EC051_Guide.pdf

English as a Second Language Podcast

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 51

TOPICS

Topics: Mount Rushmore, Indian summer, to cut to the chase, to jaywalk, current

vs. present, to prove someone wrong

_____________

GLOSSARY

mount – a mountain or a hill

* He has been a mountain climber for ten years and hopes to climb Mount

Everest someday.

monument – a statue, building, or other structure made to remember and show

respect for a famous person or event

* There are a lot of monuments to see and to visit if you go to Greece this

summer.

to carve – to cut into a hard material, such as stone, to make an object or design

* At the party, there was a beautiful sculpture of a bird carved out of ice!

Indian summer – a time in late fall with unusually warm weather

* It’s nice to have an Indian summer so late in October. It means we won’t have

cold weather for a few more days.

dog days of summer – the hottest time of the year, occurring during the

summer

* We’re getting through these dog days of summer by drinking a lot of water and

staying indoors.

humidity – wetness in the air; air with a lot of moisture

* The museum keeps the air condition on all of the time so the humidity will not

damage the paintings.

severe heat wave – a long period of very hot weather

* So far, the severe heat wave hasn’t reached Texas, but it may next week.

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 51

to harvest – to pick or gather the crops (food) growing in the fields

* Do you think we can harvest the entire grape crop before the big storm arrives?

harvest moon – the full moon closest to the “autumnal equinox,” the time in the

fall when day and night are the same length of time

* In some countries, there is a big festival to celebrate the harvest moon.

crops – fruits, vegetables, and grains grown for food

* Ten years ago, there was no crop on this land. Now, they grow cotton here.

horizon – the line where the sky and the earth (land) appear to meet

* If you look closely at the horizon, you’ll see their ship coming this way.

optical illusion – seeing something that isn’t there or that is different than it

really is

* On a hot day, I often see water on the roads, but that’s just an optical illusion.

to cut to the chase – to come to the most interesting or important part of

something right away

* Why don’t you cut to the chase and tell me whether you got the job or not?

to jaywalk – to walk across a street illegally

* She jaywalked right in front of the police officer and got a $50 ticket!

to prove someone wrong – to show that someone is wrong; to show someone

the truth so that they know they are wrong

* He told me that I was too short to become a professional basketball player, but

I’m going to prove him wrong.

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English as a Second Language Podcast

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 51

WHAT INSIDERS KNOW

“I’m shocked, shocked!”

This saying is taken from a well-known American movie called Casablanca that

came out in 1942. This “classic,” or old high quality movie is about an American

named Rick, who owns a bar in Casablanca, a city in Morocco. The “police

chief,” or the highest ranked police officer, wants to close Rick’s bar. Rick is

unhappy and asks him why. The police chief says, “because I’m shocked,

shocked to find gambling at this establishment (place of business), sir.” At that

very moment, a man who works at the bar gives the police chief some money

and says, “You winnings, sir.” This shows that the police chief himself gambles

there regularly and that the reason he gave was not the truth.

Today, this phrase, “I’m shocked, shocked!” is usually used when we want to

pretend that something is surprising to us, but it is really not. For example, your

friend likes to go shopping and he always buys a lot of things when he goes to

the shopping mall on the weekends. He calls you on Monday and tells you that

he bought a few things on his shopping trip. You respond by saying, “I’m

shocked, shocked!” Of course, you are not surprised, but you are being

“sarcastic.” “Sarcasm,” the noun, means that you are trying to be funny by

saying something that is the opposite of your meaning. “Sarcastic” is the

adjective: “Were you being sarcastic or would you really want to spend 20 hours

this weekend helping me move to my new apartment?”

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English as a Second Language Podcast

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 51

COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café

number 51.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 51. I'm

your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational

Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.

Visit our website at eslpod.com to get the complete Learning Guide for this

podcast. This is an eight to ten page guide that includes all the vocabulary,

additional vocabulary and definitions, as well as the complete transcript of the

podcast.

On our Café today we're going to talk about a famous place in the United States

called Mount Rushmore. We will talk about the terms Indian summer and dog

days of summer, and as always, we'll answer a few questions. Let's get started.

Our first topic in today's Café is a place in the United States called Mount

Rushmore, “Rushmore.” The word mount, “mount,” is short for mountain, but we

don't normally call things mountain if they have a name, we give them instead the

term mount. So, Mount McKinley, for example, is a tall mountain. Mount

Rushmore is not a very tall mountain. It's located in a place called the Black

Hills, and it's a area in the western part of the State of South Dakota. South

Dakota is in the north-central part of the United States next to the beautiful State

of Minnesota.

South Dakota doesn't...well, doesn't have a lot to do. It's a fairly dry state. There

is farming in South Dakota, but there isn't a lot to do there. And, some of the

people who lived in South Dakota wanted to get more tourism, more people to

come and visit and, of course, spend money. And, back in the early part of the

20th century, back in the early 1920s, a group of people decided that they would

create something that other Americans would want to come and see and what

they created was a monument. A monument, “monument,” is usually a building

or a statue in honor of someone. In London, in Trafalgar Square in London,

there's a monument to the famous British general, Lord Nelson. And, in the

United States, in Washington D.C. there's a monument to President Washington:

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 51

the Washington Monument. Although, that doesn't look like President

Washington. Maybe it looks like his nose, I'm not sure.

Mount Rushmore is a monument to four American presidents: George

Washington, who is our first president; Thomas Jefferson, our third president;

Abraham Lincoln, who was our sixteenth president and the president that fought

on the winning side of the American Civil War in the middle of the 19th century;

and finally, Theodore Roosevelt, who was a president in the early part of the

twentieth century.

Well, these four presidents have their pictures carved into the mountain. To

carve, “carve,” into stone or into rock means that you take a piece of metal, what

we would call, in most cases, a chisel, “chisel” - that's a piece of metal that you

use to break up rock or to put some sort of decoration into a rock or a stone -

they take a chisel and you - with a hammer, you can hit the chisel so that it

breaks up part of the stone or part of the rock. Well, Mount Rushmore - they

didn't use a lot of chisels, they probably used explosives, things like dynamite,

“dynamite,” which is something that explodes. Well, they decided to put these

four presidents, their faces, up on the mountain, and they're huge, huge - very

big pictures of them carved into the stone. It's part of the stone, the rock looks

like the four president's faces, and it's a very famous scene. It became a famous

scene in the United States. Most people could recognize Mount Rushmore, most

Americans, if you ask them.

It was built between 1927 and 1941. It took several years to carve the stone. It's

now a park, what we would call a National Park. In the United States, the federal

government, the national government, has a system of parks. The Grand

Canyon, for example, which is a big hole in the desert of Arizona caused by the

Colorado River. That's a National Park. You may have heard of Yellowstone

National Park. That's, I believe, our first National Park. There are several

dozens of National Parks in the United States and Mount Rushmore is one of

them. So, the federal government owns that land. And, you can drive to Mount

Rushmore. It takes a while to get there from a big city. There aren't any big

cities really close to that area, but you can drive there and see these four faces.

I've been to Mount Rushmore. I went when I was about eight, nine years old -

just as a boy. I didn't go by myself though. My parents took me. I could've gone

by myself. I could have walked from Minnesota. It would have taken maybe a

month or so. But, I decided to go with my parents, and it is a very impressive site

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