Daily English 1265 Watching a Fight

Dialogue/Story

Slow Speed begins at: 1:45
Explanation begins at: 3:46
Normal Speed begins at: 16:57

Complete Transcript

Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast number 1,265 – Watching a Fight.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast episode 1,265. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development right here in beautiful Los Angeles, California. That’s how they say it in Great Britain – “Los Angeles,” with the last syllable being like the word “please” – but here in L.A. we say “Los Angeles.” So, get it right, Brits.

This dialogue is between Adrian and Paul about watching two men fight. Sounds fun. Let’s get started.

[start of dialogue]

Adrian: Hey, there’s a fight going on outside. Let’s go!

Paul: Those guys are really going at it.

Adrian: Yeah, they’re going all out. Did you see that? He just sucker punched the other guy.

Paul: They’re not really fighting fair, are they?

Adrian: No, this is a knock-down, drag-out fight – the best kind! Deck him!

Paul: I don’t really want to watch these guys pummeling each other. Want to go?

Adrian: Are you kidding?! This is the best entertainment I’ve seen in months. Nice uppercut, but watch out for the other guy’s jab. Oh, he just took a bad blow to the head.

Paul: This is getting ugly. Next we’ll get hair pulling.

Adrian: Oh, did you see that head-butt? I think we have a knockout.

Paul: Okay, if that’s true, then the fight is over. Can we leave now?

Adrian: Wait! The guy is getting up. I think we might get a second round. Hey, where are you going? You don’t have the stomach for a little fight?

Paul: It’s not the fight. What I can’t stomach is being around someone who is as bloodthirsty as you are!

[end of dialogue]

Adrian begins our dialogue by saying to Paul, “Hey, there’s a fight going on outside.” A “fight” is when two people try to hurt each other, often by hitting each other. You can have a fight that is just “verbal” (verbal). That’s when two people are often yelling at each other, disagreeing with each other but not hitting each other. When they start to hit each other, we would call that a “physical fight.”

Paul says, “Those guys are really going at it.” The expression “to go at it” means to be completely involved in something with a lot of enthusiasm. Adrian says, “Yeah, they’re going all out.” “To go all out” means to do something without hesitation or limitation, to do something fully, often in a somewhat extreme way. “To go at it” and “to go all out” could describe the same situation, as it does here. The meanings are slightly different. “To go at it” means to begin something with a lot of enthusiasm. “To go all out” means to do the most you possibly can. So they’re slightly different in meaning.

In any case, Adrian then says to Paul, “Did you see that?” indicating something that just happened during the fight, apparently, where these two men are hitting each other. Adrian says, “He just sucker punched the other guy.” “To sucker (sucker) punch (punch)” someone is to hit someone when he is not expecting it, in a somewhat unfair way, I guess we would say. The verb “to punch” means to hit someone with your closed hand, what we would call your “fist” (fist). In fact, there’s a way of describing a fight such as the one in the dialogue which is a “fistfight,” when two people hit each other mostly with their closed hands, their fists.

After Adrian comments on one guy sucker punching the other, Paul says, “They’re not really fighting fair, are they?” “To fight fair” (fair) means to agree to fight in a way that is somehow following certain rules. It may seem a little strange to talk about “fighting fair,” but when people fight in a boxing match, there are definitely rules for things you can do and not do when you are fighting the other person. When two men are angry with each other and start hitting each other, most people don’t think about rules that might govern or be applicable to the fight.

Adrian says, “No,” meaning no, they’re not fighting fair. “This is a knock-down, drag-out fight.” “The expression “knock (knock) – down, drag (drag) – out” refers to a kind of fighting where everything is acceptable. There are no rules. There are no restrictions. Adrian appears to really be enjoying this fight. She calls a knock-down, drag-out fight “the best kind.” Then she yells at the men, or at one of them, “Deck him!” “To deck” (deck) someone is an informal way of saying to punch or hit someone very hard, often so hard that the person falls down on the ground.

Paul says, “I don’t really want to watch these guys pummeling each other.” “To pummel” (pummel) is to punch or hit someone many times repeatedly with your fist. Paul says to Adrian, “Want to go?” Adrian says, “Are you kidding?!” She, of course, doesn’t want to go. She says, “This is the best entertainment I’ve seen in months.” Then she goes back to watching the fight and starts to comment on how the two men are fighting each other.

She says, “Nice uppercut.” An “uppercut (uppercut)” is a kind of punch that is used in boxing or in a fistfight like this, where you use your arm to hit the other man’s face by bringing your fist from down below where your, say, waist is and up into the face. So you are hitting the face from down below. That’s an “uppercut.” Another kind of punch or way of hitting someone is called a “jab” (jab). A jab is a very quick hit with your fist. You move your arm in and out very quickly when you hit the or try to hit the face of the person you’re fighting.

“Oh,” Adrian says, “he just took a bad blow to the head.” A “blow” (blow) here refers to a strong hit, a strong punch. A “blow to the head” means that the other fighter has hit him in the head hard. Paul then comments, “This is getting ugly.” The expression “to get ugly” (ugly) means that the situation is becoming worse. It’s becoming very unpleasant. If you describe something as “getting ugly,” you mean that it’s getting to be very serious in a bad way and in a very unpleasant, not nice way.

Paul says, “Next we’ll get,” meaning we will see in this fight, “hair pulling.” “To pull someone’s hair” means, of course, to take your hand and to grab the hair on the head of the person and pull it. This is very difficult if you fight me. You won’t be able to pull my hair. So, I have that advantage.

Anyway, Adrian says, “Oh, did you see that head-butt?” A “head” (head) is what you have on top of your body where your brain is supposed to be – although not everyone has a brain in their head, such as one of my neighbors, for example. “To butt” (butt) means to hit something hard. So a “head-butt” would be to hit someone hard with the top of your head or the front of your head. In the game of soccer, what the rest of the world calls “football,” you can have a head-butt by hitting the ball with your head – or at least, I think that’s possible.

Adrian finishes her commentary by saying, “I think we have a knockout.” A “knockout” (knockout) is when a fight ends when one of the two people fighting falls on the ground and doesn’t get up. Paul says, “Okay, if that’s true then the fight is over. Can we leave now?” Adrian says, “Wait! The guy is getting up,” meaning the guy was knocked onto the floor, he fell down onto the floor, but now he’s getting up. “I think we may have a second round,” she says.

In a boxing match, where two men (or two women nowadays) wear special gloves on their hands and hit each other following certain rules, there are different parts of the fight, and those parts of the fight are called “rounds.” A “round” is a certain number of minutes during which the two fighters hit each other, and then they stop and they take a break for a short amount of time and then they start fighting again, and each one of those divisions or parts of the fight is called a “round” (round).

“Hey,” Adrian says, “where you going? You don’t have the stomach for a little fight?” she says. Paul is getting up and leaving and Adrian wants to know if he “has the stomach (stomach) for” a fight. “To have the stomach for” something is an expression we use to mean to have the ability to tolerate a difficult situation or a situation that is unpleasant, uncomfortable, or maybe even painful. Paul says, “It’s not the fight,” meaning he’s not bothered by the fight itself. “What I can’t stomach,” he says – what I can’t tolerate or what I find too unpleasant – “is being around someone,” being close to someone, “who is as bloodthirsty as you are!”

Paul’s problem is not with the fight but with Adrian, because he thinks she is “bloodthirsty” (bloodthirsty). “To be bloodthirsty” means to enjoy violence, to like violence, to like seeing other people get hurt or possibly even to spill their blood – when you see blood because two people are hitting each other and you enjoy that. That’s what Paul’s problem is, and I think he’s probably right.

Now let’s listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.

[start of dialogue]

Adrian: Hey, there’s a fight going on outside. Let’s go!

Paul: Those guys are really going at it.

Adrian: Yeah, they’re going all out. Did you see that? He just sucker punched the other guy.

Paul: They’re not really fighting fair, are they?

Adrian: No, this is a knock-down, drag-out fight – the best kind! Deck him!

Paul: I don’t really want to watch these guys pummeling each other. Want to go?

Adrian: Are you kidding?! This is the best entertainment I’ve seen in months. Nice uppercut, but watch out for the other guy’s jab. Oh, he just took a bad blow to the head.

Paul: This is getting ugly. Next we’ll get hair pulling.

Adrian: Oh, did you see that head-butt? I think we have a knockout.

Paul: Okay, if that’s true, then the fight is over. Can we leave now?

Adrian: Wait! The guy is getting up. I think we might get a second round. Hey, where are you going? You don’t have the stomach for a little fight?

Paul: It’s not the fight. What I can’t stomach is being around someone who is as bloodthirsty as you are!

[end of dialogue]

Our scriptwriter goes all out to give you the very best scripts possible. We thank that scriptwriter – the one and only Dr. Lucy Tse.

From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. Thank you for listening. Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.

Glossary

fight – a struggle between two people who are trying to hurt each other, usually as the result of a disagreement; an argument between two or more people

* How often did you and your brother get into fights while you were growing up?

to go at it – to be fully involved in something, without stopping to rest

* The kids really want to solve this puzzle. They’ve been going at it for at least two hours.

to go all out– to do something fully and in an extreme way, with no limitations or hesitation

* If we’re going to open this business, let’s go all out and make sure we succeed.

sucker punched – to hit someone when he or she is not expecting it, in an unfair way

* Wow, Blake just walked up and sucker punched that man from behind!

to fight fair – to establish and follow certain rules in a fight, such as allowing the other person to defend himself or herself, and agreeing not to pull hair or hit below the belt

* Poking someone’s eye is definitely not an example of fighting fair.

knock-down, drag-out – a style of fighting where everything is acceptable and there are no rules, restrictions, or limitations

* When Isaac and Carl started fighting over that girl, we immediately knew it would be a knock-down, drag-out fight.

to deck (someone) – to punch someone very hard; to hit someone with one’s closed hand

* Harvey decked his neighbor in the face and made his nose bleed.

to pummel – to punch someone many times; to hit someone repeatedly with one’s fist

* Look! That guy is pummeling someone on the ground. Call the police!

uppercut – a punch to the face with an arm that comes from below and moves upward, with a bent elbow

* That uppercut almost broke William’s jaw!

jab – a quick poke or hit, usually with a closed hand

* Justin told a joke and gave his friend a playful jab in the chest.

blow – a strong hit

* That blow to the stomach almost knocked him off his feet!

to get ugly – to become much worse; for a situation to become very unpleasant

* At first, their disagreements were silly, but now their relationship is getting ugly and nobody wants to be around them.

hair pulling – a style of fighting in which people pull each other’s hair to cause pain

* Having long hair is a major disadvantage if you’re ever in a fight with hair pulling.

head-butt – when one person bends at the waist and hits a person with the top of one’s head

* That head-butt was hard enough to make Keith feel dizzy.

knockout – a fight or a hit that ends with one person losing consciousness, falling to the ground as if asleep

* That guy is so much bigger than you are! If you fight with him, it’s going to end with a knockout and you will get hurt.

round – one of many periods of fighting or a competition

* Benny lost the first round of the fight, but he won the next two.

to have the stomach – to be able to tolerate something; to be brave or determined enough to do something that is unpleasant, uncomfortable, or painful

* I don’t think I have the stomach for watching surgery being performed. The sight of blood makes me feel sick.

bloodthirsty – enjoying violence and wanting to see people get hurt

* This horror film was created for a bloodthirsty audience.

Comprehension Questions

1. What is involved in pummeling?
a) Hair pulling
b) Fighting fair
c) Jabs and blows
2. What does Adrian mean when she asks, “You don’t have the stomach for a little fight?”
a) She thinks he isn’t strong enough to tolerate seeing people fight.
b) She thinks he looks like he’s going to vomit.
c) She thinks he needs to eat more to grow strong and be able to fight.

Answers at bottom.

What Else Does It Mean?

Culture Note

Mixed Martial Arts and the UFC

“Mixed martial arts” is a sport that uses “techniques” (ways of doing things) from many other types of “combat sports” (sports in which people physically fight against each other), like wrestling and boxing, and “martial arts” (ways of defending oneself, usually inspired by Asian traditions), like karate and taekwondo. The events have few rules and the competitors are “largely” (mostly; in general) allowed to decide how they want to compete and which techniques they want to use.

There have been “variations on” (different types of) mixed martial arts since Ancient Greece, but the sport became more standardized with the creation of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in 1993. UFC is a company that “promotes” (advertises and increases interest in) mixed martial arts competitions. It has “unified rules” (rules that everyone must follow) and it organizes “matches” (competitions) within 10 “weight divisions” (groups of athletes who weigh approximately the same amount and fight against each other). The first UFC competition was designed to determine which style of martial arts was most effective in a fight. However, over time fighters began combining “elements” (parts or pieces) of many different styles.

Now mixed martial arts are recognized as their own sports. Gyms across the country specialize in training athletes to compete in mixed martial arts, giving them techniques “drawn from” (taken from and inspired by) many different martial arts “traditions” (ways of doing things that are passed down from previous generations).

“Victory” (the winning end of a game) can be achieved when a judge makes a decision after a certain period of time, when a “referee” (a mediator) determines that it is no longer safe for one of the competitors, when one of the athletes is “injured” (hurt or damaged), or when there is a knockout.

Comprehension Answers

1 - c

2 - a