Cultural English 440 - Typhoid Mary; National Hot Rod Association; Q&A

Complete Transcript

You are listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café number 440.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 440. 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 another famous American, a woman who is known by the name Typhoid Mary. We’re also going to talk about something called the National Hot Rod Association. And, as always, we’ll answer a few of your questions. Let’s get started.

We begin this Café with a mystery story. Our mystery begins in the year 1900 in the city of New York. In 1900, it wasn’t uncommon for people to die of what we would call “contagious diseases.” The word “contagious” (contagious) is used to describe a disease that can be passed on, or transmitted, from one person to another. So, if I have a flu or a cold, for example, and you kiss me, you might get a flu or a cold. You might also get a call from my wife and possibly my attorney. Anyway, when a disease or illness can be caught or gotten from another person, we say that that person is “contagious.”

There are a variety of diseases that you can get from other people, especially if you lived in New York City in the early part of the twentieth century. One of those diseases was called “typhoid fever.” “Typhoid (typhoid) fever” is a disease that is caused by bacteria. “Bacteria” (bacteria) is an invisible substance, we could call it, that makes people sick or can make people sick. People get typhoid fever by either eating food or drinking water that has been contaminated. When we say something is “contaminated” (contaminated), we mean it has some sort of substance in it that makes it unsafe to eat or drink – in this case, something that has bacteria in it.

This is exactly what happened to some people back in 1900 in New York City. There were people who were getting this disease called typhoid fever. Typhoid fever usually gives people severe headaches, stomach aches, and, as the name implies, a fever. A “fever” (fever) is a very high body temperature. Typhoid fever, if it’s serious enough of a case, can kill you. And people were, in fact, dying of this disease.

Now, even in 1900, typhoid fever was not a very common disease in a place like New York City. There were other diseases that people caught that were much more serious problems, including what was then called “consumption.” Nowadays we call that disease “tuberculosis.” Many of my relatives, the first McQuillans who came to the United States in the nineteenth century, died of tuberculosis. It was a very common contagious disease.

When cases of typhoid fever began to occur in 1900 in New York, people began asking why it was happening – what’s causing this spread, or this transmission, of the disease? Well, no one really knew. Then, in 1906, six people in the same house in New York City became sick with typhoid fever. The family where the people got sick asked the New York Department of Health to investigate the situation. A city or state’s department of health is normally responsible for investigating diseases of this sort, especially contagious diseases.

So, the New York department sent an investigator, a man by the name of George Soper, to talk to the family and to find out why six people in this one house had gotten typhoid fever. He determined that the members of the family had eaten contaminated food or had drunk contaminated water. That was no surprise. However, he didn’t know how that food and water became contaminated. It was a mystery – something no one knew the answer to.

The following year, in 1907, members of another family in New York City got ill with typhoid fever. In fact, one of the family members died of the disease. Once again, Soper from the department of health investigated. He talked to the members of the family, and most importantly, he met the “cook” for the family – the person who cooked and prepared the food for the family – a woman by the name of Mary Mallon. He immediately, after talking with Mary Mallon, realized that she had also worked in the other houses where there had been cases of typhoid fever.

The mystery, then, of who was causing typhoid fever had been solved. Who was Mary Mallon? Mary Mallon was an immigrant to the United States from the same country where some of my ancestors came from: Ireland. She was born in September of 1869 and came to the United States as an immigrant in 1883. It was very common during the late nineteenth century for people to come to the United States to look for work and for a better life. My family first arrived here in America in 1840 and eventually went to Minnesota, where most of my family still lives.

Mary Mallon left her country at the age of 14 and moved to New York City to become a cook for some of the city’s most wealthy families – the families in the city that had the most money. But, as Soper, our investigator from the New York Department of Health, discovered, Mary was the cause of people getting typhoid fever. Mary herself didn’t think that she was the cause. She didn’t understand how she could give people typhoid fever when she herself did not appear to have the disease. In fact, that fact is also part of the mystery of our story. How was it possible for a person to give other people a disease from which he or she did not suffer?

Mary tried to run away from Soper and the New York Department of Health. However, she was caught, and because she was thought to be dangerous because she was giving people this disease, the state of New York decided to put Mary in quarantine. “Quarantine” (quarantine) is when you separate people who are sick or who might be sick into a separate area so that they cannot give their contagious disease to anyone else. A quarantine is used for contagious diseases like typhoid fever to prevent people from giving the disease to other people.

In the case of Mary, she was sent to live on an island near New York City called North Brother Island. During what would be her first stay on the island, many doctors visited her and did a lot of tests on her. They tried to understand how she could make people sick with typhoid fever when she was not sick herself, which to them was a real mystery. Mary understandably tried to get herself off the island in a variety of ways, including unsuccessfully asking the United States Supreme Court, our highest legal body, to release her. They said no.

She also petitioned the New York Department of Health to allow her to leave the island. “To petition” (petition) means to ask for – usually to ask for in a very formal way, such as by writing a letter or by signing a document that asks for something to be done. The word “petition” is also a noun that is used to describe a formal request that people are making of some person or group, including the government. If you want to indicate that you don’t like something and want something changed, you could get people to sign your petition, either in person or nowadays on a website.

Petitions are actually quite important in American politics. In states such as California, you can start a petition and get other people to sign it, and if you get enough people to sign it, you can in effect force the government of California to allow people to vote on this question and actually change the laws about certain things. This happens quite frequently in California. Here, however, were using “petition” as a verb, meaning simply to ask for in a formal way.

Mary Mallon petitioned the New York Department of Health to allow her to leave the island. Finally, in 1910, the state of New York said, “Yes, Mary, you can leave North Brother Island.” However, they told her that she could not work as a cook again. She could never be a cook in the kitchen for a family as she had been in the past. Unfortunately, Mary didn’t know how to do anything else, and the government didn’t give her any training to work in some other capacity, doing some other job. So naturally, Mary, who needed money to live, got a job as – you guessed it – a cook.

You can probably predict what happens next in our story. A few years later, in 1915, people at a hospital in New York – the Sloane Maternity Hospital, a special hospital for women who are having babies – began to get sick with typhoid fever. Two of the people who got sick died of the disease. So once again, the health department investigated. They learned that the cook at the hospital was named Mrs. Brown. They discovered that this Mrs. Brown had also been at another hospital, in the state of New Jersey, where there was also an outbreak of typhoid fever. An “outbreak” (outbreak) is when you have many cases of a disease in a short amount of time, usually contagious diseases.

“Mrs. Brown” was not the woman’s real name, however. Her name was, of course, Mary Mallon. Mary was using the name of Mrs. Brown so she could get a job, since she knew that she couldn’t get a job using her real name since everyone knew her name from the newspaper stories about her. The department of health once again discovered the truth and found out that Mary was the cause of the outbreak. The ending to this mystery is not a very happy one. Mary was once again put in quarantine on North Brother Island. This time, however, she stayed there for 23 years, until she died in 1938.

A few years before her death, in 1932, Mary had a stroke. A “stroke” (stroke) is when there is not enough blood going to your brain. When this happens, the brain can be damaged. Mary eventually died on November 11th, 1938, on North Brother Island in what turned out to be a nearly lifelong quarantine for her. The final part of our mystery – how it was possible for Mary to give others typhoid fever without herself getting sick from the disease – was not solved until many years later.

Doctors later discovered that there were people who could have a disease and give it to others but not suffer from that disease. They call these people “healthy carriers.” Someone who is “healthy” is someone who is not sick. A “carrier” (carrier) is a person who carries things – who moves things from one place to another. We have, for example, mail carriers. These are men and women who take your letters and packages and bring them to your house. Every day we use that same word, “carrier,” to describe people who have certain diseases that they carry, if you will, or pass on to other people.

Doctors now know that the bacteria that causes typhoid fever can, in some rare cases, live inside a person’s body without the person himself getting sick. This is exactly what happened to poor Typhoid Mary. The worst part of the story in many ways was the fact that people in New York City at the time really believed Mary was somehow a terrible person because she had gotten other people sick on purpose – that she was trying to do this. This was never the case, however. Mary honestly believed that she was not the cause of the outbreaks of typhoid fever. Her life, sadly however, was ruined by her condition as a healthy carrier.

Now let’s turn to a slightly less depressing topic: the National Hot Rod Association. A “hot (hot) rod (rod)” is a car that is used for racing – for going fast in a competition against another car. Usually, in the United States, hot rods are made from American cars such as Chevrolet and Dodge. Hot rods are not regular cars, however. They are modified – they are changed – and given a large engine which helps them travel at faster speeds.

Hot rods are used in what is called “drag racing.” “Drag (drag) racing” is a competition, usually between two cars which are driving next to each other down a straight road or a straight street. The goal, or purpose, of the race is like all races – to reach the end or the finish line first. Usually drag races are very short distances; they’re less than a mile, usually about a quarter of a mile, which would be a little less than half a kilometer.

In 1951, a man by the name of Wally Parks decided to form, or create, an organization called the National Hot Rod Association. The idea of this new association, this new organization, was according to Wally Parks, “to create order from chaos.” “Chaos” (chaos) is a condition of disorder, when everything is a mess, you might say – when everything is disorganized. At this time, during the late 40s, early 1950s, there were a lot of different people who were trying to participate in this sport of drag racing, but there was no group to organize everyone. So, Wally Parks started this new organization to, as he said it, “create order” – to make things organized for the people in the hot rod community.

The organization started a magazine called Hot Rod. How very original. They also created rules for drag racing in the U.S. They had their first race right here in Los Angeles in 1953 at a place very close to the city of Los Angeles: the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds. It’s appropriate that the first drag race took place here in Southern California, because Southern California is known in the United States as being a place where everyone has a car. We don’t have very good public transportation even today in Southern California, and it really is necessary, if you want to travel anywhere, to have a car, or at least it’s very difficult if you don’t.

We have here what you might call a “car culture.” Cars are very important to people in Los Angeles. What kind of car you drive is also very important to some people. Drag racing was not limited to, and has not been limited to, Southern California, however. The National Hot Rod Association has national races for people all over the United States. The engines that are now used in hot rods have become much more sophisticated in the last 60 years. They’re bigger now and more powerful than the ones that were used in the 1950s.

In 1984, for example, a driver went 260 miles per hour in a race. That would be 481 kilometers per hour. In 1999, just 15 years later, a driver went 330 miles per hour, or 531 kilometers per hour in a race. So, you can see that the speeds have really increased. I personally am hoping to develop an engine that can go even faster, much faster – say, 186,000 miles per second, or for those of you not in the United States, that would be 299,792,458 meters per second. I’m going to call this engine “The Einstein.” You have to think about that.

Now let’s answer some of the questions you have sent to us.

Our first question comes from Aisha (Aisha) in Saudi Arabia. The question has to do with three words: “complex,” “complicate,” and “intricate.” “Complex” means something has many different parts. We could talk about a machine being very complex, having lots of different parts. “Complicate” is a verb meaning to make something more difficult or to make something more confusing by causing it to become more complex. There’s also an adjective from the verb, which is “complicated.” If something is “complicated,” it is very confusing. It is very difficult. It is very complex.

“Intricate” (intricate) usually refers to something that has a lot of details, a lot of small parts in it – something that is very complex, but it’s complex in a way that you might even consider beautiful. In Spain, there is a beautiful palace called the “Alhambra.” It was built with beautifully intricate designs that were taken from the culture of the Muslim inhabitants of the city at the time. This is many hundreds of years ago. “Intricate” is often used when we’re talking about a piece of art or a design of something that we consider beautiful.

“Complex” can refer to a lot of different things, and it doesn’t necessarily mean something bad. If you say something is “complex,” it doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. It could be a good thing. “Complicated,” however, is usually a negative way of describing something that is complex. “Complicated” has more of the idea of being confusing, and therefore more difficult.

Our next question comes from George (George) in Brazil. George has some questions about some words related to listening to music on old records. George was apparently looking at an article about someone who was listening to old records, old records made of vinyl, which were – if you’re young – were black, round discs that you could play your music from. This is before the days of digital music, of course.

The way that you heard the music was to put the black disk on something called the “record player,” which would go around in circles, and you would put what was called a “needle” (needle) on top of the record, and that would get you the sound from the record. The needle was placed in what we call a “groove” (groove). If you look at an old vinyl record closely, you can see that there are little lines that go around and around the disk. These are the grooves into which you put the needle. The expression that George read was “the needle hit the groove.” “Hit” here just means it was placed onto the groove and started to play the music.

A couple of other words that George wanted to know about from that article were “lampoon,” “loner,” and “pastime.” “To lampoon” (lampoon) someone is to criticize someone, basically, by making fun of them. The word “lampoon” is not very common anymore in conversational English. There was actually a magazine when I was growing up, I’m not sure if it’s still around, called National Lampoon. However, you won’t hear people say the word “lampoon” very often. You might read it, however, and it means simply to criticize publicly someone or something by making fun of the person or the thing.

“Loner” (loner) is someone who prefers to be alone. It’s usually a negative way of describing someone who doesn’t like to be with other people. “Pastime” (pastime) is something that you do for enjoyment, something that you do other than work. Your “pastime” could be reading. It could be learning English. It could be watching television. It could be playing sports. All of these could be considered pastimes.

Our final question comes from Javier or Xavier (Xavier) in France. The question has to do with the difference between two verbs that are very similar. The first is “clean” (clean). The second is “cleanse” (cleanse). Both of these words refer to getting rid of dirt from something, getting rid of the dirt or the marks or the stains that might be on something. You can talk about cleaning your car – you’re getting the dirt off of your car. You clean your dishes. You clean your desk.

“Cleanse” also means to clean. However, it’s usually used in very specific circumstances, especially if you’re talking about your skin. Women will often talk about buying things that will “cleanse” their skin. “To cleanse” means to thoroughly clean, to get very, very clean, especially referring again to your skin. You could also cleanse other things, although when you hear this verb used in other circumstances, it’s often done or used metaphorically. You could talk about “cleansing your sins” – getting rid of the bad things that you did in your past. The most common use of “cleanse,” however, will relate to cleaning your body.

“Clean” is much, much more common and will work in the same circumstances, usually, as the verb “cleanse.” So I would, if I had to choose between the two verbs, use “clean” because you can use “clean” for almost anything. We don’t normally talk about “cleansing our car,” for example. We would use “clean.”

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.

Glossary

bacteria – an invisible bug that can make people sick; a very small living thing that cannot be seen but that makes people ill

* After digging through the garbage to find his lost cell phone, Amir washed his hands to get rid of the bacteria on them.

contaminated – unsafe or dirty because it contains bacteria or other materials that could make people ill

* The food became contaminated after someone who was sick sneezed on it.

quarantine – forced separation from other people because one is sick or might be sick

* Animals entering the United States from other countries are put into quarantine to be sure that they are not ill.

healthy carrier – a person who can make other people sick with a disease but who does not get sick with the disease themselves

* If both parents are healthy carriers of a certain disease, it’s possible for them to have a baby with that disease.

to petition – to demand something from someone else by explaining the reason why it should be given to one

* Minal thought that people drove too fast down her street, so she petitioned the city to put stop signs at the ends of the street.

outbreak – with many cases of people getting sick with the same disease within a short period of time

* There was an outbreak of measles at Louisa’s school.

stroke – when blood stops going to the brain for a period of time, causing damage or death if it that period is too long

* Masha’s grandmother suffered a stroke and was no longer able to use her right arm.

contagious – for a disease to be easily spread from one person to another

* Those who are sick and contagious are asked to wear face masks on airplanes.

hot rod – a car used for racing that is usually an American made car

* Dan’s hot rod was a 1955 Chevrolet with a big, strong engine.

drag racing – a competition between two cars and their drivers to see who can reach the end of one-quarter mile (.4 kilometer) track first

* Simone won the first drag race of the year after driving 300 miles per hour.

chaos – for something to be completely disordered and confused

* It was total chaos as the crowds left the rock concert all at once.

national – involving the entire country; including an entire nation

* The dog show is a national competition where dogs from all over the country come to compete.

sophisticated – for machines or methods to contain advanced technology

* Computers today are much more sophisticated than they were in the 1960s.

complex – having many different parts; with many details

* Jun didn’t understand the math equations because they were so complex.

complicated – being difficult or confusing because it has many details or many parts

* Relationships between parents and adult children can be complicated.

intricate – having many details and parts; having a design with many parts

* Leslie creates art designs that are very intricate and beautiful.

groove – a long, narrow cut, usually one made to guide the motion of something that travels over it

* The closet door won’t slide back and forth if the wheel isn’t in the groove.

to lampoon – to publicly criticize someone or something by making fun of it

* Students lampooned the university president in the student newspaper.

loner – a person who prefers to be by him or herself; someone who prefers to not associate with others people

* Mona has always been a loner, preferring to stay home alone rather than go to parties.

pastime – hobby; an activity that someone does regularly for enjoyment rather than for work

* Do you prefer pastimes involving sports or the arts?

to clean – to make someone or something free of dirt, marks, or stains

* Don’t step on the wood floor with muddy shoes. We just cleaned it.

to cleanse – to make something completely clean, usually the skin

* Before putting lotion on your skin, be sure to cleanse it with a gentle soap.

What Insiders Know

Hot Wheels

One of the biggest toy makers in the United States is Mattel. In 1968, Mattel began producing a “line of” (series of items for sale under the same name) toy cars. This line of cars was called Hot Wheels and were “1:64 scale” (64 times smaller than the real car) size. Hot Wheels became a very popular line of toys and continues to be produced today.

Hot Wheels were produced using a method called “die casting.” Die casting forces “molten” (very hot liquid) metal into a “mold,” a shape that has already been formed, so that when the liquid metal cools, it is in the shape of this mold. After a car has been made using die casting, it is “decorated” (made to look nice or more colorful) using other materials that are attached to it, such as glass, plastic, and “rubber” (a flexible plastic material).

Hot Wheels were originally made for children. Many “automobile manufacturers” (car and truck makers) allowed or “partnered” (worked together for a common reason) with Mattel to create “scale models” (much smaller size versions) of their most popular cars, allowing the toy maker to have access to the original “design blueprints” (detailed drawings used in the making of a item).

Today, Hot Wheels are very popular with adult “collectors,” people who want to have these cars because they enjoy owning them and also because they are valuable. Many of the cars are “limited edition,” meaning there were only a small number made of it and made available for sale.