Australia Network - English Bites - Series 7

Contact Us

Mailing Lists

Home

Episode 22: Oyster Farm

Transcript

We look at some suffixes that form adjectives and discover when 'at the moment' is.

We thought it was just going to be a bit of seasonal work and as it's turned out we've been here for 20 years. West Eyre Shellfish, which is the name of our business, is a family owned business. It was started by my brother Andre, myself and his wife Wendy.

The area that we're looking at at the moment here this is our main growing out area.

The area we're 'looking at' 'at the moment'. 2 'ats' together. To look at is a phrasal verb which here means to watch something in particular. And at the moment simply means now.

And what are they growing at the moment in the area we're looking at?

We put oysters - mainly from intermediate and juvenile stages and we grow them up until we get them fairly close to saleable size.

They're growing oysters. They start with 'juvenile stages' - the young or immature small ones and the 'intermediate' - the ones a bit bigger than juvenile, and grow them to 'saleable size'. This is the size at which they can be sold. The act of selling is a sale and adding the -able suffix to it forms the adjective. It's a saleable oyster. It is able to be sold.

Listen for another use of the -able suffix:

The whole idea of the adjustable long line system is to improve the hygiene of the oysters.

Adjustable. You adjust or change the position of things like the lines to have them in the right spot.

You form the adjective with -able - they are adjustable lines. They are able to be adjusted.

Another common suffix used to form adjectives is -ous. To continue is to keep going. You describe something that keeps going as continuous.

In the next clip, listen for an additional suffix on the word continuous:

We need to continuously grade oysters.

Continuously. There are 2 suffixes here.
The first is -ous to change the verb to an adjective:
continue/continuous
and then a -ly suffix to change the adjective to an adverb: continuously.
They continuously grade the oysters - they grade them all the time.

Why?

So to give all the oysters an even chance it's a constant regime of bringing the oysters in, grading them putting them in their uniform sizes and putting them back out.

To give the oysters an even chance. This means giving every oyster the same opportunity to grow to full size. They are put in their uniform sizes. Uniform size means being of the same size - they are allowed to grow with others of the same size.

Listen again:

So we've seen that the suffixes -able, and -ous are used to form adjectives - adjust/adjustable
continue/continuous
and that at the moment means now.

We'll finish with another suffix of adjectives, -ic, here used on the noun ocean:

Oceanic waters that feed the bay system that we grow oysters in is probably one of the cleanest in the world.

There you have it. Oysters from Ceduna.

English Bites is an informative and entertaining way to improve your knowledge of the English language.

Home

Episodes