Cultural English

Complete Transcript

You’re listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café number 22.

This is ESL Podcast’s English Café episode 22. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.

On this Café, we’re going to talk about a famous woman in American history, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and something called the Seneca Falls Convention. We’ll also talk a little bit more about interjections in English. And as always, we’ll answer a few of your questions. Let’s get started.

Elizabeth Cady was born on November 12th, 1815, in the state of New York. New York is on the eastern coast of the United States, one of the original 13 states of the Union. Unlike many women at the time, Elizabeth received an excellent education, first at the local school, Johnstown Academy, and later at a college for women called the Troy Female Seminary. A “seminary” (seminary) is basically a college that prepares you to be a religious leader.

Troy Female Seminary was the first school that gave women an education equal to the kind of education men received at colleges and universities. In fact, at this time, women weren’t allowed to go to most colleges, certainly not colleges for men. After she graduated, Elizabeth studied law with her father. Her father was not just any lawyer – he was a congressman. He was a representative of New York in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. He was also a New York Supreme Court judge.

The Supreme Court of the state is the highest-level court, the highest-level panel of judges, we might say, in a state. The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest court in the entire country. In her father’s office, she began to realize and fully understand how the laws of the United States, at this time, were not fair to women. At the time, women were not allowed to own property, to keep money they had earned, or to be guardian of their own children, even. A “guardian” (guardian) is the person who is legally responsible for another person.

Now, these conditions were not unusual. If you compare the U.S. to other countries, most of these same things were also true. Women were also not allowed to be elected to government or to vote. This was when Cady Stanton decided to get involved in women’s rights. A “right” (right) is something that people should have because the law says they should have it, or because it is considered socially acceptable. In a legal sense, however, a right is something that is guaranteed you by law.

In addition to the early women’s rights movement, Elizabeth also got interested in the abolition movement. The abolition movement was the organized efforts to end slavery in the United States. It was through her interest in the abolition movement that Elizabeth met her husband, Henry Brewster Stanton. Henry Stanton was very active in the abolition movement. He was one of its leaders. The two married in 1840 and remained married until Henry’s death in 1887. They had seven children – five boys and two girls.

Shortly after their marriage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton became a very active speaker, talking about the importance of women’s rights. She helped gain support for a law in New York that gave married women property rights. That was in 1848. Until that time, married women in New York did not have a right to own property or to do business related to owning property.

Beginning in 1839, some states in the U.S. began passing laws allowing married women the same property rights that their husbands had. And in 1848, this law was passed in New York State. Remember that in the U.S., each state has a lot of control over different laws for that state. There are also national, or federal, laws that are approved by the U.S. Congress and signed off on by the U.S. president.

1848 was a very important year in the history of Europe, but also in the United States, because it was in that year that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and another woman, Lucretia Mott, got together to organize a meeting. The meeting was to take place in a city or a town in New York called Seneca Falls. Seneca Falls is about 400 kilometers, or 260 miles, northwest of New York City. This meeting was called the “Seneca Falls Convention.” A “convention” (convention) is a large meeting, a large conference that focuses on a particular topic.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mott had met in 1840 at an abolitionist movement – the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London, England. At that convention, the women had been allowed to attend, but not to speak or participate in any way. This, you can understand, made both women angry, and it inspired them. It gave them the idea to come together later to focus on women’s rights.

So, in July of 1848, they put a notice in the Seneca Falls newspaper, sort of like an advertisement, saying that they were going to have a convention in Seneca Falls to discuss women’s rights. On July 19th, the convention began with 200 women in the audience. Over the next two days, Cady Stanton, Mott, and other people in the audience talked about women’s rights and what they could do to gain equality, or equal treatment. During the convention, Elizabeth introduced what she called her “Declaration of Sentiments.” A “declaration” (declaration) is a formal announcement of something.

The most important declaration in American history was the “Declaration of Independence” in 1776. We declared, we announced, to Great Britain that we were going to be independent. For some reason, they didn’t like that idea. I’m not sure why. “Sentiments” here refers to ideas, views, opinions about a certain situation. The “Declaration of Sentiments” was in fact modeled after – it used a similar format in similar language as – the Declaration of Independence.

After reading the Declaration of Sentiments, the members of the Seneca Falls Convention approved or passed 12 resolutions about women’s rights in the U.S. A “resolution” (resolution) at a conference or a convention is a decision about something that you support or something that you are going to do. These resolutions focused on ideas regarding women’s equality – how women should be equal to men and should be encouraged and allowed to be independent of their fathers and husbands.

Really only one of the resolutions was controversial – was something that caused discussion and disagreement – and that was a resolution that said that women should be allowed to vote in elections. Many of the people at the convention thought that asking for the right to vote would make it impossible to get support for the other resolutions, which were less controversial.

After a long discussion, however, the resolution was approved by a majority of the people at the convention, and from this point on, women’s suffrage became an important part of the women’s rights movement. “Suffrage” (suffrage) refers to the right to vote in political elections. Women who are in support of women’s right to vote were called “suffragettes.”

Many historians look back at the Seneca Falls Convention as being the beginning of the women’s rights movement in the United States. In fact, a few weeks after the Seneca Falls Convention, another women’s rights convention was held not too far away in Rochester, New York.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton continued working on women’s rights, and in particular women’s suffrage, for the rest of her life. She traveled around the country speaking to not just women, but men as well – in particular, lawmakers, the people who had the responsibility in government of deciding on which laws would be approved. She wrote long essays and articles for newspapers and magazines. She wrote books on the history of women’s rights, as well as the story of her own life – what we would call her “autobiography.”

Over the course of her life, over her many years, Cady Stanton saw many laws passed that did give women equal rights to men, but she did not live long enough to see women earn what she thought was the most important right: the right to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton died of heart failure in 1902 in her home in New York City. Eighteen years later – just 18 years later – women in the United States were finally given the right to vote.

The 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gave women the right to vote, and that was added in 1920. Although she wasn’t alive to see the law passed, Cady Stanton had become very involved in the process, and is considered the founder, or one of the founders, of the suffrage movement for women in the U.S.

Let’s turn to our second topic now, interjections. We’ve talked about interjections in other Cafés. I want to continue with a few more that are common, that you might hear native speakers say in conversation.

The first interjection we’ll talk about is “uh-oh.” “Uh-oh” spelled (uh-oh) is used when something goes wrong, when someone makes a mistake. If you hear someone say, “Uh-oh,” it’s a sign of something bad that has happened. Your wife is cooking dinner for you, and she opens the oven to check on it and says, “Uh-oh.” That means you probably will not have a very good dinner. Of course, you should be cooking dinner for your wife. You know what to do – you eat the dinner and you don’t complain.

Another common interjection is “ouch” (ouch). “Ouch” is used when you experience pain, to show that you are in pain. For example, I may cut myself or hit my hand against the table accidentally, and I hurt myself. I say, “Ouch!” Usually, we say it immediately upon feeling the pain. So, “oh-oh” is for a mistake and “ouch” is when you are in pain.

Another interjection that you will hear people use is “whew.” “Whew,” which is kind of an odd sound, is spelled (whew). But you won’t see it all that often in print, written down. You will hear it, however. This interjection means that we feel relieved or happy because something bad we expected to happen didn’t actually happen. We feel what we might call a “sense of relief” (relief). “Relief” is when you feel relaxed or happy after something bad has finished, or in this case because something bad didn’t happen.

Another common interjection is used when you are cold, and that interjection is “Brr.” “Brr,” spelled (brr) – there’s no vowel in the interjection, is something we say when we feel cold. If you walk into a room expecting it to be warm, but it is, in fact, very cold, you might say, “Brr, I need to wear my coat in this room.”

You might be asking if we have an interjection we use when we’re feeling very hot, and I can’t honestly think of one. Someone might say, “Huh,” but that’s not necessarily the case in all situations where you feel hot. We don’t have a good interjection for feeling hot – again, at least one I can think of right now.

The final interjection I’ll talk about is a fairly recent one, and that is “d’oh.” “D’oh” – spelled (d’oh) – comes from a popular television show, The Simpsons. The Simpsons is about a family whose father is named Homer. Homer is not very intelligent, and he is famous for saying “D’oh” when he has done something stupid, or something bad has happened or is about to happen to him.

An older interjection, probably still a little more common at least among those of my age is, “Oh, no.” If your mother in law says she’s coming to visit for three months, you might say, “Oh, no.” Or you could say, “D’oh.” She’s not really coming here, is she?

Okay, we’ve talked a lot about interjections. Now let’s answer a few of your questions.

Our first question comes from Greg (Greg) in Poland. Greg wants to know the difference between “in” and “into.” Let’s start with “into” (into). “Into” is normally used when we are talking about a person or a thing entering another area, another space. For example, I could say, “I walked into the room.” I wasn’t in the room before, but now I am. Or “I put my phone into my bag.” It wasn’t in the bag before, but now it is. So, when you take something and you place this thing within an enclosed space or another space that you can define, such as a room or a bag, you can use this preposition “into.”

Now, like many prepositions, it’s difficult sometimes to translate it into another language because it might have several different uses, and in your language you might use several different prepositions or no preposition at all to mean the same thing as we do when we use “into” in English. But one common use is the one I just described – when you are taking something and putting it into another space.

The preposition “in” is often used to describe where something is once it’s already there. Someone may ask me where I am, and I could answer, “I’m in the kitchen.” I walked into the kitchen, and now I am in the kitchen. Or you could say, “Where’s my phone? Oh, I remember it’s in my purse.” That’s its location. Now, there are many other uses of “in” and “into.” We could probably spend a whole Café talking about them, but those are two common uses that will help you distinguish between “in” and “into.”

Raphael (Raphael) in Venezuela wants to know how we use the word “indeed” in English. “Indeed” (indeed) is an adverb that we use for emphasis, to really make our point. There are a couple of ways you could use it.

One is when you are describing the way something really is, or truly is, or actually is. “Is John really here?” “Yes, he is indeed here.” It doesn’t really add anything to the meaning. You could just say, “Yes, John is here.” The “indeed,” however, gives it a stronger emphasis – like you’re really trying to express the point forcefully to make sure the other person really understands what you are saying. There’s an old expression, “A friend in need,” meaning a friend who helps you when you need something, “is a friend indeed,” meaning the person is really a friend of yours. “A friend in need is a friend indeed.”

We turn now to the other side of the world, to China, and a question from Ali (Ali). The question has to do with an expression he saw on a website, “mail-in rebate.” What is a mail-in rebate? Let’s start with the word “rebate” (rebate). A rebate is when a company gives you money back after you buy something.

So, let’s say you go to the store and buy a new television. Well, after you buy the television, you mail in your receipt to the company and the company sends you a $100 check. You may have bought the television for $500, but you get $100 back. That’s a rebate. Now why doesn’t the company just sell you the television for $400? Well, that’s a different kind of question that we don’t have the expertise, the knowledge, to answer. It’s a marketing question.

But the important thing is, the definition of the word “rebate” is when you get money back after you buy something. Now, I mentioned that you have to mail the receipt in. “To mail something in” really means the same as to mail it. It means to send it to the company, in this case. So “mail-in” (mail-in) is describing the kind of rebate.

I’m not sure how popular mail-in rebates are anymore when nowadays people buy a lot of what they have on the Internet. I’m not even sure how popular rebates are anymore to get people to buy things, but once upon a time, mail-in rebates were a popular way of getting people’s attention. I guess people feel as though they somehow got something back from the company, even though it’s the same $100 they paid the company originally.

We’re going back over to Europe now. We have a question from Sylvia (Sylvia) in Madrid, Spain. Sylvia wants to know the difference between “on time” and “in time.” “On time” means that you are on schedule. You are arriving at a place at the time you said you were going to be there, or something is arriving at the time it’s supposed to.

For example, the train is supposed to arrive at the train station at seven o’clock. If it arrives “on time,” it arrives at seven o’clock. It arrives at the time you expected to arrive. If it arrives later than seven o’clock, which is probably more common, we would say it arrived “late.” Of course, if it comes before seven o’clock, it arrived “early,” is how we would say it.

“In time” is slightly different. “In time” is used when you have what we would call a “deadline,” a certain time or day by which something must be done. For example, your boss tells you that she needs a report by five o’clock this afternoon on the project you have been working on. If you give it to her at 4:45, you’ve given it to her “in time” – before the deadline, before you had to. If you give your boss the report at 5:30, you did not give it to her in time, and you might be looking for another job tomorrow.

Finally we have a question from Akira (Akira) in Japan. Akira wants to know about the verbs “to administer,” “to manage,” and “to administrate.” What’s the difference between these three verbs? Well, they all have similar meanings. They all refer to a person who is in charge of or who is taking care of a certain project or organization. It’s the leader of a certain group. It could be the boss, for example, the person responsible for a larger project or a larger group of people. While all three verbs mean to handle or take care of, some are used in only certain circumstances.

The most common of these three verbs would be “to manage” (manage). We talk about someone “managing a project” or “managing a difficult situation,” even. “To manage” means to take care of, to handle. We call a person who manages, a “manager,” simply adding an “r” to the end of the verb. “Manage” is a good general verb to use in these situations and is probably the one you could use in almost any situation.

“To administer” (administer) is usually used with someone who is in charge of a very large program, a very large project – an entire department, for example, a large group of people. The verb “to administer” is also used in medicine when you are giving a drug to someone. “The nurse administered the medicine” – took the needle and put it under your skin in order to give you the medicine. But in business, “administer” is used for someone who manages a very large project or a large group of people.

“Administrate” (administrate) is the least common of these three verbs. It means the same as “administer.” Notice that if you want to describe someone who “administers” or “administrates,” we would call that person an “administrator,” with an “or” at the end of the verb “administrate” (getting rid of the “e,” of course). An administrator is the person who administrates or administers a large program or project.

That’s all we have time for on today’s Café. As always, we ask you to visit our website for more information at ESLPod.com (more information about improving your English, I mean).

From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. Thank you for listening. Come back and listen to us again right here on the English Café.

ESL Podcast’s English Café is written and produced by Dr. Jeff McQuillan and Dr. Lucy Tse. This podcast is copyright 2006 by the Center for Educational Development.

Glossary
convention - a large meeting; a large conference that focuses on a particular topic

* We met a lot of other salespeople at the convention who work in our field.


suffrage – the right to vote in political elections

* Many people believe that suffrage is necessary for any healthy democracy.


uh-oh – uh-oh; an interjection or exclamation used when someone has made a mistake or when something bad or unlucky has happened

* Lieselotte muttered a quiet “uh-oh” when she looked through her purse and could not find her keys.


sign of – an indication of; an object or action that expresses or suggests additional action

* Nathaniel believed his promotion was a sign of a bright future in the company.


ouch – an interjection or exclamation used when one gets hurt or feels pain; an expression used to show one's understanding of another person's pain

* Karen yelled “Ouch!” when she cut herself while chopping vegetables.


whew – an interjection, exclamation, or sound made when one feels relieved; an expression used when something bad that one expected to happen does not happen

* After getting his exam back and finding out that he did better than he expected, Philip said, “Whew! I really thought I would fail that one.”


relief – the feeling one experiences when something bad that one expected or thought would happen does not happen

* After having a difficult pregnancy, the news that her baby was born healthy came as a huge relief to Renée.


brr – an interjection or exclamation used when one feels cold or chilly

* Brr! This movie theater is a lot colder than I expected it to be.


d'oh – an interjection or exclamation used after doing or saying something stupid, dumb, or obviously incorrect, first used on an animated television show called The Simpsons

* After realizing that he had missed the turn to his house, Mitch said “d’oh!”


into – moving inside a closed or contained space or location; interested in

* Cam put her puppy into its cage to prevent it from escaping when she opened the door.


indeed – truly, really, or actually; an expression used to confirm or agree with a statement or comment someone else made

* A: Is Angela was a hard worker?

B: Indeed she is. She works harder than any other employee we have.


rebate – refund or partial refund; an offer or process in which a company gives some or all of a customer's money back after the customer purchases that company's product and mails or sends in a special document, usually used to encourage people to buy that company's product

* The computer costs $850, but with the $100 rebate, the price drops to $750.


to mail in – to send something to a specific location using the U.S. mail service; to ship or send a printed copy of something

* Clem does not like to pay his bills online so he mails in checks for each one.


proof of purchase – a receipt, brand seal, or UPC symbol; a document or piece of paper which proves that one purchased an item

* Li cannot get any money back for the product because she had discarded her proof of purchase, and the company would not accept the request without it.


on time – on schedule; arriving when planned or scheduled to arrive

* Weldon worried that he might be late for work, but he arrived right on time.


in time – meeting a deadline; finishing something by the required day and time

* The assignment took a long time to complete, but Gina worked hard and managed to finish it in time.


deadline – time limit; a day and time by which a task needs to be completed

* The deadline for entry into the contest was October 1, and since it was already October 4, Eliseo had missed his chance.

to administer – to lead a large organization, company, or program; to be responsible for the operation or organization of a large organization

* Mrs. Tomasi administers a school district of approximately 7,000 students.


to manage – to lead the employees of a small company, organization, or department (a section or part of a company); to be in charge of or responsible for a group of workers

* Boyd manages the night shift at the 24-hour convenience store.


to administrate – to organize or lead a large group of people in a large organization, company, or program; to administer

* Lorette administrates the city’s financial committee.

What Insiders Know
Commencement Speeches

Each spring colleges and universities in the United States have “graduation ceremonies,” where the students who have finished their studies formally receive their “diplomas” (document showing they have completed their studies) and celebrate the end of their time at their school. The ceremony is actually called a “commencement,” which means “a beginning.” Students are ending their time in school, but beginning a new life as working adults.

Most schools invite someone famous to give the commencement “address” (speech), in which the speaker gives the graduates advice on their next “stage” (period) in life. In 2011, for example, the University of Southern California invited Stephen Ballmer from Microsoft, Columbia University invited former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, and President Obama was invited to Miami Dade College.

It has become popular in recent years for universities to invite “comedians” (entertainers whose job is to make the audience laugh) and actors to give speeches. A television comedian and actor, Amy Poehler, gave the address at Harvard, and actor Tom Hanks was the speaker at Yale’s commencement ceremonies.

So what were the graduates told in 2011? According to the New York Times, the words “world,” “country,” “love,” and “service” were more popular than “money,” “happiness,” or “success.” although it’s not clear exactly what this signifies (means).