Short Story: 'Athenaise' by Kate Chopin

A rebellious young woman learns about love. Transcript of radio broadcast:

26 June 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program, AMERICAN STORIES.

(MUSIC)

Our story today is called "Athenaise." It was written by Kate Chopin. Here is Barbara Klein with
the story.

STORYTELLER:

Athenaise went away one morning to visit her parents, ten miles back on the Bon Dieu River in
Louisiana. She did not return in the evening, and Cazeau, her husband, was worried.

Cazeau expressed his worries to his servant, Felicite, who served him dinner.

He ate alone by the light of a coal-oil lamp. Felicite stood nearby like a restless shadow.

"Only married two months and she has her head turned already to leave! It is not right!" she
said.

Cazeau shrugged his shoulders. Felicite's opinion of his wife's behavior after two months of
marriage did not matter to him. He was used to being alone and did not mind a night or two of it.
Cazeau stood up and walked outside.

The night was beginning to deepen and gather black around the groups of trees in the yard. Far
away, he could hear the sound of someone playing an accordion. Nearby, a baby was crying.

Cazeau's horse was waiting, saddled. He still had much farm work to do before bed time. He did
not have time to think about Athenaise. But he felt her absence like a deep pain.

Before he slept that night Cazeau was visited by an image of Athenaise's pale, young face with
its soft lips and sensual eyes. The marriage had been a mistake. He had only to look into her eyes
to feel that, to sense her growing dislike of him. But, the marriage could not be undone. And he
was ready to make the best of it and expected the same effort from her.

These sad thoughts kept Cazeau awake far into the night. The moon was shining and its pale light
reached into the room. It was still outside, with no sound except the distant notes of the
accordion.

(MUSIC)
Athenaise did not return the next day, although her husband sent a message to do so through
her brother, Monteclin. On the third day, Cazeau prepared his horse and went himself in search
of her.

Athenaise's parents, the Miches, lived in a large home owned by a trader who lived in town. The
house was far too big for their use. Upstairs, the rooms were so large and empty that they were
used for parties. A dance at the Miche home and a plate of Madame Miche's gumbo were
pleasures not to be missed.

Madame Miche was sitting on the porch outside the house. She stood up to greet Cazeau. She
was short and fat with a cheery face. But she was clearly tense as Cazeau arrived.

Monteclin was there too. But he was not uneasy. He made no effort to hide his dislike of Cazeau.

"Dirty pig!" He said under his breath as Cazeau climbed the stairs to the porch. Monteclin
disliked Cazeau for refusing to lend him money long ago. Now that this man was his sister's
husband, he disliked him even more.

Miche and his oldest son were away. They both respected Cazeau and talked highly of him.

Cazeau shook hands with Madame Miche who offered him a chair. Athenaise had shut herself in
her room.

"You know, nothing would do last night," Madame Miche said. "Athenaise just had to stay for a
little dance. The boys would not let their sister leave!"

Cazeau shrugged his shoulders to show he knew nothing about last night.

"Didn't Monteclin tell you we were going to keep Athenaise?" she asked. But Monteclin had told
him nothing.

"And how about the night before?" asked Cazeau. "And last night? Do you have dances every
night?"

Madame Miche laughed and told her son to go tell Athenaise her husband had arrived. Monteclin
did not move.

"You know as well as I do that it is no use to tell Athenaise anything," said Monteclin. "You and
pa have been talking to her since Monday. When Athenaise said she was not returning to Cazeau
she meant it."

Two fiery red spots rose to Cazeau's cheeks. What Monteclin said was true.

Upon arriving home, Athenaise had announced she was there to stay. It was difficult for her to
understand why she had married. Girls were just expected to get married. And she did like
Cazeau.
Monteclin had asked Athenaise to explain herself. He had asked her if Cazeau abused her, or if
he drank too much.

"No!" Athenaise had said. "It is just being married that I hate. I do not like being Missus
Cazeau. I want to be Athenaise Miche again. I do not like living with a man, all his clothing
everywhere and his ugly bare feet."

At the time, Monteclin had been sorry his sister had no serious evidence to use against Cazeau.

And now, there was Cazeau himself looking like he wanted to hit Monteclin.

Cazeau stood up and went inside the house to his wife's room.

"Athenaise, get ready," he said quietly. "It is late and we do not have time to lose."

Athenaise was not prepared for his calm request. She felt a sense of hopelessness about
continuing to rebel against the idea of marriage. She gathered her hat and gloves. Then, she
walked downstairs past her brother and mother, got on her horse and rode away. Cazeau
followed behind her.

It was late when they reached home. Cazeau once more ate dinner alone. Athenaise sat in her
room crying.

(MUSIC)

Athenaise's parents had hoped that marriage would bring a sense of responsibility so deeply
lacking in her character. No one could understand why she so hated her role as wife. Cazeau had
never spoken angrily to her or called her names or failed to give her everything she wanted. His
main offense seemed to be that he loved her.

And Athenaise was not a woman to be loved against her will.

At breakfast, Athenaise complained to her husband.

"Why did you have to marry me when there were so many other girls to choose from?" she
asked. "And, it is strange that if you hate my brother so much, you would marry his sister!"

"I do not know what any of them have to do with it," Cazeau said. "I married you because I loved
you. I guess I was a fool to think I could make you happy. I do not know what else to do but make
the best of a bad deal and shake hands over it."

(MUSIC)

It now seemed to Athenaise that her brother was the only friend left to her in the world. Her
parents had turned from her and her friends laughed at her. But Monteclin had an idea for
securing his sister's freedom. After some thought, Athenaise agreed to his plan.
The next morning, Cazeau woke up to find his wife was gone. She had packed her belongings and
left in the night.

Cazeau felt a terrible sense of loss. It was not new; he had felt it for weeks.

He realized he had missed his chance for happiness. He could not think of loving any other
woman, and could not imagine Athenaise ever caring for him. He wrote her a letter stating that
he did not want her back unless she returned of her own free will.

(MUSIC)

Athenaise had escaped to the big city of New Orleans. She was staying at a private hotel that
Monteclin had chosen and paid to rent for a month. A woman named Sylvie owned the hotel and
took good care of Athenaise.

Athenaise soon became friends with Mister Gouvernail who was also staying at the hotel. This
friendship helped her feel less lonely about missing her family. But Mister Gouvernail soon
started to fall in love with Athenaise. He knew she was uninformed, unsatisfied and strong-
willed. But he also suspected that she loved her husband, although she did not know it. Bitter as
this belief was, he accepted it.

Athenaise's last week in the city was coming to an end. She had not found a job and was too
homesick to stay any longer. Also, she had not been feeling well. She complained in detail about
her sickness to Sylvie. Sylvie was very wise, and Athenaise was very stupid. Sylvie very calmly
explained to Athenaise that she was feeling sick because she was pregnant.

Athenaise sat very still for a long time thinking about this new information. Her whole being was
overcome with a wave of happiness. Then, she stood up, ready to take action.

She had to tell her mother! And Cazeau! As she thought of him, a whole new sense of life swept
over her. She could not wait to return to him.

The next day Athenaise spent travelling home. When she arrived at Cazeau's, he lifted her out
of the horse carriage and they held each other tight. The country night was warm and still
except for a baby crying in the distance.

"Listen, Cazeau!" said Athenaise. "How Juliette's baby is crying! Poor darling, I wonder what is
the matter with it?"

(MUSIC)

ANNOUNCER:

You have heard the story "Athenaise" by Kate Chopin. Your storyteller was Barbara Klein. This
story was adapted and produced by Dana Demange. Listen again next week for another
American Story in VOA Special English.
```````````````````````````````````````

Words and Their Stories: Insect Expressions

Don't be bugged by these terms. Transcript of radio broadcast:
26 June 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

(MUSIC)

There are many American expressions about insects -- like bees, for example. Bees are known as
very hard workers. They always appear to be busy, moving around their homes, or hives. So you
might say you were as busy as a bee if you spent your weekend cleaning your house.

In fact, you might say your house was a beehive of activity if your whole family was helping you
clean. You also might say you made a beeline for something if you went there right away. When
we go to see a movie, my friend always makes a beeline for the place where they sell popcorn.

Here is an expression about bees that is not used much any more, but we like it anyway. We
think it was first used in the nineteen twenties. If something was the best of its kind, you might
say it was the bee's knees. Now, we admit that we do not know how this expression developed.
If fact, we do not even know if bees have knees!

If your friend cannot stop talking about something because she thinks it is important, you might
say she has a bee in her bonnet. If someone asks you a personal question, you might say "that
is none of your beeswax." This means none of your business.

Speaking of personal questions, there is an expression people sometimes use when their children
ask, "where do babies come from?" Parents who discuss sex and reproduction say this is talking
about the birds and the bees.

(MUSIC)

Hornets are bee-like insects that sometimes attack people. It you are really angry, you might
say you are mad as a hornet. Andif you stir up a hornet's nest, you create trouble or
problems.

Butterflies are beautiful insects, but you would not want to have butterflies in your stomach.
That means to be nervous about having to do something, like speaking in front of a crowd. You
would also not want to have ants in your pants. That is, to be restless and unable to sit still.

Here are some expressions about plain old bugs, another word for insects. If a friend keeps
asking you to do something you do not want to do, you might ask him to leave you alone or "stop
bugging me."A friend also might tell you again and again to do something. If so, you might say he
put a bug in your ear.

If you were reading a book in your warm bed on a cold winter's day, you might say you were snug
as a bug in a rug. And if you wish someone good night, you might say, "sleep tight -- don't let
the bed bugs bite."

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm Faith Lapidus. You can
find more WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at voaspecialenglish.com.

The Talented but Tragic Life of Michael Jackson

Fans mourn the death of ''the King of Pop'' in Los Angeles at age 50. Next month he was supposed to start a
comeback tour in London. Transcript of radio broadcast:
27 June 2009

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

Fans around the world are remembering the man who called
himself the King of Pop. Michael Jackson died Thursday in Los
Angeles.

This was the emergency call from the house where he was
living:

CALLER: "We have a gentleman here that needs help and he's
not breathing. He's not breathing and we're trying to pump him
but he's not -- "

Fans hold pictures of Michael Jackson OPERATOR: "OK, OK. How old is he?"
near the UCLA Medical Center in Los
Angeles Thursday
CALLER: "He's fifty years old, sir."

OPERATOR: "Fifty, OK."

A personal doctor was with him at the house.

Michael Jackson would have celebrated his fifty-first birthday in August. He was just days from
launching what he hoped would be a comeback -- a series of fifty concerts in London.
More than seven hundred fifty thousand tickets sold out within hours of going on sale in March.
The shows were set to begin July thirteenth. There were questions, though, about whether his
health could handle the extended tour.

And after he died there were more questions -- this time about his use of painkillers. Medical
examiners did an autopsy on Friday, but tests for drugs in the body normally take weeks.

Around the world, fans like this one reacted to news of his death.

WOMAN: "Somebody like Michael Jackson who's done so much for the world and stuff, you
think almost like he's invincible."

(MUSIC)

"Thriller," his nineteen eighty-two album, earned a place in Guinness World Records as the best
selling album of all time. It produced hits like "Beat It" and "Billie Jean."

(MUSIC)

Michael Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana, the seventh of nine children. He was five years old
when he and his brothers began performing in the Jackson 5.

He was eleven when they had their first album. "Diana Ross
Presents the Jackson 5" was released in nineteen sixty-nine.
Their album "ABC" followed less than a year later.

(MUSIC)

In nineteen seventy-one, Michael Jackson began his solo career.

He went on to sell an estimated seven hundred fifty million
albums. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame --
twice.
Jackson waves after receiving a
But as talented and successful as he was, he was also deeply World Music Award for "Thriller" in
troubled. His behavior and appearance grew increasingly 1996

strange. He was heavily in debt.

He was childlike. But in nineteen ninety-three, a thirteen-year-old boy accused him of child
molestation. The case was settled out of court. Later, another accusation led to a criminal trial.
But four years ago this month a jury cleared him of all charges.

Michael Jackson left his mark on popular culture. His music, his videos. His dance moves and
moonwalking. The hand in a sequined white glove. The father of three was even married for a
time to Elvis Presley's daughter. Now, he leaves behind family, friends and fans to mourn his
death. In a sad way he did make a comeback. His death has pushed sales of his music back to the
top of the charts again.
And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.

What Is Your Favorite Song About Summer?

Hundreds of songs have been written about having fun in the summertime. Transcript of radio broadcast:
21 June 2009

VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember with Shirley Griffith.
This week on our program, we play some of our favorite songs about summer.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

If you ask most Americans, they would say their favorite

season of the year is summer. The weather is warm. They do
not have to wear heavy clothes to keep warm. Young people do
not have to go to school. They can do many activities outside,
like playing sports and swimming at the beach or the pool. They
like the sunshine during the day and the warm summer nights.
People have written and recorded hundreds of songs about
summer. These are some of our favorites.
Summer at the beach

VOICE TWO:

One of the most famous songs about summer is from George Gershwin's opera "Porgy and Bess."
He wrote the music in nineteen thirty-five. The opera takes place in the southern United States.
It opens with these words: "Summertime and the livin' is easy. Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is
high." Leontyne Price sings the song.

(LEONTYNE PRICE - "SUMMERTIME")

VOICE TWO:

Here is Billy Stewart's version of the same song.

(BILLY STEWART - "SUMMERTIME")

VOICE ONE:

The nineteen fifties and sixties produced many songs about teenagers enjoying their summer
vacation from school. The songs are about having fun, swimming in the ocean, driving in cars. This
one is "Summertime, Summertime" by the Jamies.
(THE JAMIES - "SUMMERTIME, SUMMERTIME")

VOICE TWO:

It is summer almost all year long in California. And it was

summer all the time for the Beach Boys. They sang about their
favorite activities, like riding the ocean waves on surfboards.
Here is one Beach Boys song, "All Summer Long."

(THE BEACH BOYS - "ALL SUMMER LONG")

VOICE ONE:

However, for some teenagers, summer vacation was not all fun
and games. Some of them had to work to earn money. Eddie
The Beach Boys
Cochran sang about this in "Summertime Blues." Many other
bands and artists later recorded this song, including the British rock band, the Who.

(THE WHO - "SUMMERTIME BLUES")

VOICE TWO:

The Lovin' Spoonful was a band that did not love summers in the city because of the heat. They
sang: "Hot town, summer in the city. Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty." And: "All around,
people looking half-dead, walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head." They liked the
nighttime better when they could dance and have more fun. "Summer in the City" was released in
the summer of nineteen sixty-six and was one of the Lovin' Spoonful's greatest hits.

(LOVIN' SPOONFUL - "SUMMER IN THE CITY")

VOICE ONE:

Even though it was hot, Sly and the Family Stone still found ways to have fun in the summertime.
This song is about the happiness that the season promises, including going to a "county fair in
the country sun."

(SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE - "HOT FUN IN THE

SUMMERTIME")

VOICE TWO:

In the nineteen nineties, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince

produced this hip-hop song called "Summertime." It is about
being with friends and having a good time.

DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince

(DJ JAZZY JEFF AND THE FRESH PRINCE - "SUMMERTIME")

VOICE ONE:

We leave you with a song from the movie version of the musical "Grease." It is about two
teenagers who meet during their summer vacation and fall in love. Back at school in the autumn,
they tell their friends all about it. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John sing "Summer Nights."

(JOHN TRAVOLTA AND OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN - "SUMMER NIGHTS")

VOICE ONE:

Our program was written by Shelley Gollust and produced by Caty Weaver. I'm Steve Ember
with Shirley Griffith. Transcripts and MP3s of our programs can be found at
voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

Studying in the US: The Job Market

Employers are hiring fewer college graduates and fewer interns because of the recession. Part 40 of our
Foreign Student Series. Transcript of radio broadcast:
25 June 2009

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

In America, May and June are the traditional months for graduations. A listener in China, Jack
Hoo from Jiangsu province, wants to know how American college graduates find jobs. Right now
the answer is: not very easily.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers collects information on the college job
market. NACE's latest survey in March found that employers expected to hire twenty-two
percent fewer graduates this year than last. Most blamed the recession.

The most recent student survey showed that just one-fifth of

those who looked for jobs before graduation have one by now.
This is compared to half of students who had looked for a job
by this time two years ago. But one difference: fewer of this
year's graduates have started to search for jobs.

Still, NACE found no big increase in graduates who plan to stay

in school and avoid the job market. About twenty-seven percent
Just before graduation, a student,
said they plan to go to graduate school, compared to about
left, explores job possibilities at twenty-four percent a year ago.
Temple University's career center
Engineering and accounting graduates were more likely to have
started their job search already and to have accepted a job. These are among the best paid
professions for people with just a college degree. On average, engineering majors expect to
start at about sixty-two thousand dollars a year. Accounting majors expect about forty-five
thousand.

So how can students increase their chances for a job? Mimi Collins at NACE says the most
effective tool is a school's career counseling center. Counselors can help students with job
applications and preparing for interviews. They also let students know about job openings and
events like job recruitment fairs. They can also help first-year students decide what to study.

Another way to look for a job is to do an internship. This is when a student gets experience in a
position that may or may not be paid. The latest NACE survey found that seventy-three percent
of graduates who did get jobs had completed an internship.

The group reported in March that employers expected to increase hourly wage offers for
college interns by five percent from last year. But, because of the economy, employers reduced
the number of internships available by twenty-one percent.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. You can find
our Foreign Student Series on studying in the United States at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve
Ember.

Computer Terms: Have You Googled Someone Lately?

Terms that come from the world of computers. Transcript of radio broadcast:
18 April 2009
Now, the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories.

Computer technology has become a major part of people's lives. This technology has its own
special words. One example is the word mouse. A computer mouse is not a small animal that
lives in buildings and open fields. It is a small device that you move around on a flat surface in
front of a computer. The mouse moves the pointer, or cursor, on the computer screen.

Computer expert Douglas Engelbart developed the idea for the mouse in the early nineteen-
sixties. The first computer mouse was a carved block of wood with two metal wheels. It was
called a mouse because it had a tail at one end. The tail was the wire that connected it to the
computer.

Using a computer takes some training. People who are experts are sometimes called hackers. A
hacker is usually a person who writes software programs in a special computer language. But the
word hacker is also used to describe a person who tries to steal information from computer
systems.

Another well known computer word is Google, spelled g-o-o-g-l-e. It is the name of a popular
"search engine" for the Internet. People use the search engine to find information about almost
any subject on the Internet. The people who started the company named it Google because in
mathematics, googol, spelled g-o-o-g-o-l, is an extremely large number. It is the number one
followed by one-hundred zeros.

When you "Google" a subject, you can get a large amount of information about it. Some people
like to Google their friends or themselves to see how many times their name appears on the
Internet.

If you Google someone, you might find that person's name on a blog. A blog is the shortened
name for a Web log. A blog is a personal Web page. It may contain stories, comments, pictures
and links to other Web sites. Some people add information to their blogs every day. People who
have blogs are called bloggers.

Blogs are not the same as spam. Spam is unwanted sales messages sent to your electronic
mailbox. The name is based on a funny joke many years ago on a British television show, "Monty
Python's Flying Circus." Some friends are at an eating place that only serves a processed meat
product from the United States called SPAM. Every time the friends try to speak, another
group of people starts singing the word SPAM very loudly. This interferes with the friends'
discussion – just as unwanted sales messages interfere with communication over the Internet.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jill Moss.
I'm Faith Lapidus.

Studying in the US: A Lesson in Personal Finance, Part 2

A law that goes into effect in February will place new restrictions on credit cards for people under 21.
Transcript of radio broadcast:
27 May 2009

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

We continue now with our discussion of personal finance for

students.

A study in the United States found that eighty-four percent of

undergraduates last year had at least one credit card. Half had
four or more. Borrowers who do not pay their card debt in full
each month have to pay interest on whatever balance remains.

Student loan company Sallie Mae did the study. In a time of

economic downturn, it says, college students are depending on
credit cards more than ever. It says many seem to use them to
live beyond their means -- to spend more than they have.
Brea Thompson, a student at
Washington State University, with
a credit card in 2005
More than three-fourths had to pay finance charges last year because they carried a balance.
The average balance was more than three thousand dollars.

Last Friday, President Obama signed into law a credit card reform bill. It includes protections
for people under the age of twenty-one. To get a credit card, they will need a parent or other
adult over twenty-one to accept joint responsibility. Or they will need to show they can repay
their debts independently.

Colleges will have to make public any agreements with credit card marketers. And credit card
companies may not offer gifts on or near a campus to persuade students.

Also, schools are urged to consider limiting the number of places on campus where companies can
market credit cards. And they are urged to offer credit card and debt education and counseling
sessions to all new students.

The new measures from Congress take effect in February.

Getting a credit card can already be difficult for international students. College advisers say
those who want one might consider arriving with one from home.

Debit cards withdraw money directly from a bank account. But advisers say these can also be
difficult sometimes for foreign students to get.

A good source of advice about local banking is a school's international student office. At Penn
State, for example, adviser Pat Coleman says they have worked with local banks to make banking
easier for international students.

Students are generally advised to budget around one to two thousand dollars for expenses for a
school year in the United States.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our Foreign
Student Series is online at voaspecialenglish.com. A correction: George Mason University is
advising the American University of Ras Al-Khaimah, not in Dubai as we said recently. I'm Steve
Ember.

Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964: A Most Successful and Unusual

Military Leader
He commanded Allied forces in the southwest Pacific during World War Two. Transcript of radio broadcast:
22 May 2009

ANNOUNCER:
Now, the VOA Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Today Rich Kleinfeldt and Sarah
Long tell about one of the most unusual and successful American military leaders, General
Douglas MacArthur.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

General Douglas MacArthur was a most unusual man. He was

extremely intelligent and very demanding. He expected his orders
to be followed exactly. Yet he had problems all his life following
the orders of those who were his commanders.

Douglas MacArthur was very intelligent and could remember things

that others would easily forget. He could design battle plans that
left the enemy no choice other than surrender and defeat. His
battle plans defeated the enemy and saved as many of his own men
as possible.

General Douglas MacArthur At other times, he would make simple mistakes that made him
appear stupid. He often said things that showed he felt important. Many people made jokes
about him. Some of his soldiers sang songs that made fun of him. Others believed he was the
best general ever to serve in the United States military.

General Douglas MacArthur was extremely brave in battle, sometimes almost foolish. It often
seemed as if he believed he could not be killed. He won every medal and honor the United States
can give a soldier. However, at the end of his life, he rejected war and warned American political
leaders to stay away from armed conflict.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Douglas MacArthur was born to be a soldier. His father, Arthur MacArthur, was a hero of the
American Civil War and continued to serve in the army after the war ended in eighteen sixty-
five. He became the top officer of the army in nineteen-oh-six.

Douglas was born on an Army base near the southern city of Little Rock, Arkansas in January,
eighteen eighty. He grew up on army bases where his father served. He said the first sounds he
could remember as a child were those of the Army: the sounds of horns, drums and soldiers
marching.

VOICE ONE:
There was never any question about what Douglas MacArthur would do with his life. He would
join the army. He wanted to enter the United States Military Academy at West Point, New
York.

The Academy is a university that trains officers for the United States Army. School officials
rejected him two times before he was accepted. He finished his four years at West Point as the
best student in his class.

VOICE TWO:

Douglas MacArthur began his service in the Army by traveling

to several Asian countries including Japan, and to the
Philippines, then an American territory. He also served at
several small bases in the United States. He became a colonel
when World War One began. He led troops on very dangerous
attacks against the enemy. He won many honors for his bravery
and leadership. After that war, he served as head of the West
Point Military Academy. Douglas MacArthur during World War
One

He became a general. During the nineteen thirties, President Herbert Hoover appointed him
chief of staff of the Army, one of the most important jobs in the American military.

In nineteen thirty-five, General MacArthur was appointed military advisor to the Philippines. He
was to help the government build an army for defense purposes as the Philippines began planning
for independence. He had retired from the army. He was the chief military advisor to the
Philippine military forces when the United States entered World War Two in December,
nineteen forty-one.

VOICE ONE:

Japanese aggression in the Pacific developed very quickly. Japanese troops began arriving in the
Philippines on December eleventh, nineteen forty-one. The fighting was extremely fierce.

The Japanese were defeating the Philippine and American forces. General MacArthur had been
recalled to active duty by President Franklin Roosevelt. President Roosevelt ordered MacArthur
to leave the Philippines to command American forces in the South Pacific. General MacArthur
finally agreed to leave for Australia before the Philippines surrendered to Japan. But he made a
promise to the Philippine people. He said, "I shall return."

VOICE TWO:

Military history experts continue to study General MacArthur's decisions during World War
Two. He won battle after battle in the South Pacific area. Often, he would pass islands with
strong enemy forces, cut off their supplies and leave them with no chance to fight. In nineteen
forty-four, he returned to the Philippines with an army that defeated the Japanese.
VOICE ONE:

MacArthur was chosen to accept the Japanese surrender in

September, nineteen forty-five. He was appointed Supreme
Commander of the Allied Powers, the leader of the occupation
forces that would rule Japan. As an American soldier, he had to
follow the orders of the government in Washington. But in
Japan, General MacArthur ruled like a dictator.

General MacArthur accepts the VOICE TWO:

Japanese surrender ending the war in
the Pacific
The Japanese expected severe punishment. They saw
MacArthur as a very conservative ruler who would make Japan suffer.

MacArthur did charge some Japanese leaders with war crimes. But he did not try to punish the
Japanese people.

General MacArthur told the Japanese they must change, both politically and socially. He began
with education. Before the war, female children in Japan received little if any education.
MacArthur said education would be for everyone, including girls and women.

He said women must have the right to vote in elections, and be permitted to hold political office.
He said Japanese women would now have the same legal rights as men. And he said that every
person had the same legal protection under the law.

VOICE ONE:

General MacArthur told the Japanese people they were now free to form political parties. And
he ended the idea of an official government religion. Religion would be a matter of individual
choice. He also said the Japanese government would no longer be controlled by a few powerful
people.

MacArthur told Japan it would now be ruled by a parliament that was freely elected by the
people. He helped the people of Japan write a new constitution for a democratic form of
government.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

On June twenty-fifth, nineteen fifty, North Korean troops invaded South Korea. Within two
days, the United States decided to send armed forces to aid South Korea.
Douglas MacArthur was appointed commander of the United Nations forces in South Korea. As
the weeks passed, the North Korean army forced the South Korean army and its allies to
retreat to the southern city of Pusan.

Many military experts said South Korea was lost. General MacArthur did not agree. He wanted
to attack from the sea, deep behind the enemy troops at the city of Inchon. MacArthur said the
enemy would not be prepared. Most other military leaders believed this would be extremely
dangerous. American Marines did attack Inchon September fifteenth. It was a complete
success. MacArthur had been right.

VOICE ONE:

General MacArthur often disagreed with political leaders.

President Truman warned him several times not to disagree
with government policy. General MacArthur continued to
disagree and told reporters when he did. He often gave orders
that were not approved by the president.

MacArthur called for a total victory in Korea. He wanted to

General MacArthur and President
Truman meet for the first time on
Wake Island in 1950
defeat communism in East Asia. He wanted to bomb Chinese
bases in Manchuria and block Chinese ports. President Truman
and his military advisers were concerned World War Three
would start.

In April, nineteen fifty-one, President Truman replaced MacArthur as head of the U.N. forces in
Korea. Douglas MacArthur went home to the United States. It was the first time he had been
there in more than fifteen years. He was honored as a returning hero. He was invited to speak
before Congress. There was a huge parade to honor him in New York City.

VOICE TWO:

General MacArthur retired again. Some political leaders wanted him to compete for some
political office, perhaps for president. Instead, he lived a quiet life with his wife and son. He
died at the age of eighty-four on April fifth, nineteen sixty-four.

Today, many Americans have forgotten Douglas MacArthur. However, the people of the
Philippines built a statue to honor him for keeping his promise to return. And, many Japanese
visitors go to General MacArthur's burial place in Norfolk, Virginia to remember what he did for
Japan.

(MUSIC)

ANNOUNCER:
This Special English program was written by Paul Thompson. Your narrators were Rich Kleinfeldt
and Sarah Long. I'm Shirley Griffith. Listen again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA
program on the Voice of America.

American History Series: Search for Gold Drives Settlers to the West
After the first settlers in Colorado reported finding gold, the rush was on. Many people never found riches, but
they stayed to become farmers or storekeepers. Transcript of radio broadcast:
27 May 2009

Welcome to the MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.

As we reported in our last program, slavery supporters failed to push through Congress a bill to
make Kansas a slave state. Congress, instead, let the people of Kansas vote on the statehood
constitution written by pro-slavery men. The people rejected the constitution. And slavery
supporters gave up the fight for Kansas.

Here are Steve Ember and Bob Doughty to continue the story.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

The problem of slavery continued to divide the North and South. Northerners warned that
slavery could spread no farther. Southerners threatened to leave the Union unless southern
rights were protected.

In the far West, one could forget this bitter dispute. There were no slaves in the West. The
land and the weather were not right for the kind of farming
that used slaves.

VOICE TWO:

The west was growing quickly. Gold had brought thousands of

settlers to California ten years earlier. New discoveries of
gold and silver now were leading men to Colorado, Arizona and
Nevada.
An engraving of miners in the Gregory
"Don't go," warned the New York Tribune, "if you have a job or area of Colorado in 1859

a farm. But if you have neither," it said, "and can get fifty dollars, then go to Colorado."

There were many men without jobs or farms in the summer of eighteen-fifty-eight. The country
had suffered a serious economic depression the year before, and jobs were difficult to find.
Thousands left cities in the east.
The first ones to reach Colorado reported that gold was easy to find. They said any man who
worked hard could find five to ten dollars worth of gold a day, and sometimes even more.

VOICE ONE:

The thousands who rushed to Colorado soon found that there was not as much gold as expected.
The valuable metal became harder to find. No longer could it be washed from the bottoms of
mountain streams. Men had to dig into the mountains of rock to get it. Huge digging machines
and crushers were needed to get the gold from the rock. These machines were expensive. Few
men had enough money to buy them.

Some of the miners organized companies. They borrowed money from eastern banks or sold
shares of their companies. In a few years, almost all of the gold from Colorado came from the
mining companies.

VOICE TWO:

Many of those who went west to search for gold stayed to become farmers or storekeepers.
Others moved farther west to find gold in Nevada or California. Some cleared the ground of
trees and cut them into wood for houses. Such timber from the forests of Oregon and
Washington was sold in California and Mexico, even in China and Hawaii.

A few men recognized the need for transportation across the nation. Engineers planned four
railroads. But northern and southern leaders could not agree on which one to build first. Until a
railroad could be built, supplies were carried west in wagons pulled by horses or oxen.

Three men -- Russell, Majors, and Waddell -- formed a transportation company in eighteen fifty-
five to carry government supplies to soldiers in the West. They started with five hundred
wagons. Three years later, the company had three thousand five hundred wagons and forty
thousand oxen.

VOICE ONE:

Getting letters to and from the west was not easy in the eighteen fifties. Ships brought mail to
San Francisco two times a month. And once each month, mail would arrive in California after a
slow trip by wagon from Saint Louis, Missouri.

The federal government decided to send mail overland two times a week to California. It gave
the job of carrying the letters to a new company -- the Overland Mail Company.

The mail was carried by train or boat to St. Louis. Then it was put on overland company stage
coaches -- light wagons pulled by four or six horses. The company was told to take the mail along
a four-thousand-kilometer southern route through Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.
The mail arrived in Los Angeles twenty-four days after it left St. Louis.

VOICE TWO:
There was a shorter way across the country. But the postal chief was a southerner, A. V. Brown.
He believed stage coach travel might lead the way for a railroad. And he wanted a southern
railroad to California. Brown said the southern route was the only one that could be kept open in
all seasons. He said the other routes would be closed by snow in winter.

The overland stage coaches were large enough to carry four passengers. But not many people
went to California in the coaches. The coaches never stopped for very long -- only to change
horses or drivers. And there were not many places to eat. Also, the trip was dangerous, because
of hostile Indians.

VOICE ONE:

The shortest distance between Missouri and California was

across the central part of the country. The Russell, Majors and
Waddell Company decided to show that this central route could
be used all year. It began a speedy mail service called the Pony
Express.

Letters were carried by riders on fast horses. Stations with

fresh horses were built about twenty-four kilometers apart, all
along the way. A rider would change horses at each station until
he had traveled one hundred twenty kilometers. Then he would
give his letters to another rider. In this way, the letters would
An announcement seeking riders for be carried between California and Missouri. The first letters
the Pony Express
sent by Pony Express from California took ten days to reach
Missouri.

The Pony Express lasted only eighteen months. It was no longer needed after a telegraph line
was completed to San Francisco.

VOICE TWO:

As communications and transportation improved, the

government was able to increase its control over the West. But
closer ties were not welcomed between the government and a
religious group known as the Mormons.

The Mormon religion was started by a young New England man

named Joseph Smith. In eighteen-twenty-three, at the age of
eighteen, Smith claimed that an Angel told him of a golden
book. He said the book contained God's words to the ancient
people of America. Smith said he was able to read the strange
writing in this book and put it into English. He called this work
the Book of Mormon.
Joseph Smith

VOICE ONE:
He organized a church and made himself its leader. Many people became Mormons. They believed
themselves to be a special people chosen by God. Mormons worked hard. They helped each other
and shared with those in need.

People who did not agree with the beliefs of the Mormons did not like them. Trouble developed
between Mormons and other people. Joseph Smith was forced to move his people from New York
to Ohio and then to Missouri.

The Mormons seemed finally to have found a home in Illinois. They built their own town and
called it Nauvoo. They governed themselves and had their own defense force. The Mormons did
so well that Nauvoo became the fastest-growing city in Illinois.

Then some members of the group split apart, because of a new message Smith claimed to have
received from God. Smith said God gave permission for Mormons to have more than one wife.
This was polygamy. And it was opposed by almost all people.

Some of the Mormons who left the church published a newspaper criticizing Smith and the
other Mormon leaders. Followers ordered by Smith destroyed
the newspaper's publishing equipment. This caused non-
Mormons to demonstrate and demand that Smith be punished.
Smith was arrested and put in jail in Carthage, Illinois. His
brother also was arrested. An angry mob attacked the jail and
shot both Smith and his brother to death.

The governor of Illinois ordered the Mormons to leave his

state. He said only this would prevent further violence. There
was no choice. They had to leave.

The Mormons had a new leader: Brigham Young. Young decided Brigham Young
to take his people west and find a new home for them. He wanted a place where they would be
safe -- where no one could interfere with their religion.

Brigham Young told his people that he had seen their new home in a dream. He said they would
search for it in the West, for a wide beautiful valley. He said he would recognize it when he saw
it.

That will be our story next week.

(MUSIC)

ANNOUNCER:

Our program was written by Frank Beardsley. The narrators were Steve Ember and Bob
Doughty. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs are online, along with historical
images, at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION - an
American history series in VOA Special English.
___

Jobs and the Slow Road to Economic Recovery

Many experts believe the U.S. recession will end soon. But the housing market is unlikely to recover until
employment improves. Transcript of radio broadcast:
28 May 2009

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

The National Association for Business Economics has its latest predictions for the American
economy. Most of the forty-five business economists questioned said they expect the recession
to end in the second half of the year. But they also expect a slower-than-usual recovery.

Still, there were more signs this week that Americans are
feeling better about the economy. The Conference Board said
its consumer confidence index had its biggest jump in six years
in May.

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of

existing homes rose about three percent from March to April.
The Commerce Department said sales of new single-family
houses also rose -- but just by three-tenths of one percent.
A new home that sold recently in
The Federal Housing Finance Agency said home prices fell Springfield, Illinois
seven percent in the first three months of the year. But that
was less than they fell at the end of two thousand eight compared to a year earlier.

Housing recoveries usually follow employment recoveries. Experts say job losses might slow later
this year, but the unemployment rate could rise until the middle of next year.

Job losses help explain the latest numbers from the Mortgage Bankers Association. By the end
of March, twelve percent of homeowners with a mortgage were late on loan payments or in the
process of losing their home. California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada drove up the national
numbers.

Pete Kyle is a University of Maryland finance professor. He agrees that the economy should
begin to grow again in the second half of the year. But because of job conditions, he says, the
recovery is "not going to feel like a recovery to the average person."

Unemployment was almost nine percent in April, the highest since the early eighties. High
unemployment reduces spending which slows recovery. Professor Kyle also points to a weak
property market, both for housing and businesses.
But what really set this economic downturn apart from others, he says, was the severity of the
banking crisis. Many banks, he says, are going to need additional capital to deal with bad loans
and heavy debt.

Heavy government debt only adds to unease about the future after the so-called Great
Recession.

But President Obama says "we have stepped back from the brink." He says there is now some
calm that did not exist before. But he also says Americans cannot return to a "borrow-and-
spend economy."

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve
Ember.

Stock Market: The Business of Investing

Finance-related terms like bull market, bear market, belly up and windfall. Transcript of radio broadcast:
20 April 2008
MP3 - Download (MP3)
MP3 - Listen to (MP3)
RealAudio - Download

I'm Phil Murray with Words and Their Stories, a program in Special English on the Voice of
America. Today we tell about some American expressions that are commonly used in business.

(MUSIC)

Bells sound. Lighted messages appear. Men and women work at computers. They talk on the
telephone. At times they shout and run around.

This noisy place is a stock exchange. Here expert salespeople called brokers buy and sell shares
of companies. The shares are known as stocks. People who own stock in a company, own part of
that company.

People pay brokers to buy and sell stocks for them. If a company earns money, its stock
increases in value. If the company does not earn money, the stock decreases in value.

Brokers and investors carefully watch for any changes on the Big Board. That is the name given
to a list of stocks sold on the New York Stock Exchange.

The first written use of the word with that meaning was in a newspaper in Illinois in eighteen
thirty-seven. It said: "The sales on the board were one thousand seven hundred dollars in
American gold."

Investors and brokers watch the Big Board to see if the stock market is a bull market or a bear
market. In a bear market, prices go down. In a bull market, prices go up.
Investors in a bear market promise to sell a stock in the future at a set price. But the investor
does not own the stock yet. He or she waits to buy it when the price drops.

The meaning of a bear market is thought to come from an old story about a man who sold the
skin of a bear before he caught the bear. An English dictionary of the sixteen hundreds said,
"To sell a bear is to sell what one has not."

Word experts dispute the beginnings of the word bull in the stock market. But some say it came
from the long connection of the two animals -- bulls and bears -- in sports that were popular
years ago in England.

Investors are always concerned about the possibility of a company failing. In the modern world,
a company that does not earn enough profit is said to go belly up. A company that goes belly up
dies like a fish. Fish turn over on their backs when they die. So they are stomach, or belly, up.

Stock market investors do not want that to happen to a company. They want a company whose
stock they own to earn more profit than expected. This would sharply increase the value of the
stock. Investors are hoping for a windfall.

The word windfall comes from England of centuries ago. There, poor people were banned from
cutting trees in forests owned by rich land owners. But, if the wind blew down a tree, a poor
person could take the wood for fuel. So a windfall is something wonderful that happens
unexpectedly.

(MUSIC)

This Special English program, Words and Their Stories, was written by Jeri Watson. This is Phil
Murray.

What Modern America Expects of Its Dads

''Fathers are now expected to not only be providers but also caregivers for their kids,'' says one expert.
Transcript of radio broadcast:
14 June 2009

VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Bob Doughty.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Shirley Griffith. This week on our program, we look at modern changes in the American
father.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:
 Father's Day will be observed this year on Sunday, June
twenty-first. This special day to honor and celebrate fathers
has one hundred years of history behind it. In nineteen
hundred and nine there was a woman named Sonora Dodd. She
was in church at a service for Mother's Day, which is
celebrated in May.

She thought about how difficult it had been for her father to
raise six children all by himself. Her mother had died in
childbirth, leaving her father to raise her and her five
Actor Robert Young with his television brothers and sisters. She decided that since there was a day
family on 'Father Knows Best' honoring mothers, there should also be one recognizing fathers.

Sonora Dodd campaigned for the idea in her home state of Washington, in the Pacific
Northwest. The first Father's Day was celebrated in June of nineteen ten in the city of
Spokane. June was the month her father was born.

VOICE TWO:

At first Sonora Dodd had found little support. But in the years that followed, the idea of
Father's Day spread across the country. It gained the approval of President Woodrow Wilson in
nineteen sixteen. Yet he never signed an official proclamation, as he did two years earlier for
the first Mother's Day.

President Calvin Coolidge in nineteen twenty-four added his support to a national observance of
Father's Day. Then in nineteen sixty-six Lyndon Johnson declared it the third Sunday in June.
Finally, in nineteen seventy-two, Richard Nixon made it permanent.

Other countries also celebrate Father's Day, some on the third Sunday in June, others on a
different day.

VOICE ONE:

OK, let's be honest. As holidays go, Mother's Day in America is still a bigger deal than Father's
Day. But millions of dads will get at least a card or a call or maybe a necktie or some other gift
from their family. And much has changed since that first celebration in nineteen ten.

Kevin Roy is an associate professor in the Department of Family Science at the University of
Maryland. Professor Roy says fathers today are expected to do more than just provide
financially for the family's needs.

KEVIN ROY: "Cultural expectations have changed kind of dramatically, where now we have
what's called a package deal. Which means that fathers are now expected to not only be
providers but also caregivers for their kids."

VOICE TWO:
That change could be seen in the differences between two television fathers from different
generations.

In the nineteen fifties and early sixties, Robert Young played Jim Anderson on the family
comedy "Father Knows Best." He was an insurance salesman who worked hard to provide for his
family. He did not cook or clean much -- that was his wife's job -- but he was a thoughtful
father and husband.

FATHER: "Well, Kathy, I don't want a million dollars, or even a half a million. I only want enough
money to have a nice home like we have, good food, good health…and enough money to help those
less fortunate than ourselves from time to time."

DAUGHTER: "And enough to raise my allowance a little."

FATHER: "I might even arrange that."

VOICE ONE:

By the time "The Cosby Show" began in nineteen eighty-four, it

was common in American society for mothers to work. Bill
Cosby played Heathcliff Huxtable, a loving husband and father
who was a doctor married to a lawyer.

They were partners not only in marriage but in managing the

household and parenting their children. Here, Cliff Huxtable Bill Cosby played Cliff Huxtable, the
tries to teach his son an important life lesson. father on "The Cosby Show"

FATHER: "How do you expect to get into college with grades like this?

SON: "No Problem. See I'm not going to college.

FATHER: "Damn right.

SON: "I am going to get through high school and then get a job like regular people.

FATHER: "Regular people?

SON: "Yeah you know...who work in the gas station, drive a bus, something like that.

FATHER: "So what you're saying is your mother and I shouldn't care if you get Ds because you
don't need good grades to be regular people.

SON: "Right.

VOICE TWO:
In the nineteen seventies, Harry Chapin sang a song about a father who never seems to have
time for his son. Then, when the father gets older and wants to connect with his son, the son is
the one who is too busy. The song was called "Cat's in the Cradle."

(HARRY CHAPIN – "CAT'S IN THE CRADLE")

VOICE ONE:

In the early nineties, Reba McIntyre described a similar

situation between a father and daughter in "The Greatest Man
I Never Knew."

(REBA McINTYRE – "THE GREATEST MAN I NEVER KNEW")

Reba McIntyre
VOICE TWO:

Mike Kaufman is a radio broadcaster based in Washington, D.C. He considers himself a modern
dad who got involved in parenting early. He and his wife have a new baby boy.

MIKE KAUFMAN: "We both wanted to take on equal parts of the challenges, equal parts of the
joy, equal parts of the burden and equal parts of the preparation. So we did things like take
classes before the baby was born.

"We took a class on basic baby care, you know, and that will cover everything from how to
change those diapers and how to give the baby a bath, and all those things which frankly we
didn't know a whole lot about. We're both only-children and so we sort of started from scratch.
We figured these classes would be a good thing to do to prepare."

VOICE ONE:

As only-children, they had no baby brothers or sisters to take care of, so every day for them is
new. Like many other couples, the Kaufmans took pregnancy and childbirth classes together.
They took another class that taught them life saving skills to use in an emergency.

So how does Mike's experience compare with the way he thinks of fathers when he was growing
up?

MIKE KAUFMAN: "You have this vision of dads back then pacing in a waiting room, you know
ready to hand out cigars, you know, as a congratulations. 'I just had a boy, just had a girl --
whatever, we have a new child!' Now dads, they go to all the appointments with their wives,
prenatally, all the doctor checkups. They're in the delivery room when the baby is born. That's
definitely something that's new."

VOICE TWO:
Today men are often more involved than their fathers were in parenting their children and
helping with housework. Still, it is not always smooth sailing.

Julie Shields is the author of "How to Avoid the Mommy Trap: A Road Map for Sharing
Parenting and Making It Work." She says creating a balance between partners takes work.

JULIE SHIELDS: "The problem is, in the old days when people had a traditional division of
labor, it was very clear as to who should do what. Mothers should stay home, be in charge of the
house and, in fact, did much more housework than they do now, and be in charge of the children
by and large. And fathers should go out to work and be gone most of the day and not be as
involved in what is going on with the children, except maybe as a disciplinarian if things get to be
too much."

VOICE ONE:

Author Julie Shields says couples today often have a hard time trying to decide how to share
responsibilities. Women often talk about needing more help from their husbands, she says, yet
some women have a hard time giving up control.

JULIE SHIELDS: "Once we try to get our husband to do something and he starts to do it, we
critique the way he does it. And then a lot of times the men will pull back. So it's very important
once you've given up something, to stay out of it and not fix it if it goes wrong."

When it comes to parenting, she says, men may not do things the same way that women do. The
"Mommy Trap" author says that does not mean they are doing it wrong, just differently -- at
least at first.

JULIE SHIELDS: "A lot of times fathers have to catch up to mothers. You just have to allow
your husband to have that on-the-job training that women get."

VOICE TWO:

The Census Bureau says fathers regularly care for one-fourth of children of preschool age
whose mothers have jobs outside the home. These fathers generally also have jobs. But in two
thousand eight, the United States had an estimated one hundred forty thousand stay-at-home
fathers.

These are men who have stayed out of the labor force for at least one year, mainly to raise
children while their wives go to work. Stay-at-home dads are a small number compared to five
million stay-at-home moms.

But right now, the recession seems to be adding to the number of fathers staying home with
their kids. Job losses have been a lot higher for men than for women. The Labor Department
says the unemployment rate for women was eight percent in May; for men it was ten and a half
percent.
VOICE ONE:

Mike Stillwell is a stay-at-home dad by choice. He is also the head of a support group in the
Washington area known as DC Metro Dads. He says the group has about four hundred fifty
members. Most of them stay at home by choice, he says. But there are times when the decision
is simply a question of economics.

Mike Stillwell and his wife decided early that if the cost of child care got to be too much, one of
them would quit work. That time came twelve years ago. Mike has been a stay-at-home-dad ever
since. He says most of the dads in his group have the same responsibilities, questions and
concerns that stay-at-home moms have.

MIKE STILLWELL: "The only thing that we try to stress is that a stay-at-home dad can do all
the things a stay-at-home mom can do. I always like to joke with some of the new dads that
come into the group that there's really only two things that a stay-at-home-dad can't do, and
that's give birth and breastfeed."

(LUTHER VANDROSS – "DANCE WITH MY FATHER")

VOICE TWO:

Our program was written and produced by June Simms. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our
programs are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Shirley Griffith.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Bob Doughty. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.
We leave you with Luther Vandross and his Grammy-winning song of the year from two thousand
three, "Dance With My Father."

Proverbs: Some Listeners’ Favorite Sayings

More expressions about a common truth or belief. Transcript of radio broadcast:
02 March 2009

Correction attached

Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

A proverb is a short, well known saying that expresses a common truth or belief. Many proverbs
give advice about the best way to live.

Recently, we presented a program about proverbs. We asked our listeners to send us their
favorite proverbs. A short time later, we received suggestions from around the world. We
heard from listeners in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.
The top proverb among these listeners is this one: "Where there is a will, there is a way."
This means that you can rise above your problems if you have a goal and work very hard.

Some listeners liked another proverb: "Strike while the iron is hot." This means it is best to
take action quickly and at the right time. Another favorite proverb was, "God helps those who
help themselves."

Xu Da-ju from China wrote that his country has thousands of proverbs. Several of them are
also used in the United States. One example is "Birds of a feather flock together." This
means that people who are alike often become friends or spend time together.

Another proverb is "Blood is thicker than water." This means family ties are stronger than
other relationships. A similar proverb states "Charity begins at home." A person should help
his family or close friends before helping others.

Alina from China sent us this proverb: "He who would climb a ladder must begin at the
bottom." That is good advice when working around your home or looking for a job.

Antonio Jose from Brazil says his favorite proverb is "Tell me who walks with you, and I'll
tell you who you are." Didier Vermeulen of France sent us this one: "It does not matter the
speed you go. The most important thing is to never stop."

Wafaa from Egypt says her favorite proverb is, "Think twice, act wise." She also says she is
making an effort to use this saying in her life.

Another favorite proverb among our listeners is "Practice makes perfect." This means you will
become good at something if you keep doing it. Another popular proverb is: "If you want
something done right, do it yourself."

Najeeb from Afghanistan sent us this proverb: "If you risk nothing, then you risk
everything."

And, here is the favorite proverb of Marius Meledje in Ivory Coast: "Your defeat now is your
victory in the future." He says it means you can learn from your mistakes. This will help you
do better when facing similar situations in the future.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm Faith Lapidus. We will
present more programs about proverbs in the future. And you can find more WORDS AND
THEIR STORIES at our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.

___

Proverbs: Ideas About How to Live

These expressions are wise and true. Transcript of radio broadcast:
05 April 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Today we explain more popular proverbs. A proverb is a short, well known saying that expresses
a common truth or belief. Proverbs are popular around the world.

Many listeners have sent us their favorite proverbs. They give advice about how to live. We
begin with two popular proverbs about staying healthy by eating good food: One is an apple a
day keeps the doctor away. Another is you are what you eat.

Several proverbs about birds also give advice. You may have heard this one: The early bird
catches the worm. This means a person who gets up early, or acts quickly, has the best chance
of success.

Another famous proverb is a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. This means you should
not risk losing something you have by seeking something that is not guaranteed.

Here is another piece of advice: Do not count your chickens before they are hatched. In
other words, you should not think too much about some future event before it really happens.

Another proverb warns do not put all your eggs in one basket. This means you should not put
all of your resources together in one place because you could risk losing everything at one time.
Many Americans learned this the hard way by investing all their money in stock shares, which
then lost value. Another proverb says a fool and his money are soon parted. This means
someone who acts unwisely with money will lose it.

Here is more advice: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Also, never put off until
tomorrow what you can do today.

You might learn that haste makes waste if you do something too fast, resulting in mistakes.
Most people would agree with this proverb: honesty is the best policy.

Yet another proverb advises us not to be concerned about something bad that you cannot
change. It says there is no use crying over spilled milk.

Do you agree with the proverb that children should be seen and not heard? Maybe you have
told your children that hard work never hurt anyone. But other people say that all work and
no play makes Jack a dull boy. They believe it is not wise to spend all your time working and
never having fun.

Finally, here is one of our favorite proverbs: People who live in glass houses should not throw
stones. This means you should not criticize other people unless you are perfect yourself.

(MUSIC)
This VOA Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm Barbara Klein. You can
find more proverbs and other WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at our Web site,
voaspecialenglish.com

Have a Heart
Some English expressions that use the word heart. Transcript of radio broadcast:
14 February 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES. I'm Rich Kleinfeldt
with some expressions using the word heart.

People believed for a long time that the heart was the center of a person's emotions. That is
why the word heart is used in so many expressions about emotional situations.

One such expression is to "lose your heart" to someone. When that happens, you have fallen in
love. But if the person who "won your heart" does not love you, then you are sure to have a
"broken heart." In your pain and sadness, you may decide that the person you loved is "hard-
hearted," and in fact, has a "heart of stone."

You may decide to "pour out your heart" to a friend. Telling someone about your personal
problems can often make you feel better.

If your friend does not seem to understand how painful your broken heart is, you may ask her to
"have a heart." You are asking your friend to show some sympathy for your situation. Your
friend "has her heart in the right place" if she says she is sorry, and shows great concern for
how you feel.

Your friend may, however, warn you "not to wear your heart on your sleeve." In other words, do
not let everyone see how lovesick you are. When your heart is on your sleeve you are showing
your deepest emotions.

If your friend says, "my heart bleeds for you," she means the opposite. She is a cold-hearted
person who does not really care about your situation.

In the ever-popular motion picture, The Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man seeks a heart. He wanted to
feel the emotion of love, and was seeking help from the powerful Wizard of Oz to find a heart.

The cowardly lion, in the same movie, did have a heart. But he lacked courage and wanted to ask
the Wizard of Oz to give him some. You could say that the cowardly lion was "chicken-hearted."
That is another way of describing someone who is not very brave. A chicken is not noted for its
bravery. Thus, someone who is chicken-hearted does not have much courage.
When you are frightened or concerned, your "heart is in your mouth." You might say, for
example, that your heart was in your mouth when you asked a bank to lend you some money to
pay for a new house.

If that bank says no to you, do not "lose heart." Be "strong-hearted." Sit down with the banker
and have a "heart to heart" talk. Be open and honest about your situation. The bank may have a
"change of heart." It may agree to lend you the money. Then you could stop worrying and "put
your heart at rest."

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Marilyn
Christiano. I'm Rich Kleinfeldt.

Words and Their Stories: Get Your Act Together

Some expressions that might be heard at business meetings. Transcript of radio broadcast:
11 June 2009

I'm Susan Clark with the Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

A woman from Japan was telling a friend about her trip to the United States. The woman had
visited major businesses and investment companies in New York City and Chicago.

"I studied English before I left home, " she said. "But I still was not sure that people were
speaking English."

Her problem is easy to understand. Americans in business are like people who are in business
anywhere. They have a language of their own. Some of the words and expressions deal with the
special areas of their work. Other expressions are borrowed from different kinds of work such
as the theater and movie industry.

One such saying is get your act together.

When things go wrong in a business, an employer may get angry. He may shout, "Stop making
mistakes. Get your act together."

Or, if the employer is calmer, he may say, "Let us get our act together."

Either way, the meaning is the same. Getting your act together is getting organized. In business,
it usually means to develop a calm and orderly plan of action.

It is difficult to tell exactly where the saying began. But, it is probable that it was in the
theater or movie industry. Perhaps one of the actors was nervous and made a lot of mistakes.
The director may have said, "Calm down, now. Get your act together."
Word expert James Rogers says the expression was common by the late nineteen seventies.
Mister Rogers says the Manchester Guardian newspaper used it in nineteen seventy-eight. The
newspaper said a reform policy required that the British government get its act together.

Now, this expression is heard often when officials of a company meet. One company even called
its yearly report, "Getting Our Act Together."

The Japanese visitor was confused by another expression used by American business people. It
is cut to the chase.

She heard that expression when she attended an important meeting of one company. One
official was giving a very long report. It was not very interesting. In fact, some people at the
meeting were falling asleep.

Finally, the president of the company said, "Cut to the chase."

Cut to the chase means to stop spending so much time on details or unimportant material. Hurry
and get to the good part.

Naturally, this saying was started by people who make movies. Hollywood movie producers
believe that most Americans want to see action movies. Many of their movies show scenes in
which the actors chase each other in cars, or in airplanes or on foot.

Cut is the director's word for stop. The director means to stop filming, leave out some material,
and get to the chase scene now.

So, if your employer tells you to cut to the chase, be sure to get to the main point of your story
quickly.

This WORDS AND THEIR STORIES program was written by Jeri Watson. I'm Susan Clark.

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Heart to Heart: Some Heartfelt Expressions

Do you wear your heart on your sleeve? Transcript of radio broadcast:
29 May 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Each week, this program explains the many meanings of English expressions. Today’s expressions
include a very important word – heart.

We will try to get to the heart of the matter to better understand the most important things
about words and their stories. So take heart. Have no fear about learning new expressions.
Besides, popular English words can be fun. There is no need for a heavy heart. Such feelings of
sadness would only break my heart, or make me feel unhappy and hopeless.
Now, let us suppose you and I were speaking freely about something private. We would be having
a heart to heart discussion. I might speak from the bottom of my heart, or say things
honestly and truthfully. I might even open up my heart to you and tell a secret. I would speak
with all my heart, or with great feeling.

When a person shares her feelings freely and openly like this, you might say she wears her
heart on her sleeve, or on her clothing. Her emotions are not protected.

If we had an honest discussion, both of us would know that the other person’s heart is in the
right place. For example, I would know that you are a kind-hearted and well-meaning person.
And, if you are a very good person, I would even say that you have a heart of gold. However,
you might have a change of heart based on what I tell you. Our discussion might cause you to
change the way you feel about something.

But, let us suppose you get angry over what I tell you. Or worse, you feel no sympathy or
understanding for me or my situation. If this happens, I might think that you have a heart of
stone. And, if you say something to make me frightened or worried, my heart might stand still
or skip a beat.

Yet, even though you may be angry, I would know that at heart, you are a kind person. In
reality, you do care. And any argument between us would not cause me to lose heart or feel a
sense of loss.

My heart goes out to anyone who loses a friend over an argument. It really is a sad situation,
and I feel sympathy for the people involved.

I promise that what I have told you today is true – cross my heart.

I really wanted to play some music at the end of this feature. In fact, I had my heart set on
it. So here it is, “Don’t Go Breaking my Heart” by Elton John.

In the Red: When a Business is Losing Money

Some expressions used in business and investing. Transcript of radio broadcast:
25 April 2009

Now, Words and Their Stories, a VOA Special English program about American expressions.

I'm Rich Kleinfeldt with some financial words and expressions used in business and the stock
market.

Our first expression is "in the red." It is another way of saying that a business is losing money.
In the past, numbers in the financial records of a company were written in red ink to show a
loss.
A business magazine recently published a report about a television company. The report said the
company was still in the red, but was able to cut its loss from the year before.

A profit by a business is written in black numbers. So a company that is "in the black" is making
money. An international news service reported that a private health insurer in Australia
announced it was "back in the black with its first profit in three years."

Another financial expression is "run on the bank." That is what happens when many people try
to withdraw all their money from a bank. A "run on the bank" usually happens when people believe
there is danger a bank may fail or close.

Newspaper reports about a banking crisis in Russia used that expression. They said the
government acted because of fears that the crisis would cause a run on the banks. "When a run
on the banks was starting, there was not much they could do," said a banking expert.

"Day trading" is a system that lets investors trade directly on an electronic market system. The
system is known as NASDAQ, short for The National Association of Securities Dealers
Automated Quotation. It was the first completely computerized stock market. It sells stocks of
companies not listed on any stock exchange. Many high technology companies are listed on it.

Day trading companies provide a desk and a computer system to an investor who wants to trade.
Individuals must provide fifty thousand dollars or more to the trading company to pay for the
stocks they buy. Thousands of other investors do day trading from computers in their homes.

A day trader watches stock prices carefully. When he sees a stock rise in price, he uses the
computer to buy shares of the stock. If the stock continues to rise in price in the next few
minutes, the day trader sells the shares quickly to make a small profit. Then he looks for
another stock to buy. If a stock goes down instead of up, he sells it and accepts the loss.

The idea is to make a small profit many times during the day. Day traders may buy and sell
stocks hundreds of times each day.

Many day traders lose all their money in a week or so. Only about thirty percent succeed in
earning enough from their efforts to continue day trading.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories, was written by Frank Beardsley.
This is Rich Kleinfeldt.

Touching All Bases: Baseball Rules!

Some terms that come from the American pastime. Transcript of radio broadcast:
17 January 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories.
(MUSIC)

American English is full of colorful expressions. One such expression is to touch all bases. It
comes from the sport of baseball.

There are four bases in baseball -- first, second and third. The fourth is home plate. Together,
the bases form a diamond shape. When a baseball player hits the ball, he must run to each base
-- in order -- and touch it with his foot. It is the only way to score a point. If the player hits the
ball and fails to touch all the bases, the point will not be counted.

The importance of touching all the bases was shown at the start of the nineteen seventy-four
baseball season.

Hank Aaron was a player with the Atlanta Braves team. He was seeking the record for hitting
the most home runs. A home run is a ball that is hit over the wall. Aaron needed just one home
run to equal the record held by Babe Ruth, the greatest hitter in baseball history. Aaron got
that home run the very first time he had a chance to hit the ball. He sent the ball over the wall
that surrounded the playing field. That gave him seven hundred and fourteen home runs -- the
same as Babe Ruth.

After that day, baseball fans held their breath every time it was Hank Aaron's turn to hit.
When would he hit home run number seven hundred and fifteen?

The wait was not long. In the second week of the season, Aaron again hit the ball over the wall.
He had beaten Babe Ruth's record. But first, he had to run around the four bases. The other
players on his team watched carefully to make sure he touched each one. If he did not, the home
run would not have counted. There would have been no new record.

So, to touch all bases means to do what is necessary to complete an activity.

The expression is used in business and politics. No business deal or political campaign is really
complete until you discuss all the issues involved. Or, as it is said, until you touch all bases.

Even professional diplomats use this expression, as well as others that come from baseball.

A diplomat in reporting on negotiations with diplomats from different countries may say they
"touched all bases" during many hours of talks. This means they explored all issues involved in
the situation. Perhaps they did this after expressing hope that they could play ball with each
other, meaning that they could learn to cooperate.

Sports reporters write about fast-moving, lively events. They must develop a way of writing that
goes straight to the point. Their duty is to give the reader a complete picture of the event in as
few words as possible. They must touch all bases as quickly as they can.

(MUSIC)
This VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories, was written by Mike Pitts. This is
Bob Doughty.

Putting a Price on the Cost of Forced Labor

A new U.N. report estimates that millions of workers are denied more than $20 billion a year in wages. And that
does not even include the sex industry. Transcript of radio broadcast:
08 June 2009

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

A new report estimates the cost of forced labor. Millions of

workers worldwide are denied more than twenty billion dollars a
year in wages. And that does not even include people forced to
work in the sex industry.

The report is by the International Labor Organization. The

United Nations agency gives two main reasons for what it calls
"the cost of coercion."

First, people in forced labor situations receive wages that are

Adults drink tea as a child works in
Bangalore, India, last June lower, sometimes far lower, than the market rate. Long hours
of overtime work may go unpaid or underpaid. Also, victims may be overcharged for their
housing, food and other items.

The second major cost mainly involves human trafficking. It includes the money that workers
pay to be taken to another country.

Four years ago, the labor agency estimated that more than twelve million people were in some
form of forced labor. About two and a half million cases were the result of trafficking.

The earlier report estimated profits from trafficking alone at more than thirty billion dollars a
year. It said criminals earned all but four billion of that from the sex trade.

Experts say Asia has three-fourths of all forced laborers. A million are in Latin America and the
Caribbean. But the problem affects almost all countries. Around fifty-six percent of people in
forced labor are women and girls. Forty to fifty percent are under the age of eighteen.

Most countries have laws that make forced labor a serious crime. Yet the new report says in
Africa, for example, it has generally received limited attention. Sometimes there is a strong
focus on slavery but weak punishments, says I.L.O. official Roger Plant. He says child labor is an
especially serious problem in West African countries.

Around the world, industries such as agriculture and the building trades are commonly
considered at risk of forced labor. They have lots of temporary work and difficult conditions.
But the report says the risk extends to all kinds of industries with long supply chains for the
goods used in their products. Huge companies might not use forced labor, but they might work
with smaller ones that do.

Why would people take a chance on getting involved with forced labor? The International Labor
Organization points to increases in the unemployed, the working poor and people whose jobs are
likely to be cut. In such times of economic crisis, it says, people take more risks.

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jerilyn Watson, with Lisa
Schlein in Geneva. I'm Steve Ember.

Let's Do Business: I Made a Sweetheart Deal Last Month

Using words to make a profit in business. Transcript of radio broadcast:

08 November 2008
MP3 - Download (MP3)
MP3 - Listen to (MP3)

Now, the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories.

There are many special terms in the world of business.

The following story is about a sweetheart deal which I made last week. I made the deal with a
friend, and we both made a profit.

I had started a small company several years ago. I worked hard to make it successful. It was a
sign-making business. It was a small company, not a blue chip company. It was not known
nationally for the quality of its signs. It did not make millions of dollars in profits. And it was
private. It was not a public company with shares traded on the stock market.

Still, I worked hard building up my business. I did not work only a few hours each day -- no
banker’s hours for me. Instead I spent many hours each day, seven days a week, trying to grow
the company. I never cut corners or tried to save on expenses. I made many cold calls. I called
on possible buyers from a list of people I had never seen. Such calls were often hard sells. I had
to be very firm.

Sometimes I sold my signs at a loss. I did not make money on my product. When this happened,
there were cut backs. I had to use fewer supplies and reduce the number of workers. But after
several years, the company broke even. Profits were equal to expenses. And soon after, I began
to gain ground. My signs were selling very quickly. They were selling like hotcakes.

I was happy. The company was moving forward and making real progress. It was in the black, not
in the red. The company was making money, not losing it.

My friend knew about my business. He is a leader in the sign-making industry – a real big gun, if
you know what I mean. He offered to buy my company. My friend wanted to take it public. He
wanted to sell shares in the company to the general public.
My friend believed it was best to strike while the iron is hot. He wanted to take action at the
best time possible and not wait. He offered me a ball park estimate of the amount he would pay
to buy my company. But I knew his uneducated guess was low. My company was worth much more.
He asked his bean-counter to crunch the numbers. That is, he asked his accountant to take a
close look at the finances of my company and decide how much it was worth. Then my friend
increased his offer.

My friend’s official offer was finally given to me in black and white. It was written on paper and
more than I ever dreamed. I was finally able to get a break. I made a huge profit on my
company, and my friend also got a bang for the buck. He got a successful business for the
money he spent.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jill Moss.
I’m Faith Lapidus.

Insect Expressions: I Don't Mean to Bug You

Putting a bug in your ear about English expressions. Transcript of Radio Broadcast:
11 May 2008
MP3 - Download (MP3)
MP3 - Listen to (MP3)
RealAudio - Download

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

(MUSIC)

There are many American expressions about insects -- like bees, for example. Bees are known
as very hard workers. They always appear to be busy, moving around their homes, or hives. So
you might say you were as busy as a bee if you spent your weekend cleaning your house. In
fact, you might say your house was a beehive of activity if your whole family was helping you
clean. You also might say you made a beeline for something if you went there right away.
When we go to see a movie, my friend always makes a beeline for the place where they sell
popcorn.

Here is an expression about bees that is not used much any more, but we like it anyway. We
think it was first used in the nineteen twenties. If something was the best of its kind, you
might say it was the bee's knees. Now, we admit that we do not know how this expression
developed. If fact, we do not even know if bees have knees!

If your friend cannot stop talking about something because she thinks it is important, you might
say she has a bee in her bonnet. If someone asks you a personal question, you might say
"that is none of your beeswax." This means none of your business.
Speaking of personal questions, there is an expression people sometimes use when their children
ask, "where do babies come from?" Parents who discuss sex and reproduction say this is talking
about the birds and the bees.

(MUSIC)

Hornets are bee-like insects that sometimes attack people. It you are really angry, you might
say you are mad as a hornet. And if you stir up a hornet's nest, you create trouble or
problems.

Butterflies are beautiful insects, but you would not want to have butterflies in your stomach.
That means to be nervous about having to do something, like speaking in front of a crowd. You
would also not want to have ants in your pants. That is, to be restless and unable to sit still.

Here are some expressions about plain old bugs, another word for insects. If a friend keeps
asking you to do something you do not want to do, you might ask him to leave you alone or "stop
bugging me." A friend also might tell you again and again to do something. If so, you might say
he put a bug in your ear.

If you were reading a book in your warm bed on a cold winter's day, you might say you were snug
as a bug in a rug. And, if you wish someone good night, you might say, "sleep tight -- don't let
the bed bugs bite."

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm Barbara Klein. You can
find more WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at voaspecialenglish.com.

Words and Their Stories: Like a Rolling Stone

How an old proverb led to a popular rock and roll band, song and magazine. Transcript of radio broadcast:
19 June 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Today we explain a very old saying that has had a big influence on rock-and-roll music. That
saying is a rolling stone gathers no moss. It has several meanings. One meaning is that a person
who never settles down in one place will not be successful. Another is that someone who is
always moving, with no roots in one place, avoids responsibilities.

This proverb was said to be first used in the fifteen hundreds. But in the nineteen sixties, the
expression rolling stone became famous in the world of rock-and-roll music. It became the name
of a rock group, a song and a magazine.

Experts say it all started with a song by the American singer and guitarist Muddy Waters. He
was one of the country’s top blues musicians until his death in nineteen eighty-three. His music
influenced singers like Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan. In nineteen-fifty, Muddy Waters recorded a
song called “Rollin’ Stone.”

(MUSIC)

A British rock group is said to have taken its name from Muddy Waters’ song. The Rolling Stones
performed for the first time in nineteen sixty-two. The group’s members called themselves “the
world’s greatest rock and roll band.”

In nineteen sixty-five, Bob Dylan released his song “Like a Rolling Stone.” It is one of his best
known and most influential works.

It is an angry song about a woman who was once rich and successful. But now she is on her own,
“with no direction home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.”

(MUSIC)

In nineteen sixty-seven, a young man named Jann Wenner started a magazine he named “Rolling
Stone.” The magazine reported on rock music and the popular culture that the music created. By
nineteen seventy-one, “Rolling Stone” had become the leading rock music and counterculture
publication. It is still popular today.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm Faith Lapidus. You can
find more WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.

How Did He Do It? Lakers Coach Phil Jackson and His 10 NBA Titles
New music from Madeleine Peyroux, and a question from China about John Denver, the folk singer who died in
1997. Transcript of radio broadcast:
09 July 2009

HOST:

Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I'm Doug Johnson.

On today's program, we tell about Los Angeles Lakers basketball coach Phil Jackson …

Answer a question about folk singer John Denver …

And hear music by Madeleine Peyroux.

(MUSIC)

HOST:

The National Basketball Association recently chose new players to join its teams. These new
professional athletes are training to win basketball games and championships. Their coaches are
working to design winning plays and powerful teams. One coach recently was recognized as the
most successful at doing this. Barbara Klein has more about Los Angeles Lakers head coach Phil
Jackson and his recent historic victory.

BARBARA KLEIN:

On June fourteenth, the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic to win the National
Basketball Association championship. But that was not the only major victory that night.

Basketball fans cheered Lakers head coach Phil Jackson as he

became the only head coach in NBA history to win ten national
championships. NBA coach Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics
had held the record with nine championship victories. Auerbach
died in two thousand six.

Phil Jackson is known for his easy style of coaching. This is a

result of spiritual influences he learned from his parents who
were religious workers. His supporters say his calm style shows
he trusts his players to perform well by learning from their Phil Jackson with Lakers player Kobe
mistakes. Bryant

But others have criticized Jackson for calmly sitting during games instead of showing great
emotion. Other coaches walk along the sidelines and shout at the players. Critics say Jackson's
success is not a result of his coaching skills as much as having superstar athletes on his teams.

Still, many people argue that his talent should be recognized because ten national coaching
victories do not happen by accident.

Phil Jackson has coached the Lakers for ten years and has led the team to four national
championships. He has coached some of the NBA's best basketball players, including Kobe
Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal.

Earlier in his career, he won six championships as coach of the Chicago Bulls. That team included
Michael Jordan, who is said to be the best basketball player of all time.

The sixty-three year old coach has had operations to replace both of his hips and has problems
with his back and knees. But last week, Phil Jackson announced that he will return to coach the
Lakers next season.

(MUSIC)
HOST:

Our listener question this week comes from a college student in China. Liu Hualong wants to know
about the American musician and singer John Denver. Denver was one of the most popular
musical artists during the nineteen seventies. He was known for his songs about the beauty of
nature. He was also a human rights and environmental activist.

He was born Henry John Deutschendorf, Junior in nineteen-

forty three in Roswell, New Mexico. John's grandmother gave
him his first musical instrument when he was seven years old.
When he began performing, he changed his last name to
Denver, after the capital of his favorite state, Colorado.

In nineteen sixty-five, John Denver joined the band called the

Chad Mitchell Trio. He later left the group to perform alone.
His first hit record was "Take Me Home, Country Roads" in
nineteen seventy-one.

John Denver
(MUSIC)

He had a very successful career with hit songs like "Sunshine on my Shoulders", "Annie's Song"
and "Thank God I'm a Country Boy." This song, "Rocky Mountain High," is one of the official
songs of Colorado.

(MUSIC)

John Denver sold more than one hundred million albums around the world. He received many
music industry awards. He used his popularity to support environmental causes. He started an
environmental education and research center.

In nineteen-ninety seven, John Denver was killed when the plane he was piloting crashed. A
memorial sign where his plane crashed contains lines from his song "Windsong": "So welcome the
wind and the wisdom she offers. Follow her summons when she calls again."

(MUSIC)

HOST:

Madeleine Peyroux is known for her soft and dreamy voice which she made famous with her hit
album, "Careless Love," in two thousand four. On her latest album, "Bare Bones," the thirty-four
year old performer continues to combine the sounds of jazz, folk music and the blues. But on
this album, Peyroux does not sing songs made famous by other artists. She helped write all
eleven songs on the album. Faith Lapidus has more.

(MUSIC)
FAITH LAPIDUS:

That was "Instead," a song that takes listeners back in time.

Madeleine Peyroux's voice is most often compared to Billie
Holiday.

Peyroux has said that the great blues singers Billie Holiday and Madeleine Peyroux
Bessie Smith still help shape her identity.

Peyroux first began performing popular jazz and blues songs as a teenager in the streets of
Paris, France. She has said that writing the songs on "Bare Bones" was a very new experience,
almost like making her first album over again.

Her aim in writing is to keep each song as clear and simple as possible while also telling a story.
Madeleine Peyroux says making this record felt good, like opening a shade into sunlight in the
morning. Here is the poetic song "Love and Treachery".

(MUSIC)

We leave you with a song Madeleine Peyroux wrote by herself. She wrote "I Must Be Saved" to
honor the folk singer Odetta whom Peyroux calls her spiritual grandmother. Peyroux says the
song shows that a person might have troubles, but it is always possible to survive and carry on.

(MUSIC)

HOST:

I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.

It was written by Lawan Davis, Marisel Salazar and Dana Demange who was also the producer.
For transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs, go to voaspecialenglish.com. You can also
write comments about our programs.

Do you have a question about American people, places or things? Send your questions about
American life to mosaic@voanews.com. Or write to American Mosaic, VOA Special English,
Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A. Please include your full name and where you
live.

Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA's radio magazine in Special English.

Race to the Moon: NASA and the Early Apollo Flights of the 1960s
Part five of an eight-part history of the beginnings of the American space program. Transcript of radio
broadcast:
07 July 2009

VOICE ONE:

I'm Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. The nineteen sixties were
exciting times in space exploration. Today look back at the first flights of the Apollo program
designed to land humans on the moon.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

The decision to go to the moon was made in May, nineteen

sixty-one. President John Kennedy set the goal in a speech to
Congress and the American people.

JOHN KENNEDY: "I believe that this nation should commit President John Kennedy sets the goal
itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of of a moon landing before a joint
session of Congress on May 25, 1961
landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the
Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more
important for the long range exploration of space. And none will be so difficult or expensive to
accomplish. "

VOICE TWO:

At the time President Kennedy first spoke about landing humans on the moon, the Soviet space
program seemed far ahead. The Soviet Union had put the first satellite into Earth orbit. A
Soviet spacecraft was the first to land instruments on the moon. And a Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri
Gagarin, was the first man in space.

The United States had sent an astronaut of its own into space for the first time in nineteen
sixty-one. Alan Shepard made only a fifteen-minute flight in the little one-man Mercury
spacecraft. But his flight gave Americans the feeling that the United States could pull ahead of
the Soviet Union in the space race.

There was great public support for President Kennedy's moon landing goal. And Congress was
ready to spend the thousands of millions of dollars that a moon landing program would cost.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:
Much happened in the months after America decided to go to the moon. New space flight
centers were built. Designs for launch rockets and spacecraft were agreed on. And a new
spaceflight program -- Project Gemini -- was begun. Flights in the two-man Gemini spacecraft
tested the men, equipment and methods to be used in the Apollo program to the moon. Gemini let
astronauts learn about the dangers of radiation and the effects of being weightless during long
flights. Astronauts learned to move their spacecraft into different orbits and to join with other
spacecraft.

VOICE TWO:

While the Gemini program prepared astronauts for Apollo flights, NASA engineers were
designing and building the Apollo spacecraft. It was really two spacecraft. One was a cone-
shaped command module. The astronauts would ride to the moon in the command module. And
they would return home in it. The second craft was a moon-landing vehicle. Two astronauts would
ride in it from the orbiting command module to the moon's surface. Later, the landing vehicle
would carry them back to the command module for the return trip to Earth.

VOICE ONE:

Engineers also were working on a huge new rocket for Apollo. It

needed much more power than the rockets used to launch the
one-man Mercury and the two-man Gemini flights. The Apollo
rocket was called Saturn. Two Saturn rocket systems were built.
One was the Saturn One-B. It did not have enough power to reach
the moon. But it could launch Apollo spacecraft on test flights
around the Earth.

The other was the Saturn Five. It would be the one to launch
The Saturn 1B rocket astronauts to the moon. Saturn One-B rockets launched six
unmanned Apollo spacecraft. The test flights showed that all the rocket engines worked
successfully. They also showed that the Apollo spacecraft could survive the launch and could re-
enter Earth's atmosphere safely.

VOICE TWO:

By the end of nineteen sixty-six, NASA officials considered

the Apollo spacecraft ready for test flights by astronauts.
Three astronauts were named for the first manned Apollo test
flight: Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee. Four
weeks before the flight, the three men were in the command
module at Cape Kennedy, Florida. They were testing equipment
for the flight. The crew of Apollo 1, from left,
Virgil Grissom, Edward White and
Suddenly, fire broke out in the spacecraft. When rescuers got Roger Chaffee

the door open, they found the flames had killed the three astronauts. Grissom, White and
Chaffee were the first Americans to die in the space program.
(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Engineers redesigned and rebuilt the Apollo command module. They designed a new door that
could be opened more quickly. They improved the electrical wiring. And they used only materials
that would not burn easily. By November, nineteen sixty-seven, the moon launch rocket, Saturn
Five, was ready for a test flight. It thundered into space perfectly, pushing an unmanned Apollo
spacecraft more than eighteen thousand kilometers up into the atmosphere.

VOICE TWO:

The huge Saturn rocket, as tall as a thirty-six-floor building, was the heaviest thing ever to
leave Earth. It weighed more than two million seven hundred thousand kilograms. The noise of
its rockets was one of the loudest man-made sounds ever created.

At the end of the test flight, the speed of the Apollo spacecraft was increased to forty
thousand kilometers an hour. That was the speed of a spacecraft returning from the moon. The
spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere without damage. Apollo flights Five and Six tested the
moon-landing module and the Saturn Five rocket.

VOICE ONE:

Astronauts first flew in the Apollo spacecraft in October, nineteen sixty-eight. Apollo Seven
astronauts Walter Schirra, Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele spent eleven days orbiting the
Earth. They tested the spacecraft systems. And they broadcast, for the first time, live
television pictures of men in orbit. Everything worked perfectly.

VOICE TWO:

The successful flight of Apollo Seven led NASA officials to send the next flight, Apollo Eight,
to the moon. The launch was early on the morning of December twenty-first, nineteen sixty-
eight. Millions of people were watching on television.

Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were in the spacecraft at the top of
the Saturn Five rocket. NASA officials counted down the seconds: five, four, three, two, one.
The mighty engines fired. Slowly the giant rocket lifted off
the Earth.

VOICE ONE:

Three hours later, NASA officials told the crew that

everything was "OK" for what they called TLI, or trans-lunar
injection. This meant the Apollo Eight astronauts could fire
the rocket that would send them from Earth orbit toward the

A photo taken by the crew of Apollo

8 from lunar orbit
moon. Less than three days later, Apollo Eight was orbiting the moon. The American spacecraft
was just one hundred ten kilometers from its surface.

On December twenty-fourth, the astronauts made a television broadcast to Earth. They

described the moon's surface as a strange, gray, lonely place. And, as they talked, people on
Earth could see pictures of the moon on their television sets.

FRANK BORMAN: "And from the crew of Apollo Eight, we close with good night, good luck, a
Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

Apollo Eight returned to Earth without problems. It landed in the Pacific Ocean near a waiting
ship.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Apollo Eight showed that humans could travel to the moon and return safely. The next step was
to test the lunar landing craft.

That was the job of the astronauts of Apollo Nine: James

McDivitt, David Scott and Russell Schweickart. They spent ten
days in Earth orbit during March, nineteen sixty-nine.

During the flight, they separated the lunar lander from the
command module and flew it for eight hours. They tested all its
systems. Then, they joined the two spacecraft together again,
just as astronauts would do after a moon landing.

Astronaut David Scott tests linking
the lunar lander to the command
module on Apollo 9
Engineers decided that after Apollo Nine, one more test flight
was needed. They wanted to test the landing module near the
moon. So astronauts Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene
Cernan did that during the flight of Apollo Ten.

VOICE ONE:

They reached the moon in May, nineteen sixty-nine. Astronauts Stafford and Cernan entered
the landing craft and separated it from the command ship. Stafford and Cernan flew the lander
down to only thirteen kilometers from the moon. They described the moon during a radio and
television broadcast. "It is like wet clay," they said. "Like a dry river bed in New Mexico or
Arizona. It is a beautiful sight."

On May twenty-third, the lander rejoined the command module one hundred kilometers above
the moon. Apollo Ten started for home. The final testing was done. Apollo was ready to land on
the moon. That will be our story next week.
(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

This program was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano and produced by Mario Ritter. I'm Barbara
Klein.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Steve Ember. You can find other programs about the American space program at our
web site, voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week as we continue the story of the Apollo
space flights on EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.

E-mail Print

Race to the Moon: NASA and the Early Apollo Flights of the 1960s
Part five of an eight-part history of the beginnings of the American space program. Transcript of radio
broadcast:
07 July 2009

VOICE ONE:

I'm Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. The nineteen sixties were
exciting times in space exploration. Today look back at the first flights of the Apollo program
designed to land humans on the moon.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

The decision to go to the moon was made in May, nineteen

sixty-one. President John Kennedy set the goal in a speech to
Congress and the American people.

JOHN KENNEDY: "I believe that this nation should commit President John Kennedy sets the goal
itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of of a moon landing before a joint
session of Congress on May 25, 1961
landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the
Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more
important for the long range exploration of space. And none will be so difficult or expensive to
accomplish. "

VOICE TWO:
At the time President Kennedy first spoke about landing humans on the moon, the Soviet space
program seemed far ahead. The Soviet Union had put the first satellite into Earth orbit. A
Soviet spacecraft was the first to land instruments on the moon. And a Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri
Gagarin, was the first man in space.

The United States had sent an astronaut of its own into space for the first time in nineteen
sixty-one. Alan Shepard made only a fifteen-minute flight in the little one-man Mercury
spacecraft. But his flight gave Americans the feeling that the United States could pull ahead of
the Soviet Union in the space race.

There was great public support for President Kennedy's moon landing goal. And Congress was
ready to spend the thousands of millions of dollars that a moon landing program would cost.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Much happened in the months after America decided to go to the moon. New space flight
centers were built. Designs for launch rockets and spacecraft were agreed on. And a new
spaceflight program -- Project Gemini -- was begun. Flights in the two-man Gemini spacecraft
tested the men, equipment and methods to be used in the Apollo program to the moon. Gemini let
astronauts learn about the dangers of radiation and the effects of being weightless during long
flights. Astronauts learned to move their spacecraft into different orbits and to join with other
spacecraft.

VOICE TWO:

While the Gemini program prepared astronauts for Apollo flights, NASA engineers were
designing and building the Apollo spacecraft. It was really two spacecraft. One was a cone-
shaped command module. The astronauts would ride to the moon in the command module. And
they would return home in it. The second craft was a moon-landing vehicle. Two astronauts would
ride in it from the orbiting command module to the moon's surface. Later, the landing vehicle
would carry them back to the command module for the return trip to Earth.

VOICE ONE:

Engineers also were working on a huge new rocket for Apollo. It

needed much more power than the rockets used to launch the
one-man Mercury and the two-man Gemini flights. The Apollo
rocket was called Saturn. Two Saturn rocket systems were built.
One was the Saturn One-B. It did not have enough power to reach
the moon. But it could launch Apollo spacecraft on test flights
around the Earth.

The other was the Saturn Five. It would be the one to launch
The Saturn 1B rocket astronauts to the moon. Saturn One-B rockets launched six
unmanned Apollo spacecraft. The test flights showed that all the rocket engines worked
successfully. They also showed that the Apollo spacecraft could survive the launch and could re-
enter Earth's atmosphere safely.

VOICE TWO:

By the end of nineteen sixty-six, NASA officials considered

the Apollo spacecraft ready for test flights by astronauts.
Three astronauts were named for the first manned Apollo test
flight: Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee. Four
weeks before the flight, the three men were in the command
module at Cape Kennedy, Florida. They were testing equipment
for the flight. The crew of Apollo 1, from left,
Virgil Grissom, Edward White and
Suddenly, fire broke out in the spacecraft. When rescuers got Roger Chaffee

the door open, they found the flames had killed the three astronauts. Grissom, White and
Chaffee were the first Americans to die in the space program.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Engineers redesigned and rebuilt the Apollo command module. They designed a new door that
could be opened more quickly. They improved the electrical wiring. And they used only materials
that would not burn easily. By November, nineteen sixty-seven, the moon launch rocket, Saturn
Five, was ready for a test flight. It thundered into space perfectly, pushing an unmanned Apollo
spacecraft more than eighteen thousand kilometers up into the atmosphere.

VOICE TWO:

The huge Saturn rocket, as tall as a thirty-six-floor building, was the heaviest thing ever to
leave Earth. It weighed more than two million seven hundred thousand kilograms. The noise of
its rockets was one of the loudest man-made sounds ever created.

At the end of the test flight, the speed of the Apollo spacecraft was increased to forty
thousand kilometers an hour. That was the speed of a spacecraft returning from the moon. The
spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere without damage. Apollo flights Five and Six tested the
moon-landing module and the Saturn Five rocket.

VOICE ONE:

Astronauts first flew in the Apollo spacecraft in October, nineteen sixty-eight. Apollo Seven
astronauts Walter Schirra, Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele spent eleven days orbiting the
Earth. They tested the spacecraft systems. And they broadcast, for the first time, live
television pictures of men in orbit. Everything worked perfectly.
VOICE TWO:

The successful flight of Apollo Seven led NASA officials to send the next flight, Apollo Eight,
to the moon. The launch was early on the morning of December twenty-first, nineteen sixty-
eight. Millions of people were watching on television.

Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were in the spacecraft at the top of
the Saturn Five rocket. NASA officials counted down the seconds: five, four, three, two, one.
The mighty engines fired. Slowly the giant rocket lifted off
the Earth.

VOICE ONE:

Three hours later, NASA officials told the crew that

everything was "OK" for what they called TLI, or trans-lunar
injection. This meant the Apollo Eight astronauts could fire
the rocket that would send them from Earth orbit toward the
moon. Less than three days later, Apollo Eight was orbiting the
moon. The American spacecraft was just one hundred ten
kilometers from its surface. A photo taken by the crew of Apollo
8 from lunar orbit

On December twenty-fourth, the astronauts made a television broadcast to Earth. They

described the moon's surface as a strange, gray, lonely place. And, as they talked, people on
Earth could see pictures of the moon on their television sets.

FRANK BORMAN: "And from the crew of Apollo Eight, we close with good night, good luck, a
Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

Apollo Eight returned to Earth without problems. It landed in the Pacific Ocean near a waiting
ship.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Apollo Eight showed that humans could travel to the moon and return safely. The next step was
to test the lunar landing craft.

That was the job of the astronauts of Apollo Nine: James

McDivitt, David Scott and Russell Schweickart. They spent ten
days in Earth orbit during March, nineteen sixty-nine.

During the flight, they separated the lunar lander from the
command module and flew it for eight hours. They tested all its
systems. Then, they joined the two spacecraft together again,
just as astronauts would do after a moon landing.

Astronaut David Scott tests linking

the lunar lander to the command
module on Apollo 9
Engineers decided that after Apollo Nine, one more test flight was needed. They wanted to test
the landing module near the moon. So astronauts Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan
did that during the flight of Apollo Ten.

VOICE ONE:

They reached the moon in May, nineteen sixty-nine. Astronauts Stafford and Cernan entered
the landing craft and separated it from the command ship. Stafford and Cernan flew the lander
down to only thirteen kilometers from the moon. They described the moon during a radio and
television broadcast. "It is like wet clay," they said. "Like a dry river bed in New Mexico or
Arizona. It is a beautiful sight."

On May twenty-third, the lander rejoined the command module one hundred kilometers above
the moon. Apollo Ten started for home. The final testing was done. Apollo was ready to land on
the moon. That will be our story next week.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

This program was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano and produced by Mario Ritter. I'm Barbara
Klein.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Steve Ember. You can find other programs about the American space program at our
web site, voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week as we continue the story of the Apollo
space flights on EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.

E-mail Print

How to Do It: Making Paper by Hand

Modern paper-making began in China about 2,000 years ago. Transcript of radio broadcast.
05 July 2009

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

The earliest process of making paper was done almost five thousand years ago in Egypt and the
Nile Valley. In those days, paper was made from strips of the papyrus plant.

Modern paper-making began in China about two thousand years ago. This process produced paper
from cloth, straw, wood or the bark of trees. The raw materials are struck over and over until
they become loose. Then they are mixed with water.

After the water has been removed, the flat, thin form remaining is permitted to dry. This
becomes a sheet of paper.
Large machines started to be used for making paper near the
end of the sixteenth century. Today, paper-making is a big
business. But it is still possible to make paper by hand, since
the steps are the same as using big machines.

You should choose paper with small amounts of printing. Old

envelopes are good for this reason. Colored paper also can be Paper makes its way through the
used, as well as small amounts of newspaper. Small pieces of supercalendar at the NewPage paper
mill in Escanaba, Michigan.
rags or cloth can be added. These should be cut into pieces
about five centimeters by five centimeters.

Everything is placed in a container, covered with water and brought to a boil. It is mixed for
about two hours with some common chemicals and then allowed to cool. Then it is left until most
of the water dries up. The substance left, called pulp, can be stored until you are ready to make
paper.

When you are ready, the pulp is mixed with water again. Then
the pulp is poured into a mold. The mold is made of small
squares of wire that hold the shape and thickness of the
paper. To help dry the paper, the mold lets the water flow
through the small wire squares.

After several more drying steps, the paper is carefully lifted

back from the mold. It is now strong enough to be touched.

The paper is smoothed and pressed to remove trapped air.

Liquified cat-tail plants are filtered You can use a common electric iron used for pressing clothes.
through a screen to make a sheet of
paper.
There are many other technologies for people making paper
using small machines.

Internet users can do a search and find directions for making homemade paper. You can also
order information about making paper from the group EnterpriseWorks/VITA. Its Web site is
enterpriseworks.org.

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our
reports are at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us at twitter.com/voalearnenglish. I'm
Steve Ember

Easy As Falling Off a Log: Not Much Effort Involved!

It is easier to fall off a log than to stay on it.Transcript of radio broadcast:
05 June 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories.
Every people has its own way of saying things, its own special expressions. Some of these
expressions are easy to understand. The words create a picture in your mind.

“As easy as falling off a log” is one such expression. It describes a job that does not take much
effort.

If you ever tried to walk on a fallen tree log, you understand what the expression means. It is
easier to fall off the log than to stay on it.

The expression is often used today. For example, you might hear a student say to her friend
that her spelling test was “as easy as falling off a log.”

There are several other expressions that mean the same thing. And their meaning is as easy to
understand as “falling off a log.” One is, “easy as pie”. Nothing is easier than eating a piece of
sweet, juicy pie. Unless it is a “piece of cake."

“Piece of cake” is another expression that means something is extremely easy to do. A friend
might tell you that his new job was a ”piece of cake.”

Another expression is “as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.”

It is hard to imagine why anyone would want to shoot fish in a barrel. But, clearly, fish in a
barrel would be much easier to shoot than fish in a stream. In fact, it would be as easy as
“falling off a log”.

Sometimes, things that come to us easily, also leave us just as easily. In fact, there is an
expression – “easy come, easy go” – that recognizes this. You may win a lot of money in a lottery,
then spend it all in a few days. Easy come, easy go.

When life itself is easy, when you have no cares or problems, you are on “Easy Street.” Everyone
wants to live on that imaginary street.

Another “easy” expression is to “go easy on a person”. It means to treat a person kindly or
gently, especially in a situation where you might be expected to be angry with him. A wife might
urge her husband to “go easy on” their son, because the boy did not mean to wreck the car.

If it is necessary to borrow some money to fix the car, you should look for a friend who is an
“easy touch”. An “easy touch” or a “soft touch” is someone who is kind and helpful. He would
easily agree to lend you the money.

And one last expression, one that means do not worry or work too hard. Try to keep away from
difficult situations. “Take it easy” until we meet again.

(MUSIC)
You have been listening to the VOA Special English program Words and Their Stories. I’m Bob
Doughty.

China Delays Plan for Web-Blocking Software on New Computers

Also: Cybersecurity plans in the United States. Transcript of radio broadcast:
03 July 2009

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

This week, China delayed an order to require Internet-filtering software in all new personal
computers. News of the delay turned a planned Internet boycott into an all-day celebration at a
restaurant in Beijing.

(SOUND)

Artist and activist Ai Weiwei organized the event. He had proposed a twenty-four hour Internet
boycott on Wednesday -- the day the plan was supposed to go into effect. He used online tools
such as Twitter to invite people to the restaurant.

AI WEIWEI: "It's just to let people know what our attitude is towards this kind of censorship."

Last month, the government said all new computers sold in

China would have to have Internet-blocking software installed.
It said the program, called Green Dam Youth Escort, would
protect young Internet users from pornography.

But many critics say it could also block access to sites

containing politically sensitive information or follow users on
the Web.
Young people at an Internet cafe in
For weeks, foreign officials and industry groups expressed Beijing. China has nearly 300 million
opposition to the order. They objected for political, Internet users.

commercial and technical reasons. Trade groups appealed to Premier Wen Jiabao. Computer
makers Dell and Hewlett-Packard said they might go to the World Trade Organization.

But many of those who celebrated the delay do not believe it will be permanent.

China has nearly three hundred million Internet users, more than any other country. It also has
some of the strongest Internet controls in the world.

But cybersecurity involves more than just issues of free speech.

For example, American Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered the Defense Department last
week to establish a Cyber Command. Officials say a Cybercom is needed to defend the military's
computer networks. One successful attack last year infected thousands of computers.
The department also says it wants to unify cyber defense, so that offense, defense and
intelligence all work together.

Charles Palmer is chairman and director of research for the Institute for Information
Infrastructure Protection at Dartmouth College. He says cyberspace defense will become
increasingly necessary for countries. If someone can bring down a nation's computers, he says,
then there is no reason to attack its military.

In May, President Obama announced a new cybersecurity office for the White House. He said
the nation's computer networks will now be treated as a "strategic national asset."

BARACK OBAMA: "Indeed, in today's world, acts of terror could come not only from a few
extremists in suicide vests, but from a few keystrokes on the computer, a weapon of mass
disruption."

He said the United States does not do enough to protect its computer networks. Hackers even
got into the computer system of his presidential campaign last year. But he also promised that
his plan will not include monitoring privately owned networks or Internet traffic. He said it will
protect personal privacy and civil liberties of Americans.

And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake, with reporting from
Beijing by Alison Klayman. I'm Steve Ember.

Chinese Netizens Celebrate Green Dam Delay

By Alison Klayman
Beijing
01 July 2009

Many Internet users in China are celebrating after Beijing delayed implementing its order that
Internet-blocking software be installed in all new computers.

News of the delay turned a scheduled Internet boycott into an

all-day celebration on Wednesday. Hundreds of opponents of
the plan flowed in and out of a tucked-away restaurant in
Beijing's Caochangdi art district.

The well-known artist and activist Ai Weiwei organized the

Customers surf the Internet at an
Internet cafe in Beijing, China, 30
Jun 2009
event. Dressed in neon pink, he walks around posing for
photographs and signing T-shirts with slogans protesting the
plan. Ai had proposed a 24-hour Internet boycott for
Wednesday, the day the plan was to go into effect, and used
online tools such as Twitter to invite people to gather at the
restaurant near his home.
"It's just to let people know what our attitude is towards this
kind of censorship," Ai said.

By lunchtime the party already had over 200 guests enjoying free food and alcohol. Ai says he
expects over 1,000 people from all over China to join the party before the day is over.

"They traveled to Beijing many of them," Ai said. "The guy on the phone there is from Hangzhou,
some people are from the northeast, some are from different provinces. I was so surprised.
Some are fans of mine, some are Internet activists, [and] some are human rights activists."

Last month, the government said that all new computers sold in China would have to have
Internet-blocking software installed. The government said the software, called the Green Dam
Youth Escort program, would protect young Internet users from pornography, but many critics
say it also would have blocked access to Web sites containing politically sensitive information or
allowed the government to track what people view on the Internet.

Ai says citizen protests may have influenced China's decision to delay the software's
implementation, but also says the government faces greater pressure than activists.

For weeks, foreign officials and industry groups expressed opposition to the Green Dam
software, for political, commercial and technical reasons. Twenty-two chambers of commerce
and trade groups asked Premier Wen Jiabao not to go through with the plan. Computer-makers
Dell and Hewlett-Packard said they might complain to the World Trade Organization.

Many of these groups welcomed the implementation delay. The American Chamber of Commerce
in China called it a "positive development" for Chinese consumers, the government and the
business community.

While partygoers in Beijing say the delay is positive, many do not believe it will be permanent.
Miao Shiming attended Wednesday's party after reading about it online. He thinks the
government will go forward with Green Dam, since it has already invested money in it.

Miao says he believes China will implement the Green Dam requirement when there is less
attention focused on the issue.

But for the rest of the day at least, Chinese netizens celebrate their victory.

China Punishes Google, Accuses Website of Spreading Pornography

By Stephanie Ho
Beijing
25 June 2009
 China says it has taken unspecified punitive actions against the
Google search engine, which it accuses of violating Chinese law
by spreading pornography. The official comments come as
computer users in China experience intermittent difficulty
accessing Google.

China has recently stepped up its criticism of the world's

biggest search engine.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang was asked

Thursday about recent difficulties computer users in China
have had accessing Google and its related sites.

He says the Chinese government is carrying out its duty to protect young people from online
pornography.

Qin says Chinese authorities have found that Google is spreading "pornographic, lewd and vulgar
content," in violation of China's laws and regulations.

He says Chinese authorities have summoned the company's representatives and urged them to
immediately remove the objectionable content.

Qin urged Google to abide by Chinese laws and regulations and said Chinese authorities have
taken "punitive measures," although he gave no details. He also gave no specific examples of
Google's alleged lewd content.

Access to Google in Beijing was temporarily interrupted Wednesday. As of Thursday afternoon,

Google access for computer users at some of Beijing's universities was still blocked.

Google recently issued a statement saying it would step up efforts to stop pornography from
reaching users in China. A Google spokeswoman is quoted by media Thursday as saying the
California-based company is now looking into reports that users in China cannot access Google.

Beijing's latest comments come days before a Chinese-government set deadline for all
computers sold in China to come packaged with Internet filtering software, known as "Green
Dam."

Wednesday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk
wrote a letter to Chinese officials, raising concerns that Beijing's order may violate free-trade
commitments.

When asked about the latest American concerns that Green Dam could become a trade issue,
the Chinese spokesman said he had nothing to add to earlier comments that the software is
necessary to stop online pornography.
World Bank: Internet, Mobile Phones Key to Growth
By VOA News
30 June 2009

A World Bank report said access to affordable high-speed Internet and mobile phone services
are key to economic growth in developing countries.

The report released Tuesday found that for every 10 percent increase in high speed Internet
connections, there is a 1.3 percent increase in economic growth.

The study said mobile phones are the single most powerful way to reach and deliver public and
private services to people in remote and rural areas in developing countries.

It also said broadband Internet is the foundation for local information technology (IT) services.
The World Bank said these services create youth employment, increase productivity and exports
and promote social inclusion.

The report said evidence from Brazil, Ghana and India shows that governments using modern
Internet technology can become more efficient, transparent and responsive.

Poor Nations Get G8 Promise of $20 Billion Toward Food Security

Plan announced at the end of the Group of Eight summit in Italy centers on agricultural development to help
fight world hunger. Transcript of radio broadcast:
10 July 2009

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

Leaders of the world's wealthiest nations have promised twenty billion dollars to increase food
security in poor countries. The promise came Friday on the third and final day of the Group of
Eight summit meeting in L'Aquila, Italy.

The aim is to help fight world hunger through agricultural

development programs. The announcement followed talks
between G8 leaders and leaders from Africa. The United
States has promised three and a half billion dollars toward the
three-year program.

A statement noted that while food prices have decreased from

their peak last year, they remain high in historical terms. And
the economic crisis has only pushed even more people into
Group of Eight leaders meeting to poverty.
discuss the recession, climate change
and development aid in L'Aquila,
Italy The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
welcomed the announcement. But some activists say they are
waiting for more details. Aid groups have been calling on the G8 nations to honor past promises
of food and development assistance.
The G8 summit also dealt with the world recession. President Obama said the leaders agreed
that full recovery is still a long way off.

Another issue was climate change. G8 leaders met with partners from major developing
economies, including India, China and Brazil. All agreed that global temperatures should not rise
by more than an average of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

G8 members promised to work toward an eighty percent cut in heat-trapping pollution by two
thousand fifty. Developing nations have committed themselves to negotiating cuts, but have not
yet agreed on details.

Still, President Obama said the results were "historic" and helped improve the chances for
international negotiations later this year. But U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the
targets are too far in the future and that more needs to be done sooner.

Other issues included Iran, North Korea and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.

Chinese President Hu Jintao did not attend this week's meeting. He returned home because of
the ethnic violence in Xinjiang province in northwest China.

The summit was moved from an island to the area in central

Italy where a powerful earthquake struck just three months
ago. Nearly three hundred people were killed and tens of
thousands lost their homes. Many of the world leaders visited
some of the worst-hit areas.

At L'Aquila there was also much talk about the future of the
G8. The eight are Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy,
Japan, the United States and the most recent addition, Russia.
President Obama visited Russia on his way to Italy. Some
leaders, including Mister Obama, agreed that the group must The President and first Lady Michelle
expand to deal with today's world. Obama arrive in Accra, Ghana, with
daughters Sasha and Malia

The president also met Friday with Pope Benedict at the Vatican. Then he headed for a final
stop with his family -- Ghana. His father came from Kenya. But the White House says he chose
Ghana for his first presidential visit to Africa south of the Sahara because of what he
considers its strong democratic system.

And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember

Buff: Are You a Buff About Something?

Do you have a strong, special interest? Transcript of radio broadcast:

16 May 2009
Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES. Today we tell about the
word "buff."

The word buff has several meanings. Buff is a light yellow color. Buff is also a soft cloth used to
rub a surface until it looks bright and shiny.

Yet these meanings are old, and their history is not known. The meaning of buff that we do know
about is one that describes a person. A buff is someone who has a strong, special interest in
something. For example, someone who loves jazz music is a jazz buff. Someone who is deeply
interested in the American Civil War is a Civil War buff.

This meaning of the word is known to be American. Its use started almost two-hundred years
ago in New York City.

At that time, New York was a growing city. There were no huge tall buildings of steel and stone.
Buildings then were made of wood and brick. Many were old and fires often broke out in them.
The city did not have well-organized fire departments. So when the fire alarm bell rang, men
near the sound of the fire bell dropped what they were doing and rushed out to fight the fire.

Later, fire companies were organized with men who were trained to fight fires. They were not
paid to do this. They earned their money at other jobs, but dropped what they were doing when
the fire bell rang.

In cold weather, many of these young volunteer firefighters wore coats made of the skin of
buffalo to keep them warm and dry. Often, when the fire bell rang, other men in the city
rushed to help put out the fire. They also wore coats of buffalo skin. In time, any man who
rushed to fight a fire became known as a fire buff because of the buffalo coat he wore.

Time, however, has a way of bringing changes. Cities organized fire departments. Firemen
became professionals. They are paid to do their job.

Yet, even today, we still have fire buffs who seem to appear at every fire in an area. Sometimes
they prevent firemen from doing their jobs.

A leading New York newspaper published a story with the headline, "Fire Buffs Barred From
Blaze." The story was about an order from New York's fire commissioner. He was angry. He told
reporters that his firefighters were having trouble getting near the fire, because fire buffs
who wanted to help were really getting in the way. So, he said, he did not want anyone but
firefighters to go to a fire.

Fire buffs are still around, but the word has taken on a wider meaning. It includes all who have a
deep interest in something or some activity. And so we can thank the American buffalo that
once wandered the open plains for this meaning of the word buff.

(MUSIC)
You have been listening to the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
I'm Warren Scheer.

'Hair' – More Than a Rock Musical

A story using expressions with the word hair. Transcript of radio broadcast:
02 May 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

A listener named Rita wants to learn about expressions with the word "hair." So we will tell a
story.

Yesterday when I woke up, I looked in a mirror. I looked very neat and organized. Not a hair
was out of place. But today when I woke up, I knew I was going to have a bad hair day. My
hair was standing up in all the wrong places. I thought I would be
unhappy all day and things would not go well. I work at home so I just
hoped that my computer would work right and not have a bad hair day
also.

I was very tired because I did not sleep well last night. I made the
mistake of watching a horror movie on television. The movie really made
my hair stand on end. It was about a house possessed by evil spirits.
The thought of having to live alone in a house like that was so
frightening it was enough to curl your hair. I will say it another way:
watching that movie was a hair-raising experience.
An advertisement for the
I prepared a meal for my children but they were behaving badly. I musical "Hair"

turned on the television so they would be quiet. I did not want them to be difficult or to get in
my hair while I was working on the computer.

My children were making so much noise that I could not work. I was getting angry. In fact, I
was ready to pull my hair out. I told them to please be quiet or I would punish them. But they
knew I would not harm a hair on their heads.

I decided to make myself some strong coffee so I could work better. But my drink was so strong
that it could put hair on your chest.

Finally, I got back to work. I was writing a proposal for a project. I knew that I was very close
to finishing the proposal. Success was very close – within a hair's breadth. My supervisor
called me to discuss the project. She wanted to argue about very small differences and
unimportant details. But I told her not to split hairs.

Later, I got a telephone call from a friend whom I had not seen in a long time. In fact, I had not
seen hide nor hair of him in months. So I was glad to know that he was all right.
I worked all day and finished my project. So I decided to celebrate, have some fun and let my
hair down. I played some old recordings, and my children and I danced around the room. The
recordings are from my favorite musical, a show called "Hair." It takes place during the nineteen
sixties when many young people wore their hair very long.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm Faith Lapidus. You can
find other WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.

Proverbs: Ideas About How to Live

These expressions are wise and true. Transcript of radio broadcast:
05 April 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Today we explain more popular proverbs. A proverb is a short, well known saying that expresses
a common truth or belief. Proverbs are popular around the world.

Many listeners have sent us their favorite proverbs. They give advice about how to live. We
begin with two popular proverbs about staying healthy by eating good food: One is an apple a
day keeps the doctor away. Another is you are what you eat.

Several proverbs about birds also give advice. You may have heard this one: The early bird
catches the worm. This means a person who gets up early, or acts quickly, has the best chance
of success.

Another famous proverb is a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. This means you should
not risk losing something you have by seeking something that is not guaranteed.

Here is another piece of advice: Do not count your chickens before they are hatched. In
other words, you should not think too much about some future event before it really happens.

Another proverb warns do not put all your eggs in one basket. This means you should not put
all of your resources together in one place because you could risk losing everything at one time.
Many Americans learned this the hard way by investing all their money in stock shares, which
then lost value. Another proverb says a fool and his money are soon parted. This means
someone who acts unwisely with money will lose it.

Here is more advice: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Also, never put off until
tomorrow what you can do today.

You might learn that haste makes waste if you do something too fast, resulting in mistakes.
Most people would agree with this proverb: honesty is the best policy.
Yet another proverb advises us not to be concerned about something bad that you cannot
change. It says there is no use crying over spilled milk.

Do you agree with the proverb that children should be seen and not heard? Maybe you have
told your children that hard work never hurt anyone. But other people say that all work and
no play makes Jack a dull boy. They believe it is not wise to spend all your time working and
never having fun.

Finally, here is one of our favorite proverbs: People who live in glass houses should not throw
stones. This means you should not criticize other people unless you are perfect yourself.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm Barbara Klein. You can
find more proverbs and other WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at our Web site,
voaspecialenglish.com.

Apple Pie Order: When Everything Is Just Perfect

Expressions about apples. Transcript of radio broadcast:
14 March 2009

Correction attached

Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Today we tell about the expression, "apple pie order." It means in perfect order, very well
organized.

Nobody is sure where and when the expression apple pie order began. Some say that Scottish
and English writers used the expression a long time ago. Others say it first was used in the
northeastern American states known as New England.

The housewives of New England cut their apples in even slices. Then they filled pie pans with
them in an organized way, row upon row. As one writer said, the women of New England loved to
have everything in its place. This perhaps explains why it generally is believed that the
expression apple-pie order began in New England.

Another old expression describes the opposite condition – wild disorder. That expression is
apple of discord. It comes from ancient mythology.

The myth says that all the gods and goddesses were sitting around the table to celebrate the
marriage of Thetis and Peleus. One of the goddesses, Discord, was a troublemaker. She threw a
golden apple on the table to be given as a prize to the most beautiful goddess.
It was not an easy decision to make. How could they choose among Juno, Minerva and Venus.
Paris was given the task of deciding. He decided to give the golden apple to Venus. Juno and
Minerva were very angry and threatened him. This, the myth says, began the long Trojan war.

At one time, the tomato was called a love apple. That was a mistake. This is how the mistake
happened.

In the sixteenth century, Spain imported the tomato from South America after Spanish
explorers had landed there. Spain then exported the tomato to Morocco. Italian traders
carried it on to Italy. The Italian name for the tomato was pomo di Moro – apple of the Moors.

When French growers imported it from Italy, they thought di Moro meant d'amour, the French
word for love. And so pomo di Moro became the apple of love.

People believe many things about the apple. One belief is that it has great powers of keeping
people healthy. A very common expression is "An apple a day keeps the doctor away."

Another belief is based on fact. The expression is "One rotten apple spoils the barrel." When
an apple begins to go bad, it ruins all the other apples around it in the container. The expression
has come to mean that one bad person in a group can cause everyone to act bad.

(MUSIC)

You have been listening to the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
I'm Warren Scheer.

Back to Basics: Staying Down to Earth

Some expression about people who treat everyone fairly and with respect. Transcript of radio broadcast:
07 March 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Every week at this time, we tell about popular American words and expressions. Some of these
are very old. Some are new. Together, they form the living speech of the American people.

Today we tell about the expression "down to earth." Down to earth means being open and
honest. It is easy to deal with someone who is down to earth.

A person who is down to earth is a pleasure to find. He or she accepts other people as equals.
A down to earth person is the opposite of someone who acts important or proud.

Down to earth people could be important members of society. But they do not consider
themselves to be better than others who are less important. They do not let their importance
"go to their heads." Someone who lets something go to his head feels he is better than
others. He has a "big head."

A person who is filled with his own importance and pride is said to have "his nose in the air."
Often the person who has a big head and his nose in the air has no reason to feel better than
others. He surely is the opposite of someone who is down to earth.

Americans use another expression that is similar in some ways to down to earth. The expression
is "both feet on the ground." Some one with both feet on the ground is a person with a good
understanding of reality. She has what is called "common sense." She may have dreams. But
she does not allow them to block her understanding of what is real.

The opposite kind of person is one who has his "head in the clouds." Someone with his head in
the clouds is a person whose mind is not on what is happening in real life. Such a person may be
called a "daydreamer."

Sometimes a person with his head in the clouds can be brought back to reality. Sharp words
from a teacher, for example, can usually get a daydreaming student to put both feet on the
ground.

The person who is down to earth usually has both feet on the ground. But the opposite is not
always true. Someone with both feet on the ground may not be as open and easy to deal with as
someone who is down to earth.

When we have both our feet firmly on the ground, and when we are down to earth we do not
have our noses in the air. We act honestly and openly to others. Our lives are like the ground
below us – solid and strong.

(MUSIC)

This Special English program was written by David Jarmul. I'm Warren Scheer. Listen again
next week at this time for another WORDS AND THEIR STORIES program on the Voice of
America.

To Buffalo: To Win by Trick or Threat

Expressions that describe winning by any means. Transcript of radio broadcast:
08 February 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Today we tell about two words that are close in meaning. One is to buffalo. The other is to
bulldoze. Both deal with winning by tricking or frightening someone.

Long before the first Europeans arrived in the New World, a strange looking animal lived on the
rich grasses of the western plains. He looked like some kind of water buffalo. But he had a big
hump on his back like a camel. And he had hair like a lion. He later was called a bison.
In eighteen fifty, estimates say twenty million buffalo lived on the open plains areas of the
west. They were powerful creatures that ran with great speed. American Indians hunted them
for food and clothing. As white settlers moved west, they began to hunt the animal for skins to
sell in eastern markets.

The American buffalo could run at the speed of almost seventy-five kilometers an hour. It was
not easy to get close enough to them to shoot.

Sometimes the hunters were completely unsuccessful in killing any of the animals. They were
"buffaloed" by these powerful, speedy creatures who were so hard to control. The expression
"to buffalo" soon became part of the speech of the American west. It meant to make someone
helpless, to trick them. In the early nineteen hundreds, a story about attacks on white settlers
moving into Indian territory explained, "The Sioux had the wagon-train surrounded and the
soldiers buffaloed."

The meaning is almost the same today. When someone has you buffaloed, he has tricked or
fooled you.

The expression "to bulldoze" also means to make someone helpless, usually by using power or
threatening violence. The expression was first used in the southern part of the United States
to describe the use of force to win an election. A bulldozer was a person who was not liked,
someone who threatened other people.

The term today most often is used to describe a powerful machine designed to clear away trees
and other big objects. A bulldozer moves slowly but powerfully across the land. Nothing much
can stop it.

Americans still use the expression "to bulldoze" but mainly in political situations. It is used
sometimes to describe a political move that leads to an unexpected win. For example, a
newspaper might comment that a bill that was not popular passed in Congress because the
supporters bulldozed the opposition. The force of the supporters' arguments, or perhaps some
legislative tricks, buffaloed the opponents.

(MUSIC)

VOICE:

You have been listening to the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
I'm Warren

Heard It on the Grapevine: What? Who Told You That?

When information spreads by word of mouth. Transcript of radio broadcast:
21 February 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories.
(MUSIC)

Some of the most exciting information comes by way of the grapevine.

That is so because reports received through the grapevine are supposed to be secret. The
information is all hush hush. It is whispered into your ear with the understanding that you will
not pass it on to others.

You feel honored and excited. You are one of the special few to get this information. You cannot
wait. You must quickly find other ears to pour the information into. And so, the information -
secret as it is – begins to spread. Nobody knows how far.

The expression by the grapevine is more than one hundred years old.

The American inventor, Samuel F. Morse, is largely responsible for the birth of the expression.
Among others, he experimented with the idea of telegraphy – sending messages over a wire by
electricity. When Morse finally completed his telegraphic instrument, he went before Congress
to show that it worked. He sent a message over a wire from Washington to Baltimore. The
message was: “What hath God wrought?” This was on May twenty-fourth, eighteen forty-four.

Quickly, companies began to build telegraph lines from one place to another. Men everywhere
seemed to be putting up poles with strings of wire for carrying telegraphic messages. The
workmanship was poor. And the wires were not put up straight.

Some of the results looked strange. People said they looked like a grapevine. A large number of
the telegraph lines were going in all directions, as crooked as the vines that grapes grow on. So
was born the expression, by the grapevine.

Some writers believe that the phrase would soon have disappeared were it not for the American
Civil War.

Soon after the war began in eighteen sixty-one, military commanders started to send battlefield
reports by telegraph. People began hearing the phrase by the grapevine to describe false as
well as true reports from the battlefield. It was like a game. Was it true? Who says so?

Now, as in those far-off Civil War days, getting information by the grapevine remains something
of a game. A friend brings you a bit of strange news. “No,” you say, “it just can’t be true! Who
told you?” Comes the answer, “I got it by the grapevine.”

You really cannot know how much – if any – of the information that comes to you by the
grapevine is true or false. Still, in the words of an old American saying, the person who keeps
pulling the grapevine shakes down at least a few grapes.

(MUSIC)
You have been listening to the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories. I’m
Warren Scheer.

Circus: Some Agree It Is the 'Greatest Show on Earth'

How a simple word came to mean a place of fun and wonder. Transcript of radio broadcast:
10 January 2009

Now, the Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

(MUSIC)

Circus is a word with a long, interesting history. It is a Latin word that means "ring" or "circle."

One of the most famous places in ancient Rome was the Circus Maximus. It was a kind of round
stadium with rows of seats all around the inside of it. Roman citizens gathered there to watch
races, games and violent, bloody fights.

The modern circus developed in the nineteenth century. It was a travelling show of animals and
people working under a large tent, later known as the Big Top.

Travelling circuses were popular in the United States and Britain before eighteen thirty. A
circus moved from town to town, putting on shows with trained animals, acrobats doing difficult
tricks, and funny, colorful clowns.

Circuses still travel from place to place. And they still have trained animal acts, acrobats and
clowns.

Today's circuses usually have three rings. Something different takes place in each of the three
rings at the same time. The heads of people watching a circus turn back and forth as they try
to see every exciting act in each ring.

The circus has been popular for so long that it is not surprising that words and expressions
connected with it are part of everyday speech.

For example, the word circus is used to describe any noisy place with a lot of activities going on.

A teacher may use it when she walks into a room where the students are playing and talking,
instead of studying. She might say, "This place is a circus. Calm down and get your work done."
And if the room is really noisy, she may say it is a three ring circus.

Clowns are a very special part of the circus. They look funny with their big red noses, painted
faces and clothes that are much too large for them. Everyone at a circus loves to watch the
clowns do tricks on each other. Clowns have a real purpose: to make people laugh. They always
succeed.
We use the expression to clown around when we talk about someone playing tricks and making
jokes. Usually, a person is clowning around if he is being funny when he should be serious. In
that case, you may get angry and say, "Stop clowning around. This is a serious situation."

The most celebrated American circus in the eighteen hundreds was P. T. Barnum's "Greatest
Show on Earth." Barnum's circus had many new acts. He began finding and training unusual
animals, not just dogs and horses.

One of the most popular of Barnum's animals was a huge elephant named Jumbo. Jumbo was
very large, much larger than other elephants. Soon, anything that was the largest of its kind
was called jumbo.

Today, there are jumbo drinks, jumbo boxes of soap, and jumbo sales of cars.

(MUSIC)

This Special English WORDS AND THEIR STORIES program was written by Marilyn Rice
Christiano. This is Bob Doughty.

Mouth Expressions: The Experience Left a Bad Taste in My Mouth

English expressions using the word mouth. Transcript of radio broadcast:
22 November 2008

Now, the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories.

(MUSIC)

People use their mouths for many things. They eat, talk, shout and sing. They smile and they
kiss. In the English language, there are many expressions using the word mouth. But some of
them are not so nice.

For example, if you say bad things about a person, the person might protest and say “Do not bad
mouth me.”

Sometimes, people say something to a friend or family member that they later regret because
hurts that person’s feelings. Or they tell the person something they were not supposed to tell.

The speaker might say: “I really put my foot in my mouth this time.” If this should happen,
the speaker might feel down in the mouth. In other words, he might feel sad for saying the
wrong thing.

Another situation is when someone falsely claims another person said something. The other
person might protest: “I did not say that. Do not put words in my mouth.”

Information is often spread through word of mouth. This is general communication between
people, like friends talking to each other. “How did you hear about that new movie?” someone
might ask. “Oh, by word of mouth.” A more official way of getting information is through a
company or government mouthpiece. This is an official spokesperson. Government-run media
could also be called a mouthpiece.

Sometimes when one person is speaking, he says the same thing that his friend was going to say.
When this happens, the friend might say: “You took the words right out of my mouth!”
Sometimes a person has a bad or unpleasant experience with another person. He might say that
experience “left a bad taste in my mouth.” Or the person might have had a very frightening
experience, like being chased by an angry dog. He might say: “I had my heart in my mouth.”

Some people have lots of money because they were born into a very rich family. There is an
expression for this, too. You might say such a person, “was born with a silver spoon in his
mouth.”

This rich person is the opposite of a person who lives from hand to mouth. This person is very
poor and only has enough money for the most important things in life, like food.

Parents might sometimes withhold sweet food from a child as a form of punishment for saying
bad things. For example, if a child says things she should not say to her parents, she might be
described as a mouthy child. The parents might even tell the child to stop mouthing off.

But enough of all this talk. I have been running my mouth long enough.

(MUSIC)

WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, in VOA Special English, was written by Jill Moss. I’m Faith
Lapidus.

Proverbs: Famous Sayings About Love, War and Other Issues

Examples of proverbs that Americans use. Transcript of radio broadcast:
21 December 2008

Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Today we talk about proverbs. A proverb is a short, well known saying that expresses a common
truth or belief. Proverbs are found in most cultures and are often very old.

In American history, Benjamin Franklin was famous for his proverbs. Franklin lived in the
seventeen hundreds. He was a leader of the American Revolution against English rule. He was
also a scientist, inventor and writer.

For many years, Franklin published a book called "Poor Richard's Almanac." He included many
proverbs that he had heard or created. Some of them are still used today. Like this one: "Early
to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."
Franklin is also remembered for other proverbs like, "A penny saved is a penny earned." This
means that money should not be wasted.

Here are other examples of proverbs that Americans use. The first ones are about love. Some
people say, "All is fair in love and war." They mean that anything you do in a relationship or in
battle is acceptable.

Another proverb about love is, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." This means you love
someone even more when he or she is far away. But other people say, "Out of sight, out of
mind." You may not even think about that person when he or she is not with you. Which of these
proverbs do you think is most true?

Another proverb says "Love is blind." In other words, when you are in love with someone, you
may refuse to see anything bad about that person.

Here is another popular saying about love: "The way to a man's heart is through his
stomach." Some people believe that a woman can win a man's love if she prepares his favorite
foods.

Some people are only interested in having a relationship with someone who is very good-looking.
You might tell them that "Beauty is only skin deep." Your girlfriend may be lovely to look at,
but she may also have some bad qualities. Or the opposite may be true. Your boyfriend is a
wonderful person, but not good-looking. So what a person looks like is not really important.

Another proverb is true in love and war or other situations: "Actions speak louder than words."
It means that what you do is more important than what you say.

Sadly, we have no more time for this program. So we must say, "All good things must come to
an end."

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm Barbara Klein. Tell us
about your favorite proverb. You can send an e-mail to special@voanews.com. Include your name
and where you live. And you can find more WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at
voaspecialenglish.com.

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Too Much Time Watching TV? You May Be a Couch Potato

Expressions about how people spend their time. Transcript of radio broadcast
02 November 2008
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Now, the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories.

Some unusual words describe how a person spends his or her time. For example, someone who
likes to spend a lot of time sitting or lying down while watching television is sometimes called a
couch potato. A couch is a piece of furniture that people sit on while watching television.

Robert Armstrong, an artist from California, developed the term couch potato in nineteen-
seventy-six. Several years later, he listed the term as a trademark with the United States
government. Mister Armstrong also helped write a funny book about life as a full-time television
watcher. It is called the "Official Couch Potato Handbook."

Couch potatoes enjoy watching television just as mouse potatoes enjoy working on computers.
A computer mouse is the device that moves the pointer, or cursor, on a computer screen. The
description of mouse potato became popular in nineteen-ninety-three. American writer Alice
Kahn is said to have invented the term to describe young people who spend a lot of time using
computers.

Too much time inside the house using a computer or watching television can cause someone to
get cabin fever. A cabin is a simple house usually built far away from the city. People go to a
cabin to relax and enjoy quiet time.

Cabin fever is not really a disease. However, people can experience boredom and restlessness if
they spend too much time inside their homes. This is especially true during the winter when it is
too cold or snowy to do things outside. Often children get cabin fever if they cannot go outside
to play. So do their parents. This happens when there is so much snow that schools and even
offices and stores are closed.

Some people enjoy spending a lot of time in their homes to make them nice places to live. This is
called nesting or cocooning. Birds build nests out of sticks to hold their eggs and baby birds.
Some insects build cocoons around themselves for protection while they grow and change. Nests
and cocoons provide security for wildlife. So people like the idea of nests and cocoons, too.

The terms cocooning and nesting became popular more than twenty years ago. They describe
people buying their first homes and filling them with many things. These people then had
children.

Now these children are grown and have left the nest. They are in college. Or they are married
and starting families of their own far away. Now these parents are living alone without children
in their empty nest. They have become empty nesters.

(MUSIC)
This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jill Moss.
I'm Faith Lapidus.

Hobson's Choice: When There Is Really No Choice at All

Making choices is necessary, but not always easy. Transcript of radio broadcast:
13 December 2008

Now, the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories.

(MUSIC)

Making choices is necessary, but not always easy. Many of our expressions tell about this
difficulty.

One of these expressions is Hobson’s choice. It often is used to describe a difficult choice. But
that is not what it really means. Its real meaning is to have no choice at all.

The Hobson in the expression was Thomas Hobson. Mister Hobson owned a stable of horses in
Cambridge, England.

Mister Hobson often rented horses to the students at Cambridge University. But, he did not
really trust them to take good care of the horses. So, he had a rule that prevented the students
from riding his best horses. They could take the horse that was nearest the stable door. Or,
they could not take any horse at all.

Thus, a Hobson’s choice was really no choice.

Another expression for having no real choice is between a rock and a hard place. It is often
used to describe a difficult situation with few choices, none of them good.

For example, your boss may ask you to work late. But you have plans to go to a movie with your
girlfriend. If you refuse to work, your boss gets angry. But if you do not go to the movies with
your girlfriend, she gets angry. So what do you do? You are caught between a rock and a hard
place.

Another expression, between the devil and the deep blue sea, also gives you a choice between
two equally dangerous things.

Its meaning seems clear. You can choose the devil and his burning fires of hell. Or, you can
choose to drown in the sea. Some word experts say the expression comes from the days of
wooden ships.

The devil is a word for a seam between two pieces of wood along the water-line of a ship. If the
seam or crack between the two pieces of wood begins to leak, then a sailor must fix it. The
sailor ordered to make the repairs was in a dangerous situation. He was hanging over the side of
the ship, working between the devil and the deep blue sea.
There is still another expression that describes a situation with only bad choices, being on the
horns of a dilemma.

The dictionary says a dilemma is a situation in which you must make a decision about two equally
balanced choices. When your dilemma has horns, a choice becomes impossible. When you are on
the horns of a dilemma, no matter which horn you choose, something bad will happen.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stores, was written by Marilyn Christiano.
Maurice Joyce was the narrator. I’m Shirley Griffith.

You Do Not Have to Be a Rocket Scientist to Understand This

Rocket scientists can have problems just like everyone else. Transcript of radio broadcast:
14 November 2008

Hello. I'm Phil Murray with WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, a program in Special English.

(MUSIC)

"You do not need to be a rocket scientist." Americans hear these words often. People say them
in schools, offices and factories. Broadcasters on radio and television use them.

This is how you might hear the words used.

Workers in an office are afraid to try to use their new computer system. Their employer tells
them not to be foolish. "You do not need to be a rocket scientist to learn this," he says.

Or, high school students cannot seem to understand something their teacher is explaining.
"Come on," she says. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to understand this."

Or, a company that makes soap is trying to sell its product on television. "You do not need to be
a rocket scientist to see that our soap cleans better," the company says.

These words send a strong message. They say that you do not need to be extremely intelligent
to understand something.

How did the expression begin?

No one seems to know for sure. But an official of the American space agency, NASA, says the
expression just grew. It grew, he says, because rocket scientists probably are the most
intelligent people around.

Not everyone would agree.

Some people might be considered more intelligent than rocket scientists. For example, a person
who speaks and reads fifteen languages, or a medical doctor who operates on the brain.

Still, many people would agree that there is something special about scientists who build
rockets. Maybe it has to do with the mystery of space travel.

Moving pictures from before World War Two showed a man named Buck Rogers landing on the
planet Mars. He was a hero who could defeat any enemy from outer space.

The rocket scientist is a different kind of hero. He or she makes space travel possible.

Rocket scientists, however, can have problems just like everyone else.

A Washington rocket scientist tells about a launch that was postponed many, many times. Finally,
everything seemed right. Mechanical failures had been repaired. The weather was good.

The scientists had planned that part of the rocket would fall into the ocean after the launch. All
ships and boats within many kilometers of the danger area had been warned. But in the last few
seconds a small boat entered the area. Once again, the launch was postponed.

When the work goes well, most rocket scientists enjoy their jobs. One scientist said, "As a child
I loved to build rockets. Now I am grown. I still love to build rockets. And now I get paid for it."

(MUSIC)

This program, Words and Their Stores, was written by Jeri Watson. I'm Phil Murray.

Dog Talk: Every Dog Has His Day

A look at dog-related expressions. Transcript of radio broadcast:
06 December 2008

Now, the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories.

Americans use many expressions with the word dog. People in the United States love their dogs
and treat them well. They take their dogs for walks, let them play outside and give them good
food and medical care. However, dogs without owners to care for them lead a different kind of
life. The expression, to lead a dog's life, describes a person who has an unhappy existence.

Some people say we live in a dog-eat-dog world. That means many people are competing for the
same things, like good jobs. They say that to be successful, a person has to work like a dog.
This means they have to work very, very hard. Such hard work can make people dog-tired. And,
the situation would be even worse if they became sick as a dog.

Still, people say every dog has its day. This means that every person enjoys a successful
period during his or her life. To be successful, people often have to learn new skills. Yet, some
people say that you can never teach an old dog new tricks. They believe that older people do
not like to learn new things and will not change the way they do things.
Some people are compared to dogs in bad ways. People who are unkind or uncaring can be
described as meaner than a junkyard dog. Junkyard dogs live in places where people throw
away things they do not want. Mean dogs are often used to guard this property. They bark or
attack people who try to enter the property. However, sometimes a person who appears to be
mean and threatening is really not so bad. We say his bark is worse than his bite.

A junkyard is not a fun place for a dog. Many dogs in the United States sleep in safe little
houses near their owners' home. These doghouses provide shelter. Yet they can be cold and
lonely in the winter.

Husbands and wives use this doghouse term when they are angry at each other. For example, a
woman might get angry at her husband for coming home late or forgetting their wedding
anniversary. She might tell him that he is in the doghouse. She may not treat him nicely until he
apologizes. However, the husband may decide that it is best to leave things alone and not create
more problems. He might decide to let sleeping dogs lie.

Dog expressions also are used to describe the weather. The dog days of summer are the
hottest days of the year. A rainstorm may cool the weather. But we do not want it to rain too
hard. We do not want it to rain cats and dogs.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jill Moss.
I'm Faith Lapidus.

Who Put Lipstick on That Pig?

Expressions about pigs, hogs and sows. Transcript of radio broadcast:
17 October 2008
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Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

(MUSIC)

Americans often use expressions about animals.

In two thousand eight, the main candidates for president each used this expression: "You can
put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig." This means that it is a waste of time to change
something from ugly or unpleasant-looking to beautiful.

There are other expressions about improving a pig's appearance, like this one: "A hog in a silk
waistcoat is still a hog." Hogs are similar to pigs, only bigger. Americans use many other
expressions about pigs, hogs and female hogs called sows. Like this one: "You cannot make a
silk purse out of a sow's ear." This means you cannot create something valuable from
something that has no value.

In a pig's eye is another unusual expression. It means something that is not so, or will never
happen. Then there is the expression casting pearls before swine. That means wasting
something valuable on someone who will not be thankful or care about it.

However, at least one kind of pig can be useful in saving money. It is called a piggy bank. You
can buy a small container shaped like a pig. It has a hole where a child can put money into it.

Hogs are very large animals. If you say you ate high on the hog during a holiday, it means you
ate very good or costly food. If you went whole hog on your trip, it means you did everything
possible to have fun. But you should never go hog-wild at any time because that means behaving
badly.

Hogs take up a lot of space but people should not take up more than their share. If one of your
children is taking up too much space sitting in front of the television, other children might say:
"Do not hog the couch." And a road hog is a driver who uses more than his share of the road.
Such a driver increases dangers for other drivers.

Pig terms are also used in American politics. Farmers mark their pigs' ears to identify them. In
politics, earmarks are money set aside for projects in a congressman's home state or locality.
And politicians might say there is a lot of pork in a budget proposal, meaning wasteful spending.

In many areas, pigs provide ham, bacon and other pork products to eat. All Americans want to
be able to bring home the bacon. That means to earn enough money to provide the necessities
of life. Experts say this term was first used in the nineteen twenties. But it is believed to
come from the much older game of catching a greased pig. This was a popular event at country
fairs in which the winner was awarded the pig.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm Barbara Klein. You can
find more WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at voaspecialenglish.com.

American Election Expressions

Some examples of American expressions about voting and elections. Transcript of radio broadcast:
15 October 2008
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Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

The presidential election in the United States is November fourth. So we hear a lot of people
using expressions about the election.
Many opinion studies have asked Americans whom they will vote for. Experts say some states are
likely to support John McCain, the Republican Party candidate. Others are likely to support
Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's candidate.

Experts say there are a few states where the support for the two candidates is almost equal.
These are called swing states, because they could go either way. They are also called
battleground states. Experts believe the presidential election will be decided by the votes in
those few states.

Traditionally, expressions used in horse racing are also used in election campaigns. The running
mate is the presidential candidate's choice for vice president. The front-runner is the leading
candidate. If both candidates have equal support, they are said to be running neck and neck.
And candidates enter the home stretch when the race is near the end.

The candidates are now on the campaign trail, traveling around the country. They have favorite
subjects that they talk about to different crowds. This is called a stump speech. Writer William
Safire says the expression is two hundred years old. He says candidates many years ago spoke
while standing on the stump of a tree in front of a crowd. Another expression, on the stump, is
to make these speeches to different groups.

Some candidates carry out what is called a grassroots campaign. This involves voters at the
local community level. The candidate talks to people and accepts financial donations for the
campaign. This may involve getting the support of the political party's rank and file members.
This expression is also used in the military and in trade unions. It means the members who form
the major part of a group, but not its leaders or officers.

Many people hope that presidential campaigns are fair. But some campaigns include mudslinging.
No, the candidates do not throw dirt at each other. But they may try to destroy their
opponent's good name by saying bad things or through misleading advertisements. Spreading lies
about someone is called a smear campaign.

Some American presidential elections have ended in a landslide victory. One candidate wins a
huge majority of electoral votes. Other recent elections have been extremely close. We will
know the results of this election in a few weeks.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm Barbara Klein. You can
find more WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at voaspecialenglish.com.

Let's Get Down to Brass Tacks

Getting to the bottom of a great English expression.
20 September 2008
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Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Our expression today is "getting down to brass tacks." It means to get serious about something,
to get to the bottom of the situation. For example, a man may say, " I want to work for you. But
how much will you pay me? He is getting down to brass tacks. Or a woman may ask, "You say you
love me. Will you marry me?" She, too, is getting down to brass tacks.

How did this expression get started? There are several ideas.

At one time most women made their own clothes, buying the cloth in small stores. The material
was kept in large rolls. And the storekeeper cut off as much as a woman wanted. Brass tacks
along his work table helped him measure the exact amount.

Sometimes a busy storekeeper might try to guess how much material to cut off. But this would
not be correct. He could get an exact measure only by laying the material down along the brass
tacks.

One word expert, however, has another theory. He believes the expression came from seamen
who cleaned the bottoms of boats. Strong heavy devices called bolts held the ship's bottom
together. These bolts were made of copper. The seaman had to clean the ship down to the
copper bolts. American speech soon changed the words copper bolts into brass tacks.

Another idea is that the expression began when furniture was made by hand. Brass tacks were
used around the bottom part of the chair. The brass tacks, showed that the chair was built to
be strong. When something went wrong with the chair, someone quickly examined the bottom to
discover the trouble. In other words, someone got down to the brass tacks.

No one is sure where the expression first was used, but everyone is sure what it means today.

It is used by people who dislike empty words. They seek quick, direct answers. They want to get
to the bottom of a situation. There are others, however, who have no such desire. They feel
there is some risk in trying to get down to brass tacks.

This happened in the case of a critic who made the mistake of reading a play written by a close
friend. The critic disliked the play a lot. He felt his friend should not be writing plays. But he
said nothing. This silence troubled the writer. He demanded that his friend the critic say
something about the play. The writer finally heard the critic's opinion. And this getting down to
brass tacks ended a long friendship.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Mike Pitts.
I'm Warren Scheer.
Fall Guy: He Took the Blame for Someone Else
Is the fall guy really the guilty one? Transcript of radio broadcast:
24 August 2008
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Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

(MUSIC)

Every week at this time, the Voice of America tells about popular words and expressions used in
the United States. Some expressions have made a jump from sports events to everyday
life. One such expression is fall guy. A fall guy is the person who someone decides will be the
loser or victim.

The first fall guys were men who wrestled for money. At the end of the nineteenth century,
wrestling was a very popular sport in the United States. Wrestling competitions were held not
only in big cities, but also at country fairs and traveling shows. As the sport became more
popular, it became less and less of a sport. Many of the matches were fixed. The wrestlers knew
-- before the match -- which one of them would be the winner.

The goal in wrestling is to hold your opponent's shoulders down against the floor. This is called a
fall. Sometimes, one of the wrestlers would be paid before the match to take the fall. He
would agreed to be the loser...the fall guy.

Today, a fall guy is anyone who is tricked into taking the blame for the crime or wrongdoing of
someone else. There are fall guys in many situations -- people who publicly take the blame when
something goes wrong.

A fall guy takes the rap for something wrong or illegal. He accepts responsibility and
punishment for what someone else did. The fall guy may have been involved in the situation, but
was not the person who should be blamed.

The word rap has meant blame for several hundred years. The expression to take the rap first
was used about one hundred years ago.

Another similar expression is bum rap. A person receives a bum rap if he is found guilty of a
crime...but is really innocent.

Sometimes, a fall guy may not realize he is the fall guy until he is the victim of a bum rap. In
that case, he may feel that he has been framed. To frame someone is to create false evidence
to make an innocent person seem guilty.

Some word experts say the expression to frame someone comes from the way wood must be
fitted closely around a painting or photograph to frame it. In the same way, evidence must be
designed perfectly if it is to frame an innocent person to make him or her seem guilty.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Marilyn Rice
Christiano. This is Warren Scheer.

Doughboy: Military Expressions

Terms for members of the US armed forces. Transcript of radio broadcast:
17 August 2008
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This is Phil Murray with WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, a program in Special English on the
Voice of America. We tell about some common expressions in American English.

(MUSIC)

A leatherneck or a grunt do not sound like nice names to call someone. Yet men and women who
serve in the United States armed forces are proud of those names. And if you think they sound
strange, consider doughboy and GI Joe.

After the American Civil War in the eighteen sixties, a writer in a publication called Beadle’s
Monthly used the word doughboy to describe Civil War soldiers. But word expert Charles Funk
says that early writer could not explain where the name started.

About twenty years later, someone did explain. She was the wife of the famous American
general George Custer.

Elizabeth Custer wrote that a doughboy was a sweet food served to Navy men on ships. She also
said the name was given to the large buttons on the clothes of soldiers. Elizabeth Custer
believed the name changed over time to mean the soldiers themselves.

Now, we probably most often think of doughboys as the soldiers who fought for the Allies in
World War One.

By World War Two, soldiers were called other names. The one most often heard was GI, or GI
Joe. Most people say the letters GI were a short way to say general issue or government issue.
The name came to mean several things. It could mean the soldier himself. It could mean things
given to soldiers when they joined the military such as weapons, equipment or clothes. And, for
some reason, it could mean to organize, or clean.

Soldiers often say, “We GI’d the place.” And when an area looks good, soldiers may say the area
is “GI.” Strangely, though, GI can also mean poor work, a job badly done.
Some students of military words have another explanation of GI. They say that instead of
government issue or general issue, GI came from the words galvanized iron. The American
soldier was said to be like galvanized iron, a material produced for special strength. The
Dictionary of Soldier Talk says GI was used for the words galvanized iron in a publication about
the vehicles of the early twentieth century.

Today, a doughboy or GI may be called a grunt. Nobody is sure of the exact beginning of the
word. But, the best idea probably is that the name comes from the sound that troops make when
ordered to march long distances carrying heavy equipment.

A member of the United States Marines also has a strange name -- leatherneck. It is thought
to have started in the eighteen hundreds. Some say the name comes from the thick collars of
leather early Marines wore around their necks to protect them from cuts during battles. Others
say the sun burned the Marines’ necks until their skin looked like leather.

(MUSIC)

This Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jeri Watson. I’m
Phil Murray

Eureka: The Word Just Burst Out!

A look at an English expression that is losing its place in the language. Transcript of radio broadcast:
10 August 2008
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Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

(MUSIC)

Our word today is eureka. It is a kind of word called an expletive. Expletives are quick, short
outcries of pain, surprise, anger or joy. We hear them all the time.

Ow! Wow! Holy smoke! Yikes! Some are considered not nice. They cannot be repeated here!

An expletive, or exclamation, bursts from your throat without thought. It is an expression of

pure emotion. It helps ease your pain, or gives wing to a joyous surprise.

One expletive -- eureka! -- is slowly going out of style. Let us examine it before it disappears
altogether.

Perhaps you have heard how this word came into existence. The story has been told many times.

Archimedes, the great scientist of ancient Greece, lived in Syracuse at the time of King Hiero
the Second. The king had ordered a crown of gold. He suspected that his goldsmith had mixed
some silver with it. The king called on Archimedes. He asked him to examine the crown to see if
it was pure gold.

Archimedes was puzzled. How could he learn if the crown was pure gold? One day, he stepped
into the water of a public bath. He observed the water flowing over the top of the bathtub. He
carefully studied the overflow. Suddenly, he realized how he could test the gold in the king's
crown.

He knew that gold was heavier than silver. So, a piece of gold would be smaller than a piece of
silver of the same weight.

He could get a piece of pure gold that weighed the same as the king's crown. He could put it in a
full container of water and measure how much water it displaced. Then, he could put the crown
in the same container of water. If more water flowed out, the crown was not pure gold.

Archimedes was so excited by this discovery that he jumped out of the public bath and ran
naked through the city streets toward home. As he ran, he shouted: "Eureka! Eureka! I have
found it! I have found it!"

True or not, it is a delightful story. And it is an established fact that Archimedes did discover
that when two objects weigh the same. . . but are of different density. . . the less dense object
displaces more water than the denser one.

(MUSIC)

VOICE:

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Marilyn Rice
Christiano. Maurice Joyce was the narrator. I'm Sarah Long.

Green: More Than Just a Color

The word can mean many things, including jealousy. Transcript of radio broadcast:
03 August 2008
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Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

(MUSIC)

Green is an important color in nature. It is the color of grass and the leaves on trees. It is also
the color of most growing plants.

Sometimes, the word green means young, fresh and growing. Sometimes, it describes something
that is not yet ripe or finished.
For example, a greenhorn is someone who has no experience, who is new to a situation. In the
fifteenth century, a greenhorn was a young cow or ox whose horns had not yet developed. A
century or so later, a greenhorn was a soldier who had not yet had any experience in battle. By
the eighteenth century, a greenhorn had the meaning it has today - a person who is new in a job.

About one hundred years ago, greenhorn was a popular expression in the American west. Old-
timers used it to describe a man who had just arrived from one of the big cities back east. The
greenhorn lacked the skills he would need to live in the hard, rough country.

Someone who has the ability to grow plants well is said to have a green thumb. The expression
comes from the early nineteen hundreds.

A person with a green thumb seems to have a magic touch that makes plants grow quickly and
well. You might say that the woman next door has a green thumb if her garden continues to grow
long after your plants have died.

The Green Revolution is the name given some years ago to the development of new kinds of rice
and other grains. The new plants produced much larger crops. The Green Revolution was the
result of hard work by agricultural scientists who had green thumbs.

Green is also the color used to describe the powerful emotion, jealousy. The green-eyed
monster is not a frightening creature from outer space. It is an expression used about four
hundred years ago by British writer William Shakespeare in his play "Othello."

It describes the unpleasant feeling a person has when someone has something he wants. A young
man may suffer from the green-eyed monster if his girlfriend begins going out with someone
else. Or, that green-eyed monster may affect your friend if you get a pay raise and she does
not.

In most places in the world, a green light is a sign to move ahead. A green light on a traffic
signal means your car can continue on. In everyday speech, a green light means approval to
continue with a project. We want you to know we have a green light to continue this series next
week.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Marilyn
Christiano. I'm Warren Scheer.

Bigwig: Such an Important Person!

Terms for people who are powerful, at least in their own mind. Transcript of radio broadcast:
06 July 2008
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Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

(MUSIC)

Some expressions describe people who are important, or at least who think they are. One such
expression is, bigwig.

In the seventeenth century, important men in Europe began to wear false hair, called wigs. As
years passed, wigs began to get bigger. The size of a man's wig depended on how important he
was. The more important he was -- or thought he was -- the bigger the wig he wore. Some wigs
were so large they covered a man's shoulders or back.

Today, the expression bigwig is used to make fun of a person who feels important. People never
tell someone he is a bigwig. They only use the expression behind his back.

Big wheel is another way to describe an important person. A big wheel may be the head of a
company, a political leader, a famous movie star. They are big wheels because they are powerful.
What they do affects many persons. Big wheels give the orders. Other people carry them out.
As in many machines, a big wheel makes the little wheels turn.

Big wheel became a popular expression after World War Two. It probably comes from an
expression used for many years by people who fix parts of cars and trucks. They said a person
rolled a big wheel if he was important and had influence.

The top of something is the highest part. So it is not surprising that top is part of another
expression that describes an important person. The expression is, top banana. A top banana is
the leading person in a comedy show. The funniest comedian is called the top banana. The next
is second banana. And so on.

Why a banana? A comedy act in earlier days often included a part where one of the comedians
would hit the others over the head with a soft object. The object was shaped like a yellow
fruit: the banana.

Top banana still is used mainly in show business. Yet the expression also can be used to describe
the top person in any area.

A kingpin is another word for an important person. The expression comes from the game of
bowling. The kingpin is the number one pin. If hit correctly with the bowling ball, the kingpin will
make all the other nine pins fall. And that is the object of the game.

So, the most important person in a project or business is the kingpin. If the kingpin is removed,
the business or project is likely to fail.

Kingpin is often used to describe an important criminal, or the leader of a criminal gang. A
newspaper may report, for example, that police have arrested the suspected kingpin of a car-
stealing operation.
(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Marilyn
Christiano. I'm Warren Scheer.

It Will Not Wash: Does It Work, or Not?

Will your idea be a good one? Transcript of radio broadcast:
12 July 2008
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I'm Susan Clark with the Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

(MUSIC)

Young Mister Smith had an idea for his employer. It was an idea for saving money for the
company by increasing prices. At the same time, Smith suggested that the company sell goods of
less value.

If his employer liked the idea, Smith might be given more pay. Perhaps he might even get a
better job with the company.

Business had been very slow. So Mister Smith's employer thought a few minutes about the idea.
But then she shook her head. "I am sorry, Smith," his employer said. "It just will not wash."

Now, the meaning of these English words should be, "It will not get clean." Yet Smith's idea did
not have anything to do with making something clean. So why did his employer say, "It will not
wash?"

Most word experts agree that "it will not wash" means it will not work. Eric Partridge wrote
that the saying probably developed in Britain in the eighteen hundreds. Charlotte Bronte used it
in a story published in eighteen forty-nine. She wrote, "That wiln't wash, miss." Mizz Bronte
seems to have meant that the dyes used to color a piece of clothing were not good. The colors
could not be depended on to stay in the material.

In nineteenth century England, the expression came to mean an undependable statement. It was
used mainly to describe an idea. But sometimes it was used about a person.

A critic once said of the poet Robert Browning, "He won't wash." The critic did not mean that
the poet was not a clean person. He meant that Browning's poems could not be depended on to
last.

Today, we know that judgment was wrong. Robert Browning still is considered a major poet. But
very few people remember the man who said Browning would not wash.
Happily for the young employee Smith, his employer wanted him to do well in the company. So
the employer "talked turkey" to him. She said, "Your idea would be unfair to our buyers. Think
of another way to save money."

A century ago, to talk turkey meant to talk pleasantly. Turkeys in the barnyard were thought to
be speaking pleasantly to one another. In recent years, the saying has come to mean an attempt
to teach something important.

Word expert Charles Funk tells how he believes this change took place.

He says two men were shooting turkeys together. One of them was a white man. The other was
an American Indian. The white man began stating reasons why he should get all the turkeys for
himself. But the American Indian stopped him. He told the white man, "Now, I talk turkey to
you."

Mister Smith thought of a better idea after his employer talked turkey to him. He was given an
increase in pay. So if your idea "will not wash," try "talking turkey" to yourself and come up
with a better idea.

(MUSIC)

This Words and Their Stories program was written by Jeri Watson. I'm Susan Clark.

Fish Expressions: This All Sounds Very Fishy

English expressions that may sound fishy, but don't smell fishy. Transcript of radio broadcast:
29 June 2008
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Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

(MUSIC)

Americans use many expressions about fish and fishing. For example, if something sounds fishy,
it may not be true. Sometimes I feel like a fish out of water when I go to a party and
everyone but me is doing the latest dance. When I ask my friend if she likes my new dress, I
would like her to say something nice. In other words, I am fishing for a compliment. You might
tell someone to fish or cut bait if he repeatedly attempts to do something he is unable to do.

Sometimes a lawyer will ask a witness many questions in an effort to discover the facts of a
court case. This is called going on a fishing expedition.

Some expressions involve different kinds of fish. Information that is used to draw attention
away from the real facts of a situation is called a red herring. If you want to express a feeling
of surprise, you might cry "holy mackerel!" although we do not know why a mackerel is holy.
Once I went to a county fair and tried my luck with a game of chance. It was so easy; it was like
shooting fish in a barrel. Then I went on the fastest, highest and most frightening ride: the
roller coaster. At the end of the ride, I did not feel so well. A friend said I looked green
around the gills.

I grew up in a small town where everybody knew about my life. There were times when I
thought I was living in a fishbowl. So I moved to Washington, where things were different.

Now I take the train to work every day during rush hour when many other people travel to their
jobs. Sometimes the train is so crowded that we are packed in like sardines. Sardines are
tiny fish that lie close to each other in cans.

One man who works in my office is a cold fish. He is unfriendly and does not like to join us at
office parties. Another man in my office likes to enjoy alcoholic drinks at parties. In fact, you
might say he drinks like a fish. We need to help him stop drinking.

Last week, my sister's car broke down as we were driving to a friend's marriage ceremony.
"This is a fine kettle of fish," I said. "Now we will be late."

My sister attends a small college where she is one of the smartest students. She always wants
to be a big fish in a small pond. Recently, my sister broke up with her boyfriend. I told her
not to worry, she will find another one because there are plenty of other fish in the sea.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm Faith Lapidus. You can
find more WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at voaspecialenglish.com.

Bird Words: Someone Who Eats Like a Bird Eats Very Little
Most of the people I work with are early birds. Transcript of radio broadcast:
22 June 2008
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Now, the VOA Special English program, \WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

(MUSIC)

Today we explain some expressions about birds. For example, if something is for the birds, it is
worthless or not very interesting. Someone who eats like a bird eats very little. And a birds-
eye view is a general look at an area from above.

Did you know that if you tell a young person about the birds and the bees you are explaining
about sex and birth? Have you ever observed that birds of a feather flock together? In
other words, people who are similar become friends or do things together. Here is some good
advice: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. This means you should not risk losing
something you have by trying to get more of something you do not have.

Sometimes I can do two things by performing only one action. This is called killing two birds
with one stone. But I would never really kill any birds. I love all kinds of animals. This is a real
feather in my cap. It is something to be proud of.

Most of the people I work with are early birds. They believe that the early bird catches the
worm. They think that a person who gets up early in the morning for work has the best chance
of success. Everyone in my office works hard, but some people have had their wings clipped.
Their jobs have been limited. This is because the office is organized by pecking order. People
with more years and experience are given more responsibility.

Some bird expressions are about crows, chickens and ducks. For example, when I am driving, I
always travel as the crow flies. I go the most direct way. Anyone who eats crow has to admit
a mistake or defeat.

Now let’s talk about my sister. She is not very young. She is no spring chicken. She will work any
job for chicken feed -- a small amount of money. She is easily frightened. For example, she is
too chicken-livered to walk down a dark street alone at night. Often she will chicken out – she
will not go out alone at night.

My sister was an ugly duckling. She looked strange when she was a child, but she grew up to be
a beautiful woman. Sometimes she thinks too much about having something in the future before
she really has it. She counts her chickens before they are hatched. Sometimes her chickens
come home to roost. That means her actions or words cause trouble for her. However, my
sister does not worry about what people say about her. Criticism falls off her like water off a
duck’s back.

Politicians are sometimes considered lame ducks after losing an election. They have little time
left in office and not much power. Congress holds a lame duck session after an election.
Important laws are not passed during this period.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jill Moss.
I’m Faith Lapidus

Farm: It's Not Worth a Hill of Beans

English expressions related to agriculture. Transcript of radio broadcast:
14 June 2008
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Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
(MUSIC)

In the early days of human history, people survived by hunting wild animals, or gathering wild
grains and plants for food. Then, some people learned to grow crops and raise animals for food.
They were the first farmers.

Since the sixteenth century, the word farm has meant agricultural land. But a much older
meaning of the word farm is linked to economics. The word farm comes from the Latin word,
firma, which means an unchanging payment.

Experts say the earliest meaning of the English word farm was a yearly payment made as a tax
or rent.

Farmers in early England did not own their land. They paid every year to use agricultural lands.

In England, farmers used hawthorn trees along the edges of property. They called this row of
hawthorns a hedge.

Hedging fields was how careful farmers marked and protected them.

Soon, people began to use the word hedging to describe steps that could be taken to protect
against financial loss.

Hedging is common among gamblers who make large bets. A gambler bets a lot of money on one
team. But, to be on the safe side, he also places a smaller bet on the other team, to reduce a
possible loss.

You might say that someone is hedging his bet when he invests in several different kinds of
businesses. One business may fail, but likely not all.

Farmers know that it is necessary to make hay while the sun shines.

Hay has to be cut and gathered when it is dry. So a wise farmer never postpones gathering his
hay when the sun is shining. Rain may soon appear.

A wise person copies the farmer. He works when conditions are right.

A new mother, for example, quickly learns to try to sleep when her baby is quiet, even in the
middle of the day. If the mother delays, she may lose her chance to sleep. So, the mother
learns to make hay while the sun shines.

Beans are a popular farm crop. But beans are used to describe something of very little value in
the expression, not worth a hill of beans. The expression is often used today.

You could say, for example, that a bad idea is not worth a hill of beans.
Language expert Charles Earle Funk said the expression was first used almost seven hundred
years ago. He said Robert of Gloucester described a message from the King of Germany to King
John of England as altogether not worth a bean.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Marilyn Rice
Christiano. Maurice Joyce was the narrator. I'm Shirley Griffith.

More Numbers: Two Heads Are Better Than One

A number of English expressions using numbers. Transcript of radio broadcast:
07 June 2008
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Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

(MUSIC)

Last week, I told about the number one. Today, I will tell about expressions using other
numbers.

Some problems are difficult to solve. But there are a lot of number expressions that can help.
For example, if we put two and two together, we might come up with the right answer. We know
that two heads are better than one. It is always better to work with another person to solve a
problem.

Sometimes there are no two ways about it. Some problems have only one solution. You cannot
be of two minds over this.

But with any luck, we could solve the problem in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. We could have our
answers quickly and easily.

Sometimes we can kill two birds with one stone. That is, we can complete two goals with only
one effort or action. But we must remember that two wrongs don’t make a right. If someone
does something bad to you, you should not do the same to him.

If you are going out with your girlfriend, or boyfriend, you do not want another friend to go
along on your date. You can just say to your friend: two’s company, three’s a crowd.

When I was a young child in school, I had to learn the three R’s. These important skills are
reading, writing and arithmetic. These three words do not all start with the letter “R.” But
they have the sound of “R.” My teachers used to give three cheers when I did well in math.
They gave praise and approval for a job well done.
Some of my friends were confused and did not understand their schoolwork. They were at sixes
and sevens. In fact, they did not care if they finished high school. They saw little difference
between the two choices. Six of one, half a dozen the other – that was their position. But
they were really happy when they completed their studies and graduated from high school. They
were in seventh heaven. They were on cloud nine.

Nine times out of ten, students who do well in school find good jobs. Some work in an office
doing the same things every day at nine-to-five jobs. You do not have to dress to the nines,
or wear your best clothes, for this kind of work.

Last year, one of my friends applied for a better job at her office. I did not think she would
get it. I thought she had a hundred to one shot at the job. Other people at her office
thought her chances were a million to one. One reason was that she had been caught catching
forty winks at the office. She slept at her desk for short periods during the day. But her
supervisor appointed her to the new job at the eleventh hour -- at the very last minute. I guess
her lucky number came up.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jill Moss.
I’m Faith Lapidus

Dutch: English Expressions Unrelated to Dutch People

Common expressions that have nothing to do with the Dutch people. Transcript of radio broadcast:
17 February 2007
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Now, the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories. Today, we tell about
American expressions using the word “Dutch.”

(MUSIC)

Many of the Dutch expressions heard in American English were first used in England in the
seventeenth century. That was a time of fierce naval competition between England and The
Netherlands. At that time, the British used Dutch as a word for something bad, or false or
mistaken.

A Dutch agreement was one made between men who had drunk too much alcohol. Dutch courage
was the false courage produced by the effects of drinking alcohol. And, Dutch leave was what a
soldier took when he left his base without permission.

Some of these old expressions are still used today, with a little different meaning.
Dutch treat is one example. Long ago, a Dutch treat was a dinner at which the invited guests
were expected to pay for their own share of the food and drink. Now, Dutch treat means that
when friends go out to have fun, each person pays his own share.

Another common expression heard a few years ago was in Dutch. If someone said to you, you
were in Dutch they were telling you that you were in trouble. An important person – a parent or
teacher, perhaps – was angry with you.

Some of the Dutch expressions heard in American English have nothing to do with the Dutch
people at all.

In the seventeen hundreds, Germans who moved to the United States often were called Dutch.
This happened because of mistakes in understanding and saying the word Deutsch, the German
word for German. Families of these German people still live in the eastern United States, many
in the state of Pennsylvania. They are known as the Pennsylvania Dutch.

During the American Civil War, supporters of the Northern side in the central state of Missouri
were called Dutch because many of them were German settlers. In California during the gold
rush, the term Dutch was used to describe Germans, Swedes and Norwegians, as well as people
from The Netherlands.

President Theodore Roosevelt once noted that anything foreign and non-English was called
Dutch. One expression still in use – to talk to someone like a Dutch uncle did come from the
Dutch. The Dutch were known for the firm way they raised their children. So if someone
speaks to you like a Dutch uncle he is speaking in a very severe way. And you should listen to him
carefully!

(MUSIC)

You have been listening to the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories. This is
Warren Scheer.

Belittle: Thomas Jefferson First Used This Word

The third president of the United States was not to be belittled. Transcript of radio broadcast:
30 January 2009

Now, the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories.

Today’s word is belittle. It was first used by Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the
United States.

Many years ago, a French naturalist, the Count de Buffon, wrote some books about natural
history. The books were a great success even though some critics did not like them. Some critics
said, “Count Buffon is more of a poet than a scientist.”
Thomas Jefferson did not like what the Count had said about the natural wonders of the New
World. It seemed to Jefferson that the Count had gone out of his way to speak of natural
wonders in America as if they were unimportant.

This troubled Thomas Jefferson. He, too, was a naturalist, as well as a farmer, inventor,
historian, writer and politician. He had seen the natural wonders of Europe. To him, they were no
more important than those of the New World.

In seventeen eighty-eight, Thomas Jefferson wrote about his home state, Virginia. While
writing, he thought of its natural beauty and then of the words of Count de Buffon. At that
moment, Jefferson created a new word – belittle. He said, “The Count de Buffon believes that
nature belittles her productions on this side of the Atlantic.”

Noah Webster, the American word expert, liked this word. He put it in his English language
dictionary in eighteen-oh-six. ‘Belittle – to make small, unimportant.’

Americans had already accepted Jefferson’s word and started to use it. In seventeen ninety-
seven, the Independent Chronicle newspaper used the word to describe a politician the paper
supported. “He is an honorable man,” the paper wrote, “so let the opposition try to belittle
him as much as they please.”

In eighteen forty-four, the Republican Sentinel of Virginia wrote this about the opposition
party: “The Whigs may attempt to belittle our candidates … that is a favorite game of
theirs.”

In eighteen seventy-two, a famous American word expert decided that the time had come to kill
this word. He said, “Belittle has no chance of becoming English. And as more critical
writers of America, like those of Britain, feel no need of it, the sooner it is forgotten,
the better.”

This expert failed to kill the word. Today, belittle is used, not only in the United States and
England, but in other countries where the English language is spoken. It seems that efforts to
belittle the word did not stop people from using it.

(MUSIC)

You have been listening to the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories. I’m
Warren Scheer.

Small Talk, American-Style; a Computer Language for Self-Expression

20 May 2009

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: language in action.
We have two reports.
RS: We start with a program in the International Business School at Brandeis University near
Boston, Massachusetts. It helps introduce foreign students to American culture. Sally Herships
has the story.

SH: Wei Fang wants a job. But he says, he's uncomfortable promoting himself in interviews.

WEI FANG: "In China the employers like the employees to be hard working and quiet. They want
you speak only when they want you speak."

SH: Fang, who is from the Shanghai area, is getting his MBA at Brandeis
University. And he's looking for a job in the United States. But for
foreigners, promoting themselves, making small talk -- things Americans
take for granted -- can be tricky. I asked Fang how he felt during his
first few job interviews here.

WEI FANG: "Lost, actually, when I was in the conversation. I don't know where to go next."

SH: Today is the last day of class. Students from around the world are setting up their final
projects. In one corner, Isaac Ndawula stops to talk with fellow student Sheila Mutamba. Her
project is learning to make American-style small talk.

ISAAC NDAWULA: "So after all this do you intend to take this back home?"

SHEILA MUTAMBA: "Yes, I do, because I think small talk is very important in all -- I mean in
different environments and cultures. It doesn't matter how it's perceived, but it's very
important to create a rapport with people.

SH: Ndawula is from Uganda. Mutamba from Rwanda. Both say in the part of Africa they come
from, you don't get chatty with strangers. Mutamba says now, after a semester's practice she's
becoming a more confident conversationalist. But she says her first attempt at making small talk
was very different.

SHEILA MUTAMBA: "I was really feeling very awkward and very embarrassed."

SH: As part of a homework assignment, she turned to a stranger in a restaurant and started
talking about the weather.

SHEILA MUTAMBA: "So I keep trying to talk, but I have all these things in my head. I'm trying
to be appropriate, I'm trying not to be nosy."

SH: Back home, she says, things are more conservative. If a woman approaches a man, it could
seem suggestive.

ANDREW MOLINSKY: "They don't know the rules, they don't know the script."
SH: Andrew Molinksy created the Brandeis program. The organizational behavior professor
explains that even when workers are qualified, if they don't know what the norms of the culture
are, they can end up looking socially incompetent.

That was the case with a Russian engineer he worked with, who had seventeen unsuccessful job
interviews. Molinsky says she was extremely qualified.

ANDREW MOLINSKY: "But she kept failing on the interview and she would get feedback that
she wasn't a great fit."

SH: The rules for appropriate behavior in a traditional Russian job interview, he says, are to be
honest, modest and serious. The engineer told him smiling was inappropriate.

ANDREW MOLINSKY: "You know, 'All this silly friendly behavior, if you smile in my culture like
this you look like a fool.'"

SH: "But in our culture it gets you a job."

ANDREW MOLINSKY: "That's right, or at least it gives you a chance."

SH: I'm Sally Herships in New York.

AA: Now we move on to another kind of language that can help people express themselves. As
VOA's Susan Logue tells us, it's a computer programming language called Scratch.

JEFF ELKNER: "Go ahead click the green flag ... "

SL: Jeff Elkner's students are creating their own animated stories using Scratch. Most of them
are learning English as a second language. Elkner, a computer science teacher in Arlington,
Virginia, introduced Scratch to his students in March.

JEFF ELKNER: "At first I wanted to introduce Scratch to teach programming. What we found
when we were working with Scratch was that it was actually amazingly good at teaching language
skills."

SL: That doesn't surprise Karen Brennan, a Scratch project leader at MIT's Media Lab, where
Scratch was developed.

KAREN BRENNAN: "We have so many opportunities to be consumers of media. But we like to
think everyone should be able to create their own media."

SL: Scratch is an object-oriented language designed to be simple enough for anyone to use.
Instead of writing commands out, users choose from commands that come with the program.
There is also a library of visual elements included in the program. There are characters, interior
and exterior settings to put them in, and objects they can manipulate.
Anyone can download Scratch for free from scratch.mit.edu.

Everyone who uses Scratch is encouraged to share their projects. More than four hundred
thousand have been posted on the Web site in the past two years.

AA: That was VOA's Susan Logue. And that's WORDMASTER for this week.

RS: Check out our archives at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

What Are Your Agenda for the Meeting? (What, Something Wrong
With That?)

27 May 2009

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: we talk with Pat
O'Conner, co-author with her husband Stewart Kellerman of a new book called "Origins of the
Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language."

RS: But first, here's a question for you. Which would you say, "All debts are cleared between
you and I" or "All debts are cleared between you and me"? Is "I" or "me" the correct object?
According to Pat O'Conner, for centuries either one would have been fine. Shakespeare, you
should know, used "I" when he included that line in "The Merchant of Venice."

AA: But later the rule books got rewritten. Pat O'Conner says some people in the nineteenth
century, probably influenced by rules for Latin, began to argue that "I" was wrong -- well, you
know what I mean. Which leads to a question that Pat O'Conner gets asked a lot: who decides
what's right? She says we all do.

PAT O'CONNER: "Well, if something becomes a common enough usage, it becomes the accepted
usage. Take the word 'agenda,' for instance. As recently as the nineteenth century it was a
plural word. It meant the items on a list. Someone might have
said to you 'What are your agenda for our meeting?' Later the
word 'agenda' became used as a singular for the list itself
rather than the items on the list.

"And similarly the words 'media' and 'data' are now changing.
They're on the cusp of changing. 'Data,' I think, is over the
edge. It's very seldom used as a plural anymore. Even the New
York Times has changed its policy on that. It now has come to
mean information as a whole."

RS: "How does a person learning English as a foreign language -- Pat O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman
or someone who knows English quite well as a native speaker --
know what's right? It's not always what sounds right, or is it?"
PAT O'CONNER: "It depends on how well read you are, what you hear when you're growing up
and those sorts of things. But I think for someone learning English as a second language, the
best thing you can do is to acquire a good, up-to-date dictionary of American English -- say the
American Heritage, fourth edition, or the Merriam-Webster 's Collegiate, eleventh edition,
something like that that's always being updated. And always read the fine print. These things do
change.

"For example, fifty years ago, if you looked in a dictionary for how to pronounce the word
spelled n-i-c-h-e, you would have seen only one proper English pronunciation and that is 'nitch.' A
lot of people don't realize this. They think that 'neesh' is the only correct pronunciation.

"In fact, 'neesh' evolved as an error. It was a Frenchification of the word. People looked at it, it
looked French, they started pronouncing it as if it were French. It made it into dictionaries
because it was so common, and now dictionaries give two pronunciations."

AA: "And you write that 'neesh' is now forcing out 'nitch.'"

PAT O'CONNER: "It is -- it's inching ahead!"

RS: "Something that we consider here at WORDMASTER very colloquial is 'ain't.' And according
to your book, it hasn't always been considered bad English."

PAT O'CONNER: "No, it was formed around the early sixteen hundreds with a huge class of
other contractions: don't, can't, isn't. And ain't was one of them. It was a contraction for two
sets of words, for 'am not' and 'are not.' And it was originally spelled a'nt or a'n't. Perfectly
legitimate.

"The problem was, in the late seventeen hundreds, people started using it as a contraction for
'is not.' And then in the eighteen hundreds they started using it as a contraction for 'have not'
and 'has not,' as in 'I ain't got my wallet with me' or 'He ain't here.' Well, as soon as it got too
big for its britches, ain't lost its reputation for legitimacy. Its parentage just could not be
traced. And so it's been considered a grammatical no-no since sometime in the nineteenth
century."

RS: Pat O'Conner's newest book is "Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the
English Language." We'll talk more with her next time.

AA: And that's WORDMASTER for this week. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.