Hello everyone and welcome to EnglishPod.
My name is Marco.
And my name is Catherine and today we're talking about some very interesting stories.
We're going to learn some words for stories or tales but specifically what kind of stories Marco?
They're popular stories that you hear maybe through emails or maybe in your town there's some particular story about maybe a ghost or many different things that they're kind of hard to believe but that happened a long time ago and people still talk about today.
And they're scary.
Yeah, they're kind of scary.
So let's listen to today's dialogue, hear some interesting stories and when we come back we'll be talking more about what these words and phrases mean.
Have you read all these crazy things that are going on around the world?
What do you mean?
I was reading about how some people get tricked or drugged in their hotel rooms and have their organs removed.
Then they're sold on the black market.
Don't tell me you actually believe all that.
Don't be so gullible.
They are just urban legends.
They're just stories people make up to scare you.
Well I was also reading about how some popular songs have subliminal or even satanic messages if you play them backwards.
Can you believe that?
You really think an artist or songwriter is going to go through the trouble of putting subliminal or satanic messages in a song?
Don't be so naive.
Well maybe you are right but how about the story about how KFC has rows of headless chickens which are super grown in order to get bigger chickens faster?
Sounds a bit too far-fetched to be true don't you think?
Alright we're back so let's take a look at language takeaway.
Language takeaway.
So here on language takeaway today we have some words that will help us understand the dialogue.
The first word is drugged so I was reading about how some people get drugged in their hotel rooms.
That's right so if you get drugged it means that someone gave you some drugs in order to make you sleepy or in order for you to not remember what happened.
Alright so he was drugged means someone gave him a drug something that made him go to sleep.
Right and it's not necessarily always a bad thing because obviously if you go to the hospital the doctor may drug you in order to you know so you don't feel so much pain or something.
Exactly if you're in an accident you're in a lot of pain the doctor drugs you so you don't feel that pain.
That's right.
So he was drugged this person is drugged and then what happens?
Well his organs were removed.
Alright so organ an organ is a noun it's thing those are actually the things that are inside our body.
Right so your heart, liver, your kidney, kidneys, etc.
These are all organs and this is basically the category for the part of the body it's anything really inside your body that has a function.
Okay so this is a supposedly this story is that people you know usually tourists they get tricked or drugged and then they get their organs removed.
Now what kind of a story is this Marco because it's not just a normal story.
Right all of these stories that we saw in the dialogue are called urban legends.
Okay urban has to do with cities right legend is a story that may or may not be true.
That's right.
It comes from a long time ago.
Right so an urban legend is actually a story that is probably not true that you hear from other people like your friends.
That's right so usually most of these stories fall under this category you know they're urban legends you don't really know if they're true but people say it happened to a friend of theirs from a long time ago or stuff like that.
Exactly so a friend of a friend of a friend of mine told me that in hotels sometimes they take your organs.
Well obviously that's not right right.
All right so after that we have two great adjectives for describing people who like to believe stories like this.
What are those two adjectives?
Well we have the adjective to be gullible and to be naive.
All right so they're a little bit different to be gullible means to believe everything that people tell you.
Right so if you're gullible you pretty much believe anything you see or you or you hear.
Yeah so maybe your friend says did you know Michael Jordan is coming to the office tomorrow.
Right and you believe it then you're very very gullible.
Very gullible you believe what people tell you but naive is similar.
It's similar but I guess it has a little bit of a different meaning in the sense that it's not that you're so gullible but you wholeheartedly trust people so you're naive you're innocent.
You're innocent maybe you don't have a lot of life experience so you trust people and you can call a person naive you say well he's very naive about these kinds of things.
I guess that that's the main key right that or the main point is that you don't really have too much life experience so that's why you're naive.
That's right and just be careful because gullible and naive are things that we say about people but they're not nice things they're not compliments.
Right right so you don't you don't you shouldn't really say it to someone directly like in the dialogue.
Exactly maybe as a joke but not not seriously.
Okay so we have the great adjectives way to describe people and lastly we also have something else that how to describe the situation maybe it's too far-fetched it's too difficult to believe.
So far-fetched this is a great word it means basically that something is very difficult to believe like you say for example the story about Michael Jordan.
Michael Jordan is coming tomorrow you say oh that's pretty far-fetched right I don't really think that could happen.
Right so something that is far-fetched is difficult to happen or very very unlikely to happen.
Very unlikely.
Okay so very good we've had we we saw five keywords there let's take a break and listen to the dialogue again.
Have you read all these crazy things that are going on around the world?
What do you mean?
I was reading about how some people get tricked or drugged in their hotel rooms and have their organs removed then they're sold on the black market.
Don't tell me you actually believe all that don't be so gullible they are just urban legends they're just stories people make up to scare you.
Well I was also reading about how some popular songs have subliminal or even satanic messages if you play them backwards can you believe that?
You really think an artist or songwriter is going to go through the trouble of putting subliminal or satanic messages in a song?
Don't be so naive.
Well maybe you are right but how about the story about how KFC has rows of headless chickens which are super grown in order to get bigger chickens faster.
Sounds a bit too far-fetched to be true don't you think?
All right let's take a look now at a couple of phrases on Fluency Builder.
Fluency Builder.
Now in Fluency Builder today we're going to start out with the story about organs this urban legend.
Now what happens when the organ is taken the story says that it's sold on the black market.
That's right.
So you probably hear this in the news or a lot of places the black market basically it's not really a physical place but it's where things are sold illegally so guns organs stuff like that.
Exactly so the black market like you say is not a place you can go to it's an idea and it's basically anything that's illegal that's being sold like guns are often sold in the black market.
That's right.
Sometimes stolen cars are sold on the black market also organs can be sold in the black market and this is a serious problem because obviously all of this is illegal.
That's right so the black market is where all this happens.
Now moving on to the next urban legend that we actually didn't really talk about too much is how many people believe that popular songs have subliminal or satanic messages in them.
All right so let's take a look at the word subliminal first we all know what a message is right it's something that's told to us but a subliminal message is something that is told to us without us knowing.
That's right.
So it goes into your mind but you don't even know it right so it's something that a lot of people believe in because they think that marketing people or big businesses are trying to control our behavior.
That's right.
So I could say very quietly, Marco, buy me dinner.
And that's a subliminal message.
Marco says hey I was thinking about getting everyone dinner tonight and then that's that's basically a way to control your actions and so whether or not this is possible that's another discussion that's another discussion but so yeah that's basically what a lot of people say that to some tv commercials or ads have these subliminal messages that are trying to convince you or persuade you into maybe consuming that product.
Exactly but they're a little bit different from satanic messages.
That's right so that's basically dealing with Satan or the devil.
That's right so the idea that there are satanic messages means that they're messages about the devil about how maybe God does not exist or like you know that you should do evil not good.
So they're very dark and very kind of angry messages.
Yeah I think they talk about for example I'm not sure which song it is but like by Ozzy Osbourne that if you play it backwards supposedly there's this message that says you know worship the devil and stuff like that so that's where these urban legends come from but obviously it's either coincidence or not true right?
That's right so we've got these messages that are also an urban legend but the final one is about KFC.
So KFC would be Kentucky Fried Chicken and what is the legend?
The legend is about their food.
That's right they say that they don't really have real chickens that well they take chickens and they just you know super grow them.
The chickens are super grown in order for them to get bigger and faster and that's basically that they don't really even really have heads they just you know have some hoses that go into their bodies and feed them and in four weeks you have a chicken.
That's disgusting.
That's disgusting.
The idea is yeah super grown chickens and so they're basically they're not real chickens.
Right that's what the legend says is that they're not I mean they really are but they're not like naturally grown you know usually a chicken takes three months to grow or something.
Yeah all right that's disgusting I don't even want to talk about that but the idea of super growing is like using chemicals to do something that's not natural.
That's right that's right chemicals or hormones and stuff so that's they use it for example on plants you can super grow a plant by adding fertilizer and vitamins and stuff to the soil that makes it grow faster.
Or maybe you have bigger carrots than normal bigger potatoes because they're super grown.
That's right so all right that's a lot of great stuff let's take a listen to the dialogue one last time.
Have you read all these crazy things that are going on around the world?
What do you mean?
I was reading about how some people get tricked or drugged in their hotel rooms and have their organs removed then they're sold on the black market.
Don't tell me you actually believe all that.
Don't be so gullible they are just urban legends.
They're just stories people make up to scare you.
Well I was also reading about how some popular songs have subliminal or even satanic messages if you play them backwards.
Can you believe that?
You really think an artist or songwriter is going to go through the trouble of putting subliminal or satanic messages in a song?
Don't be so naive.
Well maybe you are right but how about the story about how KFC has rows of headless chickens which are super grown in order to get bigger chickens faster?
Sounds a bit too far-fetched to be true don't you think?
All right so all these urban legends they are obviously most of them if not all of them are untrue but they're very popular why do you think that is?
I think people like to believe these stories they're gossipy you know they're they're scary you get to make your friends kind of you know nervous about stuff but I think also we don't trust a lot of these things because we've heard for years and years and years and years about subliminal messages and marketing strategies or about these kind of hidden messages and songs so there's part of us that wants to believe them but the other part is that you hear it enough you start to believe it.
Right because you know I was reading up on a couple of them and the most recent ones are about how you know they make the connection about how Nostradamus predicted the 9-11 incident or how Coca-Cola is actually the one that invented Santa Claus and even this KFC one where you know people just believe a lot of different things I even found one the urban legend about be careful when you go to the movie theater because there might be a syringe or something on the seat that if you sit down it infects you with aids or something like this so there's so many of them out there that if you think about it they don't even really make sense.
They don't and I understand that sometimes there'll be one news story like about yeah a needle in a candy box and all of a sudden people say well you don't eat candy because there's needles in candy boxes right exactly and obviously you know one time event turns into this massive kind of craze.
Yeah yeah yeah but it is interesting especially with this whole topic of subliminal messages I do remember that actually there was a marketing campaign that was banned in movie theaters when you know the previews before the the actual movie came on they supposedly they had the sound or maybe on the screen somebody opening up a Coke can and the smell of Coke actually coming into the theater and that was kind of like subliminal marketing making people want to go get a Coke.
Definitely well we used to pump the the the exhaust from the popcorn maker when I worked in a movie theater throughout the lobby.
There you go.
So everyone smells it and it smells so good so everyone wants to buy it.
Oh yeah we would totally use that.
So yeah that is a way of like I guess it is subliminal because you you're not directly telling them to buy it but you are just giving them all the...
You're suggesting it through audio or visual or oratory cues.
Right and then you have the opportunity to sell them the most expensive popcorn they'll ever buy.
Exactly $12 for a bag of popcorn.
All right so it's a very interesting topic let us know if you have any comments or questions about it you can find us at EnglishPod.com.
We hope to see you guys there.
Bye.