Podcast 3 - B2 story - Tom and the Gorilla

Story starts at: 6:04

Hello, and today I'm going to tell you another wonderful story. And the level is about B2, and some interesting language here for you, and also an issue as well about the importance of intonation. So let's get going!

Now, the story has some vocabulary, which I'm going to give to you now. First of all, we have a phrasal verb to come across. Now that's a verb, a phrasal verb. And what that means is the impression that one gives. So if I'm speaking to somebody for the first time, somebody I don't know, I might comment afterwards. Oh, he came across as a very friendly person, is a very, very nice person. He came across as a very nice person. The impression that he gave was that he was very nice.

The next word is congenial. And ' congenial' means pleasant to spend time with because the interests and the character of the person you're speaking to, are similar to your own, so pleasant to be with. A person who is congenial is pleasant to be with.

Next one is dreary. Now 'dreary' is just a very negative word. It can be used as in the story to talk about the weather. So a dreary day would be a day which is not pleasant at all, raining, cold, damp, misty, foggy, all those negative things - dreary. A person could be dreary as well, that would mean they were very boring and dull, not interesting at all, a dreary person.

The next one is a positive adjective. It's easy-going. an easy-going person is somebody who is very relaxed in the way that they behave. And they are nice to be with, they like to joke and not be too serious. That's an easy-going person.

Now, the next one is verb to freeze, which you probably know already meaning to reach zero degrees Celsius. So that means water freezes into ice. But also we use it figuratively, that means that if a person freezes, it's because they are suddenly very frightened by something. And so you stop moving and you just stay there without moving. That's a freeze.

Hand over. That's a verb and a phrasal verb to hand over something is to just give something to another person. If you hand over your homework, hand over a report to your boss, that's just to give something to them.

I've got here to raise your eyebrows. So the eyebrows, the hairy part just above your eyes, and if you raise them, it's usually to express some sort of emotion - in this situation of the stories, irony or sarcasm. Or it could be you raise your eyebrows means you lift your eyebrows if you're surprised as well. That's another reason we often raise our eyebrows.

Stroll is the next one. 'Stroll' is a verb. It means to walk along, usually in a very relaxed manner as though we've got lots of time on our hands to stroll along.

To tuck under, is the next one. I suppose really, it's a verb and a preposition. So often, if we have a, well who has newspapers these days, but in this story, somebody has a newspaper, and they tuck it under their arm. That means they put it under their arm to hold it there, to tuck under your arm.

And the last one is amiable, which is another word really, for friendly, friendly. An amiable person is a friendly person.

Now, there's one other thing here that I want you to look out for. In fact, it may be perhaps not something perhaps you're going to notice until I point it out to you. But at the end, I'm going to discuss the importance of intonation on different words, and how intonation completely changes the meaning of the sentence. So I'll talk about that later.

Tom and the gorilla story

Tom and the gorilla image

It was one of those cold winters evenings in England. And the weather is really dreary, in England in winter, when it starts to rain. So it's cold, it's dark, and it's not pleasant, it's unpleasant to be out. So, in Tom's pub, unfortunately, there were no customers. There was nobody there. They'd all stayed at home. So Tom, the landlord of the pub, was alone.

So Tom was standing behind the bar, washing the glasses, as usual, and drying them up. And then suddenly, the door opened, and Tom froze. A huge gorilla, more than two metres tall, strolled into the pub, he shook his umbrella to get the rain off, left it in the umbrella stand and walked across to the bar and sat down.

Tom was petrified. He was extremely frightened, but he tried to keep his calm as best he could. Although this particular gorilla didn't come across as being savage, or wild, or dangerous. In fact, he looked quite friendly and almost distinguished. Not only that, he had a copy of today's Times tucked under his arm.

Tom decided to find his courage and speak to the gorilla.

"Good evening, sir, said Tom nervously. What will it be?"

What will it be is what the landlord will ask you, when you go into a pub. "What will it be?" What he means is, what drink would you like? What would you like to drink?

The gorilla smiled amiably, and he answered,

"I'll have a pint of best if you'd be so kind."

A pint of best. Now what that means is, when you go into a pub, especially one you don't know, you'll see that there are lots of different types of beer. And perhaps you don't know which one to choose. So what we often do is to ask for a pint of best, and the landlord will give you the best one they have.

So, now relaxing a little bit now because the gorilla had this rather easy-going manner. And Tom said,

"Certainly, sir, here you are." And he poured a pint of best for the gorilla.

"How much will that be?" asked the gorilla with a congenial smile.

"That'll be five pounds," replied Tom. Now feeling a little bit more confident.

The gorilla took out his wallet. And handed over a five pound note, then Tom thought he might try some polite conversation.

"You know, sir, it's a funny thing. But we don't get many gorillas in here."

The gorilla looked at Tom, and raised his eyebrows in an ironic way, and answered,

"Quite honestly, I'm not surprised at these prices!"

And that's the end of the story! So, what my point was, at the beginning of the story, about the importance of intonation is really to do with the last line of the story. When the gorilla says, "I'm not surprised at these prices". Now, what he meant was that he wasn't surprised there were no gorillas in Tom's bar, or in Tom's pub, because the price of beer was so expensive - five pounds!

Now, what is important, though, is the intonation. If you listen again to what he said, it was, "I'm not surprised at these prices". So the intonation, the stress, is on these, which gives the idea that the beer is too expensive.

But what if we change that intonation? What if we say it like this? "I'm not surprised at these prices". In this case, what that means is that the gorilla is not surprised at the prices and that the prices are very normal. "I'm not surprised at these prices."

So it shows how important intonation is. If I didn't intonate correctly, then the joke would fail completely, and I'll repeat the last part of the joke again.

"You know, sir, it's a funny thing. But we don't get many gorillas in here."

And the gorilla looked at Tom and raised his eyebrows in a very ironic way, and answered,

"Quite honestly, I'm not surprised at these prices!".

Exercise on vocabulary from the story...