Cultural English 473 - The Brooklyn Bridge; Minimum wage; Q&A

Complete Transcript

You’re listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café number 473.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 473. 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 one of the most famous bridges in the United States, the Brooklyn Bridge, which at the time it was built was the longest bridge built and is still considered an important part of New York City. We’re also going to talk about the minimum wage in the United States – the minimum amount that you can pay a worker here. And, as always, we’ll answer a few of your questions. Let’s get started.

New York City has many famous landmarks. A “landmark” (landmark) is a famous building or structure that people identify with or that they associate with certain places. For example, the Eifel Tower in Paris is a landmark. It’s a famous building or structure that people associate with the city of Paris. New York City has several famous landmarks that people often think of. One is the Statue of Liberty. Another would be the Empire State Building. You could consider Central Park and Grand Central Terminal also as landmarks.

Today we’re not going to talk about any of those things. We’re going to talk about another famous landmark, at least here in the U.S., of the great city of New York: the Brooklyn Bridge. New York City is divided into five sections, five areas – what are called the five “boroughs” of New York. Manhattan is the island that is the central business district for the city, but there are other boroughs in New York as well, including Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, which is like Manhattan – another island that is part of the city.

Brooklyn is located across the river from the island of Manhattan and is connected to Manhattan by – what else? – the Brooklyn Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge is what we call a “suspension bridge.” A suspension bridge is a bridge where wires that go from one end to the other above the bridge hold the road.

A “bridge,” of course, is a place where cars, trains, or other traffic, including human beings, can cross over some body of water such as a river. That’s the most common use of a bridge, but you can also have a bridge that goes over a road or, as we have here in Los Angeles, another bridge. We have freeways that go over each other, that cross at certain points, so you can have a bridge over a bridge over a bridge.

The Brooklyn Bridge is just one bridge, and it goes over the river that separates Manhattan from Brooklyn. That would be the East River. At the time it was built, in the nineteenth century, the Brooklyn Bridge was considered an engineering marvel. A “marvel” (marvel) is a wonderful thing, an amazing thing. The Brooklyn Bridge was considered an engineering marvel because of the difficulty that was involved in building it.

An engineer by the name of John Augustus Roebling designed the original Brooklyn Bridge in the nineteenth century. They began building the bridge in 1869. Roebling believed in being on-site during the construction of his bridge. “On-site” (site) means at the place where something is happening. Architects often just give their plans to the engineers and the engineers build the building or the bridge, but Roebling wanted to be there. He was actually there while the bridge was being constructed.

Construction sites can often be dangerous places, and they were particularly dangerous in the late nineteenth century. In the beginning of July of 1869, soon after construction of the bridge began, Roebling himself was involved in an accident. He was seriously injured and died three weeks later. So, maybe a being on-site wasn’t such a good idea.

Roebling had worked very closely with his son, however (with a very American name: Washington Roebling). Washington Roebling was also an engineer, and so he was able to take over construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. “To take over for” someone means to take the place of someone, to do what the other person was doing. Like his father, Washington Roebling also believed in being on-site during the construction. I guess he didn’t learn anything from dad.

He was involved in every part of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. In fact, he liked to inspect the work that was done to make sure it was done correctly. “To inspect” means to look at carefully to make sure that it’s correct. During the early part of construction, most of the work had to be done below water. You of course have to build the structure into the water in order to hold the bridge up. This work was done in underwater chambers called “caissons.” A “chamber” here means a small enclosed area, one in which the water would not go into.

These caissons were used to build the bridge under the water. They were located at the bottom of the river, and so they were very deep down – very deep down underneath the surface of the river. At the time, unfortunately, medical science didn’t know very much about what would happen to a human being if he spent a long time underneath the water. As it turns out, working in these caissons was very dangerous.

Many of the workers on the Brooklyn Bridge suffered from what was called “caisson disease.” This is basically nowadays called “decompression sickness.” What happens is if you go very deep under the ocean (or any body of water) and come back up to the surface too quickly, something bad can happen in your body.

We don’t need to talk about the medical science of it, but basically you can get very sick. In fact, it can also leave you partially paralyzed. “To be paralyzed” (paralyzed) means that you are no longer able to move certain parts of your body, such as your arms or your legs. Unfortunately, the effects of this decompression sickness were often permanent, meaning that you would be that way for the rest of your life.

Today there are treatments that can be done to help people who suffer from this condition. In the nineteenth century, however, there were no treatments. In fact, people didn’t even understand why this happened. This is probably why hundreds of people who worked on the Brooklyn Bridge eventually became sick with caisson disease. One of the people who got sick was, of course – you guessed it – Washington Roebling, the boy who didn’t learn from his father to stay away from the worksite.

Roebling was so badly affected by this disease that he was by 1872 unable even to return to work on the bridge. Instead, he had to stay in bed in his apartment and have his wife, Emily, oversee the construction of the bridge – to supervise the work. “To supervise” means to manage and direct workers on some project.

In addition to these problems with decompression sickness, there were also other problems, other dangers in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, including fires and explosions. This meant that the work had to stop and the caissons had to be fixed in order to continue the work, and so, like most construction projects, it took much longer than they had planned. It’s like when you get work done on your house – they tell you it’s going to be three months, and three years later you still don’t have your kitchen.

There were other problems in building the Brooklyn Bridge, problems with the materials that they used. The Brooklyn Bridge was the first suspension bridge to use steel for the cable wire on top of the bridge. Before this, suspension bridges used iron, another kind of metal, to hold up the road. John Augustus Roebling, Washington’s father, showed that steel was not only lighter than iron, but also stronger, and this was of course a very important quality when you’re building a bridge.

During construction, however, it was discovered that the company that made the steel used a kind of material that was not as good as the material that Roebling had designed the bridge for. Because of this, hundreds of these cable wires had to be replaced to make sure they were strong enough to hold up the bridge.

The Brooklyn Bridge finally opened to traffic in 1883. The entire city of New York went out to see this new bridge. You were able to drive on the bridge – not in a car, of course, but with horses. You were able to walk across the bridge, and in fact walking across the bridge gave you an amazing view of the city, especially of the island of Manhattan.

It took 14 years in total to build the Brooklyn Bridge. Since its completion, it has inspired artists, writers, and poets. You will often see the bridge in movies and television shows that take place in New York City. I’ve been across the Brooklyn Bridge at least once during my visits to New York City.

The Brooklyn Bridge is also part of a popular expression, or saying, in English about “selling you the Brooklyn Bridge.” The idea that you could sell someone the Brooklyn Bridge is used to indicate the gullibility of another person. “To be gullible” (gullible) means to believe things that are clearly not true. It’s an insulting term to describe someone who is perhaps not very smart.

So, if someone says they’re going to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge and you believe them, well, you’re not very smart. There are some stories from the early part of the twentieth century that people in New York City would try to sell parts of the bridge to tourists coming to visit the city. I don’t know if this was ever actually true, but it did enter into our language.

The most common way you’ll hear this expression doesn’t mention the Brooklyn Bridge; it just mentions selling someone a bridge, as in, “If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.” You would use that expression when someone tells you something that you know is not true and that you shouldn’t even believe is true. You’re suggesting the person is very gullible. If you believe that, which is clearly not true, then I would like to sell you this bridge. Give me your money, because you’re so gullible – that’s the idea.

Let’s turn now to our second topic on this Café: the minimum wage in the United States. A “wage” (wage) is the amount of money that you are paid usually every hour that you work. We also have another word to refer to the money that you get for working, and that is called a “salary” (salary). What’s the difference between a wage and salary? Well, usually a salary is a fixed amount every year that you get regardless of how many hours you work.

You’re expected to work at least 40 hours per week in most jobs in the U.S., most full-time jobs, but some people work a lot more but they don’t get paid any more if they are paid with a salary. The salary is a fixed amount for the whole year. A “wage” is how much you would get each hour, and some jobs pay you, we would say, “by the hour.” So, if you work more hours, you get more money. It depends on the kind of job that you have in terms of whether you are paid a salary or whether you are paid a wage.

There is a minimum amount of money that you can pay someone legally in the U.S. to work, and that is known as – what else? – the minimum wage. The first laws about minimum wages were adopted not here in the U.S., but in other English-speaking countries such as Australia and New Zealand. Now over 90 percent of countries throughout the world have some kind of minimum wage law. Let’s talk about the ones here in the U.S.

The minimum wage laws in the United States at the national, or federal, level were first written back during the Great Depression in the U.S. in the 1930s. The Great Depression was a period of 10 or more years that the U.S. economy was doing very poorly, when there were a lot of people who did not have a job.

In 1938, the Fair Labor and Standards Act was approved. This law set out rules that were supposed to protect workers, including establishing a minimum wage of, at that time, 25 cents per hour. That was considered a fair amount of money at that time, even though of course today it isn’t very much money at all. Since 1938, fortunately, the minimum wage has increased.

The last time the minimum wage was increased in the U.S. was in the year 2009. At that time, the national, or federal, government made the minimum wage $7.25 per hour. That is the federal minimum wage. However, there are also state minimum wages. Each state can decide if it wants to have a minimum wage, and that minimum wage can be higher or lower than the federal minimum wage. Who gets the federal minimum wage and who gets the state minimum wage? Well, it depends on the kind of job you have.

If you have a job that is involving the federal government (and usually most state governments) you are able to get the federal minimum wage. If you are involved in a job that is related to what is called “interstate commerce,” which is the buying and selling of things across states, from one state to another – say, from California to Minnesota or Nevada to Arkansas – you are also eligible for the federal minimum wage. When I say “eligible” (eligible), I mean you are allowed to get that. You, by law, can demand that much money.

Some people, however, are not eligible for the federal minimum wage. In those cases, they’re usually eligible for the state minimum wage. As I mentioned earlier, every state has its own minimum wage, which might be higher (and it might be lower) than the federal minimum wage. If you are eligible for both minimum wages, you get the higher of the two.

Just as with most things, there are people who like the idea of a minimum wage and people who think it is economically a bad idea. People who are favor of a minimum wage say that it improves the lives of poor workers. It makes sure that everyone is making some sort of minimum amount of money.

These supporters also say that the minimum wage decreases the amount that the government has to pay people who are too poor to survive without help. That help that the government gives is sometimes called “welfare” (welfare). Welfare is when the government gives money or equivalents to money to poor people so that they can buy food and have a place to live.

Many economists, however, are against the minimum wage. They are “opponents” of the minimum wage, we could say. An “opponent” (opponent) is someone who is against something. Opponents of the minimum wage say that businesses often don’t make enough money to pay workers the minimum wage. When that happens, companies will simply stop hiring people. If the minimum wage is too high, companies will decide that they’re simply not going to hire anyone, or they’ll only hire people who are very qualified.

Some economists argue that the minimum wage actually hurts poor workers because it prevents them from getting jobs at a lower skill level. Companies decide, “Well, if I have to pay someone 10 dollars an hour, let’s say, I’m going to hire someone who is actually worth that to my company.” Some workers don’t have a lot of skills, especially young workers, and so it is argued they won’t get any jobs at all because companies won’t hire them.

Well, we’re not going to decide who’s right and who’s wrong, but it is important to know that the minimum wage is the law in the United States. You must pay workers a certain minimum amount of money if they are your employees. Now, not everyone who works in the U.S. is considered technically an “employee” – we won’t go into exactly what that means, but usually it means that you have to pay taxes for the person that works for you, for your employee.

Other people work as what is called a “contractor.” A “contractor” is not an employee, and so the person that gives the contractor money to do the work doesn’t have to pay taxes for that worker. It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the general idea.

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

Our first question comes from Saleh (Saleh) in Syria. The question has to do with three verbs: “to speculate,” “to deliberate,” and “to contemplate.” Let’s start with the first one, “to speculate” (speculate).

“To speculate” is to give a theory about something – to have an idea about something without having any good evidence, without having any good information that would tell you if your ideas were true or not. Often it’s necessary for people to speculate about something if they don’t have all the information they need. Scientists often speculate about the way the world works, and those speculations, of course, eventually have to be tested.

“To deliberate” (deliberate) means to think about something very carefully, often for a long period of time. The most common place you will hear this word used is in a courtroom. We talk about the members of the jury deliberating. A jury is a group of men and women, usually 12, who decide whether someone is guilty or innocent. When they make that decision, they go into a room and they deliberate. They talk about it. They think about it. They come to a decision.

“To contemplate” (contemplate) means to think about something, often before you are making a decision or are about to take action. He’s contemplating taking this new job; he’s thinking about it seriously. We also use this verb “to contemplate” when we’re talking about perhaps philosophical or religious ideas – great ideas, big ideas, if you will. “I’m contemplating the nature of the universe.” But in a more common use, “to contemplate” means to think about – often, something that you are making a decision about.

All three of the verbs then involve thinking, but different aspects of thinking. “Deliberate” and “contemplate” are somewhat similar. They both involve thinking about something carefully. “Contemplate” is usually connected with some decision or action, something that you are planning on or thinking about doing. “Deliberate” just means more generally to think carefully about something.

I should point out that this same word, spelled the same, also has another meaning. It’s pronounced differently when it’s used as an adjective. “Deliberate” has a long (a) at the end. The adjective “deliberate” has a short “I” sound at the end. “Deliberate,” the adjective, refers to something that is planned, something that you do intentionally. You want to do it. It’s not an accident. Often the adjective “deliberate” is used when you do something wrong or something bad. “She deliberately insulted the waitress.” She did it on purpose. It wasn’t an accident – she meant to.

Our second question comes from José (Jose) in Spain. José wants to know the meaning of an expression that he heard on an American television program; the expression is “holy moly.”

“Holy moly” is an old expression that we don’t use anymore unless we’re trying to be funny (and that’s what happened, I believe, in the case of José’s television program).
It used to be an expression people would use to express surprise or shock, but nowadays it’s used sarcastically, almost as a joke: “Holy moly! What are you doing?” It sounds funny because it’s such an old-fashioned word nowadays.

You may ask yourself, “What does ‘moly’ mean?” Well, it’s not a word that you will see anywhere else in English, in any other expression. Some people think maybe it’s related to a Mexican sauce called “mole” but spelled (mole). Other people think it’s just a word that rhymes with holy and that’s how it got started.

Finally, Mihai (Mihai) from Romania wants to know the meaning of an idiom, “down and dirty.” “Down (down) and dirty (dirty)” is an informal expression – an idiom – that refers to someone’s behaviors, someone’s actions, that are not particularly honest or pleasant.

You’ll probably most often hear it or read it in the context of someone being dishonest.
“That was a down and dirty trick that he played at the office.” It was a dishonest thing that he did at work. The term is also sometimes used in talking about a movie or a book or an action that is sexual in nature, that is related to some sort of shocking sexual action.

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

suspension bridge – a bridge that uses wires that run from one end to the other above the bridge to hold it up

* Many of the most famous bridges in the world are suspension bridges, such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California.

marvel – a wonderful or amazing thing

* What a marvel the first personal computer must have been when it was developed!

on site – at the place where an event is happening

* The bride was happy that her wedding coordinator was on site during the ceremony and reception so that, if anything went wrong, he could fix it.

caisson – a space that is built underwater that keeps water out so that work can be done within that space

* The workers who were fixing the bottom of the ship worked in a caisson so that they didn’t have to lift the ship out of the water.

permanent – lasting forever; never changing

* Soshi decided on a permanent move back to the village where she grew up so that her children could grow up near her family and friends.

paralyzed – when a person is no longer able to move parts of their body, for a short time or permanently

* Franklin D. Roosevelt was paralyzed from his waist down, which meant that he could not walk and had to use a wheelchair to move around.

to supervise – to manage or direct workers on a project; to be in charge of workers and the details of a job

* One of Neera’s jobs was to supervise the other employees and make sure that they were completing their projects on time and under budget.

federal – related to the central or national government

* Many federal employees in the United States work in Washington, D.C., which is where many of the main offices of different government agencies are located.

interstate commerce – trade (buying and selling) from one state to another

* Joanna is involved in interstate commerce, with customers living all over the United States.

eligible – allowed to do something or collect something; having the right to do or to get something

* Hans couldn’t wait until he was 18 years old and eligible to vote in presidential elections.

welfare – a government program that gives money to the very poor to pay for food and other basic needs

* When Rhys lost his job, he began collecting welfare so that he could feed his family.

opponent – a person who is against something; a person who tries to beat another person in a contest or fight

* Who is brave enough to be Eli’s boxing opponent?

to speculate – to form a theory or idea about a subject without evidence

* Let’s not speculate on whether we’ll get raises in salary this year. Let’s ask the boss.

to deliberate – to give something long and careful thought and consideration

* The school principal deliberated for a day before deciding on the student’s punishment for playing tricks on her teachers.

to contemplate – to think about, usually before making a decision or taking action

* Are you really contemplating a move across the country to be with a girl you just met?

holy moly – a term often used to express surprise or shock

* Holy moly! That is the biggest pizza I’ve ever seen.

down-and-dirty – a behavior that is not pleasant or honest; direct and explicit

* His down-and-dirty business deals may be legal, but they aren’t honest.

What Insiders Know

The National Registry of Historic Places

On October 15, 1966, the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) became a law in the U.S. This new law was “intended to” (meant to) “preserve” (keep in its current and good condition) “historic” (important from the past) and “archaeological” (locations and things found in the ground left by people who lived there long ago) sites in the United States.

The law created the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), an official list of areas, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that are considered “worthy of” (deserving of) preservation. Since 1966, there have been more than one million properties listed on the National Register. Every year, about 30,000 properties are added to the National Register.

Why would anyone want a property to be listed in the Register? When a property is included in the Register, or if it is located under an area listed in the NRHP, it may qualify for “tax incentives” (reduced amounts of money required to be paid to the government). Another reason to be included in the Register is that “grants” (money given by an organization or government, for a particular purpose) may also be given to property owners.

Properties listed in the NRHP are mostly “symbolic” (important because of what it represents), but the “recognition” (being accepted) of the importance of these properties help property owners to preserve them with the help of government money.