One Upping
Nov 24 2009
When you run into someone you haven’t seen in a little while, you usually want to put your best foot forward. No matter how things are going for you, you want to make it seem like things are going at least fairly well, especially if you have a bit of a rivalry with that person.
This week on the Ebaby! soap opera, Mason is just doing his job, cleaning the office of Devan’s company, when he runs into Marni in the hall. What is she doing at their office? Marni was so mad after Devan decided not to hire her that she went ahead and started a very similar company that also helps exchange students find dates. Whatever Marni’s reason for being there, Mason had better not let on that Devan is freaking out about how much better Marni’s company is doing than hers.
English, baby! English lesson audio.
Mason: Whoa!
Marni: Oh. Hi.
Mason: Uh, Marni.
Marni: Hi Mason. How are you?
Mason: I’m good. What are you doing here?
Marni: Uh, I actually had to lease some space in this building. My company is going gangbusters so we had to get more space.
Mason: Really?
Marni: Yeah. How are you guys doin’? How’s the Dream Date?
Mason: Uh, oh…It’s date-tastic. I mean, you know, things are poppin’, crackalackin, sky’s the limit, glass ceiling is being pushed, actualization is occurring. It’s great. Everything’s awesome.
Marni: Good to hear stuff’s…Good for you. Awesome.
Mason: Yeah, yeah. What kind of visitor-ship do you have? Like, one thousand members or so?
Marni: We are, like, about to exceed a million.
Mason: Yeah.
Marni: And we keep gaining more members. I think our average is like two thousand new members a day.
Mason: Right. We’re at least one more than whatever it is that you have.
Marni: Oh, wow!
Mason: I just know that.
Marni: Yeah. And you know what the crazy thing is? I actually…I don’t mean to brag, but…I actually was just given another award. We’ve won, like, several awards for how, you know, our website is just connecting people around the world and it’s actually bringing around people of all different nationalities.
Mason: That’s interesting. Interesting. Yeah.
Marni: And, you know, I’m kind of hoping to kind of bring about world peace, but that’s a lofty goal so…
Mason: Yeah. Huh. Well.
Marni: Yeah.
Mason: I mean, you know, you can’t get a Nobel this year so…
Marni: Not this year, but…
Mason: Sorry about that. Well, that’s awesome. Good for you, you know. I’m glad you’re not too depressed that we’re constantly kicking your butt at what you do.
Marni: Well…
Mason: Anyway.
Marni: I don’t know that you’re kickin’ my butt, but…
Mason: I’m just, you know…Hey. It’s cool. There’s no reason to be jealous. Let’s just leave friends.
Marni: Absolutely.
Mason: Friends.
Marni: Friends.
Mason: Mm-hm. I’ve got some stuff to clean this way.
Marni: OK. You get back to that. Good to see you.
It turns out that Marni is in Devan and Mason’s office building because her company is doing so well she had to lease more space…and she happened to lease some there. Her international dating website is really popular and is even winning some awards.
Devan’s company, which Mason works for, is not doing as well. So he makes up words like “date-tastic” as he struggles to lie to Marni and tell her the company is doing well.
Marni and Mason continue one upping each other. Eventually, Mason tells Marni that his company is “kicking her butt,” which means winning by a lot, and that’s just taking it a little too far. Marni repeats that she’s doing just fine and she and Mason agree that they are still friends.
Have you ever run into someone and had to pretend like you were doing a little better than you really were? Do you think Marni will be able to keep her friends even though they all work for Devan’s company?
Count and Noncount Nouns
Marni and Mason keep trying to one up each other with the number of members their sites have. Mason asks Marni if she has a thousand members yet. Marni says she already has a million.
As you can see, “member” is a count noun. Count nouns are nouns you can count. They exist as individual units, and they can be pluralized. A website can have one member, a thousand members, or a million members.
When Marni says she wants to create world peace, on the other hand, she is using a noncount noun. “World peace” is a noncount noun because it is an abstraction, like love or hate. It cannot be counted or broken into parts, and it cannot be pluralized. It’s impossible to have world peaces. We cannot use the definite article (a, an) with noncount nouns.
Which is correct, “There aren’t a lot of loves between Marni and Devan right now” or “There isn’t a lot of love between Marni and Devan right now”?