Key grammar

When you say it’s ‘common knowledge’: - are you sure about that? - are you referring to the financial scandal? - what exactly do you mean? - I don’t think that’s quite right - do you mean that everyone knows?

• Hang on a second: Stopping a speaker in order to challenge their ideas
• You mean to say that: Checking if you understand the other person’s ideas
• But there again, …: Reminding someone if a point you have made previously
• I’ll tell you what, though: introducing your own point
• Coming back to your point…: Returning to an argument the other speaker made.

Dialogue

1. Melissa: Did you see that interview on BNN about the new foreign minister? Terrible.
2. Winston: What was wrong with it?
3. Melissa: Oh, it was just the questions they were asking, the way they describe her.
4. What she likes to wear, how often she’s changed her hairstyle, what kind of a mother she is - I mean, why should any of that matter?
5. Winston: Well, I guess they’re trying to build up a character profile, aren’t they?
6. And that’s part of what you’d want to know about someone like that.
7. Melissa: You mean to say that if it were a man in that position you’d be interested in what type of suit he wears?
8. Which kind of school he sends his kids to?
9. Winston: Well, not necessarily, but then again maybe people are interested in learning different things about different types of politicians.
10. Melissa: I’ll tell you what, though.
11. You see a lot more of this stuff about women than you do about men.
12. There’s definitely a tendency to -
13. Winston: Well, hang on a second.
14. When you say ‘a lot more’-I mean, are you sure about that?
15. They were talking about the prime minister the other day-showing how much his hair has gone grey, and all the wrinkles and things he’s got since he was first elected
16. And I’m pretty sure he’s a man.
17. Melissa: Yes, but you’ve got to look at the overall picture, don’t you?
18. One news story about his grey hair two hundred about his politics.
19. But with the women, it’s just incessant, the focus on their image, on their personal lives.
20. They can barely get a word in about what their actual policies are.
21. Winston: But there again-i mean, what if that’s just what people want to know?
22. Melissa: Well, it’s certainly not what I want to know.
23. She’s going to be in charge of our foreign policy.
24. There’s much more to worry about than her thoughts on motherhood.
25. But, uh, coming back to your point-i do think if that is what people want to know, then it’s part of a cycle where we’re told that’s what’s important about women, so that’s what we expect to hear about them.
26. There’s no reason that should be the case, though, and the media could play a role in changing things.