Cultural English 54 - Cities: Houston I; Who Americans trust; Q&A

Complete Transcript

You're listening to English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café number 54.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 54. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful – and I do mean beautiful – Los Angeles, California.

On this Café, we're going to talk about another famous American city. Today we'll talk about Houston, Texas. We’re also going to talk about a survey ¬– a questionnaire – that asked Americans who they trusted. That will give us some very interesting answers, I'm sure. And, as always, we’ll answer a few of your questions. Let's get started.

Our topic today is Houston, Texas (at least, our first topic). Texas is a state located in the south central part of the U.S. next to the country of Mexico – at least, that's the southern border of Texas. The city of Houston is actually right on the ocean, or near the ocean, on what we call the “Gulf of Mexico,” which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. A “gulf” (gulf) is part of an ocean that is usually surrounded partially by land. There's another word in English that sounds the same, but is spelled differently, (golf). “Golf” is a game that you play by hitting a small white ball. This “gulf” with a “u” is part of an ocean.

The city of Houston was named after one of the most famous Texans of the nineteenth century, a man by the name of Sam Houston. Sam Houston was, among other things, the first president of the Republic of Texas, as well as one of the first or early governors of the state of Texas. He also served as a senator from Texas. So, Sam Houston was a very famous man, and they named the city of Houston after him.

Houston is known for a couple of things. If you ask the average American what Houston is famous for, the first thing they say might be “oil.” Houston and other parts of Texas are famous because there are a lot of oil wells. A “well” (well), as a noun, is a hole in the ground that you dig to get some liquid out of the ground, out of the earth. You could have a well for water. You could also have, in this case, a well for oil. You drill a hole in the ground to get the oil out of the earth.

Texas has lots of oil wells and lots of companies who make money from these oil wells. Dallas, if you think of the state of Texas, is the other city you might have heard of. Dallas is located northwest of Houston. I believe you may have heard of the famous TV show Dallas, about Texas. If you've ever seen that show from the 1980s, you have a certain image of Texas and what it's like – at least, what it's like in the popular imagination.

Houston is a very large city. There are about five million people in the area around Houston, including the city of Houston itself, which has about two million people. We typically talk about a city and the areas around it, but we would commonly call the suburbs as being a “metropolitan area.” The “metropolitan area” is the city – a big city plus all of the little cities around it. Houston has about five million people in its metropolitan area.

It's also famous because it has a very large port. A “port” (port) is a place on an ocean, typically, where ships come and they can unload the things that they have on their ship. When you transport things by ship, the ship has to go somewhere, and you have to take the things off the boat so they can be transported overland. You can also have a port on a large lake, for example. Here, we’re talking about a port on the Gulf of Mexico. Houston has one of the largest ports, just as Los Angeles has a very large port.

A third famous thing about Houston, other than the oil and its port, is that it is the home of the Space Center. The Space Center, now called the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, after President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s, is one of the places that NASA – the National Aeronautics and Space Administration – has as its headquarters. The name that most people know the Space Center in Houston as is “Mission Control.”

When I was growing up in the late 1960s, early 1970s, during the U.S. Apollo Space Program, we would watch television and we would see pictures from Houston Mission Control – the space center in Houston. The astronauts – the people who were flying up in space – would often refer to Mission Control. Mission Control is the place where NASA had its communication equipment so it could communicate back and forth with the astronauts.

Often, the astronauts wouldn't say “Mission Control.” They would simply say “Houston” when they wanted to speak to Mission Control – the space center. They would just get on the radio and say “Houston,” and then they would give them the information they needed to give them or say what they needed to say. One of the most famous phrases in twentieth century America is the phrase, “Houston, the Eagle has landed.” When the first man to step on the moon, Neil Armstrong, did so, he said – when the ship landed on the moon – “Houston, the Eagle has landed.” The “Eagle” was the name of the ship.

Not all of the Apollo missions – the Apollo space trips – were successful, and there's another famous quote about the Space Center that most Americans know, which is, “Houston, we've got a problem.” When the astronauts said, “Houston, we've got a problem,” they were communicating that something had gone wrong. Now you will hear people use that phrase kind of as a joke, to indicate that there’s some big or major problem with the project or what you're doing, or perhaps with the situation. “Houston, we've got a problem.” (Actually, the astronauts said, “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” but no one remembers it that way.)

There are a few other things that Houston is famous for. One of them is a very large stadium, a sports stadium, called the “Astrodome.” The Astrodome, of course, has that word “astro” (astro) related to the sky, to the stars. An “astronaut” is a person who travels in space. A “dome” is a building that has a very large cover over it, a round cover on the top of the building. The Astrodome is a large stadium which is covered. It has a large dome over it.

I've been to Houston once or twice for a conference, for a meeting, but I've never really driven around the city or taken a tour of it. If you go to Houston, however, you certainly want to try to see some of the famous sites including, if possible, Mission Control if they have tours of that, the Astrodome, and of course, the oil wells.

Our second topic today refers to a survey, where you go out and you ask people questions about things. You get their opinion about things. This particular survey – we might also call it a “poll” (poll) – asked Americans how much they trusted a certain group of people. “To trust” someone is to have confidence in them, to believe that they are telling the truth, for example.

Well, Americans were asked which groups of people – which, specifically, occupations – they trusted the most. An “occupation” is just another word for kind of job. A “teacher” is an occupation. Being a doctor is an occupation. Being a lawyer is an occupation.

Anyway, this survey asked people who they trusted – what kinds of people they trusted based on the jobs that they held. At the top of the list, the job that people trusted most, or the people in the job the people trusted most, is doctors. Eighty-five percent of people thought that doctors could be trusted – could be trusted to tell the truth. They’re referring here, of course, to medical doctors – not PhD doctors like me. We can't be trusted at all. Trust me.

The second most trusted group actually is teachers. Teachers here doesn't mean, however, people who have their PhDs. It's referring more likely to high school teachers and elementary school teachers. So, teachers are also a very trusted group. Number three on the list is scientists, which is a very large group. Seventy-seven percent of the people in this survey thought that scientists usually tell the truth.

Next on the list, right behind scientists, were police officers – people who work for the police force. About 76 percent of the people surveyed said they could trust a police officer. There, interestingly enough, are often complaints about police officers, especially in large cities like Los Angeles. So, I'm a little surprised at this figure, but this is a national survey, not just what people in one large city think. The people, the average person, trust police officers more than the fifth most trusted occupation, which is professors. So, now we see how low professors are on the scale or on the list of most trusted occupations.

Perhaps the strangest result of this survey is that the sixth most trusted group of people in terms of their job is clergymen. Clergymen, or clergywomen nowadays, would be people who are ministers or representatives of religious groups. Ministers, priests, rabbis, imams – all of these would be considered clergymen, or people of the clergy – people who have religious duties and authority.

I say it's a little surprising that clergymen are below some of these other professions, but the percentage of people who say they trust clergymen is 74 percent. So, really, it's very close to the other occupations we've been talking about. After clergymen and clergywomen we have military officers – people who work for the Army, the Navy, and the other what we call “Armed Forces” in the military. I won’t go through the entire list, but it's interesting to see some of the occupations or professions that people don't trust very much.

Journalists – people who work as reporters for newspapers and television stations and so forth – are only trusted by 39 percent of the people. The survey was actually done a few years ago. It might even be lower now. Even lower than journalists are members of Congress. This is my favorite one. Members of Congress are the politicians who represent Americans in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.

Members of Congress are only trusted by about 35 percent of the people. Only 35 percent of the people believe that they tell the truth. Lawyers are even lower than members of Congress. Lawyers – or attorneys, you could also call them – are only trusted by 27 percent of the people. Not very many people trust lawyers. I wonder why?

At the bottom of the list – again this is, living in Los Angeles, very funny. At the bottom of the list are actors – people in the movies, in TV shows, in plays, and so forth. Of course, in Los Angeles, almost everyone that you meet has some connection – or at least, many have some connection – with the entertainment industry, the businesses that make films and so forth. It's rather funny to see that actors are the least trusted people.

One good way of meeting an actor, if you come to Los Angeles – because people often want to meet actors – I tell them that they should just go to a restaurant, and when their waiter or waitress comes to take their food order, introduce yourself and tell them you are happy to meet an actor. Of course, that's where most actors work – in restaurants, because they can't get jobs.

Now let’s answer a few of the questions that you have sent to us.

Our first question comes from Alvin (Alvin) in Hong Kong. Alvin wants to know the meaning of the expression, “Get off your soapbox.” This is an old expression that takes a little explaining to understand. A “box” is a square container – something you put something else into or where you store something. So, a “soapbox” would be a box that has soap – dry soap of the sort you might use, for example, for washing your clothing.

The expression comes from the pre-Internet and pre-television era where, if you wanted to give a speech – if you wanted to communicate your message to a group of people – you had to do it in person. You had to do it yourself. In order to be heard, for example, in a park or in a public area, it would be necessary or at least very helpful for you to be on top of something higher than the people you were talking to. One thing you could go on top of, or get on top of, is a box.

So, when people were getting on boxes or soapboxes – and I'm not sure why we use “soapbox,” maybe those were big boxes back then – people were giving their political opinions. They were trying to convince people of a certain position, maybe trying to get publicity for something – all these would be cases of people who would get up onto a soapbox. Well, when you tell someone to get off his or her soapbox, you're telling them to step down from the box.

But, of course, what you're really saying to them, since they're probably not standing on a soapbox really, is to stop giving their political opinions to you or stop talking so much, trying to convince you of something. This is often used as an expression when you are having a conversation or a meeting and there’s one person who wants to talk for a long time about something they feel very strongly about.

There’s a verb we might use in this instance also, which is “to hog the floor.” “To hog” (hog) something means to use something and not let anyone else use it. The “floor” here doesn't refer to the floor you walk on; it refers to the ability to talk to a group of people at a meeting. We might even say, “Who has the floor?” meaning “Who right now has the right to speak?” “To hog the floor,” then, would be to not let anyone else speak at a public meeting or a public gathering. If someone were hogging the floor, you could tell them to get off their soapbox.

Our next question comes from Yoshiko (Yoshiko) in Japan. Yoshiko wants to know the difference between two words that you will hear when talking about transportation. One of them is “layover,” and the other one is “transfer.”

A “layover” (layover) is when you are traveling from one city to another city, but you have to stop in a third city before you get to the city where you want to go. For example, if I'm flying from Los Angeles to New York City, on the other side of the United States, my plane might stop in Denver or Chicago or St. Louis or some other city in between Los Angeles and New York. If that happens, I would say that I had a layover. “I had a layover in Chicago.” That means that I went to Chicago and then had to wait a certain amount of time before I was able then to take the plane continuing on, or a different plane, to New York City.

It's always important, when you are traveling a long distance and you are going to have a layover, to check to see how long that layover is. No one likes to sit in an airport for eight or ten hours. An hour or two is okay, but if you have a long layover, it can be very tiring. People often describe their layover by the number of hours that they have in that particular city. So, if you say, “I have a three-hour layover in Chicago,” that means I'm going to have to wait three hours after I arrived to Chicago before I can take my plane to New York.

A “transfer” (transfer) refers, usually, to how you get from your airport once you arrive at your destination – where you're going – to your hotel or wherever else you are going after you arrive at the airport. So, for example, if I fly to New York, I land at JFK airport. Now, I need to get to my hotel in Manhattan. I need to take ground transportation – a bus, a taxi, a subway – in order to get to my hotel. That ground transportation could be called a “transfer.”

The verb “to transfer” in general means to move something from one place to another. In this case, you're moving a person from the airport to their hotel, or perhaps the convention center, or wherever they're going in the city. So, that's the difference between a layover and transfer.

Our final question is also from Japan, from Satsuki (Satsuki). Satsuki wants to know the difference between two words that sound the same but are spelled differently. One of them is “blond” spelled (blond). The other word is “blonde” spelled (blonde). Both of these words are used to refer to the color of someone's hair. “Blonde” as a color is a light, almost yellow color.

In the United States, the word “blond” without an “e” at the end can be used for both a man and a woman. You can say, “She has blond hair” or “He has blond hair” and spell blond without an “e.” That’s an accepted usage. However, the more traditional use of these two words is to use the “e” to distinguish between a man and a woman. So, if it's a woman, traditionally you would put an “e” at the end of the word. So, if you said, for example, “She's a blonde,” you would spell blonde with an “e” at the end.

This usage – this way of using these two words, or the spelling of these two words – is not as common as it was even 25, 30 years ago. Now it's common to see blond without an “e” used for both men and women. But if you do see the “e” at the end, then it's definitely a woman. “Blonde” with an “e” at the end is only used to refer to a woman.

I'm not blond – not anymore, anyway – but I am here to answer your questions. Email us at eslpod@eslpod.com.

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

gulf – a body of water that has land on all sides except a narrow, small section

* We have to be very careful if we plan to sail into that small gulf.

oil well – a deep hole made in the ground for oil to come out

* Some people are worried about the oil wells in Alaska and the effects they are having on the environment.

metropolitan area – a large city with smaller cities and neighborhoods around it

* If you want to see the countryside, you’ll need to drive outside of the metropolitan area.

port – a place on land on the coast where ships and boats can stop

* On our trip, the ship will stop at four different ports and we’ll get a chance to see each city.

cargo – things that are carried on a ship, airplane, train, or car/truck

* The truck driver drove across six states to delivery her cargo.

to unload – to remove things from a ship, airplane, train, car/truck, or container

* When we arrived home after the long road trip, we unloaded all of our things from the car.

mission – an exploration into space

* Which country will attempt the next mission to the moon?

dome – a round-shaped roof

* The dome on that church is at least 200 years old.

occupation – job; profession

* What was your occupation before you decided to stay home to raise your children?

clergy – the people allowed to perform religious duties; the people who are the head of a religious organization

* The mayor called a meeting of the most influential clergy in the city to try and stop the street violence.

to get off one’s soapbox – to stop telling other people what to do and how to think

* If you’ll get off your soapbox for a minute we can talk seriously about finding a solution.

to hog the floor – not to allow other people to speak or get attention

* I don’t want to hog the floor so I’ll hand it over to Jessica, who has a few words to say.

layover – when traveling by airplane, a city where you must stop and wait or change airplanes before going on

* She couldn’t get a direct flight from Austin to Pittsburg and had two layovers on the way.

transfer – traveling to or returning from the airport

* This vacation package includes your airfares and all of your airport transfers in each city.

blond/blonde – a man or woman (blond) or woman (blonde) with light yellow color hair

* I don’t think you know Diana. She’s the blonde standing over there by the door.

What Insiders Know

“___________ is a four-letter word.”

When someone in the U.S. uses the term “four-letter word,” they mean those words in English that are “obscene” or “vulgar,” that is, foul language that you would not say in front of your mother or your teacher. We call these “four-letter words” even though some of them have more or less than four letters because many of the obscene words in English are one syllable, and many of them have four letters. Some of the less vulgar ones are “hell,” the very unpleasant place that some people believe bad people will go when they die, or “damn,” something you would say to curse someone or if something bad happens to you.

A popular expression that people use is: “(Something) is a four-letter word.” This means that this thing, whatever it is, is unpleasant, very bad, or causes you terrible problems. Some popular phrases are:
- “Love is a four-letter word.”
- “Work is a four-letter word.”
In these two examples, “love” and “work” actually have four letters.

But, we can also use this expressions with longer or shorter words, such as:
- “Trust is a four-letter word.”
- “Rejection is a four-letter word.”

Of course, “trust” and “rejection” have more than four-letters, but the idea and the joke is that these things have the same meaning as four-letter words: They are bad; they cause a lot of problems. So, some people may say: “English is four-letter word.”