Tomorrow, November 25 (the fourth Thursday each November), is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. Learn more about the holiday here and here.
Once again, it is time for us to give thanks for the support of our fantastic ESL Podcast listeners, members, and donors. The song below is a parody (funny song based on another song) of the popular 1970′s Gloria Gaynor hit song “I Will Survive.” Happy Thanksgiving!
~ Lucy
“I Will Survive” – Thanksgiving Version
At first I was an egg, I was petrified* (very scared; very frightened)
Kept thinking I’d be lost or I’d get cracked (for something hard to be broken so that a line appears on the surface) and fried
But you took me to your nest (bird’s home) before it was too late
and kept me warm and you helped me incubate (for an egg to be kept warm until a bird is hatched or born).
And now you’re back, think you’re the boss
Wanna put me on a plate next to your wife’s cranberry sauce (a sweet jelly sauce made from cranberries, eaten at Thanksgiving)
I should have known this day would come
I should have known not to relax
If I thought for just a second that you’d come in here with an ax (tool for cutting wood).
Go on now go, walk out the door
Just turn around now
Ain’t chopping (using a sharp tool to cut) my head to the floor.
Weren’t you the one who prized (highly valued) this dark meat on my thighs (upper part of a leg)?
Do you think I’d gobble (make the noise that a turkey makes)?
Did you think I’d lay down and die?
Oh on, not I.
I will survive.
Oh as long as I know how to peck (for a bird to use its hard mouth (beak) to hit or bite), I know I’ll stay alive.
Got my wings so I won’t fall,
Ain’t selling me to Butterball (popular U.S. company that sells turkeys).
I will survive.
I will survive.
…
* “Petrified” can also mean for a living thing to turn into something very, very hard because it is very old, like a fossil.
Over the weekend, Fayssal posted a joke to an older blog post about punctuation that I thought was amusing (funny and entertaining), but that most of you may not see. I am reposting here it for that reason and because it clearly shows the importance of punctuation in determining the meaning of what we write. … An English professor wrote the words ”a woman without her man is nothing” on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.
All of the males in the class wrote:
”A woman, without her man, is nothing.”
All the females in the class wrote:
”A woman: without her, man is nothing.”
…
Here is another, perhaps more well-known, story that also illustrates (shows) the importance of punctuation.
…
A panda (see photo) walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then takes out a gun and fires it (shoots it) at the other patrons (customers).
“Why?” asks the confused, surviving waiter, as the panda makes towards (walks towards) the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual (information book about animals living in nature) and tosses it (gently throws it) over his shoulder.
“Well, I’m a panda,” he says, at the door. “Look it up” (look for the information in the book).
The waiter turns to the information on pandas in the manual and finds an explanation. “Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like animal, native to (comes originally from) China. Eats, shoots, and leaves.”
…
The poorly punctuated manual caused all of these problems for the panda and the people in the café. My question to you is: What is the correct punctuation for the last sentence in the entry — “Eats, shoots, and leaves.”?
~ Lucy
shoots =
1) (verb) to fire a gun; to cause a bullet to leave a gun
2) (noun) bamboo shoots; the young part of a bamboo plant (see photo), eaten as a vegetable, especially in Asian food
leaves =
1) (verb) to depart; to remove oneself from a place
2) (noun) plural of leaf, the smaller green things that grow off of largest part of on a tree or plant
Have you ever had friends or family play a trick on you? If you have, then you may have been “punked.”
If you’re playing a prank or playing a practical joke on someone, it means that you’re deceiving them in some way to have fun or to make other people laugh. In recent years in the U.S., people have started using the word “punked” to describe being the victim (the person harmed or tricked) of a practical joke or prank. In fact, the actor Ashton Kutcher had a show on MTV, the music cable television station, called Punk’d in which he played practical jokes on other celebrities.
Recently, I saw a prank on the website “Funny or Die.” Here’s the setup (arrangement; plan): The producers (makers) of “Funny or Die” asked popular singer Jewel to disguise herself by wearing a wig (false hair) and a fake nose, and to go to a karaoke bar and to sing her own songs. A karaoke bar is a bar where any customer can sing a popular song on stage while recorded music plays, usually performing in front of friends or coworkers for fun. The producers asked her to sing her own hit (very popular) songs as a woman named “Karen” to see how the other bar patrons (customers) would react. After Jewel got her disguise, she was also given some fake coworkers, “business associates,” who went to the bar with her. They all wore badges, which she calls “laminants” in the video, which are identification cards worn on a string around the neck or pinned to a shirt/coat, showing that they were in town to attend a frozen foods convention (large meeting).
When they arrived, Jewel said that their group “really stood out,” meaning that they were very noticeable because they were different from the typical customers in the bar. Her “business associates” were trying to get her to sing, but she pretended to be reluctant (not wanting to do something), until the entire bar was “pulling for her” (wanting her to succeed).
Watch the video below or here at “Funny or Die“. I’ll explain below a few more things people said in the video in case you have difficulty understanding them.
2:48 “She’s kind of homely (not attractive; plain looking).”
3:02 “That’s the first time there’s ever been an encore here (the first time someone has been asked to sing again because the audience enjoyed the first performance so much).”
3:04 “That was pretty off the charts (amazing; better than anyone had expected) there.”
6:14 “That was all set up (all arranged; not real).”
6:18 “I was duped (successfully tricked).”
What do you think of the prank? How would you have reacted if you had been one of the other customers?
It’s hot. In some places, it’s really hot. We often refer to the hot days between early July and early September as the dog days of summer.
Why “dog” and not “cat” or some other animal? In ancienttimes (very long time ago), people associated (connected in their minds) hot summer weather with one of the brightest stars in the night sky, Sirius, which is also called the Dog Star. People believed that because Sirius was close to the sun during the summer months, that caused the sweltering (feeling uncomfortably hot) temperatures.
I grew up in Arizona, as many of you know, so for me, this is the best part of the year. I like it hot, as long as it isn’t too humid (with moisture in the air). When other people are complaining and sweating (with moisture coming out of their skin), I’m loving life (enjoying the situation).
Not surprisingly, comedians (people whose job is to make people laugh) like to make jokes about the hot weather. A very common type of joke goes like this:
Comedian: “It’s hot outside.”
Audience: “How hot is it?” (with the entire audience shouting it at the comedian in unison (at the same time))
Comedian: “It’s so hot that + [punchline, the funny part of a joke]…
Here are a few punchlines from popular comedians that may make you laugh or at least chuckle (laugh a little; laugh quietly), and help you get through these dog days of summer.
- “It’s so hot that I saw a chicken lay a fried egg.”
- “It’s so hot that I saw two trees fighting over (competing for) a dog.”
- “It’s so hot that I discovered that I need only two fingers to drive my car.”
- “It’s so hot that hot water now comes out of both taps (faucets).”
- “It’s so hot that when it falls below 95 (35 degrees Celsius), I feel chilly (a little cold).”
- “It’s so hot that the four seasons are now: tolerable (uncomfortable, but you can endure it), hot, really hot, and ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!”
Are you sweltering where you are? If so, how are you keeping cool?
Forests are large areas in nature with a lot of trees. When a lot of trees are removed from the forest, we call this deforestation.
Deforestation can occur for many reasons. It may happen because of logging, the cutting down of trees so the wood can be used for building, for fuel (source of energy), and/or to make paper products. Deforestation may also occur when people want to use the land for other things, such as for homes or for pastures (land with green grass and plants) for livestock (animals raised for food or to work).
Environmentalists, people concerned with protecting nature and the environment, have long warned us about the negative effects of deforestation, including soil erosion, or the loss of soil (the layer of dirt where plants grow), and climate and air quality changes.
However, the follow photo shows another important negative effect of deforestation. As the old saying goes: “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
A couple of weeks ago, we received a listener email message about the podcast. In the message, the listener said that he was glad to see a picture of me on the Internet and to know what I looked like. Curious to know what I looked like, too, I did an image (picture) search and found a few of my Googlegangers.
I found this woman who works as a community coordinator (organizer) in Canada, but sadly, I’m not Canadian.
I found these woman with Facebook pages, but sadly, I’m not active on Facebook.
Finally, after a lot of searching (looking), I spotted (found) a video of me. I’ve told people for years that I’ve started to age backwards (starting with the end and going to the beginning), much like Benjamin Button. Now, maybe they’ll believe me.
Check out my fancy moves (dance steps)! I bet you didn’t know I was this nimble (able to make quick and graceful movements). If this whole podcast thing doesn’t work out (become successful), I know I have a backup plan (something else I can do if I fail at the first thing).
Just wanted to write you all a quick note to announce that, contrary to (the opposite of) what some of you may be thinking, I will not – repeat, not – be participating in the 2010 Olympic Games that begin tomorrow in Vancouver, Canada (a little country north of the U.S., I think). It was a difficult decision, but I decided that since I cannot skate, ski, snowboard, bobsled, luge, “skeleton” sled, curl, play hockey, or shoot a gun (it’s part of the biathalon…seriously!), there was no point (no need, it didn’t make sense) for me to try to represent the U.S. of A. in Vancouver this year.
Perhaps next time they’ll have a sport I can participate in…like watching the Olympics on TV.
I’m not sure these are, in fact, the best one-liners (short jokes or funny/clever remarks), but I thought these were pretty good when I saw them recently in a magazine.
~ Lucy
…..
“If you can’t say something good about someone, come, sit right here by me.”
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
(She was the oldest child of President Theodore Roosevelt. This is a takeoff (different version) of the popular saying, “If you can’t say something good about someone, don’t say anything at all.”)
“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
(She is a historian at Harvard University.)
“The reward for conformity (doing what is expected of us socially) is that everyone likes you except yourself.”
Rita Mae Brown
(She is an American novelist.)
“It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”
- Dolly Parton on her signature (unique; distinctive) look
(She is a very well known country singer, most popular in the 1970s and 1980s.)
And, finally:
“A facility (ability to do something easily and well) for quotation covers the absence (being without) of original thought.
Lord Peter Wimsey
(He is a character in Dorothy Sayers’ classic mystery novels from 1930s and 1940s.)
Henny Youngman was a comedian most famous and popular in the U.S. in the 1950′s. He was known for his one-liners, which are short, simple jokes that are usually delivered (said) quickly. We talked about perhaps his most famous joke in the Learning Guide for English Cafe 47. His jokes are still told today.
Friday’s ESL Podcast 379 is called “A Routine Medical Procedure.” If you need to see the doctor, I hope you don’t see one of these!
~ Lucy
The doctor says, “You’ll live to be 60!”
The patient says, “I am 60!”
The doctor says, “See, what did I tell you (what I told you was right)?”
…
A doctor says to a man, “You want to improve your love life? You need to get some exercise. Run 10 miles a day.”
Two weeks later, the man called the doctor.
The doctor says, “How is your love life since you have been running?”
“I don’t know, I’m 140 miles away!”
…
The doctor says to the patient, “Take your clothes off and stick your tongue out the window.”
“What will that do?” asks the patient.
The doctor says, “I’m mad (angry) at my neighbor!”
…
Doctor says to a man, “You’re pregnant (going to have a baby)!”
The man says, “How does a man get pregnant?”
The doctor says, “The usual way – a little wine, a little dinner….”
…
Nurse: “Doctor, the man you just gave a clean bill of health to (told was completely healthy) dropped dead right (immediately; at the moment) as he was leaving the office”.
Doctor: “Turn him around. Make it look like he was walking in.”
…
A doctor gave a man six months to live. The man couldn’t pay his bill, so the doctor gave him another six months.
* Cartoon: Funny has two meanings. It means something that makes you laugh and something that is strange or feels strange. Ridiculous = silly; absurd
