Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 29, Day 1 of Your English Five a Day. This is the series that aims to increase your active vocabulary by deep-diving into five items every day of the working week from Monday to Friday. You can get more from your listening by becoming a Plus Member, which supports the podcast to continue, as well as give you access to transcripts, a weekly bonus episode, as well as vocabulary lists for the weekend episodes. If you'd like to know more about Plus Membership, head to the show notes. Let's start today's list. We begin with the adjective, flippant, flippant. Flippant is spelled F L I P P A N T, flippant. Flippant refers to a manner or a way of speaking that is inappropriate or disrespectful. It's usually not serious enough or respectful enough. So if you make a flippant comment then your comment is deemed not serious or not respectful. Here's an example sentence,"The lawyer's flippant attitude towards the judge's ruling did not sit well with the court." And let me just explain the phrase if something does not sit well with a person or a group of people, then it means that they don't like it. It bothers them. So,"The lawyer's flippant attitude towards the judge's ruling did not sit well with the court." I think we've all probably made a flippant comment or behaved with a flippant manner at some point. My mind is darting back to my time as a teenage girl and perhaps how I spoke to my mother sometimes. Some of the comments that I would come out with were definitely a little bit flippant, throwaway comments that were meant to annoy my mum or to point out that I was unhappy about something were definitely disrespectful and inappropriate. So I've definitely been flippant or made flippant comments in my time. Of course I regret my behaviour, but we all have to learn and grow in our own way, don't we? So moving on from my flippant past, let's go to an idiom now. And this is turn a blind eye. To turn a blind eye. Turn, T U R N. A blind, B L I N D. Blind eye, E Y E. So turn a blind eye. If you turn a blind eye, then it means that you ignore or overlook something either because you don't care or because you don't approve, but you also don't want to be associated with it. You know, it's not always good to turn a blind eye. It's not literal, like it doesn't mean that you are blind. It just means that you don't acknowledge something or you just ignore something. So for example I have to turn a blind eye to the mess in my house on a regular basis because I like things to have order. I like things to be clean and clear. It really affects my mental health when I'm in a messy, disorganised environment. And having two young kids just doesn't mix with clean and tidy. Kids mean mess and chaos and sticky fingerprints on everything and Play Doh everywhere and sand and dirt and it's just constant and no matter how hard I try, I can never get on top of it. So I often have to turn a blind eye to the mess in the house in order to keep my sanity. Okay. Sometimes you might see someone that you know doing something they shouldn't be doing, and you decide that you don't want to have to deal with it. You don't want to grass them up, which is a phrase that means to tell someone about their wrongdoing. So you don't want to do that. You don't want to have to deal with them yourself and say that you disapprove. You just decide to look the other way. So you turn a blind eye to their wrongdoing. Have you ever turned a blind eye? Here's another example,"Despite numerous complaints from residents, many landlords continue to turn a blind eye to the deteriorating conditions of their buildings." Now you might remember me talking about living in a house that was condemned by the council. Now our landlord in that house definitely turned a blind eye to the numerous problems that the house, that the property had and didn't want to deal with the problem. So he turned a blind eye to it, which wasn't good for us. Anyway, moving on, next we have a verb and it is to bribe. Bribe. B R I B E. Bribe. To bribe means to give someone money or other incentives in order to persuade them to do something. Now this is often something bad, something dishonest or illegal. For example, if I was a person in power and somebody I associated with a long time ago had some dirt they could dish on me, they knew something about me that I didn't want them to tell people about then I might pay them a lot of money to stay quiet. So I might say,"Hey do you remember when we did all those crazy things? And, you know, we were a bit bad and we broke the law. Well, can you not tell anyone about that please?" And they might go,"Well, I think I'm going to tell the newspapers because you're now famous and I want to make some money." And I'd say,"Well, I'll tell you what, I'll pay you a lot of money not to talk to the newspapers. How about that?" And they might say,"Are you trying to bribe me?" And I'd say,"Yes, yes I am." Does that remind you of anyone? Here's an example sentence,"The businessman tried to bribe the government official in order to secure the contract for his company." Okay, so next on the list is the adjective calculated. Calculated. We spell this C A L C U L A T E D. Calculated. Calculated. Calculated means carefully, planned or thought out in advance. It was a calculated move or a calculated action, means that you've planned it in advance. Though sometimes if you call a person calculated, then it might mean that they are a little bit more manipulative, so that they manipulate people or rules in order to advance their own agenda to do something good for them that maybe isn't good for everybody else. So sometimes calculated to describe someone as calculated just means they're a bit devious, a bit naughty. I keep using that word at the moment. Okay. So here's an example sentence,"Team, we need to make a calculated decision to invest in new technology to improve productivity. We have to do better than last year!" Alright, last on the list is another adjective and it is tarnished, tarnished. We spell this T A R N I S H E D, tarnished. If something is described as tarnished, then it is made to look or seem less respectable or less admired. So let's imagine a young woman wins the Miss World competition and she is crowned Miss World because she is, you know, a wonderful human being, very talented with wonderful ideas, very articulate and an immaculate background. This person is a very good person who's only done good in the world. And then someday, not long after winning the crown Miss World, there are numerous stories circulating on social media about how she behaved terribly backstage and was abusive to the staff and undermined the other contestants and lied about the things that she'd done in the past and just behaved terribly. Then her reputation will now be tarnished because she no longer seems or looks to be that lovely, clean, honest, kind person. She now seems like a liar and a calculated young woman who's tried to manipulate her way into the position of Miss World. Here's another example,"My business has recently been tarnished by jealous rivals. What ever happened to healthy competition?" Unfortunately, with the way social media is these days, it's not hard to tarnish someone's reputation. To tarnish, oh there's the verb version. Okay, let's now recap our five items for today. We started with the adjective flippant. Flippant, which means lacking proper respect or seriousness, often in a very inappropriate or disrespectful manner. Then we had the idiom, turn a blind eye, which means to ignore or overlook something on purpose because you don't approve or because you don't care. Then we had the verb bribe, which is to give someone money or something else in order to persuade them to do something probably illegal or dishonest. Then we had the adjective calculated, which is carefully planned or thought out in advance. And we finished with the adjective tarnished, which is when something has been made to look or seem less respected or less admired. Alright, so let's do this now for pronunciation. Please repeat after me. Flippant. Flippant. Turn a blind eye. Turn a blind eye. Bribe. Bribe. Calculated. Calculated. Tarnished. Tarnished. Fantastic. Let me now test your memory. What adjective describes something that is carefully planned and thought out in advance? Calculated. Yes, a calculated move is a carefully planned move. If I were to offer you some money in order to persuade you to do something illegal, what am I doing? What verb would I use here? Bribe. I'm bribing you. And if I'm bribing you in order to protect my brand, to protect my personal brand so people don't think less of me, but you decide not to take the bribe and you do tell everyone that I'm a terrible crook and no one should trust me ever again, you've made me seem less respectable. So my brand has now been what? It's been made to seem less respected. What adjective could we use here? Tarnished. Yes, my personal brand has been tarnished. My reputation has been tarnished. Now, if I asked you to deliberately ignore something that you don't really care about, and I just want you to forget about it, what am I asking you to do? What idiom could I use? I'm asking you to turn a blind eye. That's right. And if I make a comment that's inappropriate and quite disrespectful, what adjective could you use to describe that comment? Flippant. Flippant. Very good. OK, let's bring these items together during today's story time. Let me tell you about Billy, the ultimate hustler at Oakwood Secondary School. With his cheeky smile and flippant attitude, he has managed to disregard the school rules and create his own little black market behind the sports hall. During break time, students flock to Billy's secret spot to buy his goods. He has everything from sweets to cigarettes and even fizzy drinks which are strictly prohibited on school grounds. But Billy doesn't care, he's making a killing and even has the teachers wrapped around his little finger. You see, Billy has a calculated plan. He knows which teachers to bribe with a few freebies and which ones to avoid. And it works like a charm. The teachers turn a blind eye to his illegal business, and in return, he keeps them stocked with their favourite treats. But his perfect little operation was about to be tarnished. One day, the school headmaster caught wind of Billy's little business and decided to put a stop to it. He called Billy into his office and gave him a stern warning. Billy was terrified at the thought of losing his income and his reputation as the school's go-to guy. So he came up with a brilliant idea. He offered the headmaster a bribe of his own, a box full of his best-selling sweets and chocolates. And to everyone's surprise, the headmaster accepted, and let Billy continue his business. From that day on, Billy became known as the ruler of the school's black market. And as a joke, the students even started calling him the'Candy Kingpin.' But little did they know, Billy had big plans for his future. He was going to use his profits to open his own sweet shop and become a legitimate businessman. And he would always have a good laugh when he thought back to the days when he ran a secret empire behind the sports hall at Oakwood. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. Remember you can access these episodes on any streaming platform, including YouTube. The English Like A Native Podcast now has its own YouTube channel where you can listen and read along at the same time. I'll leave a link in the show notes. Until next time, take very good care and goodbye.