Wednesday, September 01, 2010

#1291 Aloud Vs Allowed, Insanely Obvious Signs, Flight Crash? Shoot Yourself In The Foot

Show 1291 Wednesday 1 September
Watch today's show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.

It’s the first day of September and in New Zealand it’s the first day of spring. And I’m not at all sad that winter is over. Good riddance.

Do you know what aloud means? How about allowed?

These words are homophones, which means they sound the same, but they have different meanings, and in this case spellings.

I was reading some notebook entries on italki yesterday and I came across one where someone wrote this sentence:

I'm not aloud to hang out with one of my friends.

They’ve used the wrong aloud there. It should be a-l-l-o-w-e-d.

Allowed means to have permission and aloud means in a voice that other people can hear.



click here

Today I recommend checking out a funny post on The Huffington Post, which is an American news and blog site.

The title is: The 8 Most Insanely Obvious Signs In The World.

My favourite insanely obvious sign is the one that says:
IF DOOR DOES NOT OPEN DO NOT ENTER



STICK NEWS


About 275 passengers were flying from London to Hong Kong on Tuesday night when an automatic emergency message was accidentally played telling passengers they were about to crash into the sea.
Apparently cabin crew quickly realized the error and told the passengers it was a mistake.

And that was Stick News for Wednesday the 1st of September.
Kia ora.


What if the plane crashes?
Don’t worry, honey, we’re not going to crash.


THIS IS AN EMERGENCY …
gasp!


Um … just kidding …
AHHH!



Word of the Day

Today’s word is shoot.

There are many idioms using the word shoot, for example, shoot the breeze, which means to have informal conversation. And shoot from the hip which means to react quickly without thinking first.

This is a newspaper, as you can see, and this is a picture of a politician who’s a candidate for the election that’s coming up in Auckland. And in this picture he has shot himself in the foot.

Shoot yourself in the foot is an idiom. Do you know what it means?

to do or say sth that will cause you a lot of trouble or harm, especially when you are trying to get an advantage for yourself



conversations with sarah
#827 What did he do?

Step 1: Repeat Hugo’s lines.
Step 2: Read Hugo’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Hugo How did that politician shoot himself in the foot?

Sarah I think they’re talking about his reaction to having been found to be using a work credit card to pay for personal things, when he wasn’t supposed to.

Hugo What did he do?

Sarah He cut up his credit card on a TV show, among other things.

Hugo Why is that so bad?

Sarah I think it kind of gives the impression that he can’t be trusted with money, like he’s a compulsive spender.



links




music

show start
artist: Kevin MacLeod
track: Future Cha Cha
from: Brooklyn, NY, United States
artist site

click here start
artist: #NarNaoud#
album: Green Vision
track: Oriental Standing
from: Gironde, France
artist at Jamendo
album at Jamendo
artist site

cws start
artist: Kevin MacLeod
track: The Jazz Woman
from: Brooklyn, NY, United States
artist site

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: triptracks
track: triptrack2
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa bgm
artist: simone girau
album: dubstation
track: orlando
from: Venezia/Napoli, Italy

Did you notice a mistake in this script? Please leave us a comment and tell us! We really appreciate people pointing out our mistakes.Thank you.

Have you translated this script - or part of it - into your language for English practice and published it on your blog? Please leave a comment and a link so other people can read your translation. Thank you.