Cultural English 184 - Native American casinos; YouTube; Q&A

Complete Transcript

You’re listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café number 184.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 184. 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 Native American casinos, places where Americans can play games to try to win money. We’ll also talk about a very popular website you probably know about called YouTube. And as always, we’ll answer a few of your questions. Let’s get started.

This Café begins with a discussion of Native American, or American Indian casinos. “Casinos” are places where you can go to bet money, what we would say to “gamble,” which is playing games and trying to win money back. I’m sure you’ve heard of many of these games, like poker, bingo, blackjack, roulette, and others. Many of these gambling games are played with cards and chips. A “chip” is a small, round piece of plastic that represents a certain amount of money. You don’t want people putting hundred dollar bills on the table when you’re gambling, so we use what are called chips, or gambling chips.

There are some Americans who think gambling is wrong – gambling is immoral. Others don’t like gambling because sometimes gambling can become an “addiction,” something that people can’t control, something that people cannot stop doing and they lose all of their money. People who have an addiction to cigarettes can’t stop smoking, or at least it’s very difficult for them to stop. And gambling, for some people, is also this kind of addiction.

Although many Americans think it is wrong, many Americans gamble. However, it’s not possible to gamble in most states, or least it wasn’t until about 20 years ago. Most states officially don’t allow gambling; there were always a few exceptions to this. The state of Nevada, where Las Vegas is, had allowed gambling for many years; also Atlantic City in the state of New Jersey was also a place where you could gamble. But most people couldn’t gamble in a casino because most states did not allow gambling.

However, in 1987, a group of Native Americans (American Indians) in California challenged the authority of the state to say that they couldn’t have casinos on their land. They challenged the state’s authority to “regulate,” to make laws about people or organizations. In other words, American Indians (Native Americans) were different than other Americans because they had political autonomy. “Autonomy” (autonomy) is the ability to make their own decisions, to be somewhat independent, even if those decisions are different than what is made by the national government. This is popular in some countries. In Spain, for example, in recent years, and even in Great Britain, with Scotland having its own Parliament, there is this movement toward autonomy, people having their own regulations – their own laws.

The group of Native Americans thought that because Native Americans have certain autonomy on their lands, the lands that they own, they should be allowed to make decisions about gambling and be able to do what they want. Well, the courts agreed – the government agreed, and ever since then, Native American groups have been able to operate casinos – to have gambling. There’s still some regulation by the states, but the states cannot prevent these Native American groups – the Native American tribes, as we call them, to have gambling.

Many Native Americans tribes have built casinos on their reservations. A reservation is land that the U.S. government allowed Native Americans to keep. When the white people came over from Europe, they took most of the land away from the Native Americans. The land that they let them keep was often not very good land. This land is called “reservations,” and many states, including California and my home state of Minnesota, have reservations where Native Americans live. Well, now Native Americans, beginning back in the late 1980s, could have their own gambling – their own casinos.

Native American casinos became very popular very quickly, and they are also a very important source of income (money) that Native American tribes receive. Many people think that these Native American reservations, which have historically (traditionally) been rather poor, should have something like a casino, which helps them make money. Many tribal governments – many of the governments of these Native American reservations have been able to use the money from casinos to help their community by building schools and hospitals and other things that will help the people on the reservations. Most of the people who gamble at the casinos are not Native Americans; they come from other places to gamble.

These casinos make so much money that some people have criticized Native American tribes for opening so many casinos on their reservations. Some people say that there are people with not very much Native American heritage that are still being allowed to open casinos. “Heritage” refers to the place and culture of your relatives who came long before you, your great-great-great-great grandparents. My heritage, for example, is Irish and German. My ancestors, the people who came before me, were mostly from Ireland. We also have some German blood in us, that is, some of my ancestors were originally from Germany. Some people say that there are groups out there saying that they have Native American heritage so that they can open up a casino. However, that isn’t the normal situation.

I’ve been to a couple of different Indian casinos, or Native American or American Indian casinos. There are some here in California about an hour and a half – two hours from Los Angeles; there are some back in my home state of Minnesota. I’ve been to one in Arizona – a couple of them in Arizona. Usually the casinos are outside of the main cities, because that’s where the reservations are. In fact, they have to be on the reservation in order to be legal. So now, instead going to Las Vegas or going to Atlantic City to gamble, it’s now possible to gamble in many states on these Native American reservation casinos.

Now let’s “switch,” or change to our next topic, which is the very popular website called YouTube. YouTube is a video-sharing website, you probably know. It used to be very difficult to share videos over the Internet but YouTube has made it very easy, even for people who don’t know much about websites. With just a few clicks – just a few steps, you can use YouTube to upload videos. To “upload” means to take the videos that are on your computer – your computer’s hard drive, and put them on the Internet. You can upload videos, on other sites you can upload photographs; here at ESL Podcast we upload MP3 files so that you can do the opposite, which is, of course, download them.

If you are a user of YouTube – if you have an account (and that’s free to get), you can upload as many videos as you want. The site is so popular that Google bought it for 1.65 billion dollars back in 2005.

Most of the videos on YouTube are uploaded by individuals, many of them by teenagers. Sometimes companies upload videos, too. YouTube has signed an agreement with some of the big television companies here in the United States to put some TV shows and even some movies on YouTube. It’s more common, however, to find excerpts on YouTube of a video or of a TV show or movie. An “excerpt” (excerpt) is a part of a TV show or movie; it’s not the entire thing. Many YouTube users actually upload these excerpts without getting permission from the companies because they want to share it with other people. This is a problem since the videos are usually “copyrighted,” meaning that they have registered, or have said that this is their material – their property and that other people can’t use it without their permission. But, of course, it’s sometimes hard to control how your material is used, especially on the Internet.

When people upload videos to YouTube, they usually see a message reminding them not to upload copyrighted videos, but obviously many people ignore that warning. The big entertainment and television companies are very angry about this and some of them have sued YouTube. To “sue” (sue) means to go to court, to take legal action again someone who you think has damaged you and owes you money; there’s been some harm done to you. These companies have tried to get YouTube to get rid of these videos. YouTube says that it tries, but it is impossible to do that for every single video.

Another problem with YouTube is that some users upload “offensive content,” content that is inappropriate for sharing, that might not be appropriate. There are, of course, no good definitions of what offensive content is; you may think it’s offensive, and I may not. What happens, usually, is that YouTube asks people to flag what they think is offensive content. To “flag” (flag) something means to mark it in some way, to indicate that this is something that, in this case, is offensive. “Flag,” as a noun, means something that you put up in the air, usually a square piece of material or cloth for your country, or your state, or your province, or even your team. Those are flags, as nouns; this is flag as a verb, which means to mark or to indicate. When you flag a video on YouTube, or at least if lots of people flag a video on YouTube as being inappropriate – not appropriate to be on the website, some real human being looks at that video and determines whether they are going to take it down or not. This has also caused problems because sometimes controversial videos – videos that aren’t, for example pornographic or somehow using bad language, but simply are about a topic that is controversial, sometimes these videos have been removed by YouTube. Of course, YouTube can do what ever it wants with its own website, but some people have complained that sometimes they’ve removed videos for political reasons, not for reasons that have anything to do with being offensive to the average viewer.

Now let’s answer some of your questions.

Our first question comes from Wei (Wei) in China. Wei wants to know the meaning of the words “impact” (impact) and “influence.” She wants to know difference between these two words.

“Impact” as a noun means an important or a significant effect on something, something that has changed something else. This could be, also, referring to two things that hit each other: a car hits the wall, there was an impact; the two things hit each other. “Impact,” more generally, refers to some change that this thing has had on another thing: “The economy has had a major impact on the housing market,” how well houses are selling for in different countries.

“Influence” is similar. “Influence,” however, usually refers to the power to cause an effect in ways that might not be easy to name or identify. If you say, “That politician has a lot of influence in Washington, D.C., with our national government,” you’re not giving an exact effect. You’re not saying it was this thing or that thing; it’s more general, it’s more, perhaps, difficult to identify.

Having said that, however, people often use these two words to mean the same thing: “He has an impact on policy.” “He has an influence on policy.” “Impact” is a little stronger, a little more direct of an idea than “influence.” The word “influence” is often used with prepositions such as “over,” “with,” or “on.” You can have influence on your daughter’s decision about where she is going to college. You can also use “influence” as a verb: “I was influenced by my brother when I bought my car.” My brother gave me some ideas that changed my mind.

You can also use “impact” as a verb. This is a more recent usage. Some people – me – don’t really like using “impact” as a verb, but it is common enough so that I will mention it, that it is possible to use “impact” as a verb, I don’t just like it! It sounds strange to me, for some reason.

Our next question is from Minseok (Minseok) from an unknown country – we’ll call it Country X! Minseok wants to know about the verb “to create.” “To create” means to make, to manufacture, to produce something. Sometimes it’s used for producing an artistic work: “The artist created a beautiful painting.” It can also mean to have an impact on something: “The president’s plan created a million jobs” – produced, made.

“Create” can also be used with different prepositions to mean slightly different things. “Created by” refers to the person or organization that did the making – that did the creating: “This movie was created by a movie studio (a movie company).” “Created in” just refers to where something is created: “Michelangelo created his statue in Florence, Italy.” You can also use “in” to mean within a certain amount of time: “I created this cake in 10 minute,” that’s how long it took me. “Created on” would refer to a specific date or day that something was created: “This podcast was created on March 1st, 2009.”

Hitoshi (Hitoshi) from Japan wants to know the difference between the expressions “so far” and “to date.”

“So far” means up until now. For example: “His girlfriend has been very nice to him, so far” – up to this point. “To date” can mean something similar: “To date, we have received only 10 dollars in donations” – up to this time. So, “so far” and “to date” can mean something very similar, if not identical.

“To date,” however, is often used more commonly with very specific situations. For example, in your business you might say, “To date, we have received $300,000 in revenues (in money; in income).” That would be more common in that formal or businesslike environment. “So far” is a little less formal, but it’s also probably more common in daily conversation. You will hear people say “to date” in spoken English, especially if they are talking about business letters or reports or contracts, something in a more formal setting.

So far on this episode we’ve answered three questions, and that’s all we’re going to have time for today. If you have a question, you can email us. Our email address is eslpod@eslpod.com.

From Los Angeles, California, I am Jeff McQuillan. I thank you for listening. Come back and listen to us next time on the English Café.

Glossary

to gamble – to play games to try to win money; to risk something in hopes of getting something better in return

* Let’s go! I’m tired of gambling and losing so much money.

casino – a place of business where people can eat, sleep, and gamble; a business where people go to play games to try to win money

* This casino is for people who want to play for high stakes.

autonomy – having the ability to make one’s own decisions; independent; not under the authority of someone or something else

* I had more autonomy in my work after I was promoted to assistant manager.

reservation – the land where Native American tribes (groups) live, which operates independently from city, state, and national governments

* Michael lives on the reservation with his family, but works in the city.

income – money that one receives regularly for doing work or from investments

* I’m not sure I’ll earn enough income in my first two years to buy a house.

heritage – the place and culture of one’s relatives from long ago in history; the culture and history that is part of one’s blood relations from a long time ago

* This city has the rich cultural heritage of the many peoples who have settled here over the past 200 years.

to upload – to take files that are on one’s computer and put them on the Internet or another place where others can see it

* Can you help me upload my picture onto my new website?

excerpt – a part or section of a larger thing; a piece taken from a larger piece of writing, music, video, or something else

* James can guess the name of any song from only hearing a short excerpt.

to be copyrighted – to have ownership of a piece of writing, music, video, or something else and control how these things are shared with other people

* This book is copyrighted and no one can copy it without getting permission first.

to sue – to bring a legal action against a person or organization in the legal courts

* Daniel sued the woman who caused the accident but refused to pay to fix his car.

offensive content – things that are inappropriate and could hurt people; something that might make other people angry or feel hurt

* We do not allow any offensive content on our university websites.

to flag (something) – to mark something in some way so others can see it or so that one can find it again easily

* Please read through the contract and flag any issues that need to be discussed.

impact – a major or important effect; the force of two or more things hitting each other at a high speed and with a lot of force

* If the president of the company resigns, it will have a major impact on the company.

influence – the power to cause an effect in ways that may not be easy to name or identify

* How will changing the speed limit on highways influence the way people drive?

created by – made or produced through the act of a particular person or thing

* That dress was created by the designers at McQ and Company.

created in – made or produced at a particular location

* The new engine for these cars was created in Germany.

created on – made or produced on a specific day of the week or month

* A policy on employees taking vacation time was created on January 1st of last year.

so far – up until now; from the beginning to this time

* I’ve only seen two of this director’s movies so far.

to date – up until this point, this moment, or this day

* To date, we’ve opened three stores and we hope to open three more next year.

What Insiders Know

How To Be a YouTube Star

Do you want to be a star? Many “unknowns” (people who are not famous) are trying to get “discovered” (recognized for their talent) by putting videos up on YouTube. Based on those who have been successful in getting attention for their videos, here is some advice for “would-be” (wanting to be) YouTube stars.

First, try to be “consistent” by putting up videos regularly and on a schedule. Some of the most successful YouTube stars have been video “bloggers,” who post videos regularly about their own lives or about a topic that people are interested in. Some of the most popular videos on YouTube are video “diaries,” where people record their life experiences. Viewers get “caught up in” (involved emotionally) the activities and drama and want to find out what happens. Being consistent can bring viewers back on a regular basis.

Second, try to find a “niche,” a specialty or specific topic. Having a niche gives you a “built-in” (already existing) audience. Many popular videos tell about one’s experience or give advice. For example, one series of videos gives information about being a new mother and advice about how to “cope with” (deal with) the demands of having a new baby.

Finally, try to make the videos as professional as possible. There are many videos produced by “amateurs” (not professionals) on YouTube, and those with higher “production value” (quality) tend to “stand out” (get attention). It’s not necessary to be as “slick” (fancy; high quality) as professional video producers, but giving attention to lighting, “props” (things around the actors or performers), and location, can give a video a more professional feel.