Episode 0121

My name is Marco.

And my name's Erica.

So, today we're bringing you another advanced lesson and this time it's kind of historical.

Like the name suggests, we are listening in as a president says goodbye to the nation, uh before he steps down from his role as president.

Now, actually this dialogue is very much based on President Eisenhower's farewell speech.

Oh, okay, so a pretty, pretty famous. Now, we have to tell you that we did change the speech a little bit, right?

Yeah, just a little bit to make it a little bit more understandable, but it's basically what he said to the nation back in 1969.

All right. Now, um I will as well tell you that this is a pretty hard dialogue.

It is very hard because the structures are a little bit complicated and even to a certain point a little bit poetic, right?

Mm-hm. So why are we taking this this speech as our dialogue? What are we going to learn from this?

Well, we're going to learn some structures and some words that you can use maybe on a resignation letter or maybe in a celebration you want to thank people for coming.

Exactly. Now, this presidential farewell speech is divided into two parts. So, today we're going to do part one and then next time we'll finish the speech with part two.

So, let's listen to President Eisenhower as he says goodbye to the nation and we'll come back just in a little bit.

Good evening, my fellow Americans. Three days from now, after a century of service to our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office, as in a traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave taking and farewell and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new president and all who will labor with him, God speed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their president and the Congress to find essential agreement on questions of great importance, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of our great nation.

My own relations with Congress began on a remote and tenuous basis when long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point.

I then had the pleasure of building more intimate relationships with Congress during the war and the immediate postwar period.

Finally, we have progressed to the mutually interdependent relationship we've had during these past eight years.

A good speaker and well, he said a lot of really nice things when he was saying goodbye.

Yeah, pretty inspiring, I thought.

Language takeaway.

Well, Eisenhower said that in three days he shall lay down the responsibilities.

To lay down the responsibilities.

All right, lay down something.

Basically, we understand the the the verb to lay down, right?

Yeah, to to put it down, to put to put it on the ground.

Now, he's using it with responsibilities, which is a little bit strange, but it's kind of like a metaphor by saying lay down arms, to lay down your weapons.

Right. And you know what, this is a really common phrase that we would hear, um especially when we're talking about, you know, the end of a war or something like that.

To lay down your arms, to lay down your weapons.

Yeah. Yeah. So here, I think Eisenhower is kind of referencing this and giving us a little bit of um, bit of poetry in his speech.

Right. So it's not that he's quitting, it's not that he's being fired.

Yeah.

He's just like finishing what he started.

Yes, so he's laying down his responsibilities. Now, I think this would be quite an interesting phrase to use, for example, in a resignation letter.

Right, so I would say, uh a month from now, I will lay down my responsibilities as manager.

Yeah. All right, so that sounds pretty good. Now, he said he's going to be laying down the responsibilities in a traditional and solemn ceremony.

All right, solemn.

Solemn.

Now, solemn, what is what does that mean? What is a solemn ceremony?

Well, a solemn ceremony would be a a serious, respectful, and a little bit sad ceremony.

Okay. So, it's a serious matter, it's um and it's very respectful, right?

Yeah. So you might you might say, for example, um, uh on the 11th of November, when you're remembering the war, you might say something like, this is a very solemn day.

Very good.

Okay. And the authority of the presidency is vested in my successor.

Okay, so interesting verb. Uh no wait. So interesting word, vested.

Vested.

The authority vested in my successor.

Very good. So this word basically means power that I have by law.

Right. So the this power, this important power you have is given to you by the law, by the president, by the country.

This is a very common word you will hear in a wedding. When the priest or the person that's leading the wedding will say, by the power vested in me by the state of California.

Yeah, I now pronounce you husband husband and wife.

I now pronounce you husband and wife.

So he's saying the power that I have given to me by the state of California, I can now make you be married.

So here Eisenhower is saying the authority of the presidency is vested in my successor. So the power of the presidency will be given to his um given to the next next president by law.

Exactly. And he also wished the new president and everyone with him, he said, God speed.

All right. God speed.

God speed.

I wish you God speed.

Now, God speed, what does that mean?

Well, it's kind of a blessing, you know? Um, it it basically means good luck and good fortune.

All right. And especially in a journey, right?

Yeah, I think you'd almost only use this when someone's going off on a on a big trip or a journey. So, um here they're going on the journey of the presidency.

Right. So I wish you God speed.

God speed.

Very good. And now let's take a look at our last set of words. Uh when he was talking about Congress, he said that his relation with Congress began on a remote and tenuous basis.

All right, so two interesting words here, remote and tenuous.

Now, remote, we understand as being far away or distant.

Yeah. What about tenuous, though?

But tenuous is kind of unimportant or not really relevant.

Example one.

How can you say the Earth is actually getting cooler? That is a pretty tenuous argument.

Example two.

John believes that Elvis Presley is still alive. He's got a tenuous hold on reality.

Example three.

You're making yourself seem more important than you are. The connection between our company success and your performance is tenuous at best.

All right, so as we've said, these are some pretty um pretty difficult words uh that we've found in the dialogue. But now I want to go and look at some really interesting um formal structures that Eisenhower used here. So let's look at those now in fluency builder.

Fluency builder.

All right, on fluency builder today, we have three phrases and well, starting with the first one, I think it's one of the most interesting ones.

He said, three days from now, after a half a century of service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office.

All right, so what's interesting about this?

If you take a look at the structure, he's saying three days from now,

which is

Future.

Future. And then he makes a reference to the past, after a half century of service.

Mm. Okay, so we got future past.

And then again future, I shall lay down the responsibilities.

All right, so this actually is quite a good structure if you're giving um a farewell speech or even even I could imagine using this at a wedding.

Right. How would you use it in a wedding?

Very good. So you're making reference to the future, and then a past event or something that's been going on for a while.

Mm-hm.

And then future again.

Why don't we do one more example?

So, for example, in a resignation letter, I can say, uh, I can say one month from now, after 30 years of hard work and dedication to this company, I shall lay down my responsibilities as product manager.

All right, interesting.

All right. So, we can use it and it's it sounds good, it sounds very professional and

And very poetic.

Very poetic, it sounds nice.

Yeah. All right, so that's one interesting structure. Now, why don't we go on to this next kind of very uh formal and helpful, you know, in a in a very formal speech.

Well, uh President Eisenhower said, this evening, I come to you with a message of leave taking and farewell.

So this evening, I come to you with a message of leave taking and farewell.

So it's a very nice way of saying, I'm talking to you today because I am saying goodbye.

Yes. So, what I really like about this phrase is the beginning part. This evening, I come to you with a message of, Mm-hm.

Very good. And now the part when he says leave taking and farewell, it's basically saying taking leave or taking like a vacation, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

And farewell.

Goodbye. Goodbye.

And what about our last phrase?

Um, this is actually a bit of a long one. So, um I'm going to read it now.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on questions of great importance. The wise resolution of which will better shape the future of our great nation.

Okay, great. Now let's take a look at the first part. Uh basically he's saying, uh the people expect the president and the Congress to give them answers, right?

Well, yeah, to to agree on on important issues.

But in the part when he says, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of our great nation.

Yeah, and this is the part I want to focus on. The wise resolution of which. Now, this is a really wonderful sort of a formal structure. So, we can see what he's doing here. He's talking about the first idea, right? So, the president and the Congress, um need to find agreement on important issues, right?

Now, the wise resolution of which. So he's referring back to that idea.

Uh-huh.

So, the wise resolution of what?

Of the essential agreement on questions of great importance.

Right. So, really useful structure. Why don't we hear a few more examples of this?

Example one.

We now face a great challenge. The overcoming of which lead us all to untold riches and success.

Example two.

We, as a company, now face our most difficult months to date. The outcome of which will determine our company's future.

Example three.

The ambitious plan to reduce poverty, the start of which was launched last Tuesday in New York, will require a huge investment of taxpayers dollars.

All right, so as you can hear from the examples, we have the main idea and then he passes on, but then kind of refers back to it again.

Yeah, and this sounds quite formal, but also quite literary, um and intelligent, doesn't it?

Yeah, it makes it makes you sound well spoken.

Mm-hm. Very good. This was quite a difficult dialogue with some really um interesting and and tricky structures and words. So, why don't we hear it one more time altogether?

Good evening, my fellow Americans. Three days from now, after a century of service to our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office, as in a traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave taking and farewell and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new president and all who will labor with him, God speed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their president and the Congress to find essential agreement on questions of great importance, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of our great nation.

My own relations with Congress began on a remote and tenuous basis when long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point.

I then had the pleasure of building more intimate relationships with Congress during the war and the immediate postwar period.

Finally, we have progressed to the mutually interdependent relationship we've had during these past eight years.

He's a pretty convincing actor at that.

Not quite.

So, um Pete is going to give us a little bit of insight about President Eisenhower. Well, all right, so what can you tell us about President Eisenhower?

Well, he started off as a general. Uh he was an accomplished officer all through the early 20th century and then he was the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II.

Hm.

And so now he's most famous for D-Day.

He was leading it?

Uh or he was on the battlefield, what was he doing?

He he was he was the organizer. He was

Oh, he was kind of like the the brains behind the operation.

Yeah. And I don't know if you even want to leave this in, but there's a there's a really cool document that he wrote right before the invasion and it said, he basically knew that this was going to go one of two ways and he wrote down a script to read in case of fail and he basically said, you know, I'm sorry to inform you that uh the invasion did not go as planned and this is set back our war effort.

And when the invasion went well, he threw that in the trash and then one of his aides found that and was like, wow, this is a historical document and they kept the

Oh really?

Yeah.

So they had the they have the copy.

Alternate history.

All right, so he was an accomplished general, um an amazing uh warrior, um but what about his presidency?

Well, at the beginning, probably the biggest thing he did was to wrap up the Korean War, uh which was a vow he made during his campaign and then he visited Korea. Uh obviously the war is still technically on, but they did arrange a ceasefire.

Uh Eisenhower built up the interstate highway system, which is one of the big reasons that America was able to become economically successful in the 20th century.

He did it basically so that in case of a war, we'd have an easy way of shipping our soldiers and nukes across the country, but

But it worked well anyways.

Yeah, it it it's one of these things that pays a side benefit. At least he had to sell it to the to the to the country that way. It's very likely that he didn't intend ever to use it that way, but you know, you have to have like it's like the war on Terry, you got to sell these things, you know.

Well, and I guess it's had a huge impact, um not only on the economy of the states, but also like the culture and and the way that um people view the car and it's affect on society.

Definitely.

So, pretty influential guy, this Eisenhower.

Yeah, and uh very historical lesson. It's just a little bit of a culture and maybe some insight on American history. It's not like we're politically active or anything, but um, but yeah, it was some interesting information there and also, well, he was considered to be a pretty good president.

Yeah, he's rated. I wouldn't say among the top five or so, but uh quite accomplished.

Well, maybe not the greatest president we've ever seen, but uh he wrote a pretty good farewell speech. So I think we have that to thank him for.

All right guys. So if you have any other questions or comments, you can come to the website at englishpod.com and uh you can leave them there for Erica or I.

The EnglishPod audio review.

Listen to the meaning, then say the vocabulary word.

The national legislative body of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Congress.

Flimsy, weak or uncertain.

Tenuous.

A hill in Washington D.C. where the Capitol building sits and Congress meets.

Capitol Hill.

Serious, formal.

Solemn.

To present as a gift or an honor, confer.

Bestow.

To give someone the legal right or power to do something.

Vest.

Difficult to accomplish, strenuous.

Arduous.

An economic state of growth with rising profits and full employment.

Prosperity.

A formal statement of agreement.

Resolution.

Used to wish success to someone who is going away.

Godspeed.

Let's try that faster.

To give someone the legal right or power to do something.

Vest.

Difficult to accomplish, strenuous.

Arduous.

Used to wish success to someone who is going away.

Godspeed.

To present as a gift or an honor, confer.

Bestow.

A hill in Washington D.C. where the Capitol building sits and Congress meets.

Capitol Hill.

The national legislative body of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Congress.

Serious, formal.

Solemn.

An economic state of growth with rising profits and full employment.

Prosperity.

A formal statement of agreement.

Resolution.

Flimsy, weak or uncertain.

Tenuous.

Now say the word and hear it in a sentence.

Tenuous.

Tenuous.

John believes that Elvis Presley is still alive. He's got a tenuous hold on reality.

Tenuous.

Vest.

With the powers vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife.

Vest.

I present you with the key to our city by the powers vested in me as mayor of this great city.

Vest.

The power to declare war is vested in the Congress.

Solemn.

Solemn.

Yom Kippur is a traditionally solemn Jewish holiday that focuses on self-reflection and self-improvement.

Solemn.

Resolution.

It is paramount that Democrats and Republicans come to a resolution for the economic stimulus plan.

Resolution.

How will President Obama find a resolution for healthcare reform that will benefit everyone?

Resolution.

I've made a resolution to stop smoking and lose 20 pounds this year.

Godspeed.

We wish you Godspeed. May you return from your journey safely.

Godspeed.

Godspeed. When you are fighting for our country, know that your family is proud of you.

Godspeed.

It's time for me to go out and experience life for myself. Goodbye and Godspeed.