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Conversational Vocabulary

Okay. Aaron here. Hello everyone. I’m going to talk now about the conversation Dan and I had. In that conversation we say some things that I would like to talk about a little bit and introduce to you.

1. in bad shape

The first is the phrase, ‘in bad shape’. Dan is talking about Derek Amato and he says that he dove into the shallow end and ended up smashing his head onto the bottom of the pool floor. He was rushed to the hospital and he was in very bad shape. You’ll hear this phrase, ‘in bad shape’ and that means in poor condition or in terrible condition. Derek Amato was in bad shape after he hit his head on the bottom of the pool. He had to go to the hospital. He may have been in a coma. He was definitely in intensive care. He was in very bad shape. His body was in bad shape. He was not well.

We might say, “After the typhoon, the neighborhood was in bad shape. Some of the houses had fallen down. Windows were broken. Trees were cracked and they had fallen down and there was debris everywhere. The neighborhood was in bad shape.”

“My laptop caught a virus and the hard drive was in bad shape. In fact, it was in such bad shape I had to replace the operating system. It was in bad shape.” To be in bad shape means to be in poor, terrible condition.

We can also say, ‘out of shape’. Sometimes we talk about our body. Our physique has been out of shape. “Oh I’ve been working so hard, I haven’t exercised recently. I’m really out of shape.” Also, we can be ‘bent out of shape,’ which means to get upset. “My father got bent out of shape when all of the children were making lots of noise so he got very upset. He got bent out of shape.” It’s important not to get bent out of shape in difficult situations. Try to keep your cool. Try to keep calm. That’s important. You don’t want to get bent out of shape. Those are some uses of out of shape.

1. out of it

The next one is ‘out of it’. Actually, the next three use the word ‘out,’ so we’ll talk a little bit about ‘out’. The first one is ‘out of it’. Dan says, “I think he was out of the hospital in a day or two but he was completely out of it for a while.” He’s talking about Derek Amato and when he says ‘He’s out of it,’ he means he’s out of action. He’s unaware. He’s unable to do anything. In fact he might even be completely unconscious. He’s out of it. We can use this to mean completely confused or completely unaware. Some people drive like they’re completely out of it. They’re not aware of what’s going on around them. They make turns quickly without signaling. They move in front of you when you’re driving and they can almost cause accidents because they’re out of it. Some people drive like they’re out of it.

Another example might be, “I got to work this morning and I realized that I forgot my wallet. And I forgot my keys. I was so sleepy from being up so late last night that I was out of it this morning. I was completely out of it. No wonder I forgot my wallet and keys! I was out of it.” To be out of it means to be unaware, to be unable to remember or do anything or just be aware of what’s going on around you. Try not to be out of it, because if you are, bad things might happen.

1. out of the blue

The next one is ‘out of the blue’. I’m talking, actually. I’m talking about Derek Amato and I say, “But suddenly, out of the blue, he was able to jump from a level two to a level ten.” Of course, I’m talking about his musical ability. When you say ‘out of the blue,’ you’re talking about an event that occurs unexpectedly, unpredicted without any warning. This comes really from ‘out of the blue skies’. If you imagine something coming completely out of the blue sky, you look up, you see a clear blue sky, and suddenly something is falling out of the blue, out of the blue sky. And it means just unexpectedly, without any warning.

One example might be, “I was riding the train yesterday on my way to work, and I met this really nice guy. He started talking to me. He was very friendly. He was polite. He was well-dressed.

Then just suddenly, out of the blue, he asked me for money! It was totally unexpected. I didn’t think this guy would ask me for money. I thought he was just talking to me because he was a nice guy.” Another example might be, “I was sitting around the house one day and the doorbell rang. Just out of the blue, it was an old friend from high school who I haven’t seen in 25 years! He just showed up out of the blue and rang my doorbell. I couldn’t believe it.” So, out of the blue, unexpected.

1. take them out

Next one is, ‘Take them out’. Dan is talking about the military’s research with certain drugs and he’s talking about a video game where the person has to shoot people with guns. Dan says, “they do this research with video games, very immersive video games, where you have to maintain awareness of multiple attackers in this video game scenario and take them out.” In this context, ‘take them out’ means to kill, to disable, to remove permanently from the situation. We often use this in situations where we’re talking about killing. Unless you happen to kill people as part of your job, then you’ll hear this phrase often in the context of a game, especially video games.

But it could be used in a game like chess. ‘To take them out’, ‘to take that guy out’, ‘to take that character out’ means to kill it or destroy it or remove it from the game. There are other meanings.

You could ‘take out the trash’ and that means to just take the garbage from your house out to the street, and that’s ‘taking out the trash’. It doesn’t mean killing the trash. But usually when we talk about people in the context of a game or in the context of war, to take them out means to kill them or eliminate them. It has kind of a violent meaning.

1. not my cup of tea

The next one is ‘not my cup of tea’. This one is when Dan is talking about Derek Amato’s music and he says, “No, no. He’s playing quite complex music. If you listen to it, it’s not my cup of tea, but it sounds kind of loungy.” When you say ‘It’s not my cup of tea,’ this is quite a common expression. It’s quite a common idiom and it means it’s not for me, it’s not to my liking, it’s not my style. So we might say, “Well, heavy metal music is not my cup of tea. I prefer Mexican Jazz.” That means that heavy metal is not really what I like. It’s not my style. It’s not what I enjoy listening to. I prefer listening to jazz, specifically Mexican Jazz.

Another example might be, “Jogging is not my cup of tea. I prefer hiking or swimming.” Or “Traveling by bus is not my cup of tea. I prefer taking the train.” That’s a very common collocation, ‘not my cup of tea’. Now you could say, ‘It is my cup of tea’ and you could use it in a positive sense, but generally it’s used in a negative sense. I could say, “Oh yeah, hiking and swimming, that’s my cup of tea.” People will understand you but it’s not the most common way to use that idiom. We usually say, ‘not my cup of tea’. What is your cup of tea? I wonder.

1. loungy

The next one is ‘loungy’. Actually, Dan says this. He says, “It’s not my cup of tea, but it sounds kind of loungy.” ‘Loungy’ is not really an adjective that you will hear very often. Actually, this comes from the phrase ‘lounge music’ which is a kind of genre of music. There are many genres of music and Dan says, ‘It sounds kind of loungy’. He’s taking this noun ‘lounge’ and he’s turning it into an adjective by putting the -y on the end, so ‘lounge’ becomes ‘loungy’.

You can do this with a lot of different nouns. You can just add the -y or the -ey and turn it into an adjective, and people will generally understand what you’re trying to say. Dan, just as easily, could have said, ‘It sounds kind of jazzy,’ meaning jazz music. Or ‘It sounds kind of rockish’. There’s the ish. You can add that to a noun and turn it into an adjective. ‘It sounds kind of rockish’ or ‘It sounds kind of country-like’. You can add the -like to the end as a suffix to any noun and turn it into an adjective. ‘Yeah, it sounds kind of country-like, like country music’. Be aware that you can add things like -ish, the -y or -ey, and you can add -like to the end of a noun and you can change it into an adjective. Be aware it may not be grammatically correct, but it’s a way to communicate, that people will understand you. That’s important especially for developing fluency.

1. flying up and down

The next open is, ‘flying up and down’. Dan’s talking about Derek Amato and his newfound ability to play the piano like a complete genius, like a professional. He’s saying, “You can tell it sounds like someone who’s been playing for many, many years. His fingers are just flying up and down the keyboard.” This verb ‘fly’, we can use that, and it is used quite frequently to describe fast or quick movement. Derek’s fingers fly up and down the keyboard, so that means he’s playing so quickly and so fluidly, so skillfully that his fingers are moving so fast, they’re flying up and they’re flying down the keyboard.

Another example of how we might use the verb ‘fly’ in this instance is the famous idiom, ‘Time flies’.

We’ll often hear that. ‘Time flies’. It goes so quickly, it goes so fast. ‘Time flies’. Or I might say to my wife, “Hey come on! We’re running late, we need to fly! Let’s hurry up, let’s fly!” Or I might say, “Hey, my brother, he was flying down the street in his brand new sports car when he was stopped by the police and he got a ticket for speeding. He was flying. He was going really fast and he deserved to get the ticket because speeding is dangerous. It kills. It’ll destroy lives when you speed. It’s very dangerous. You shouldn’t do it. Never fly down the street in a car or a motorcycle. It will only bring trouble.” So ‘flying,’ you can use that to mean going very, very fast.

1. cutting edge

The next one is, ‘cutting-edge’. Dan, in this instance, is talking about the military and their research.

He says, “Right, they’re often involved in this kind of cutting-edge research because they have so much money at their disposal.” When you use this term ‘cutting-edge,’ you think of a razor blade or a scalpel or a knife or a very sharp blade of a brand new knife or sword or razor, that’s so sharp and so crisp. Basically this means the newest, the latest, the most advanced, the most contemporary.

We’ll often use this to describe research. Cutting-edge research or cutting-edge technology, cutting edge methodology, cutting-edge techniques. It just means the brand new, the latest, the most recent research, the most recent technology, cutting-edge technology.

You’ll also hear this term, ‘on the cutting edge’ in that phrase and it means the same. ‘Her research,’ for example, ‘is on the cutting edge of advancements in laser technology’. In addition, you’ll sometimes hear ‘on the bleeding edge’. ‘Bleeding-edge’. If you imagine a very sharp razor or a very sharp knife that cuts you and your hand or your skin starts to bleed and this is called a bleeding edge. We might say, “His research is on the bleeding edge of advancements in biotechnology.” So bleeding edge, cutting-edge, it means the same thing - very new, the most advanced, the latest in technology.

1. at their disposal

The next one is, ‘at their disposal’. In the very same sentence, Dan was talking about the research and he says, “They’re often involved in this kind of cutting-edge research because they have so much money at their disposal.” Disposal means at their command, or management, or power to control or to use. It’s another way of saying at hand, having access to, being able to use freely. In this case, the military, they have lots and lots of money, the American military. Lots of money at their disposal, meaning they can take the money and they can do whatever they want with it freely, powerfully, to do whatever they need to do with it. We might also say, “The doctors have lots of drugs and medicine at their disposal. Bankers have lots of money at their disposal. Chefs have lots of ingredients at their disposal to make many delicious dishes.” What do you have at your disposal?

1. jitteriness

The next one is ‘jitteriness’. In this case, Dan is talking about the military using a special type of drug to help people focus. Dan says, “When you use this drug, there’s no sense of jitteriness. There doesn’t seem to be any side effects. There’s no coming down where you’re diminished in any way.” This comes from the adjective ‘jittery’, so what Dan is doing is he’s taking the adjective and he’s turning it into a noun by adding the suffix ‘n e s s’ or -ness. This is kind of opposite to what he did with the noun ‘lounge’ before. He turned it into an adjective by adding the -y, ‘loungy’. Lounge became loungy. In this case, he’s doing the reverse. He’s taking an adjective ‘jittery’ and he’s turning it into a noun by adding -ness, ‘jitteriness’. Of course, jittery means shaking and nervous, and he’s turning it into the noun ‘jitteriness,’ the state of being nervous and shaky.

We can really do the same thing with any adjective we want. Whether or not the noun is even a real word or not. If you’re not sure what the noun is for any given adjective, you can change it into a noun by adding -ness to it and people will understand you even if it’s not grammatically correct. One example might be, ‘insane,’ which means crazy. The noun would be ‘insanity,’ but a lot of people might not know that ‘insanity’ is the noun, and that’s okay. Just add -ness to the adjective. So if you know the adjective is ‘insane,’ you would just say ‘insaneness’.

Another example might be ‘breakable’. Certain things are breakable, especially things made of glass, they’re breakable. The noun would be ‘fragility,’ meaning fragile or fragility, but we might not know that. We may not know that the noun is ‘fragility,’ so we would say ‘breakableness’. It’s a little awkward and it’s a little cumbersome, but the fact is people will understand you if you say ‘breakableness,’ which is the noun for the adjective ‘breakable’. Add -ness to any adjective and turn it into a noun. Don’t worry if it’s grammatically correct or not. The important point is that people will understand you, and that’s important for developing fluency.

1. That’s phenomenal!

Finally, Dan’s talking about pilots being able to focus when they take this drug for 36 hours straight in flight simulators. And I say, “Really? That’s phenomenal!” When you say ‘phenomenal’, that comes from the noun ‘phenomenon,’ which is an occurrence or a happening. But really when you say, ‘That’s phenomenal!’ it’s a phrase that means, “That’s amazing. That’s unbelievable. That’s incredible. That’s out of this world. That’s phenomenal. I just can’t believe it!” This is something you say when you are confronted with an event or a situation which is just incredible, you can’t believe it, it’s phenomenal. The idea of pilots being able to focus for 36 hours straight without any sleep, without any errors, it’s hard to believe. That’s phenomenal. That’s why I say that’s phenomenal, that’s amazing, it’s incredible.

If you can develop fluency in a matter of months, that would be phenomenal! Absolutely phenomenal!