your teeth look nice and natural.
There's nothing wrong with them.
Mai says the agent also suggested getting a spray tan so she'd look healthier.
A spray tan is where you go to a place and they basically paint your body.
They spray this chemical to make your skin look darker.
So you don't have to go out into the sun and sit in the sun.
You can just have someone spray paint on you, a kind of chemical.
It's not paint.
It makes you look as though you had gone suntanning.
This has become very popular here in Los Angeles with celebrities, with actors and actresses.
I do not have a spray tan, so I guess I'm not a celebrity.
The agent thought the spray tan would make my look healthier.
Leo says you already look healthy.
Is she, this agent, crazy?
Mai says no.
I think she's giving me good constructive criticism.
Criticism is when you tell someone what they are doing wrong.
Constructive criticism is telling someone what they are doing wrong, but you are telling them so that they can improve it, to make it better.
You're telling them yes, you're doing that wrong, but if you do this, you can do it better or you can improve the way you are doing it.
So if someone says, you're ugly, well, that's criticism.
But if they say you're ugly, but if you had more hair on your head, then you would be less ugly.
That's what people tell me all the time.
So Mai is getting what she thinks is constructive criticism from her agent.
She says, I want to make myself as saleable as possible.
Leo says it sounds like this agent wants to stamp out all of your individuality and turn you into a clone of every other actress out there.
Leo says it sounds like meaning.
It appears to me, or it seems to me, that your agent wants to stamp out all of your individuality.
To stamp out is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to end or eliminate something, to get rid of something.
What the agent wants to get rid of, to eliminate something, is Mai's individuality.
Individuality means the things that make you special, unlike anyone else.
The things that make you unique.
Instead, this agent wants to turn Mai into, to change her into a clone of every other actress out there.
A clone, C-L-O-N-E, in this case means an exact copy of another person.
You will look just like the other person, dress like them, talk like them, and so forth.
The agent wants Mai to look like all of the other beautiful Hollywood actresses.
She will be a clone of all the other actresses out there.
Out there just means working right now in existence.
Mai says I was thinking of taking her advice.
I want to be saleable.
Leo says you're a person, not a piece of meat.
He means that she's not an object.
She isn't selling herself.
She shouldn't be trying to just sell herself.
She should realize that she's a unique individual, a human being.
Leo says saleable, shmailable.
Don't you even think about it.
The word shmailable isn't a real word.
What Leo is doing is using the sound shm S-C-H-M, which is very common in Yiddish words, and attaching it to English to create a word, to be funny, to make a word sound like as if it were Yiddish.
Yiddish, as you may know, is a language that is spoken.
It is spoken form of German, but was popular and still is in some areas, among those who are of the Jewish religion.
At least that's its association.
The word Yiddish actually means Jewish.
Several early American comedians in the 20th century were associated with Yiddish culture, the Yiddish language and used it.
One of those was a man by the name of Leo Rosten who wrote a couple of very funny books that I remember reading when I was in high school.
The Joy of Yiddish, I think one of them was called.
Anyway, our Leo is using a little Yiddish joke here.
He's saying, salable shmalable.
What it means is that you are saying that's not important or that's not something we should worry about.
For example, you could say, I have to read a bunch of books.
And your friend says, ah, books, schmucks, stop it.
We need to go have fun.
The schmucks means that the books aren't important.
It's one of those strange changes that native speakers will sometimes make to their own language to make it funny.
I think most languages have similar strategies in making funny expressions, and this is just another one of those.
Anyway, Leo says, don't even think about it.
That expression is used to warn someone that this is a very bad idea.
Leo thinks it's a bad idea for Mai to try to change her physical appearance just so she can be more saleable.
Kind of like that old Billy Joel song.
Don't go changing to try and please me.
Remember that one?
No?
Okay.
Well, now we'll listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Where have you been?
I've been meeting with an agent.
You know I've wanted to pursue a career in acting for a long time, but today I actually met with a real agent.
She thinks I have potential.
Is she going to sign you?
She might.
She suggested a few improvements that are going to make me more saleable as an actress.
What did she suggest?
Well, she thought I should get some hair extensions to make my hair look longer and fuller.
There's nothing wrong with your hair.
Well, she thought it could use some sprucing up.
She also recommended getting my teeth capped.
At the very least, she said I should have teeth whitening done.
Your teeth look nice and natural.
There's nothing wrong with them.
She also suggested getting a spray tan so I'd look healthier.
You already look healthy.
Is she crazy?
No, I think she's giving me good constructive criticism.
I want to make myself as saleable as possible.
It sounds like she wants to stamp out all of your individuality and turn you into a clone of every other actress out there.
I was thinking of taking her advice.
I want to be saleable.
You're a person, not a piece of meat.
Salable shmalable.
Don't you even think about it.
If you want to stamp out all of your problems in English, just keep listening to the wonderful scripts by our own scriptwriter, the wonderful Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
