The art of tipping - 6 Minute English

Catherine: Hello. This is 6 Minute English

and I'm Catherine.

Sam: And I'm Sam.

Catherine: Sam, how do you feel about

tipping?

Sam: Tipping? You mean giving extra

money to people

in certain jobs for doing their jobs?

Catherine: Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that.

But yes, it’s giving money to waiters and

waitresses, hairdressers, taxi drivers -

money that is more than the actual bill.

Sam: It’s a nightmare! I never know who

to tip, how to tip, by cash or by card, how

much to tip – is it 10, 12.5, 20 per cent or

even if I should tip at all because in some

places a service charge is automatically

added to the bill.

Catherine: Yes, tipping is a really

complicated issue

which we will be looking at in this

programme.

But to start with, a question. What is the

biggest tip that we know somebody gave?

Is it… A: $10,000, is it… B: $250,000,

or is it… C: $3,000,000?

What do you think, Sam?

Sam: I’m going to go for $250,000.

Catherine: OK, we’ll find out if you’re right

at the end of the programme. Now, back

to the topic of tipping and in particular,

tipping people who work in restaurants.

William Beckett runs a number of

restaurants and he recently

appeared on the BBC Food Programme.

He was asked about his view of tipping.

Now as we hear him, listen out for this

information. In how many cities does he

say he currently has restaurants?

William Beckett: It is cultural, i.e. it differs

from place to place. We have restaurants

in London, we have a restaurant in

Manchester, we’re also opening a

restaurant in New York and those

three cities have quite different attitudes

to tipping. In London, the norm is, it’s

there, it’s on your bill. That’s not the

norm, for example, in Manchester and it’s

not the norm in New York where we’re

going to open a restaurant later this year.

Catherine: So, first, how many cities does

he currently have restaurants in?

Sam: That would be two. London and

Manchester.

He’s going to open one in New York later

in the year, but it’s not open yet.

Catherine: And what does he say about

tipping?

Sam: Well, he says that it is very cultural.

What is the norm in one city is not

necessarily the norm in another. 'The

norm' is an expression

that means, as you might guess, 'what is

normal, what is usual'.

Catherine: So in London, for example, a

service charge is usually added to the bill,

but in Manchester it isn’t. So the policy in

London and Manchester differs which

means, again as you might guess,

it’s different.

Sam: There’s another short expression

that he used that I’d like to highlight.

Before he talks about how the policies

differ, he says 'i.e'. These two letters stand

for the Latin phrase 'id est'. Now we never

say ‘id est’ but we do write and say 'i.e'. We

use it to show that what comes next is using

different words to say what we have just

said or written. So he says, about tipping,

'it’s cultural' i.e. it differs from place to

place. ‘It’s cultural’ is a more general

statement and ‘it differs from place to

place’ is a more specific definition of what

he means.

Catherine: So, one difference is that in

some places people prefer an automatic

service charge so that they don’t have to

think about or try to calculate a tip. But in

other places, people hate that - they want

to decide who and how much to tip

themselves. But do people

actually make use of that freedom not to

tip? Here’s William Becket again and this

he's time talking about New York.

William Beckett: New York exactly the

same. There’s a tacit pressure to tip. But

theoretically you just stand up and walk

out. You don’t, everybody tips 20% or,

there is a theory of an option.

But people like that.

Catherine: So he says there is 'a tacit

pressure to tip'.

What does he mean by that?

Sam: Something that is 'tacit' is not

spoken, not said, yet it is still understood.

So in New York no one tells you that you

have to tip, but everyone knows that you

have to.

Catherine: And because there is no

service charge on the bill and no one tells

you what to tip, you could just walk out

after paying. He says that’s 'theoretically

possible'. That means although it may be

possible, it’s actually very unlikely because

of the tacit pressure and the way we

behave.

Sam: But he does say people like that

freedom not to tip, even if they don’t

actually use that freedom.

Catherine: Right, nearly vocabulary time,

but first, let’s have the answer to our

question. Now Sam what is the biggest

tip we know someone gave?

Sam: I thought $250,000.

Catherine: Well it was actually, believe it

or not, a whopping $3,000,000. Yes!

Now, on with today’s vocabulary review.

Sam: So we’ve been talking about tipping,

the practice of giving extra money to, for

example waitresses and waiters.

Catherine: 'To differ from' is a verb which

means 'to be different from'.

Sam: 'The norm' is what is usual or

normal.

Catherine: 'i.e.' is a short form of a Latin

expression and it means ‘in other words’.

Sam: Something that is 'tacit' is not said

but is nevertheless understood.

Catherine: And if something is

'theoretically possible' it can be done but

for different reasons it probably won’t be.

And that is where we must leave it today.

Goodbye!

Sam: Bye everyone!