📙 Part 2: Describe an intelligent person you know

This episode's vocabulary

Possess (verb) - to have or own something, or to have a particular quality.

Shrewd (adj.) - having or based on a clear understanding and good judgment of a situation, resulting in an advantage.

Prod (verb) - to encourage someone to take action, especially when they are being slow or unwilling.

Acquired taste - something that you may not like at first, but begin to like after you have tried it.

Assessment (noun) - the act of judging or deciding the amount, value, quality, or importance of something, or the judgment or decision that is made.

Summon (verb) - to remember or imagine something.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory is going to talk about an intelligent person he knows. He's going to say who this person is, what they do, why he thinks they are smart and how he feels about him or her. Rory, fire away, Rory.

R: Well, I know quite a few clever people. But one of the cleverest I've met in my life is my old mentor, Claire, she used to supervise my work and that of about a million other people when I started out working as a teacher, at the same school as her, actually. She has this extraordinary wealth of knowledge about teaching and how people work that few others possess to the extent that she can almost predict what's going to happen before it happens in a lot of cases. Between this and a list of qualifications as long as my arm she's possibly, she's obviously quite brilliant, though I don't think she would ever say that about herself. She's quite shrewd in this sense. Of course, you can be, you can be a smart person and still fail to make an impact. And this is where she is so clever with how she does things, though, she understands that what people respond to and how to motivate them in the right direction. And she delivers her ideas in such a way that it is designed to get people to think about what she said after she said it. As with many other people I know I don't think I could have done quite as much without her help and advice. In addition to the opportunity, she sort of poked and prodded me in the direction of in her own little way. I'm quite pleased to know her even though we hold roughly equal status now. And we're quite physically distant due to the pandemic, I definitely owe a great deal to her. And like I say, I think a great many other people have as well, although she can be an acquired taste in the sense. She's a bit like Marmite you either love it or hate it. But, and she would agree with that assessment, probably. But I think it's important for people to bear in mind, even if you dislike somebody due to their manner of delivery or whatever, that they might have been extremely beneficial to you. And certainly I can say this in Claire's case. And hopefully she'd agree with me, even though it's highly unlikely she'll ever hear what I've just said about her.

M: What about your friends? So do they know this person?

R: All of my friends in Moscow know Claire, and all of them without exception hold great admiration for her. Although they might not have expressed it to her directly, they've certainly told me.

M: Yeah, she has an outstanding sense of humor.

R: You've worked with Claire.

M: Yeah, I've worked with Claire. Yeah, I saw her actually last week.

R: It's important to point out that all of the people that we're talking about in all of our part twos, where we have to talk about people are real people.

M: Yeah, they are real people, right. But if you don't have any intelligent person in your life.

R: If you don't know any intelligent people...

M: But again, like it's stress in the exam, you're stressing out and like, oh, I forgot all people I know. It's okay. You can lie, so you can make it up.

R: You can summon Claire.

M: Yeah, or you can say like I'm going to be talking about Rory and just lie.

R: If you're feeling terrified you can summon Claire. And then you'll know what fear really is.

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Discussion

M: Okay, so the cue cards that the examiner gives to you says describe an intelligent person. We are paraphrasing intelligent, and say that the person is clever. One of the cleverest people I know. Also, you can say shrewd.

R: Yes, I love this word.

M: Yep. But shrewd means what?

R: Good question. I'm just about to google it.

M: Shrewd is like wise.

R: Yes. It's, well, according to Google, it says having you're showing sharp powers of judgment, being very astute, which is, I think that describes Claire quite accurately.

M: Yeah. You also can say smart. So she's or he's a very smart person. And you can say bright as well. She's really bright.

R: She is, but you wouldn't say that about Claire, you would say that she's shrewd. Because bright is sort of like, it describes a kind of person that's like, have the spark in them. And it's like a light. But she's not like that. She should in the sense like focus, not drawing attention, wise, poke people in directions, don't like provide them with the answer. Let them come to the answer.

M: Yeah, it's a nice phrase. She poked me in the direction.

R: Poked and prodded, which means like small adjustments in the right direction. Poked and prodded is more to do with analysis, though. However, I think it describes kind of the action that she took to kind of put me on the right track in terms of my career. She never sort of outright said, you're going to be a senior manager. It was more like, let's just do a little bit of work here, and here, and oh look, great things have happened.

M: Magic. Nice. But again, for our listener, right, because maybe our listener won't be talking about Claire. So like different adjectives like shrewd, wise, bright, brilliant. You said like, she's obviously quite brilliant. Also kind of like smart. And you said, she has this extraordinary wealth of knowledge.

R: Yes. And as a result, well, probably, this is a result of having a list of qualifications as long as my arm. So a wealth of knowledge is like having a great amount of knowledge, although a wealth of knowledge sounds a lot better. And a list of qualifications as long as my arm just means that it's a really long list.

M: As long as my arm, you don't say as long as my leg?

R: No, it's almost as long as your arm.

M: She's obviously quite brilliant. Right, or bright.

R: Quite bright.

M: She's quite bright.

R: There's a great sort of piece by Dylan Moran, where he's talking about if Jesus were a woman. Jesus like the man said, I'm the light of the world. But if Jesus had been a woman, she would have said, well, I'm quite bright.

M: Oh, it's a joke.

R: It is a joke.

M: You said, I don't think I could have done much without her help. I could have done, right?

R: I don't think I could have, yeah. Oh, my God. I don't think I could have done nearly as much. So I don't think like, the accomplishments would have been much smaller.

M: Yeah. And we say like, I could have done I could have done. Have because it's present perfect, and we're talking about the past. We don't say I don't think I could do.

R: Is it a conditional structure yet?

M: No. It's not. It's the model plus present perfect. So I don't think I could have done much. Another phrase that you can use is, I'm really pleased to know her, or him. I'm really pleased, pleased or happy. I'm delighted to know her. And as Rory told us from the previous premium episode, you can say like, she is indispensable. And also, if you are privileged enough to have someone like that in your life, you really need to thank your lucky stars. Thank the ground you're walking on, right? Something like that? What do you do with the ground you're working on?

R: You walk on it? I don't know. You praise the...

M: Pray to the ground you're walking on. There's some expression of the ground you're working on. Anyway. Yeah. So the card says describe an intelligent person, it could be the same person who is also a helpful person, okay. So you can have only one person and then talk about the same person. But in describing this person as an intelligent or helpful or energetic or polite, doesn't matter. But it's pretty useful to choose only one person.

R: We should talk about the structures as well. I know quite a few clever people, but one of the cleverest I have met. So instead of just saying, the most intelligent person I have met, like a robot, you could be like, I know quite a few clever people. But the cleverest I met.

M: Is Rory.

R: I don't think anyone's gonna be saying that about me.

M: No, but, dear listener, really like, if you are in the exam, and you feel like oh my God, I forgot all the people I know, you can talk about us. You can talk about Rory.

R: Well, you can talk about you if we're talking about clever people. In terms of lucky people maybe you talk about me.

M: And then if you talk about Rory, or if you talk about me, your mood is going to be great. And you gonna start smiling because we always crack jokes. Rory is looking at me weirdly, again.

R: It's too much caffeine. That's what the problem is.

M: Again, we tell you a good strategy. So if you are stressing out in the exam, just imagine Rory sitting next to the examiner. And imagine me screaming Scotland freedom.

R: In my ear.

M: In his ear. Yeah. So right, and you gonna be all fine in exam, and you won't be nervous or scared. It's all fine. So hopefully we've poked you in the right direction in terms of vocabulary, and synonyms.

R: Hopefully, we've given you some intelligent things to think about, but if not, you should join us in the next episode, where we're going to talk about intelligence in children, at work, and artificial intelligence.

M: Oh, exciting.

R: It is very exciting. My God. I wonder what I'm going to say about this.

M: Bye!

R: Bye!

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