이것저것

Neil
Every four years the best players in the world gather for one month in the summer to take part in the biggest event in football – the World Cup.

But this year, for the first time ever, the competition is taking place in winter. Why? Because the 2022 World Cup is happening in Qatar.

- Every four years : 매 4년 마다

- gather for one month : 한달 동안 모이다 ( for + 기간 / 거리 : ~ 동안 )

- for the first time ever: 최초로 (ever 의 뜻 4개 : 언젠가, 여태껏, 강조, 계속해서)

   1) Have you ever been to Japan ?, Will you ever marry me ? If you ever change your mind, let me know

   2) As ever, he skipped the class (as ever: 여느 때처럼, than ever: 여태껏 보다)

   3) Dont' ever do this again (Never ever ~ 은 좀 더 강조)

   4) They lived happily ever after 

Beth
Over a million fans from all over the world are expected to visit Qatar for the World Cup which starts on the 20th of November.

Because temperatures in Qatar exceed 45 degrees in the summer, the competition was moved to the winter. But the decision to hold the World Cup in the tiny, oil-rich Gulf state has been controversial.

  [on]

   ~ which starts on the 20th of November: 11월 20일에 시작한다 ("날짜"를 의미하는 경우 전치사 "on", "년도,월"에는 "in")

  [move]

   move to(변경하다), move up(앞당기다), move back(미루다)

    1) Can we move up the date to May 25th?, I want to move the meeting up to next Monday

    2) We'd like to move the meeting back,  I want to move it back 3 days

  [hold]

   hold a meeting/event (개최하다): The conference will be held in Atlanta

   hold your tongue (말 안하고 참다): I had some criticisms of the manager's ideas, but i held my tongue

   hold your nose(코를 막다): we held our noses as we walked past the garbage cans 

   be on hold (통화중 대기): I called the bank and they put me on hold for ten minutes

   hold someone responsible(책임 지우다) : Since you're the team leader, the boss will hold you responsible

   hold your ground(입장을 고수하다): I tried to talk him out of leaving his job, but he held his ground

   hold on tight (손으로 꽉 쥐다) : I held on tight to my purse as i pushed through the crowded street   

Neil
One of the richest countries in the world, Qatar has no tradition of playing football and some have criticised the focus on money instead of sport.

And there are other criticisms too – about human rights and the treatment of the migrant construction workers who built the football stadiums, roads, transport systems and hotels without which the World Cup could not happen.

- has no trandition of ~ : ~ 에 전통이 없다

- have criticised the focus on ~ : ~에 집중하는 것을 비판해왔다

- (A) without which (B) : A 없으면 B 다 (Money is like a sixth senth without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.)   

Beth
In this programme we’ll be asking: is it right for Qatar to host the World Cup? And of course, we’ll be learning some new and useful vocabulary as well.

Neil
But before that I have a question for you Beth. Which country has won the World Cup the most times? Is it:

a) Italy?
b) Brazil? or,
c) Germany?

Beth
I think it must be Brazil.

Neil
OK, I’ll reveal the answer at the end of the programme. Advertising for the Qatar World Cup shows football fans staying in new hotels and watching matches in air-conditioned stadiums.

But hidden behind this, the lives of the migrant workers from Nepal, India and other South Asian countries reveal a very different story.

Beth
The population of Qatar is tiny and 95% of the total workforce are foreigners working in extreme heat, housed in poor quality accommodation, and often underpaid. Rothna Begum, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, explained their situation to BBC World Service programme, Business Daily:

Rothna Begum
We’re still recording and documenting migrant workers facing abuse and exploitation in Qatar.

They include workers reporting having paid exorbitant and illegal recruitment fees to secure work abroad on two-year contracts, and then finding out they’re coming on three-month visas, which means that they're not able to make up or recoup the price that they've paid to actually get this job, and may well be sent home in debt on top of everything else.

Neil
Migrant workers face exploitation. Exploitation means treating someone unfairly to get some advantage for yourself. Many of the World Cup workers were exploited by being paid less than agreed, being paid late, or not being paid at all.

Beth
The construction jobs seemed a good opportunity for migrant workers to save money to send home to their families. Many paid exorbitant fees – fees which were much bigger than they should be, just to get a job in Qatar.

Neil
But despite being given two-year job contracts, some workers were only allowed to stay three months. Because they couldn’t make enough money, many returned home in debt – owing money to someone that they will have to pay back. What’s worse, many have died building the football stadiums, in accidents, or due to overwork and heat stress.

Beth
So, with all this criticism, added to the billions of dollars Qatar spent preparing for the competition, was it worth it? James Dawsey is an expert on the politics of football in the Middle East. Here he explains to BBC World Service’s, Business Daily, that for Qatar, hosting the World Cup is more about improving its international reputation than economics:

James Dawsey
But this is not about economics for Qatar. Qatar is a small state. It is sandwiched between two regional behemoths: Saudi Arabia and Iran. And so its whole policy is geared towards soft power, whether that's sports, whether that's the airport and the airline…

Neil
Qatar may be rich thanks to its oil, but it’s not a large country unlike neighbouring Saudi Arabia and Iran, countries which James Dawsey called behemoths – something which is extremely large and powerful.

Beth
Qatar is sandwiched between these larger counties. If you’re sandwiched between two things you’re in a narrow, tight space between them. Because Qatar isn’t as powerful as its bigger neighbours, it uses soft power – the way a country uses its economic and cultural influence to persuade other countries, instead of using military power. Hosting an important international event like the World Cup is a part of Qatar’s soft power strategy to be considered an important country on the world stage.

Neil
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the debate, this will be the first Arab nation to host the World Cup, although it’s unlikely that the Qatari team will actually win - unlike a more famous footballing nation, Italy, who won the first World Cup they hosted in 1934.

Beth
And speaking of World Cup winners, what was the answer to your question, Neil? Which country has won the most World Cups? I guessed it was Brazil…

Neil
Which was…. the correct answer of course! With five title wins, Brazil is the most successful World Cup team followed closely by Italy and Germany with four titles each. OK, let’s recap the vocabulary we’ve learned starting with exploitation - treating someone unfairly in order to benefit yourself.

Beth
If the price of something is exorbitant, it’s much higher than it should be.

Neil
A debt is an amount of money that you owe to someone else.

Beth
A behemoth refers to something which is extremely large and powerful.

Neil
And if you’re sandwiched between two things, you’re in a in a tight, narrow space between them.

Beth
And finally, soft power describes strategies used by a country to increase its power through economic and cultural influences, instead of fighting wars. 

Sam
In this programme we’re finding out all about food flavours. Although everyone knows what food they like the taste of, the science behind flavours is complex. Flavour involves much more than tasting with the tongue – it’s also influenced by how food looks, smells, and even how it’s described.

Neil
In this programme we’ll be meeting the flavourists – scientists who combine different natural and artificial ingredients to create the flavours we love to taste in our food. And of course, we’ll be learning some new vocabulary as well.

Sam
Sounds delicious, Neil, but first I have a question for you. No-one really knows why but certain flavours seem to work well together. Some scientists think classic combinations like lemon and lime, or strawberries and cream are so popular because their chemicals overlap in special ways. Sometimes this creates new, interesting and unusual flavours. So, what weirdly popular combination was invented by British chef, Heston Blumenthal? Was it…

a) dark chocolate and sea salt?

b) milk chocolate and chilli?  or,

c) white chocolate and caviar?

Neil
Well, I’ve tried sea salt and chocolate and I think it tastes great, so I’ll say a).

Sam
OK, Neil. I’ll reveal the correct answer at the end of the programme.

Neil
Nowadays, the flavour industry is big business. Flavourists work in high-tech laboratories and every new ice-cream, crisp or toothpaste flavour is the result of years of scientific research. But it wasn’t always like that.

Here’s food historian, Dr Nadia Berenstein, describing the beginnings of the flavour industry in the 19th century to Ruth Alexander, presenter of BBC World Service programme, The Food Chain…

Dr Nadia Berenstein
There's really only a handful of people and maybe a dozen or so companies that are really involved, and at that point they really are kind of working with secret recipes that were kept very secure, and sometimes passed down within families from father to son, so it really seemed like a guild structure from the Middle Ages at that point.

Ruth Alexander
Was it seen as some kind of dark art?

Dr Nadia Berenstein
Yes, the term black art does come up in some of the early writing of people who were producing flavours at this point.

Sam
To begin with, there were only around dozen, that’s twelve, companies experimenting with food flavours. The recipes they used were kept secret and only shared with family or trusted friends. Dr Berenstein compares these companies to a guild - an organization of people who do the same job or have the same interests.

Neil
Because it was so secretive and mysterious, people saw making flavours as a dark art - a method of achieving something in a clever but dishonest or wicked way. But this all changed after the Second World War, when the invention of processed food which could be bought in supermarkets, and kept fresh at home in the fridge, increased the demand for new and exciting flavours.

Sam
Here’s Dr Berenstein again, explaining the work of present-day flavourists to BBC World Service programme, The Food Chain…

Dr Nadia Berenstein
So, essentially becoming a flavourist today is still an apprenticeship process. There's no academic path to it, right. Your training is on-the-job, working alongside a master flavourist at a flavour and fragrance company, or at some of the bigger food companies will have their own flavour divisions. It’s a scientific profession for sure. You have to know a lot about chemistry, but it is a creative profession. At the very heart of this industrial food system, there are these craft artisans who are essentially designing molecule by molecule, the flavours that shape the way food is made to taste.

Neil
Today’s flavourists learn their art by serving an apprenticeship – a period of time spent working for a skilled master, often for low payment, in order to learn their skills. Although a background in chemistry is important, you can’t study flavours at university – the training happens on-the-job, at your place of work, while you are working.

Sam
Dr Berenstein calls flavourists craft artisans – people doing skilled work with their hands, and she describes their creations as the marriage of science and art.

Neil
Yes, I love the idea of the flavourist as a magician, adding a pinch of this flavour, or a drop of that oil to create the perfect, magical taste! I wonder if that’s what British chef, Heston Blumenthal, was trying to do…

Sam
In my question, I asked what popular flavour combination was invented by chef,  Heston Blumenthal?

Neil
I said it was a) dark chocolate and sea salt. So, was I right?

Sam
Well, it’s true that sweet and salty flavours go together well, but the correct answer was… white chocolate and caviar, a combination described by Swiss master flavourist, François Benzi, as  “weird but wonderful”. Right, let’s recap the vocabulary we’ve learned, starting with a dozen which means twelve.

Neil
Something described as a dark art refers to a method of achieving something in a clever but dishonest way.

Sam
A guild is an organization of people who do the same job.

Neil
An apprenticeship is the period of time an apprentice spends watching and working with a skilled master in order to learn their skills.

Sam
When you do something on-the-jobit happens in the workplace, while you are working.

Neil

Sam, does this situation sound familiar? It’s a colleague’s birthday next week. A male boss says to a female employee – “You’re great at organising things – would you buy a card and get everyone in the office to sign it? Oh, and we’ll need to order a cake too – thanks, you’re amazing!”

Sam

Yes, I have seen that. A male boss asks a woman to do all the jobs that keep the office running but do nothing to advance her career or improve her chances of promotion – that’s when someone moves up into a higher, better paid position in a company.

Neil

Sadly, this happens a lot. In many workplaces around the world, it’s the men who are considered ‘born leaders’ and promoted up the corporate career ladder, while the women are given less important roles. Even today, many working women find themselves at a point in their career beyond which they cannot progress, an invisible barrier to succeed referred to as the glass ceiling.

Sam

But in this programme, we’ll be meeting the members of The No Club, a group of women saying ‘no’ to the glass ceiling by publicly questioning the kinds of jobs men and women are asked to do in the workplace. And, of course, we’ll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

Neil

But first, I have a question for you, Sam. Despite the glass ceiling, women do make it to the top jobs in many areas of work and business, even in the male-dominated world of politics. So, who was the first woman to become British Prime Minister?

Was it: a) Theresa May? b) Nicola Sturgeon? or c) Margaret Thatcher?

Sam

I know the answer to this one, Neil. It’s c) Margaret Thatcher.

Neil

OK. Well, we’ll find out later if you’re right. Professor Lise Vesterlund is one of the four academics who co-wrote The No Club, a book discussing how females disproportionately take on the unimportant, less visible tasks at work.

Sam

Professor Vesterlund calls these non-promotable tasks, jobs like taking notes, organising social events or chairing meetings – jobs that take time and effort but do little to increase company profits or to boost your career. Research shows that most of these tasks are done by women. Here’s Lise Vesterlund explaining more to BBC World Service programme, Business Daily

Prof Lise Vesterlund

We’ve been noticing gender differences in wages, in advancement, in negotiation. Burn-out for women is much greater than it is for men. Their dissatisfaction with their work is much greater. And we’ve been trying to sort of address all these objectives with lots of different methods and techniques, and what is interesting about the non-promotable work is that it, in a very structural sense, contributes to all of those differences.

Neil

Professor Vesterlund lists some workplace gender imbalances, including job dissatisfaction and burn-out – that’s tiredness and exhaustion caused by working too hard. Many of these issues are made worse by non-promotable tasks.

Sam

Natalie Quail agrees. Natalie started her successful dental cosmetics company, SmileTime, after winning a business competition on the TV show, Dragon’s Den. Here she tells BBC World Service’s Business Daily about her experience of being asked to take on non-promotable tasks in her work as a trainee solicitor.

Natalie Quail

As a trainee solicitor pretty much every task that you take on is a nonpromotable task. Note-taking is one of them, in meetings, when you, kind of, are told that you can’t really speak or say anything. I was tasked with being the team party organiser, so that was my role. It does definitely occur that the women in the team, the level of multitasking they’re doing just … far outstrips the men in a lot of cases, for example, you know, a lot of women in the team would also be juggling having kids at home, being a working mum.

Neil

Natalie found herself doing non-promotable tasks. She thinks many women in the workplace are expected to be good at multitasking - doing more than one thing at the same time.

Sam

For working mums, who are raising a family as well as developing careers at work, this involves some juggling - trying to manage your life when you are involved in many different activities which all demand your time.

Neil

In the forty years since the term ‘glass ceiling’ was invented, it seems not much has changed for working women. But there is some good news. The number of female managers and women working in jobs traditionally seen as male has increased dramatically, and those companies where getting promotion is based on ability not gender, have benefitted from talented, hard-working female leaders.

Sam

And speaking of female leaders, Neil, what was the answer to your question? You asked me who was the first female British Prime Minister, and I said Margaret Thatcher. Was I right?

Neil

You were right! Mrs Thatcher, nicknamed The Iron Lady, became Prime Minister in May 1979, the first woman to break the political glass ceiling in the UK - an invisible barrier to advancing in your career.

Sam

OK, let’s recap the other vocabulary we’ve learnt, starting with promotion - moving up into a higher, more important position in your company.

Neil

The term non-promotable tasks describes those unimportant jobs which help your organisation but do nothing to advance your career. They are often given to women.

Sam

If you have burn-out, you’re exhausted from working too hard.

Neil

Multitasking is the ability to do several things at the same time.

Sam

And finally, juggling involves managing many different activities which all demand your time. We’ve managed our time pretty well so far but now our six minutes are up! Bye for now!

Neil

Sam 이 상황 익숙해요? 다음주 한 동료의 생일입니다. 남자 상사가 여자 직원에게 말합니다 "뭔가 준비하는 거 잘하니까, 카드 사서 사무실에 모든 사람에게 서명받아 줄래요? 오. 그리고 케익 주문도 부탁해요. 고마워요  

Sam, does this situation sound familiar? It’s a colleague’s birthday next week. A male boss says to a female employee – “You’re great at organising things – would you buy a card and get everyone in the office to sign it? Oh, and we’ll need to order a cake too – thanks, you’re amazing!”

Sam

네 본적 있어요. 남자 상사가 여성에게 사무실 운영 관련 모든 일을 시키면서도, 그 여성의 커리어 진작이나 승진 기회를 늘려주는 것은 안하는 것이요. - 회사 내에 누군가는 더 높고, 좋은 보수를 받은 직책으로 올라갈때 말이죠.  

Yes, I have seen that. A male boss asks a woman to do all the jobs that keep the office running but do nothing to advance her career or improve her chances of promotion – that’s when someone moves up into a higher, better paid position in a company.

Neil

슬프게도, 이런일이 많이 일어나죠. 전세계의 많은 직장 환경에서, 남자들은 'Born leaders'로 여겨지며, 기업의 승진 계급을 올려주는 반면, 여성은 덜 중요한 직책이 주어지죠. 심지어 오늘날에, 많은 여성 직장인들이 그들이 더이상 나아갈수 없는 경력의 지점에 있다는것을 발견하는데, 이것은 '유리 천장'이라 불리는 보이지 않는 장벽입니다.

Sadly, this happens a lot. In many workplaces around the world, it’s the men who are considered ‘born leaders’ and promoted up the corporate career ladder, while the women are given less important roles. Even today, many working women find themselves at a point in their career beyond which they cannot progress, an invisible barrier to succeed referred to as the glass ceiling.

Sam

그러나 이 프로그램에서는, 남성과 여성이 직장에서 어떤일을 해야하는지 공식적으로 질문함으로써 유리 천장에 대해 'no' 라고 얘기하는 여성 그룹인 No club의 멤버를 만나볼 것입니다. 그리고 물론 유용한 새로운 단어들도 배워볼 것입니다.

But in this programme, we’ll be meeting the members of The No Club, a group of women saying ‘no’ to the glass ceiling by publicly questioning the kinds of jobs men and women are asked to do in the workplace. And, of course, we’ll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

Neil

하지만 먼저, 질문이 있어요 Sam. 유리 천장에도 불구하고, 여성들은 많은 일과 사업 분야에서 top 직책을 이뤄냈어요. 심지어 남성 위주 세계인 정치계에서도요. 그래서, 처음으로 영국의 수상이 된 여성은 누구일까요?

But first, I have a question for you, Sam. Despite the glass ceiling, women do make it to the top jobs in many areas of work and business, even in the male-dominated world of politics. So, who was the first woman to become British Prime Minister?

Was it: a) Theresa May? b) Nicola Sturgeon? or c) Margaret Thatcher?

Sam

I know the answer to this one, Neil. It’s c) Margaret Thatcher.

Neil

좋아요 그럼. 맞는지는 나중에 알아보도록 하죠. Lise Vesterlund 교수님은 어떻게 여성이 부당하게 중요하지 않고 덜 보이는 업무를 맡고 있는지를 다룬 책 "The No Club"의 공동저자인 네명의 학자들 중 한분입니다.

OK. Well, we’ll find out later if you’re right. Professor Lise Vesterlund is one of the four academics who co-wrote The No Club, a book discussing how females disproportionately take on the unimportant, less visible tasks at work.

Vesterlund 교수님은 이러한 승진과 무관한 일, 즉, 노트하기, 이벤트 준비하기, 의장 회의같은 업무들- 시간과 노력을 필요로 하지만 회사 이익이나 커리어 개발에는 거의 도움이 되지 않는 업무라고 부릅니다. 연구는 이러한 일들중 대부분은 여성이 하고 있습니다. 여기 Vesterlund 교수님께서 BBC World Service program, Business Daily 에서 더 설명합니다.

Sam

Professor Vesterlund calls these non-promotable tasks, jobs like taking notes, organising social events or chairing meetings – jobs that take time and effort but do little to increase company profits or to boost your career. Research shows that most of these tasks are done by women. Here’s Lise Vesterlund explaining more to BBC World Service programme, Business Daily

Prof Lise Vesterlund

임금, 승진, 협의 등에서 성 차별을 알아채고 있습니다. 여성들의 Burn-out은 남성보다 훨씬 더 큽니다. 그들이 그들의 직업에 대한 불만족이 더 큽니다. 그리고 우리는 이 모든 목표들을 다양한 방법과 기술로 해결하려고 노력해왔습니다. 그리고 non-promotable 업무와 관련해서 흥미로운 것은 (구조적인 의미에서) 그것이 그런 모든 차이에 기여하고 있다는 점 입니다.

We’ve been noticing gender differences in wages, in advancement, in negotiation. Burn-out for women is much greater than it is for men. Their dissatisfaction with their work is much greater. And we’ve been trying to sort of address all these objectives with lots of different methods and techniques, and what is interesting about the non-promotable work is that it, in a very structural sense, contributes to all of those differences.

Neil

Vesterlund 교수는 업무 불만족과 burn-out을 포함하여 일부 직장 성 불균형을 리스트합니다. 그것은 너무 일을 열심히 함으로인해 피로함과 지침으로 인한 것입니다.  많은 이런 이슈들이 non-promotable task로 인해 더 악화됩니다.

Professor Vesterlund lists some workplace gender imbalances, including job dissatisfaction and burn-out – that’s tiredness and exhaustion caused by working too hard. Many of these issues are made worse by non-promotable tasks.

Sam

Natalie Quail agrees. Natalie started her successful dental cosmetics company, SmileTime, after winning a business competition on the TV show, Dragon’s Den. Here she tells BBC World Service’s Business Daily about her experience of being asked to take on non-promotable tasks in her work as a trainee solicitor.

Natalie Quail

As a trainee solicitor pretty much every task that you take on is a nonpromotable task. Note-taking is one of them, in meetings, when you, kind of, are told that you can’t really speak or say anything. I was tasked with being the team party organiser, so that was my role. It does definitely occur that the women in the team, the level of multitasking they’re doing just … far outstrips the men in a lot of cases, for example, you know, a lot of women in the team would also be juggling having kids at home, being a working mum.

Neil

Natalie found herself doing non-promotable tasks. She thinks many women in the workplace are expected to be good at multitasking - doing more than one thing at the same time.

Sam

For working mums, who are raising a family as well as developing careers at work, this involves some juggling - trying to manage your life when you are involved in many different activities which all demand your time.

Neil

In the forty years since the term ‘glass ceiling’ was invented, it seems not much has changed for working women. But there is some good news. The number of female managers and women working in jobs traditionally seen as male has increased dramatically, and those companies where getting promotion is based on ability not gender, have benefitted from talented, hard-working female leaders.

Sam

And speaking of female leaders, Neil, what was the answer to your question? You asked me who was the first female British Prime Minister, and I said Margaret Thatcher. Was I right?

Neil

You were right! Mrs Thatcher, nicknamed The Iron Lady, became Prime Minister in May 1979, the first woman to break the political glass ceiling in the UK - an invisible barrier to advancing in your career.

Sam

OK, let’s recap the other vocabulary we’ve learnt, starting with promotion - moving up into a higher, more important position in your company.

Neil

The term non-promotable tasks describes those unimportant jobs which help your organisation but do nothing to advance your career. They are often given to women.

Sam

If you have burn-out, you’re exhausted from working too hard.

Neil

Multitasking is the ability to do several things at the same time.

Sam

And finally, juggling involves managing many different activities which all demand your time. We’ve managed our time pretty well so far but now our six minutes are up! Bye for now!

Neil

But before that I have a question for you, Sam. We’ve been talking about the early days of the internet, but do you know the name of the first ever internet browser, the engine for searching websites? Was it:

Sam

VOCABULARY

[해석연습]

Sam

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I’m Sam.

Neil
And I’m Neil.

Sam
In March 2020, the World Health Organisation, the WHO, declared Covid-19 a pandemic.

Now, after two and half years in the shadow of Covid, for many people travel restrictions are ending,

and many people around the world are starting their lives again.

But not everyone.

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Neil
Whether it’s because of lockdowns and not seeing friends, or getting sick, even dying, everyone wants to see an end to the pandemic.

But with cases of Covid infections still in the millions, and doctors warning about new variants of the disease, is the pandemic really coming to an end?

In this programme, we’ll be finding out how pandemics end,

and, as usual, we’ll be learning some related vocabulary as well.

Sam
Of course, pandemics are nothing new.

Ancient texts are full of stories of plagues which spread death and disease before eventually going away.

In the Middle Ages, The Black Death that killed over half of Europe’s population lasted for four years.

It’s only with modern vaccines that diseases have been eradicated – completely ended.

So, Neil, my question this week is: which disease was eradicated in 1977? Was it:
a)    cholera?
b)    polio? or
c)    smallpox?

Neil
I'm going to say c) smallpox.

Sam
OK, I’ll reveal the answer at the end of the program.

Neil
Of course, the idea that the pandemic might not be ending isn’t something people want to hear.

Most people are sick of worrying about Covid and can’t wait for things to get back to normal.

But as Yale University physician, Professor Nicholas Christakis, explained to BBC World Service programme,

The Inquiry, it’s not just the biological disease that needs to end – pandemics have a social ending too.

Prof. Nicholas Christakis
Pandemics are not just a biological phenomenon, they’re also a social phenomenon, and they end socially.

And one of the ways that they end socially is when everyone just sort of agrees that they have ended – when everyone is simply willing to tolerate more risk.

On other words, we sort of declare victory, maybe prematurely, or another way of thinking about it is, we put our heads in the sand.

Sam
Biologically Covid still exists in the world and most of us would rather not catch it.

But if you’re vaccinated, the risk of getting seriously ill is much lower, so it’s reasonable to make plans to resume normal life.

When enough people do this, we declare victory – a phrase meaning to announce something to be finished before it actually is, but when it looks ‘good enough’.

Neil
The danger is that we declare victory prematurely – too soon, before it’s the best time to do so.

Professor Christakis uses another idiom for this – to bury your head in the sand, meaning to deliberately refuse to accept the truth about something you find unpleasant.

Sam
It’s also true that pandemics do not end in the same way for everyone, everywhere.

Rich western countries with the resources to vaccinate their populations are in a better position than most.

Neil
Professor Dora Vargha is an expert on the history of medicine.

She compares the Covid pandemic to an ongoing disease for which we have no cure, and which has killed millions since its outbreak in the 1980s – HIV/Aids.

Here is Professor Vargha speaking with BBC World Service’s, The Inquiry.

Prof Dora Vargha
What happens in the case of HIV/Aids is that it became from being an immediate death sentence basically to a manageable chronic disease…

but that happens in societies that have the means and the infrastructure to make that possible with medication, and that is not necessarily true for all parts of the world,

but we don’t think about the HIV/Aids pandemic as an ongoing pandemic.

Sam
Although HIV has no cure, modern medical drugs allow people to continue living with the disease for years.

HIV is no longer a death sentence – a phrase meaning the punishment of death for committing a crime, or from an incurable disease.

Neil
Nowadays, HIV is no longer fatal. It has become a disease which can be controlled and is chronic, or long lasting.

We no longer think of Aids as a pandemic, but that’s not true everywhere - only in countries which can provide the necessary medical drugs and support.

Sam
Finding the right balance of Covid restrictions for communities of people exhausted by the pandemic isn’t easy.

Many scientists are warning that we haven’t yet reached the beginning of the end of Covid,

but hopefully we’re at least reaching the end of the beginning.

Neil
Let’s finish the programme on a hopeful note by remembering that diseases can and do eventually end – like in your quiz question, Sam.

Sam
Yes, I asked which disease was eradicated in 1977.

Neil said it was smallpox which was the correct answer!

Well done, Neil! Smallpox no longer occurs naturally, but did you know that samples of smallpox do still exist, frozen in American and Soviet laboratories during the Cold War!

Neil
As if the thought that the Covid pandemic might never end isn’t scary enough!

Right, let’s recap the vocabulary we’ve learnt starting with eradicate – to completely get rid of something, such as a disease.

Sam
If you declare victory, you announce something to be finished before it actually is.

The danger is doing this is that you announce it prematurely, or too soon.

Neil
The idiom bury your head in the sand means to refuse to accept or look at a situation you don’t like.

Sam
A death sentence means the punishment of death for committing a crime, or from an incurable disease.

Neil
And finally, a chronic disease is one which lasts for a long time.

Even though the pandemic hasn’t ended, our programme has because our six minutes are up. Bye for now!

Sam
Bye!

Ref: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/oromo/features/6-minute-english_2022/ep-220804