Page 88 - Perfect Phrases ESL Everyday Business

Part 4

Presenting Yourself

“A White Joke”

Customized Language Skills Training (CLST) offered a small group class
for presentation skills and three people enrolled. The assignment was
to plan, work on, and give a presentation to a small audience.
The first participant, Ricardo, wanted to tell a joke to introduce
his presentation. The other two trainees, Kim and Olga, questioned
this method. Olga was bad at telling jokes and, therefore, nervous
about doing so. Kim thought maybe the joke would be inappropriate.
Ricardo said, “No, it’s a white joke.” I had never heard that expression
before and found out that day that it meant a “clean joke” to this
South American man as opposed to a dirty, off-color, or blue joke.
Olga’s presentation included a portion on telling a lie. Since she
was using the expression several times, she wanted to know other
words for a lie. Ricardo suggested “white lie,” “fib,” and “untruth.” Kim
shouted out, “Is bullshit a lie?” The room became silent and all three
looked at me. I said, “Yes, actually it is, but that isn’t a ‘white’ word so
don’t use it at work.” We all laughed and moved on.

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