Cultural English 480 - The Sound of Music; Public housing and “The Projects”; Q&A

Complete Transcript

You’re listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café number 480.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 480. 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 popular movie musicals ever made, The Sound of Music. We’re also going to talk about the public housing system in the United States and explain a little bit about the term often used to describe some of this public housing: “the projects.” And, as always, we’ll answer a few of your questions. Let’s get started.

Our first topic is one of the most popular movies of the middle part of the twentieth century: the musical called The Sound of Music. The Sound of Music is a movie that is “based on,” or comes from, a true story of a family that was living in Austria in the 1930s and managed to leave Austria in order to escape the political consequences of staying there under the rule of the Nazis. The movie is based on the real-life story, then, of a real family – the Von Trapp family.

Maria von Trapp wrote a book in 1949, published under the title of The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. That story was later taken in 1959 – ten years later – by two famous composers, Rogers and Hammerstein, and made into a popular Broadway musical. A “musical” (musical) is a play or a movie that has both acting and singing. The characters in the play or musical sing part of the story.

In 1965, the musical was turned into a movie, and it’s the movie that we’re going to talk about here specifically on this episode of the Café. The Sound of Music as a movie was released in 1965. The movie begins with the lead actress – the most important actress in the movie, Julie Andrews – spinning around on a hillside. She’s on top of or near the top of the mountain, and she’s turning around, spinning around – singing, of course. She sings one of the most famous lines from the movie:

The hills are alive,
with the sound of music . . .

She sings it a little bit higher than I do. “The hills are alive with the sound of music.” Julie Andrews’ character in the movie is named Maria. And Maria loves to sing. She loves music, and so she’s happy being out on the hillside singing songs and such. After that first opening scene, or first part of the movie, we see Maria running down the hillside towards an abbey, where she lives. An “abbey” (abbey) is a building where those who are part of a religious order, a special religious group of men or women, live.

This is an abbey for nuns, and we learn that Maria is trying to become a nun. A “nun” (nun) here refers to a special group of women in the Roman Catholic Church who decide not to get married, and instead to dedicate their whole lives to God and to serving God and his people. Maria is trying to become a nun. She’s in Austria – the country of Austria – near the town of Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg is famous for, among other things, being the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The movie begins in the middle of the 1930s.

Now, Maria loves to sing and dance, and those are things that you don’t normally find in an abbey, in a place where nuns or monks are living. “Monks” (monks) are men who dedicate their lives to God and live unmarried. The head of the abbey, called the “Reverend Mother,” is very concerned about Maria. She’s concerned that perhaps Maria isn’t the best person to become a nun, and so she decides to suggest to Maria that instead of staying at the abbey, she go and work as an nanny for a family nearby.

A “nanny” (nanny) is a person – usually a woman, but not always – who goes to someone’s house and takes care of that person’s or that couple’s children. You have to have a little bit of money in order to afford to have a nanny. Most families don’t have nannies, but rich families, especially during this period in the 1930s, often did have nannies. There are actually a lot of nannies here in Los Angeles that work for rich Hollywood families and others in the entertainment industry,

But we’re not in Hollywood – we’re in Austria, and Maria is sent to work at the house of a man named George von Trapp. George von Trapp is a captain in the Austrian Navy. A “navy” is that part of a country’s military forces that takes care of the ships and the boats of the military. Now, Captain von Trapp is a very wealthy man – he has a lot of money – but he is a widower. A “widower” (widower) is a man whose wife has died. A woman whose husband has died is called a “widow” (widow).

As a widower, Captain von Trapp has to take care of his children. Now, he has seven children, which is of course a lot for any person to take care of. The captain is very strict with his children. He treats his children almost as if they were members of the military, as if they were sailors in the navy. A “sailor” (sailor) is someone who is a member of the navy of a given country. A “sailor” can also refer to anyone who works on a boat or ship, but here it refers to a member of the military.

The captain, as I say, treats his children with a very strict manner. He yells at them, he blows whistles in order to get their attention, and so forth. Because of this, the children aren’t very happy, and the captain does not appear to be very happy. Maria arrives, then, to be the new nanny for this household – to help the captain take care of the seven children. She brings her guitar with her and immediately starts teaching the children how to sing and how to play music.

She teaches them a song called “Do-Re-Mi,” about the different notes that are important to know in singing or playing music. She also takes the children outside to play. This is something that they have not done before, or at least had not done in a very long time. The children quickly come to love Maria as their nanny, and Maria comes to love the seven children. She teaches them how to have fun. She helps them when they are scared. She is like a mother figure to the children. In one song, called “My Favorite Things,” she teaches them how not to be frightened, how not to be afraid.

The eldest child – the oldest child – is a girl named Liesl. Liesl talks to Maria about her secret boyfriend, called Rolfe. That becomes important a little later on in the movie. Even the captain begins to change after Maria comes and works as a nanny in the house. He becomes a little kinder, a little gentler, a little nicer with the children. We learn early on in the movie that he has a girlfriend, a woman by the name of Elsa. Elsa is a very wealthy woman herself. She lives in Vienna and hopes to soon marry Captain von Trapp.

One day, the captain decides to have a party at his house, and he invites many different guests over, including of course his fiancée – the woman he’s promised to be married to – Elsa. Maria is there with the children, and she arranges for the children to sing a little song for the guests at the party as they are going off to bed. The song is called “So Long, Farewell.” “So long” and “farewell” (farewell) are somewhat old-fashioned ways of saying good-bye in English. The song is actually quite cute, quite funny:

So long, farewell,
auf Wiedersehen, good night . . .

And then each kid has his or her own verse. “Auf Wiedersehen” is the German word for good-bye, although I’m sure I’m not pronouncing it correctly. Anyway, back to the story.

Maria, we find out during the party, has fallen in love with the captain – her boss, remember. Realizing that this is happening, she decides that she can’t stay at the house, and so she returns to the abbey, to the Reverend Mother. The Reverend Mother says that Maria must follow her heart and therefore return to the family, and that’s what Maria does. This is not always good advice, of course – following your heart – but Maria decides to do it. After all, this is a Hollywood movie.

Maria returns to the house, but then she learns that, indeed, the captain and Elsa are going to get married. This makes her very sad, and so she decides to leave the house once again. The captain however, realizes that he doesn’t really want to marry Elsa – that he too is in love with Maria, as Maria is in love with him. So, he ends his engagement. He decides not to marry his girlfriend and asks Maria to marry him instead. Aw, isn’t that nice? They get married and everyone, especially the children, are happy. But wait, bad news is coming.

The Nazis in Germany are taking control of Austria and require the captain to join them in their military. Well, the captain doesn’t like the Nazis, no surprise there, and decides that he is going to get his family out of Austria and away from the Nazis. The rest of the movie involves an exciting adventure. Do they actually make it out of Austria? Do they survive? Well, you’ll have to see the movie to get the answers to those questions.

The Sound of Music continues to be a favorite movie of many Americans even today. It is constantly being performed, both in theaters as well as shown on television. I think almost every year you see the movie on TV. In fact, in 2013 they made a new television movie that was shown live – in other words, the actors were actually acting as you watch them. It wasn’t something that was filmed and edited beforehand.

If you saw that on American television, you probably would have wished, as I did, that they didn’t do it live, and that they instead edited it. It wasn’t was a great production, mainly because the woman who played Maria – a very well-known country and western singer by the name of Carrie Underwood – did not do a very good job in her acting. She’s a singer, but she’s not an actor.

If you want to really see the best version of the movie, you should see the original Julie Andrews version. I should mention that the Julie Andrews version won five Academy Awards, or Oscars – awards given to the best movies, actors, and directors of that year. It won the award for best picture (best movie) as well as best director.

Now let’s turn to our second topic, which is public housing in the United States. “Public housing” refers to programs that the government has to help poor people find a place to live. One way they do this is by providing money to poor people so they have enough money to pay their rent. “Rent” (rent) is the amount of money that you pay each month to live in a house or in an apartment. It’s also a musical, interestingly enough, from the 1990s, I think. Anyway, the other way the government helps people who don’t have enough money to afford housing is to build special apartment buildings for them.

Only certain kinds of people are able to live in public housing. They have to be people who don’t have a lot of money, who are elderly – that is, who are older – or who are disabled. “To be disabled” (disabled) means that you have some physical or even mental problem that would prevent you from getting a job and being able to pay your rent. The government looks at your income, in other words – the amount of money you get from working – and uses that to determine whether you are eligible, whether you are able to live in public housing.

Of course, you have to apply to be in public housing. “To apply” (apply) means to request permission to do something, usually involving filling out a lot of forms. So, you fill out a lot of “paperwork,” we would call it, or forms – pieces of paper – or nowadays probably PDF files on your computer, and you give them to the government, and the government decides whether you are poor enough to live in one of the public housing apartment buildings.

Now, even if you are poor enough, it doesn’t mean that you will get a place, because in many cities there just aren’t enough spaces for all of the people who are eligible to be there. That’s especially true here in Los Angeles, where you may have to wait six months or a year before there is a place for you at one of the public housing complexes or public housing buildings.

Our public housing system in the U.S. began really in the 1930s in some areas, but it was in 1965 that it began to grow and affect the lives of millions of Americans. In 1965, then-President Lyndon Johnson approved certain laws that would allow the government to build buildings for people. Many of those buildings are still around today. Most of them were built in what we used to call, although it’s not quite as common anymore, the “inner city.”

The “inner” (inner) part of something is the inside part or the central part of something. The word “inner city,” however, is used to describe the main area in a city where people live. Sometimes, the word is used to indicate poverty or crime – “inner-city problems,” for example – but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. In fact, in some cities, the inner cities are becoming richer than the areas around them because people are moving back – people with money are moving back into the inner city.
As part of what was called “President Johnson’s War on Poverty,” he created the Department of Housing and Urban Development – or at least, he approved the law that created that department. The Department of Housing and Urban (or city) Development is usually called by its initials, “HUD” (HUD). It’s responsible for creating and maintaining housing for Americans who need it. Technically, I believe they use the word “suitable housing.” “Suitable” (suitable) means appropriate for that situation.

Public housing developments continue to be built, although they were much more common back in the ’60s and ’70s when I was growing up. Most of the public housing built in the middle part of the twentieth century included tall apartment buildings. These buildings were sometimes called “the projects” (projects). That term comes from their name ,“housing project.” However, “the projects,” as a term to refer to public housing, nowadays has a very negative association. It makes people think of a dangerous area – a dangerous building to live in with lots of crime and drugs and violence.

The public housing system and HUD try to help everyone in need, but as I mentioned earlier, often there isn’t enough money to build enough housing for all of those who might be able to take advantage of it, who would be eligible for it according to the government rules.

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

Our first question comes from Miki (Miki) in Japan. The question has to do with four words: “soak,” “immerse,” “dip,” and “pickle.” Well, as the old song goes, one of these things is not like the others. Three of these words are related and one of them is not. Let’s start with the three related words: “soak,” “immerse,” and “dip.”

“To soak” (soak) is a verb meaning to allow or make something thoroughly or completely wet, usually by putting it into water or some other kind of liquid. If, for example, you have a spot on your clothing – a “stain,” we would call it, on your clothing – that you got from, I don’t know, playing on the grass, or you wiped your arm against some dirt, you may need to soak that piece of clothing in order to get the stain out, in order to get it clean.

You may have to put it in water and soap and leave it there for however long you leave it for (obviously you can see I don’t wash clothing very often, but people who do tell me that you can soak the clothing in order to get it clean). You may also soak beans, for example, a kind of food that you eat. Some people soak them in water overnight before cooking them. Again, I can’t speak from any personal experience since I don’t like beans.

The second verb is “to immerse” (immerse). If you want to soak something, you will “immerse” it in a liquid, such as water. The two verbs, “to soak” and “to immerse,” are related in the sense that “to immerse” is emphasizing the action of putting the object into the liquid – into the water, say – whereas “to soak” refers more to the object already being in the liquid and staying there for a certain period of time.

That’s one meaning of “to immerse.” We also have an expression “to immerse yourself,” or “to immerse oneself.” That means to involve yourself deeply in a particular activity – to read everything about it, to study it, to spend a lot of time examining it.

The third verb also related to the first two is “to dip” (dip). “To dip” means to put something into water or liquid, but only very briefly, very quickly. If, for example, you had a towel that you are using to clean something, and you only wanted one part of the towel to be wet. You might dip it in some water – put it in the water and then take it out right away so only a part of it is wet. “To dip” something, then, means them to put it in and then take it out right away. This would be in some ways the opposite of “to soak.” “To soak” is to put something in a liquid and leave it there for a long time.

I should also note that “dip” can be a noun as well, referring to a thick sauce that you put food into. The most common example of this would be some sort of sour cream ranch dip that you would put potato chips in. You put the chip in – you “dip,” if you will, the chip in – and you take some of the creamy sauce out and you eat the two together. It’s delicious. Trust me.

The fourth word that Miki wants to know about is “pickle” (pickle). A “pickle,” as a noun, is a kind of food that you eat. A pickle is basically a cucumber that has been soaked in vinegar or brine, which is a combination of water and salt. There’s actually a verb “to pickle,” which means to take food and put it in this liquid solution in such a way that it changes the food – the character and taste of the food.

Cucumbers, when they are pickled, become what we call “pickles,” as a noun. Pickles are commonly put on hamburgers in the United States – on the cooked ground beef in between two pieces of bread. There was a famous commercial for McDonald’s many years ago when I was growing up. They explained what was in a McDonald’s hamburger: “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.”

That was the song. “Two all-beef patties” – a “patty” is just a round piece of beef, in this case. “Two all beef patties, special sauce” – that was basically the sauce that McDonald’s makes from, I think, mayonnaise and perhaps ketchup.” “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.” A “bun” (bun) is a special kind of bread used for eating hamburgers or possibly, if in a different shape, hot dogs.

So you can see that putting pickles on your hamburger is quite common. “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.” There’s another meaning of pickle, which means to be in a difficult situation. We have the expression, “I’m in a pickle.” “To be in a pickle” is to be in difficult or messy situation, some problem that you have to get yourself out of or solve.

Claudia from Austria – maybe she knows the Von Trapp family; maybe she’s even a distant relative of the Von Trapp family, who knows? – Claudia wants to know the meaning of the expression “so-called,” as well as the meaning of another common expression, “so to speak.” Let’s start with “so-called.”

We use “so-called” before a noun, typically, to indicate that this is what something or someone is commonly called. It’s a name or term that is commonly used. “He’s the so-called ‘Godfather of Soul.’” – that would be a description of the one-and-only James Brown [sings “James Brown”]. “Soul” is a kind of popular music. So, we use “so-called” when we are indicating that this is a common way of referring to this thing or this person. Now, sometimes we use “so-called” when we think the term is not appropriate – when we think that although people call it that, it shouldn’t really be called that.

How do you know the difference? Well, it depends on the way it is said and the context in which it is said. Let’s say you know someone who you perhaps at one time considered a friend, and the person does something bad to you. When you’re talking about this person, you might say something like, “Well, my so-called ‘friend’ really made me angry yesterday.” He’s called your friend, but you’re saying that it isn’t really appropriate. It just depends on the way you say it, as I said before, and the context in which it is set.

The second expression Claudia wants to know about is “so to speak” (speak). “So to speak” is a phrase that we use to show that you are describing something perhaps in a poetic or unusual way. It’s often used when someone is speaking figuratively – when they’re comparing one thing to another.

For example, “They look at him as the ‘big fish in the little pond,’ so to speak.” We’re comparing someone to a fish in a pond. A “pond” is a small body of water, a small lake. If someone is a “big fish in a small pond,” they are an important person, but in a rather small organization. The “so to speak” is added at the end of that sentence to indicate that you are describing this person not literally, not actually, but figuratively – as a way of comparing the person to, in this case, a fish.

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

abbey – the building or group of buildings where religious people live, such as nuns or monks

* Visitors are welcome to tour the abbey and see the church and gardens, but the living spaces and private rooms are not open to the public.

nun – a religious woman who lives her life to serve people in need and who lives in a community of other religious women separated from other people

* Each Wednesday, the nuns go to the local homeless shelter and cook meals for the people staying there.

nanny – a person whose job is to go to a person’s home and to take care of that person’s children

* The children’s nanny is responsible for getting them up in the morning, playing with them during the day, and cooking lunch for them.

widower – a man whose wife has died and he has not remarried

* Although he has been a widower for five years, Joe still feels as though he’s married.

public housing – a collection of homes for rent that the government makes available for people who cannot afford to live in regular rental homes

* Some communities have developments that include both regular rental homes and also public housing.

rent – an amount of money one pays each month to live in a home or apartment

* In New York City, you would pay $4,000 a month for an apartment, but in Dallas, you may pay only $1,400 a month for the same home.

income – the amount of money a person earns for doing a job

* Claudia’s promotion means that her income will go up from $50,000 per year to $65,000 per year.

disabled – having a physical or mental condition that makes one unable to move or be involved in certain basic activities

* The new office building had many additions to help disabled people gain access, including extra wide doors and ramps going in and out of the building.

to apply – to request permission to do something; to make a formal request to do or to have something

* When Toshi applied for the job as project manager, he submitted his resume and cover letter, as well as three reference letters from former managers.

eligible – meeting all of the requirements to do something

* To be eligible to win the contest, you can’t work for the company.

inner city – an area, often in the center of the city, where many people live that often with has serious social and economic problems

* Matthew hopes one day to move his family out of the inner city so that his kids can grow up in a safe neighborhood.

suitable – correct or appropriate for what a person or situation needs

* Would wearing this green suit be suitable for the job interview?

to soak – to make or allow something to become thoroughly wet by putting it completely in liquid

* These beans will be easier to cook if we soak them in water for an hour first.

to immerse – to submerge or put completely in a liquid

* In the old days, doctors immersed patients with high fevers in ice water to try to reduce body temperature.

to dip – to put or let something down quickly or briefly into a liquid

* Put some sauce on your plate and dip the cheese in it before you eat it.

to pickle – to place a kind of food, such as a small cucumber, in vinegar, brine (water with a lot of salt), or a similar solution to preserve it

* Let’s pickle some cabbage so that we can eat it during the winter months.

so-called – a term used to show that something or someone is commonly called by a name or term, and can sometimes be used to express one's view that such a name or term is inappropriate

* My so-called best friend told other people my secrets and I will never forgive her.

so to speak (say) – a phrase used to highlight or show that one is describing something in an unusual way; figuratively speaking

* When I heard the news, my heart jumped out of my chest, so to speak.

What Insiders Know

The Partridge Family

In 1970, the American television show The Partridge Family made its “debut” (first appearance). The show told the story of a “widowed” (woman whose husband had died) mother and her five children.

This was the “premise” (basic idea) behind the show: In the “fictitious” (not real; made up) city of San Pueblo, California, five “siblings” (brothers and sisters) convince their mother, Shirley, to help by singing a song they were recording in their “garage” (small building where cars are parked next to one’s home).

One of the siblings, the 10-year-old boy Danny, meets a music “manager” (person who represents a person or group in the entertainment business), who helps them make the song a big “hit” (very successful and liked by many people). The siblings then convince their mother to join the band and “go on tour” (for a musician or a musical group to travel to many cities to perform) with them. The family gets an old “school bus” (bus used to transport students to elementary or secondary school) to travel around the country to perform.

The Partridge Family was “loosely based on” (used the same basic story as, but with many changes) The Cowsills, a family of pop musicians famous in the 1960’s. Originally, the “producers” (makers of a TV show or film) considered the members of The Cowsills as actors in the series, but since the children had no acting background and were older, the show producers decided to hire younger actors instead

During the show’s four-season “run” (airing; showing on television), many famous celebrities made appearances on the show, such as popular comedian Richard Pryor and singer Johnny Cash. The Partridge Family also produced music albums that were very popular. The songs from the TV show also became hits. The show “aired” (showed on TV) its final episode on March 23, 1974 after 96 episodes and eight Partridge Family music albums.