Episode 126 • Getting Lost
Wind up
In the middle of nowhere
Have a good sense of direction
GPS
Compass
Story
Rachel: Oh my gosh, Michael. We’ve been driving around for hours. Can we just- I don’t know… ask somebody?
Michael: No, no. I- I’ve got this, Rachel.
Rachel: You do? Oh, okay. So you meant to wind up in this tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, right?
Micheal: Listen, I- We’ll figure it out, okay? I‘ve got a pretty good sense of direction.
Rachel: Yeah, right. Listen, if we could just check, just real quick, what the GPS says, maybe-
Micheal: Uh, uh. No. No GPS. You know how I feel about that thing.
Rachel: Yes, you don’t want to use it because you think the government is using it to track us.
Micheal: That’s right. That’s exactly right, sweetie.
Rachel: [sighs]
Micheael: Plus, I know how to get to Garden City. We just need to go south. Yeah, south. So we’re going to go left here and-
Rachel: What? That is not south?
Micheal: How do you-? Yes, it is.
Rachel: No, it isn’t!
Micheal: Listen, do you- Do you happen to have a compass on you?
Rachel: A c- a compass? Do I look like a girl scout? No, of course I don’t have a compass! Not sure if you’ve noticed but I’m not a pirate and we’re in the 21st century so no, no compass. Wait, there’s- there’s someone. Just, stop the car. Stop the car! There’s a man over there, we can ask him!
Micheal: No, we don’t need to-
Rachel: I said “Stop the car”.
Micheal: Fine.
Rachel: Uhm, sir. Excuse me. Hi. Do you happen to know how to get to Garden City?
Stranger: Garden City. Why, ma’am. You are in Garden City.
Rachel: We are?
Micheal: I told you I could find it!
Questions
Wind up
'So you meant to wind up in this tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, right?'
• If you wind up somewhere, are you focusing on the fact that you arrived somewhere or that you just left?
If you say that you wound up somewhere, that means that you're focusing on the fact that you arrived somewhere. It's basically another way to say that you arrived somewhere with a slight difference that we're going to take a look at in a second.
• What is the past of wind up?
I don't know if you noticed, but when I was answering this question, I used it. Maybe you know the answer to this, but it's actually wound up. It's an irregular verb. The present is wind up and the past is wound up, W-O-U-N-D.
• If you say you wound up somewhere, do you imply you arrived where you are after a quick trip or after a lot has happened?
This is the difference that I was talking about. When you say, "Oh, we wound up there," you are also saying that a lot has happened that led you to area you are now. It conveys a lot more than just saying, "We arrived there." If you say, "We wound up there," I already know that a lot has happened. You went through a bunch of different things. Maybe you got lost, maybe you went to a lot of different places. It's almost like you don't really have a lot of control in terms of where you wind up. It's almost like it happens without you really planning it. It's like saying, "We ended up there." It's very, very similar.
• Can you remember a time when you wound up somewhere unexpected?
Yes. This is really funny. My boyfriend and I were in Cambodia and we had rented a bike, a scooter. We went to a couple different beaches that were on the island and then we had to come back. I think at one point we took a wrong turn, but my boyfriend was confi-. He's pretty good at telling which way to go. He was like, "No, no but I think we can figure it out." We kept going. We were looking to go back to our apartment, and we just kept going, and at one point we wound up on the beach. We had the sea just a few feet away from us. I remember there was a guy standing there and he looked at us like, "Where the heck did you just come from? How can you be riding--" It was impossible to ride that thing on the beach, obviously. It was super funny.
In the middle of somewhere
'So you meant to wind up in this tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, right?'
• If a place or a town is in the middle of nowhere, is it very close to the nearest big town or very far from the nearest big town?
If a place or a town is in the middle of nowhere, that means that it's very far from the nearest big town. It's not like you're really in the middle of nowhere, there might be other towns. It's just an expression to say that you are in a pretty isolated place.
• Have you ever lived or stayed somewhere that was in the middle of nowhere?
Well, there was this one time a few months ago when we started our trip, and we went to France. At first, we just picked this random town because it was cheap, but it was pretty close to where we had to go in the end, but then we didn't want to drive too much. In the end, we found this place. I forget the name of the town right now, but it's a very small town in the- I want to say, south of France. It was in the middle of nowhere. It was maybe in that town, it was just us, a couple other houses and then a ton of cows. I don't even know how much you would have to walk to get to the nearest big town, but yes, we were definitely in the middle of nowhere.
Have a good sense of direction
'We’ll figure it out, okay? I’ve got a pretty good sense of direction.'
• If you have a good sense of direction, can you get around without looking at a map or not?
Yes, if you have a good sense of direction, that means that you can easily get around a town or a place without looking at a map.
• Do you have a good sense of direction?
I wish my boyfriend was here to answer this question for me. I am probably the person with the worst sense of direction. I could get lost in my own house. I'm not even kidding. It's so bad. My boyfriend always just cannot believe how bad I am at just telling which way to go. He'll quiz me. Even after a few weeks or months that I've been somewhere that I've lived in a place, he'll ask me, "Okay, which way is this thing?" I'm like, I have to pull out my phone and open Google maps and answer him. It's really, really bad. I don't know if it's something that I can train and I can improve at, but I'm pretty sure I can't. I've given up at this point. I'm just really happy that right now we're in the 21st century and I can just rely on my phone.
GPS
'Listen, if we could just check, just real quick, what the GPS says, maybe-'
• What does the GPS do? Does it help you drive your car or does it tell you how to get to places?
The GPS is that wonderful, wonderful instrument that tells you how to get to places from where you are. You can have it on your phone, you can have it in your car. I think that's it, right? Yes, that's probably it.
• Do you use GPS when driving?
Well, of course, there's no way I could get around. Whether I'm walking, whether I'm driving, whether I'm riding my bike, there's no way I could get around without looking at the GPS.
Compass
'Listen, do you- Do you happen to have a compass on you?'
• The compass in an instrument that does what? Tell the time or show directions?
The compass is an instrument that shows you the four Cardinal directions. It has a needle that always points north, and based on that, you can tell where south, east and west are.
• Do you have a compass?
No, I definitely do not have a compass. Although, I'm pretty sure that every phone has a compass, meaning it's got an app that acts as a compass, but if you were talking about the little round thing that you hold in your hand, no, I do not have a compass. Also, I don't really know what I would do with it because it's like, okay, great, this is where north is, what am I going to do with it? What am I going to do with that information? I love it when I think, especially in the US people like to directions using north, west, south, and east. They're like, "Then you go south, and then you go west." I'm just like, "Seriously, can you point your finger in the direction I need to go because this is not helping?"
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