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Neo-Bedouins - vocabulary lesson

Hello and welcome to the vocabulary lesson for the Neo-Nedouins article. Let’s get started.

Let’s start with the title Neo-Bedouins. Neo means new. Neo means new, so it’s new-bedouins, neo-Bedouins. And usually we attach neo to something else, neo-bedouins, neo-conservative, right? It means new something.

Bedouin is the name of a group in Arabia, the Middle East. They are a tribe of people, a group of people. They live in the desert. They move around the desert. That’s where the name bedouins comes from.

Okay, now to the article. It says a new breed of worker is flourishing in San Francisco.

Breed in this case, breed means kind, a new kind of worker, a new type of worker, a new breed of worker; is flourishing in the coffee houses of San Francisco.

To flourish means to grow and succeed, both ideas really. To grow and succeed or to grow successfully. That’s to flourish, flourish to flourish.

So these new kinds of workers they are flourishing in the coffee houses, it means they’re growing, there’s lots of them in the coffee houses. They are succeeding and doing well in the coffee houses. They are flourishing.

And it says these workers roam from café to café. They are roaming from café to café. “To roam” means to move or to travel without a plan. So no plan. You don’t say: I will go to New York City and you travel in a straight line. That’s not roaming. That’s travel.

If you roam, you just go from one place to another place to another, but no plan really. That’s to roam.

Also “to wander” has the same meaning. “To wander” wa not “wonder” to wa wander or to roam, same meaning both words mean the same thing. To wander or to roam is to move around without a plan.

Okay, then we see that the name bedouins was borrowed from the nomadic Arabs who wander in the desert.

Nomadic, nomadic means people, a type of person that moves around. They don’t have only one home. Alright, so these Arabs they live with camels. They travel around the desert. They travel around Arabia. They don’t live in one town or one city all year. They travel around, so we say they are nomadic.

If you wanna use the noun, the noun is “nomad”. They are nomads or they are nomadic, using the adjective.

Okay, and then we go down to the next paragraph that these neo-bedouins, these new workers in San Francisco, they are armed with laptops and cell phones. “To be armed with something” just means that you have it or you carry it. They’re carrying laptops and cell phones. They have laptops and cell phones.

Alright, moving down to the next paragraph, the San Francisco’s bedouins see themselves changing the nature, changing the way of doing business, changing the nature of the workplace.

And it says: they see companies like General Motors laying off workers.

Okay, “laying off” means firing, right? It means you’re forced to quit your job. So if GM lays off workers, it means GM fires the workers. It cuts the workers, “Goodbye, you don’t have a job now”.

Okay, because a lot of big companies are laying off workers, firing workers, this is contributing to insecurity, to job insecurity. Insecurity is the opposite of security.

Security means safety, stability. Something that doesn’t change quickly. Something that is safe. So insecurity is the opposite. It means something that changes very fast. Something that is not safe.

So now, specially in America, there is no job security. It’s very insecure, alright? There is job insecurity. You can lose your job very quickly.

Alright, and then we see the phrase “on the cheap” in the same paragraph. “On the cheap” means cheaply, it means without much money. So in San Francisco with the internet, you can start a company on the cheap. It means you can start a company cheaply. You can spend only a little money and start a company.

And then there is another phrase that says: San Francisco coffee house is the new Palo Alto garage. Palo Alto is a town near San Francisco. Palo Alto is in Silicon Valley, where there are many computer companies.

Alright, then we see the word “innovation” in the article. The coffee houses in San Francisco are where all the innovation is happening.

Innovation means creativity, new ideas, changes, right? New creative changes, new ideas, creativity. that’s innovation, innovation. So innovation in San Francisco, the innovation in the computer industry, it’s happening is San Francisco coffee houses. That’s where all the new ideas are. That’s where the creativity is.

Alright, then down a couple of paragraphs we see the word “infrastructure”. A whole new infrastructure has emerged to help people work this way.

Infrastructure are the public services and the public goods in a country. For example roads, roads are infrastructure, right? Everybody can use the roads. They are public and they help everybody. All businesses, all people can use the roads and that helps them.

Phones, phone systems, that’s infrastructure, right? Everybody can use the phone system. It’s public. In San Francisco we have the computer internet system. We have Wi-Fi, free internet, free wireless internet. It’s Wi-Fi, that’s infrastructure. Everybody can use it. It’s public.

Alright, so this is infrastructure and it has emerged. Emerged means to come out and appear. So this infrastructure has appeared, right? It has come up and appeared suddenly in the last maybe ten twenty years.

We have all these new computers, all these… the new high speed internet. All these things. They’re infrastructure.

Okay, and it gives examples: wireless internet, laptops, cell phones. These are infrastructure that help people work independently and help people start their own businesses without much money.

Okay and in the bottom it says: Pink calls it “Karl Marx’ s revenge”. Karl Marx was the socialist writer. He wrote the Communist Manifesto, so he is a socialist communist writer.

And revenge means if somebody hurts you and then you attack them, that’s revenge, right? You hurt someone who already hurt you. That’s revenge. So this is Karl Marx’s revenge. He’s getting revenge on capitalism.

It says: where individuals can own the means of production. Production means making something. In this case, we mean making a business, making money, making a website.

The means of production means the tools, the equipment that you need to make something. In this article, it’s laptop computer, cell phone, internet access.

So now individuals can own these things. They can own everything they need for a business. Alright, in the past, you had to be very rich to do this, but now you don’t need to be rich.

Alright, and then on to the next page, second page. We see the phrase “Web worker”. There is nothing more free than being a web worker.

“Web” of course means internet, right? Some people call it the “world wide web” or “the web”. The web means internet. So a web worker is an internet worker, someone whose business is the internet.

And he says: it’s the new wild west. The wild west, that means it’s an area that is very free, very free. This comes from American history where the west used to be very free. So any situation where there is a lot of freedom, we call it the wild west.

And it says: San Francisco’s coffee houses are the epicenter of the bedouin movement. The epicenter means the center the exact center, the middle. It’s where something starts.

So in America, the epicenter of the internet, the epicenter of computer technology is San Francisco and Silicon Valley. They’re next to each other. So the Bay area, Northern California is the epicenter of the computer industry. It’s the center. It’s where it starts. It’s where it’s the strongest.

Alright, and here movement means a social trend, something that’s happening and changing in society, that’s a movement.

Alright, keep going, we see the word “buzzed”. They talk about a story in the coffee house where a Segway scooter buzzed through the cafe.

“To buzz through something” means to move through it very quickly. Maybe you run through it, maybe you drive next to something very fast, we call that “buzzing”, to buzz something.

Alright, we see the word “hip”. Hip means cool. A hip web company. A hip internet site. That means it’s a cool internet site. So if someone is hip, they are cool, right? They are very good.

Alright, a couple of paragraphs down we see the word “venerable”. That the venerable insurance firm Lloyd’s of London was also started in the coffee house. Venerable means very very old. So venerable, venerable. Venerable means very very old. Not just old, very old, venerable. So a venerable insurance firm, a venerable firm means a very old company. Firm means company.

So Lloyd’s of London, that’s the name, Lloyd’s of London, they are a venerable firm. They are a very very old company.

Alright, and then going down a little bit farther, we see the word “Parisian”, Parisian. Ernest Hemingway did some of his best work in Parisian cafés.

Parisian means from Paris, from Paris, France. So a Parisian café is a café in Paris.

Alright, we see the word or the phrase “North Beach”. We’ve heard that in other articles. North Beach is a neighborhood in San Francisco.

And then we see the word “hangout”, a hangout. Now, hang out can be a verb, “to hang out”. To hang out with your friends. If you hang out, using it as a verb, it means to meet together, meet together and maybe talk together. To meet is what it means, to hang out with, to meet with.

But if we use it as a noun, here in this article, it’s a noun. A “hangout” is a place where people meet. For example, coffee shops. Coffee shops are hangouts, many people meet in coffee shops. So we can say this coffee shop is a popular hangout. It’s a popular place for people to meet.

So they talk about café Trieste. It’s one the most popular hangouts in San Francisco. Café Trieste has a history, it’s a famous coffee shop in San Francisco. Many famous writers have gone there, have worked there, writing their books in the coffee shop. So cafe Trieste is a famous hangout in San Francisco.

And now they have free internet, free wireless internet, which we call Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi means wireless internet.

Okay, and then we see the phrase “it would figure”. It would figure that the one laptop being used belong to an art dealer. It would figure means it makes sense or it’s not surprising.

Right? We say ah… it would figure. Why? What does this mean? Well, café Trieste has a reputation. It’s famous for artists, artists and writers, so if you say: It would figure the person in the coffee shop is an art dealer. So it means it makes sense, we’re not surprised.

Café Trieste is famous for artists, so somebody in the coffee shop using a computer, they do work with art, they are an art dealer, an art seller. So it fits their image, fits their reputation. It would figure, it makes sense.

Okay, and the guy, the art dealer, he says: a cappuccino for overhead isn’t bad. “Overhead” is a business word.

Overhead means the costs that you must pay to run your business, to operate your business. For example, rent, right? If you have an office, you must pay rent. That money, that rent money is called overhead.

Insurance, that’s another kind of overhead. It’s money you pay over month to keep your business going, to run your business.

So he’s saying, this guy, he doesn’t need an office. He goes to the coffee shop. So he only buys a cappuccino, that’s his overhead, that’s his rent cost. One cup of coffee. So he says: that’s not bad. It’s very cheap.

And then finally our last phrase, he struck out on his own three months ago. “To strike out on” you need all three words, if you say strike out, it has a different meaning from baseball. So you need to say to strike out on, to strike out on your own, to strike out on your own.

To strike out on your own, the whole phrase. It means to do something by yourself or to start something by yourself, to start something alone. Nobody helps you.

So this guy, he struck out on his own three months ago. He started his company alone three months ago. That’s what it means. To strike out on your own means to do something, to start something by yourself.

Okay, that is all of the vocabulary for this article. Move on to the mini-story. Bye-bye.