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Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.
Today I’m going to talk about pool. Or maybe I should say cue sports. I looked it up in Wikipedia and I found it under cue sports.
It says: Historically, the umbrella term was billiards. But now, as it says: In the United Kingdom, "billiards" refers exclusively to English billiards, while in the US it is sometimes used to refer to a particular game or class of games, or to all cue games in general, depending upon dialect and context.
Which probably explains why in Japan the umbrella term is also billiards or ビリヤード.
In NZ, I think usually billiards refers to a specific game and pool is the general term – for normal people like me anyway. I don’t know about the experts.
Most of my experience with pool is playing in bars and pubs in New Zealand when I was at university taking, ah, short breaks from studying.
In New Zealand you can play pool at a pool hall or at a bar or pub. And at a pool hall you pay by the hour whereas at a pub you normally put coins in the table.
If you’re playing at a bar the first thing you have to find out, is what the system is for knowing whose turn it is. There are usually two systems, one is writing your name on a chalk board. And the other one is a line up of coins on the table. I think the coin thing is more common. So you’ll see a line of coins on the table and you put your coin at the end of the line – it’s kind of hard to figure out where the end is sometimes, but somehow figure that out – and then you wait for your turn. And then when it’s your turn you play the winner of the last game and you can keep playing until you lose.
One tricky thing is that different people play different rules – so it can be good to find out what the rules are before you start. For example, some people play that after a foul the next person gets two shots. I don’t usually play like that. But if the person I’m playing suddenly does that, I don’t really care because I usually just want to have fun and don’t really care too much about the rules. But some people care.
One interesting thing I found out when I was in Canada is that they have different names for the balls. In New Zealand, as far as I know, they’re usually called overs and unders or bigs and smalls. Bigs and smalls is referring to the white part – so bigs have more white and smalls have a small amount of white.
Overs and unders ... these are overs, these are unders. I don’t know why.
I heard two different names in Canada, which I promptly forgot.
But I looked it up in Wikipedia and I found out they can be called solids and stripes. So: solids, stripes. I guess it means this is a stripe.
There’s a page in Wikipedia called: glossary of cue sports terms.
And under solids it says: Also solid, solid ones, solid balls. The non-striped ball suit of a fifteen ball set that are numbered 1 to 7 and have a solid colour scheme (i.e., not including the 8 ball). As in, "I'm solid", or "you've got the solids". Compare low, small, little, reds, spots, dots, unders; contrast stripes.
I’m not quite sure about saying “I’m solid” or “You’ve got the solids” – but maybe they say that in America.
But you need to know some words like this if you play pool because people often play while they’re drinking or talking to friends, so they easily forget what they’re on. And they’ll ask you, or you’ll need to ask them: What am I on? What am I on again? Sorry, I forgot what I’m on again.
And you can answer: “You’re on bigs”, or “We’re on unders”, or something like that.
STICK NEWS
Kia Ora, in Stick News today, John Edwards has announced he has dropped out of the race to become the president of the United States of America.
John Edwards was born in South Carolina in 1953.
At university he met a girl called Elizabeth. They got married and had 4 children.
Before getting into politics, John was a lawyer. The biggest case of his legal career was in 1997.
The case involved a three-year-old girl who was disemboweled by the
From 1999 to 2005 he was a senator from North Carolina.
In the 2004 presidential election he was the Democratic candidate for Vice President.
John Edwards and John Kerry lost the election to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney,
This time he thought he’d have another go.
He officially announced his candidacy on December 28th, 2006.
He has said his main goals are eliminating poverty, fighting global warming, providing universal health care, and withdrawing troops from Iraq.
Today he announced he was dropping out of the race. He didn’t immediately endorse either Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama.
And that was Stick News for Wednesday the 30th of January.
Kia Ora.
THE SNOW REPORT
in Hirafu
Today we were driving through Hirafu and we saw a big group of people in a field, so we stopped to check out what they were doing. It was a school doing some kind of sports activity I think.
Today we were driving through Hirafu and we saw a big group of people in a field, so we stopped to check out what they were doing. It was a school doing some kind of sports activity I think.
conversations with sarah
#381 Did you get the heater to work?
Step 1: Repeat Toru’s lines.
Step 2: Read Toru’s lines and talk to Sarah.
Sarah Did you get the heater to work?
Toru Nah, it’s not working.
Sarah Maybe we should go and ask at reception.
Toru You can go.
Sarah Mmm I can’t be bothered.
Toru Neither can I.
Sarah I know, let’s call. There’s a phone in here eh.
Toru Yeah, it’s over there.
Sarah What’s the number?
Toru It’s probably written on the phone.
Sarah Oh yeah. Hi, it’s Sarah from room B3.
Receptionist Hi. What can I do for you?
Sarah Um, we can’t get our heater to work. When we turn it on it makes this funny sound and it doesn’t start.
Receptionist Oh really? OK, would you like me to come over and have a look at it?
Sarah Yes, thank you.
Receptionist OK, I’ll be there soon.
#381 Did you get the heater to work?
Step 1: Repeat Toru’s lines.
Step 2: Read Toru’s lines and talk to Sarah.
Sarah Did you get the heater to work?
Toru Nah, it’s not working.
Sarah Maybe we should go and ask at reception.
Toru You can go.
Sarah Mmm I can’t be bothered.
Toru Neither can I.
Sarah I know, let’s call. There’s a phone in here eh.
Toru Yeah, it’s over there.
Sarah What’s the number?
Toru It’s probably written on the phone.
Sarah Oh yeah. Hi, it’s Sarah from room B3.
Receptionist Hi. What can I do for you?
Sarah Um, we can’t get our heater to work. When we turn it on it makes this funny sound and it doesn’t start.
Receptionist Oh really? OK, would you like me to come over and have a look at it?
Sarah Yes, thank you.
Receptionist OK, I’ll be there soon.
links
today's STICK NEWS pictures
music
show start
artist: BrunoXe
album: aprendiendo desde 2004
track: Mandrake
from: Jerez, Spain
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site
the snow report start
artist: Olga Scotland
album: Scotland Yard
track: Absolute
from: Moscow, Russia
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site
cws start
artist: San Sebastian
track: Happy Sad
artist site
qa start
artist: ioeo
album: Groovetracks
tracks: groovetracks ending
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site
qa bgm
artist: NarNaoud
album: Green Vision
track: Dubbing Rules
from: Gironde, France
artist at Jamendo
album at Jamendo
artist site
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