Your English Five a Day #36.4

E318: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast, where I help you expand your English vocabulary and hone your listening skills with five vocabulary items every day of the working week, all while keeping you entertained. Whether you're commuting, working out, or tidying up, this podcast is your perfect companion.

🌟 In today’s episode, we kick off with the verb "diffuse", followed by the adjective "defensive". We then move on to the verb "ship" and the adjective "complete". Finally, we finish our list with the noun "input".

📦 Don't miss out on the engaging examples and a fun storytime that ties everything together, where we encounter Jeremy, who is managing the busy shipping department at Acme Industries and struggling with customer satisfaction due to errors. His boss, Sarah, suggests using a checklist to improve accuracy, but Jeremy initially resists, feeling defensive. After discussing his feelings, can they resolve things and create a more efficient workplace?

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 36, Day 4 of Your English Five-a-Day. What are we doing here? Well, we are pumping up your vocabulary. We are improving your listening skills. And we are generally just trying to have a nice time while making our way to work or exercising or cleaning the house, whatever it is that you're doing right now. I'm very pleased and honoured to be tickling your eardrums. So let's start today's list, which by the way, you can get your hands on and every other item of vocabulary from the entire series, which is over 300 items by now. You can get your hands on it by clicking on the link in the description. So let's start today's list with a verb and it is diffuse. Diffuse. Let's spell this. It's spelled D I F F U S E. Diffuse. To diffuse something is to cause it to spread in many directions. Now, as I'm saying this, I'm looking at my diffuser. I don't know if it has another name. It's like a scent diffuser, and it's a little bottle of oil that has a handful of reeds sitting in it. And the idea is that it's supposed to make the room smell nice without having to burn something. So you get a diffuser and it diffuses the smell, sends the smell off in many different directions so that your room smells nice, hopefully. Here's another example,"People use the internet to diffuse all sorts of nonsense widely." Now diffuse is very similar and often confused with another verb that sounds like diffuse which we actually covered two days ago in Episode 36.2, but that has a completely different spelling and different meaning. Defuse. D E F U S E. To defuse is to reduce the intensity of something. Do you remember that one? Well, this one, diffuse, D I F F U S E, is to spread something in many directions. So, not to be confused, but you will be forgiven if you are confused by them. It's context. It's all about the context. Context is key. So, let's carry on to the next item. We have an adjective and it is defensive. Defensive. We spell this D E F E N S I V E. Defensive. Defensive. If something or someone is described as defensive, then they are acting to protect oneself or something else from harm or attack. So it's all about protection. Here's an example,"The football team played a defensive game, relying heavily on their strong defence to prevent the other team from scoring." It's very apt at the moment because right now we're in the middle of the Euros, so there's lots of football going on, lots of football being played and many teams playing a defensive game. Sometimes you might accuse someone of being defensive when they react to you in a way that suggests that you're attacking them, even when you're not, and you say,"Hey, you don't need to be defensive. Calm down." Like if you say to someone,"Hey, Mary, have you done that project yet? Have you completed the work for that project?" If Mary then snaps back at you and says,"No, I've had so much going on. You know that I've been off this week. You know that I've got a thousand projects to do. Stop giving me grief." Then Mary is being defensive and you say,"Whoa, Mary, take a chill pill. Calm down. There's no need to be defensive. I'm simply asking if you've done the project. I don't mind if you haven't done it. I was just curious. That's all." No need to be defensive. Okay. Next on the list is a verb and it is ship."Hang on a minute, didn't we do ship, the very simple word, just the other day?" Yes, we did, but we did ship the noun and today we're doing ship the verb. How do we spell it, do you remember? Easy peasy. S H I P. Ship with a nice short/ɪ/ ship. To ship something is to transport goods or passengers by sea in order to sail or travel on a ship. So, there are shipping companies that specialise in shipping your goods to other countries. So, if you need to ship something over to another country then you would use a shipping company. Here's an example sentence,"I need to ship my belongings to Australia. Can you recommend a good removals company for me to use?" Do you know, I've never been to Australia. It's on my to-do list. It's on my bucket list. And New Zealand. And actually, while we're at it, there's quite a few other places I need to visit. I better get packing. I better get saving, so I can afford to go to these places. Next on the list is an adjective and it is complete. Complete. We spell this C O M P L E T E. If something is described as complete, then it signifies that it is whole. It is in its entirety. It's without missing parts. So if it is a complete puzzle, then all the pieces are there. When I go to the charity shop and I buy a jigsaw, which I love to collect jigsaws because I'm a big jigsaw fan, I always ask,"This is complete, isn't it?" I hate buying jigsaws and getting them home, spending hours on them and finding there's one piece missing. That's an absolute disaster. It does happen, often actually. Here's another example,"Lydia's collection of stamps was complete, showcasing years of dedicated effort." Do you collect anything? Do you have a complete collection? Next and last on today's list is a noun and it is input. Input, a very commonly used word. We spell it I N P U T, input. So input is your perspective or your opinion that you provide. So, we often give our input or we're asked for our input. Here's an example sentence,"Can I have your input on the new software system we have just installed? I need to get back to the supplier with my feedback." Sometimes when you're within a team situation at work, some people might be overlooked for promotions or for recognition simply because they didn't give much input into the team meetings because they sat there quietly and never chipped in with their input. So they didn't give their opinions, they didn't provide any information from their perspective. Alright, that's our list for today. Let's do a quick recap. We began with the verb diffuse, not to be confused with the verb defuse. Diffuse, D I F F U S E is to spread something in many directions, or cause something to spread in many directions. We had the adjective defensive, which is to act to protect yourself or someone else from attack or harm. We had the verb ship, which is to transport goods or passengers by sea. Then we had the adjective complete, complete, which is signifying something that is whole without any missing pieces. Then we had the noun input, which is to provide your opinion or perspective. So, let's do this for pronunciation purposes. Please repeat after me. Diffuse. Diffuse. Defensive. Defensive. Ship. Ship. Complete. Complete. Input. Input. Fantastic. Alright, what's the adjective that signifies something is whole? Complete. And what verb do I use if I want to transport something by sea? Ship. I'm going to ship it. Absolutely. And if someone starts acting to protect themselves as if they are being attacked, what adjective would I use to describe them? Defensive. They are being defensive. Absolutely. What verb would I use if I'm describing something that caused something to spread in many directions? Diffuse. Yes. Very good. And finally, what noun would I use that is to provide your perspective or opinion? Input. Something that is valuable. Your input. Fantastic. Now, let's listen out for these items in today's storytime. It was the busy season in the shipping department of Acme Industries. And Jeremy was trying to manage the chaos. He and his team had hundreds of orders to ship every day. They ran around getting items, wrapping them, and placing them in boxes. There were times when they didn't know how they were going to complete their work. But somehow, everything got done. Now and then though, mistakes happened, no matter how careful Jeremy and his colleagues were. Customers complained about problems with their orders like missing or broken products. The shipping department had customer satisfaction targets to meet. But when things were busy, it was hard to do the job fast and keep customers happy. One day, Jeremy's boss, Sarah, offered some input about how to manage the orders better to avoid errors. She had been to a management seminar about using checklists to avoid mistakes. Sarah was keen to diffuse her new knowledge at Acme. She suggested that Jeremy and his staff use a checklist to not miss any steps in the shipping process. Instead of appreciating this input, Jeremy got defensive. He felt Sarah was telling him he wasn't good enough at his job. He also secretly wished he had come up with the idea himself. Jeremy pretended to use the new system, but he wasn't really. When Sarah found out, she was upset and disappointed. She tried to talk to him about it, but Jeremy didn't want to listen. One day though, she offered to take him out for coffee to discuss things. Sarah explained that she thought he was doing a great job. But she wanted to help him make things even better. Jeremy understood and explained that he had felt defensive because of his ego. Saying the words out loud made him realise how silly he had been. He agreed to use Sarah's checklist system. Customer satisfaction went up and Jeremy and his team were less stressed. Thank you so much for letting me tickle your eardrums today. I do hope you enjoyed it and I do hope to see you back again tomorrow. Until then, take very good care and goodbye.