Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello Podcast Plus members, welcome to episode 66. This is a bonus episode which deep dives into some of the phrases that Luke and I used in episode 65, my discussion with Luke about board games. So there was a lot of discussion and there were many words and phrases that came up that I thought may need some additional explanation. Now the list is vast, so I've just chosen a handful of around 12 phrases that are commonly used but also have different variations that you may hear. So I thought those would be the best ones to deep dive into with you now. So the first one on the list is the phrase to dry up. Now this is often used when talking about water in, perhaps, a lake or a river. If you are experiencing a prolonged hot period, like some of the heat waves that we see around the world, or if you live in a country that is used to experiencing drought, then this is a phrase that you would use quite often. You'd say, oh look, I can see that the river's dried up or the reservoir's dried up, or we must do things to prevent our water supply from drying up. But to dry up can be used for many other things. In the podcast I used it to describe conversation drying up, and I'm sure each and every one of you has experienced this situation. So you might be spending a prolonged period of time with someone where the conversation doesn't flow very easily, and so you use every possible strategy that you can think of to try and keep the conversation going, but eventually you run out of topics or ideas of what to say, what questions to ask, and the conversation just stops. And then you sit there awkwardly in silence, not knowing what to say and feeling very uncomfortable. Now, sometimes people will say that the conversation between a couple so a couple that have been together for a very long time, perhaps married for 20 years or so you might say that over the years, the conversation between a couple also dries up. Hopefully not hopefully that you can find something to occupy your time that allows you to have something to talk about, but it does happen. So the conversation dries up.

Speaker 1: 2:49

You can also say that money has dried up. So let's imagine that you have a flow of cash coming into you. For example, if you are studying at university, your parents might agree to help you financially while you study full time, and so they may be sending you money every month to pay for your rent and your food and to have a little bit of spending money besides. And you may then leave university and ask your parents if they could continue to support you until you find your feet, until you can get a good job and become established in life with somewhere to live and a routine and a job, and you're stable. So your parents agree to continue sending money. So there is cash flow. There's cash flowing into your life. But then after a while your parents get fed up of subsidizing your life and they decide to slowly start reducing the amount of money they send each month. Eventually that will become zero and so you can say at that point I was being supported by my parents, but that support has all dried up. Now they don't send me anything, so I have to now stand on my own two feet and look after myself. Okay, so that's to dry up, to stop to cease.

Speaker 1: 4:22

Now the next phrase on my list is to rummage around. I talked about rummaging around in the cupboard to find board games and the word rummage it means to search for something. So you're searching through other things. So there are other things in the way and you're trying to find a specific thing, so you're rummaging. You're rummaging around and to rummage means to search for something, but in an unsystematic or disordered way. So it's not like I'm going to start here and search very carefully all the way along to another point. I'm just without any system in place whatsoever, without any direction and also in quite an untidy way. So just throwing things around and moving things about and maybe not putting them back to where they originally were, that is rummaging. Okay. So you rummage around.

Speaker 1: 5:33

So you could imagine a pig in a pigsty. He might be rummaging around on the ground to try and find some food, so he's sniffing away and he's putting his snout into the leaves and all the debris on the floor and moving things around with his snout trying to find some food. He's rummaging around on the ground. That didn't mean to rummage, okay. So to rummage around we've all done that at some point Rummaged around very quickly in your sock drawer to try and find your favourite pair of hiking socks, or rummaged around in the food cupboard trying to find something to eat when you're hungry and you haven't got anything in the fridge. And then I said I dig out and dust off. So you've got some lovely phrasal verbs coming out here Rummage around, dig out and dust off.

Speaker 1: 6:28

If you dig something out, then you are referring to getting something out of storage that is maybe quite deep in storage and you're not quite sure exactly where it is. So you know you're going to have to dig a bit deeper into all the things that are stored. I would imagine like a big room full of boxes and you know that the box you want is at the very back of the room, so you're going to have to move a lot of other boxes in order to get to the box you want. This would be digging something out, just like if you had a spade and you had to remove a lot of soil to create a hole and get to the thing that you want that's buried. So yes, that's the great word, actually buried. If something is buried, you have to dig it out.

Speaker 1: 7:24

I often talk about digging out a file or digging out paperwork. So I'm talking about digital files or physical paperwork. I have piles and piles of paperwork in my office and I have hundreds, if not thousands, of digital files, and I try to be organised, but sometimes things get a little bit messy and chaotic. So if someone asks for something, I say oh, yes, I'm not quite sure where that is. I'll have to dig it out. So that means I'll have to spend some time looking through things, rummaging around and trying to find it. So it's buried somewhere in a folder or under a pile of paperwork, but I will find it. I will dig it out for you.

Speaker 1: 8:15

And I also mentioned dust off. So if you dust something off then it's metaphorical, so it could be physical. It's when something is covered in a layer of dust because it hasn't been used for a very long time. Although in my house if you put something down just for a few days, it's covered in a layer of dust. I don't know if that's Having children makes more dust in the house, I don't know. But you can physically dust something off. So you're wiping the dust off the item to use it or to make it look nice and clean.

Speaker 1: 8:47

But we use it metaphorically, suggesting that we are bringing back into use something that hasn't been used for a very long time. So if I say to you I really need to get fit, I'm so out of shape, I need to do some cardiovascular exercise. But you know what I'm going to do I'm going to dust off my bicycle. I've not cycled for such a long time and I've got a perfectly good bike in the garage. So I'm going to dust that off and go for a ride. And I don't mean that the bike actually has a layer of dust on it, although it very possibly could have dust on it. What I mean is I'm going to actually get it out and use it, okay, so you dig something out that's buried and you dust it off, so you put it back into use. Now these phrasal verbs appeared in the sentence that went you may decide to rummage around in the cupboard to dig out and dust off a ball game to pass the time, and that's the final phrase in this sentence I want to cover.

Speaker 1: 9:59

To pass the time. We use this quite regularly. I need something to pass the time. It just means to help time move faster or to prevent you from becoming bored during a period when you have to wait. So, for example, I recently went on holiday and it was a four-hour flight to my destination, but on the way out we were delayed and it was actually more like a five-and-a-half-hour flight, which I found actually really boring. There wasn't a meal being served during the flight, there were no screens on the back of the chairs. It wasn't like a fancy flight or anything like that. So there was nothing to watch and there was nothing to eat and there was nothing to do and I just I really struggled. Actually, previously I've probably taken a puzzle book or some paper and a pen and done some writing, but this time I hadn't prepared. I'd prepared for the children, but I hadn't prepared for myself, and I really struggled with intense boredom, and so I needed something to pass the time. Of course, I know that you can't make time pass more quickly, but I needed something to make it seem like the time was passing quickly, because time flies when you're having fun. It's a very common phrase. Or saying Time flies when you're having fun, meaning time seems to go faster when you're having a nice time. So if you need something to pass the time, then you need something to distract you during a period of waiting.

Speaker 1: 11:48

The next sentence I want to discuss with you is this one we're going to discuss the ins and outs and the ups and downs of board games. Okay, so what are ins and outs and what are ups and downs? These set phrases are used in slightly different ways, so the ins and outs of something. If you're going to discuss the ins and outs of a thing, then you are discussing the details, and this is often used when things are perhaps a little bit more complicated. So if there's a situation that's quite complicated or a role that's quite complicated or a piece of equipment that's quite complicated, then you'll need to know all the ins and outs of how things work.

Speaker 1: 12:38

I have a brilliant camera. I have a Canon, a Canon camera to shoot my YouTube videos. It's a DSLR. It can do lots of wonderful things. It's actually a great photographic camera, not just a video camera, and I have to be honest, I do not know how to use it. I just turn it on, I put it into video mode and I press record. I know how to set the focus and that's it. I can brighten the image slightly, which is the ISO, but yes, I have no clue really how to do anything, and there are so many ins and outs involved with this camera that I really should learn the ins and outs of how this camera works. So, yeah, if you are a detail orientated person, then you would do quite well with gadgets and learning all the ins and outs of how things work, but I just want to get on with doing what I'm doing. I don't like to spend too much time learning all the ins and outs. So the other one we were looking at here, besides ins and outs, was ups and downs. Now this is different because this talks about the pros and cons, so the up being the good thing and the down being the bad thing. So the ups and downs, the good parts and the bad parts. So the ins and outs of how a camera works is different to the ups and downs of having a camera. There are lots of ups and downs in life, in relationships and in jobs, aren't there? Yes, okay, so I don't think that one needs any more explanation. Let's move on.

Speaker 1: 14:29

The next phrase is to scare you off. I said I hope I haven't scared you off. Oh no, I think I said to Luke I'm glad I haven't scared you off. That's the important thing. And this phrase to scare someone off just means to discourage someone either from spending time with you or discourage them from doing a certain activity. We often would use this when talking about dating, actually. So you might say, oh, how did Jessica get on with Tom? They went on a date and I think they're really well suited. Did it go well and you might say well no, jessica was a little bit intense and asking lots of questions about marriage and babies on the first date, and so I think she might have scared Tom off. So Tom, who previously has been quite frightened of commitment, meets this beautiful girl, but on the first date she's asking about whether he's open to serious life commitments and she has scared him off. He is now frightened to even look at her, nevermind go on a second date. So she has discouraged him. She's scared him off. Luckily, I didn't scare Luke off and he came back to do this episode with me.

Speaker 1: 15:58

I was very pleased about it and I then said that we did an episode together for his channel and that we talked at some length about monopoly. And that's the next phrase to talk about something at length. It's a really common phrase. To talk about something at length just means to talk about it for a long time. We said at some length. I was just extending the phrase there. To talk about something at some length, you might also hear, and more commonly you'd hear, at great length meaning very long. We talked about it for a very long time, at great length.

Speaker 1: 16:44

Okay, the next one is a really interesting one, and it is who would have thought. Would have is the contraction of would have, who would have thought, but we often contract it in spoken English who would have, who would have thought? Who would have thought? And I said who would have thought there was so much to say about the game of monopoly, that is. So who would have thought? This means it's unbelievable, the statement that follows. So the statement is there's so much to talk about in terms of the game, and we turn it into a question and we add who would have thought, meaning that that statement is unbelievable. It's unbelievable that there was so much to talk about when it came to this game of monopoly. So who in the world would have believed or would have thought that this was the case, that this was the truth? And the answer to that rhetorical question is nobody. So really the phrase should go nobody would have thought or nobody would have believed. This was true, this was the case. But instead we make it a question who would have thought that this? Or who would have thought that I would be going to jump off a cliff with a fly suit on or a parachute on when I'm frightened of heights? Or who would have thought that my brother-in-law, who hates me, would come to my birthday party and buy me such a beautiful gift and do something so thoughtful. So it's just stating that it is unbelievable what you are talking about. Who would have thought? Sometimes that's what we do. We don't even add the statement on, we just maybe we're talking about something that's unbelievable and then finish with who would have thought, yeah, crazy. Who would have thought, hey, who would have thought, okay.

Speaker 1: 19:05

Moving on, I was talking about where I place the games in the house, in terms of whether they are accessible to the children or not, and I said I like to have some games to be accessible for the children so they can grab them at will. To do something at will means to do it when you want to do it, when you are willing to do it. So if you, if you are on a very restricted diet or someone has control of the fridge, you can't just go and get some food at will. You can't do that thing at will. Someone else is controlling that. But if you are free to eat whatever you want and you have lots of food in your fridge, then you can just go and grab food at will, just go and get a snack at will whenever you want to go and do it. So at will just means whenever you want you.

Speaker 1: 20:04

The next phrase I want to talk to you about is I'll take your word for it. I love this phrase. You basically say this to somebody when they're telling you something you didn't previously know or haven't heard or understood from other people. And then someone tells you this thing and you believe them. You may not have any evidence to back it up, but you believe them and you say to them I'll take your word for it To tell them that okay, I will believe that what you're saying is true, even though perhaps you don't have any evidence of what they're saying to be true, you just take their word for it. If you were a doctor and the test results for your patient suggest that the patient is 100% healthy, there are no problems whatsoever, everything looks good on paper, but your patient is saying to you doctor, something is wrong. I don't feel well, I can sense there's something wrong in my body, and you really believe that the patient is suffering with some health related problem. They genuinely are feeling unwell, even though all the paperwork, all the tests point to a very healthy, happy patient. The patient tells you differently and you would say to them okay, I'll take your word for it. We'll run some more tests, we'll try and figure out what's going on with you Moving on.

Speaker 1: 21:45

The next phrase is to go out of date. Now, this can be used for a number of things. If we're talking about food or products that have a shelf life, so they usually have a date written on them as to when they are no longer good to use. For example, I get my shop delivered to my house because I don't have much time to go to the supermarket and with the children, shopping in the supermarket is just very stressful. We order the shop online and it gets delivered, and often they tell us when they deliver our groceries that there are some items that are going to go out of date very quickly. It's just quite frustrating, especially when it's something that you don't want to eat or cook straight away, and then I'm sorry that's going to go out of date tomorrow. You have to eat it today. It's just a standard date as to when you have to use something by. We sometimes refer to it as a use by date, but once your food or your product has gone past that date that use by date, then it has gone out of date. We would simply say this is out of date, this is out of date or it's gone out of date.

Speaker 1: 23:08

But we can also use this to describe something that's just old fashioned, that's no longer popular, like a dance that was popular in the 60s Maybe, when everyone used to do the twist, or I can't think of an old fashioned dance routine or move when people used to jive. Okay, so the jive was very popular back in the time of Elvis. I don't really know, but it's quite an old fashioned dance. There was a time when everyone used to be doing the jive, and now people don't really jive, unless they are specifically learning particular dances. And so you could say oh, you're doing the jive. Well, that's quite out of date. Why don't you do something more modern, like the floss? Oh dear, I really don't know very much about dance moves. Okay, so to go out of date, no longer used or edible or consumable? Okay, let's move on to drag something out.

Speaker 1: 24:12

If you drag something out, then you make it last longer than it needs to last. For example, let's imagine it's your birthday and we want to throw you a surprise party. You're supposed to arrive home at five o'clock in the evening or late afternoon. But you get off work early and you arrive at your front door at 4.30 and we haven't finished preparing your surprise party. So I quickly rush to the door to greet you and I have a conversation with you and then you're like okay, I want to go in my house now and I say, hang on a minute, I just need to tell you about something. And I really try to drag out the conversation. So I try to make the conversation last much longer than it needed to last. So it often, when something is dragging out, it suggests that it's boring. So I might say that I went to a lecture. I went to a lecture today and I love the lecturer and I love the subject matter, I love the topic that we were discussing, but it really dragged. It really dragged out. Like the lecturer as great as he is, he really dragged out the opening section and it just it was so boring and I was so hungry, I really wanted to just head to the canteen and get my lunch. So there you go to drag something out.

Speaker 1: 25:54

And in an effort to avoid dragging this exploratory episode out any longer than it needs to be, I am going to wrap up by just doing a quick recap on the phrases that we covered. So we talked about drying up. Liquids can dry up, rivers and lakes and things, conversation can dry up, or money flow can dry up. We talked about rummaging around, looking, searching for something in a disorderly way. We talked about digging something out as something that's buried in storage perhaps. We talked about dusting something off, bringing it back into use. We talked about passing the time, so distracting yourself from the boredom of having to wait. We talked about the ins and outs, the details and the ups and downs, the good stuff and the bad stuff. We talked about scaring Tom off, poor Tom, discouraging him from wanting to come back and do the same thing again.

Speaker 1: 27:02

We talked about talking at length, or doing something at great length, when you do something for a long time. We used the phrase who would have thought? Thought to describe something that is quite hard to believe. It's unimaginable, but it's true, it happened. We talked about taking someone's word for it, simply meaning that you will believe what they say to be true. We talked about doing something at will, so doing it when you want to do it. We talked about dragging things out. Oh, I missed one Going out of date. We talked about food and things going out of date, so no longer being popular or becoming unconsumable, right, I do hope you found today useful. Thank you so much for joining me. I will see you again or talk to you again in the next episode. Take care and goodbye.