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Conversational Vocabulary

Hi everyone. Aaron here of Deep English. I hope you’re doing well today. I want to talk to you about some of the words and phrases that Dan and I used in our conversation about UFOs and aliens.

1. let’s get this show on the road

So, let’s get started, or let’s get this show on the road, and that’s the very first phrase that actually Dan uses at the beginning of the recording. He says “Let’s get this show on the road,” and I follow by saying, “Let’s do it.”

So this is an expression that you can use when you want to say let’s get going, let’s get started, let’s begin, let’s get moving, let’s do it. Right? So at the beginning of some kind of event or some kind of process that involves other people, you can use this phrase. Now it often is used in a context where there’s kind of an undertone of the meaning, let’s stop wasting time. Like what’s holding things up.

We really want to get going. Something’s not quite right. That’s kind of how it’s used.

So for example, let’s imagine you’re a parent. You’ve got two kids, and it’s early in the morning, and they’re lying around. They haven’t finished their breakfast. They haven’t gotten dressed yet, and the school bus is coming in 20 minutes, so they’re gonna be late, so you might say to them, “Hey come on guys. Let’s get this show on the road. Come on. You’re gonna be late.” Like this.

Let’s say you’re waiting in line at the bank, and you’re waiting for the window to open after the lunch break. They take a break at lunch, and it’s supposed to open right at 1:00, and it’s already 1:05. People are getting impatient, and so someone shouts out, “What’s going on. Let’s get this show on the road. Come on. We have things to do today.” Right? Like this. They’re a little bit impatient, so that’s kind of the feeling this often has, but Dan is just using it to mean, “Okay, let’s get started,”

so it can be used that way too.

1. off track

All right, let’s move on to the next, which is off track. Right, we’re talking about psychedelic mushrooms and psychotropic plants, and Dan says, “Yeah, but we’re getting a little off track here.” If you imagine a train on a track, and the train jumps off the track, it needs to get back on the track in order for the passengers to reach their final destination.

So when you get off track of what you’re saying, you can use this phrase. To be off track means to be side-tracked, or you get away from the main purpose of the conversation. You’re off track. You go off on a tangent. Sometimes speakers do this when they’re giving a speech about one topic, and then they tell a story which leads to another story, and they’re getting off track, so they might say, “Wow, I’m getting a bit off track here. As I was saying before, coming back to the main point,”

like this.

Sometimes I get off track when I do these recordings, and maybe you sometimes get off track when you’re speaking in front of people. It’s a common thing.

1. shoot off

Moving on, a bit later, I’m telling Dan about the UFO I saw as a small boy, and I said it was large, and it was above the house across the street, and then suddenly it just shot off and disappeared very quickly. So this phrasal verb, shoot off. What does that mean? Well, it comes from the verb to shoot, as in a gun or as in an arrow, and, of course, an arrow and a bullet coming out of a gun and an arrow coming off of a bow is traveling very quickly. So to shoot off means to escape quickly, to go away very fast. Another way of saying this is dart off. Right. I could have said, “Darted off and disappeared very quickly.” So we use that to mean go away very, very fast.

Also, we can use it in the context of sending something very quickly. For example, like an email. For example, I shot off an email to my friend to see if she was going to come to the party tonight. I shot her off an email. I shot off a quick email. I shot off a message. I shot off a quick message. It means to send out very quickly.

1. stick with

All right. Moving along, Dan mentions to me about me being annoyed with my parents for dismissing my claim of seeing a UFO, and I told Dan, “Yeah, it bothered me for a little while, but then I dropped it. It didn’t bother me after that, but I still remember it,” and he said, “Yeah, it stuck with you.” This is a really useful phrase which means to remember for a very long time. Something that sticks with you is something you will never forget, or probably never forget. It sticks with you.

Memories stick with you. Good memories stick with you, and bad memories stick with you. The memories that don’t stick with you are probably not extreme enough for you to remember them.

For example, the birth of both my children, that memory is very crystal clear in my mind. It’s stuck with me all these years. I have a memory of riding on my Dad’s back when I was like 2-1/2 or 3 years old. For some reason, that memory has stuck with me all these years, whereas I’ve forgotten almost every other memory at that age, but that is a memory that has stuck with me. Now we can also use stick with someone to mean remain associated with, so it’s not just memories. It could be like a nickname that sticks with you. For example, when I was in high school, one of my seniors gave me the nickname, “Soup,” because my last name is Campbell, the name of a famous soup company, and that nickname stuck with me throughout all my years of high school; people called me Soup. Not everybody; some people did.

After high school, it was gone. It did not stick with me anymore. No one ever called me that, and I’m happy because I don’t really like it that much. Other things that can stick with people are reputations. For example, a guy named George moves into a new community, and he gets very upset easily at things. As soon as he started to get upset, he quickly developed a reputation that stuck with him for many, many years, right, a reputation of getting upset easily, getting upset quickly.

Okay, so stick with.

1. come across

Moving along, the next is “come across.” Right. Here’s another phrasal verb, to come across. Dan says, “That’s my UFO experience. How about you? Have you ever come across a UFO?” Actually, maybe I said this. I don’t think Dan said this. I think I may have said this, “Have you ever come across a UFO?” What does this mean, to come across? It just means to encounter, or find, or see in a way that was not planned or predetermined, in other words, serendipitously. For example, you’re hiking down a trail in the woods, and you come across a hornet’s nest.

Look out, right? Danger!”

Or maybe you’re cleaning out your closet at home, and you come across an old family photo. You weren’t looking for the family photo; you just came across it.

You happened to see it or find it, like this. Dan had said, or I can’t remember who said it, “Have you ever come across a UFO?” Have you ever seen one is another way of saying it, but not planning to do so, not looking for it. You just come across it.

From a different perspective, maybe the UFO comes across you, if there are aliens inside, so from the perspective of aliens, they come across you when they fly by in the sky.

1. slow on the uptake

Okay, the next one is “slow on the uptake,” when we’re talking about our UFO experiences. It was me that said, “Have you ever come across a UFO?” And Dan’s answer was, “Well, yeah, I mean, I came across an unidentified flying object,” and I said, “Dan, that’s a UFO. That is a UFO, unidentified flying object.” And he says, “Well, there’s some people, and I thought you might be one of them, Aaron, that are a little slow on the uptake.” Right? This is Dan joking with me, as he often does.

Someone who is slow on the uptake means they are slow to understand what is going on, especially if there is some kind of inferred meaning or some kind of meaning that needs a little bit of work on the listener to figure out. Okay? So he says, “unidentified flying object,” as if I did not know that UFO meant unidentified flying object. Of course, I do, but people who are slow on the uptake might not make that connection, that UFO means unidentified flying object.

Teachers do this all the time. We’re both teachers, and we tend to over-explain things sometimes because we’re used to people not knowing what we’re trying to teach them. So anyway, I’m getting off track here. So uptake means kind of up….take. Can you imagine taking up a meaning or taking up some information.

For example, someone who doesn’t get jokes very easily. Someone tells a joke, and then four people hear the joke. Three people laugh, and the other one has a confused look on his face. He’s like, “What? I don’t get it.” He’s a little slow on the uptake. It takes him longer to understand the meaning of a joke.

Maybe you’re at someone’s house for dinner, and it’s getting late. You don’t just say it directly, but you give some signals to the host that you need to get home, like, “Wow, I got a big day tomorrow. I got to get up early,” and “Ooh, wow, it’s getting late.” That kind of thing. That means you’re signaling to the host you want to go home. But if the host is a little slow on the uptake, he or she might say, “Oh, why don’t we watch a movie, or why don’t we look at some photos. I can show you about my trip to Europe last summer,” and they’re not getting the meaning.

They’re a little slow on the uptake.

We often say it like that, “He’s a little slow on the uptake,” or “Yeah, that guy, he’s a little slow on the uptake.” Like that. You got to be careful with that. It’s not sometimes a nice thing to say about someone.

1. BS

All right. Moving on. BS. What’s that mean. We’re talking about this story of Travis Walton and how he was abducted by aliens. He was a logger, and he was with co workers at the time, and they had this story. Dan says, “Maybe it’s BS, but over the course of the decades, they’ve all stuck by their story. Okay. So BS. Actually, stick by is the next one we’re gonna talk about. Dan says, “Maybe it’s BS.” What does he mean? BS stands for bullshit. Now bullshit is kind of a strong word, and it’s not a very nice word, so when you say that, it has a very strong effect on people, so you have to be careful.

There are many alternatives to saying bullshit. BS is one of them. It stands for bullshit. B, bull. S, shit. Bullshit. What is bullshit, by the way? Bullshit in this example means it’s not true. It’s bullshit. It’s not true. It’s BS, right? So Dan says “Maybe the story is not true, but they have told that same story over and over, and the story hasn’t changed. Maybe it’s not true. Maybe it’s BS. Right? Maybe it’s bullshit, but they’ve stuck by their story.” Other ways of saying bullshit are baloney, it’s baloney, it’s hogwash. If you’re British, you might say, “It’s rubbish. It’s complete rubbish.” Or garbage. It just means it’s not true. It’s nonsense. It’s ridiculous. Like this. Right? It’s bullshit. It’s baloney. It’s BS.

1. stick by

Okay. Moving along. Same exchange. Dan says, “Maybe it’s BS, but over the course of the decades, they’ve stuck by their story.” They’ve stuck by it. Stick by something. To stick by something means to remain faithful to it. You’ve stuck by it.

They’ve remained faithful to the story they have told for many, many years. It has not changed at all. You have to stick by a story, especially if you’re a liar. If you’re telling a lie, it’s very important that you stick by the original story. Otherwise, people will discover that you are lying, and I think that’s why many spiritual teachers tell us to tell the truth, because in order to keep track of all your lies, it does not give you peace of mind, and you want peace of mind if you want to be happy and well. So anyway, it means to remain faithful to.

Let’s imagine a husband, and his wife gets very, very sick. It takes her many years, and she slowly deteriorates, and eventually, she dies, but he stuck by her. Right?

The whole time. He loved her until the end. He took care of her until the very end.

He stuck by her. He remained faithful to her as a husband. Like this.

1. to game

Okay. Moving on. The next one is to game something. To game something. What does that mean? Well, we’re talking about lie detectors at this point in the conversation, and I say to Dan as he’s talking about lie detectors, I say “Yeah, you know those lie detectors can be gamed. Right?” So to game something means to kind of manipulate or cheat or be deceptive for your own benefit, and we often game systems for our own benefit. For example, the tax system. In every county, there are many tax laws, and sometimes they’re very complicated and hard to understand, but for people who do understand the tax laws, they can game that system in a way that minimizes the amount of tax that they have to pay, even if it’s legal.

Or other people game it in illegal ways. You shouldn’t do that. I mean, taxes are a good thing for a society, but some people try to game that system. They game the tax system. We have a tool that we use at our university that keeps track of student reading activities, and the way it works is students read a book, and then they take a quiz. If they pass the quiz, they get the word count for that book.

The idea is that we want our students to read lots and lots of words so that they increase their vocabulary and they increase their reading speed, and they become much better at English. But some students don’t want to read, and therefore they try to game the system. They’ll go online and maybe read a summary of the book in their native language and then try to take the quiz. Or maybe they will just read one book, and then they’ll help all their friends take the quiz. They’ll take the quiz for all the other friends on their phones, even though their friends didn’t read the book, and vice-versa. So they help each other out. It’s clever, but it doesn’t help them to get better at English. They’re gaming the system. Have you ever tried to game a system for your own benefit?

1. freak out

Okay. Moving on. There’s a couple more. Freak out. Freak out. There’s a nice little phrasal verb. What does that mean, to freak out? We’re talking again about gaming lie detectors, and Dan says, “Some people will put a tack, like a thumbtack, in their shoe, and they’ll prick their toe to make their body freak out to confuse the test.” In this situation, freak out means to kind of lose composure, to get thrown out of whack, we say. Or to somehow upset what is normal. Right?

You upset what is normal. So if his body freaks out, maybe the blood pressure goes up, and the body starts to sweat, or maybe the body trembles or something just gets thrown out of whack. Right? The body freaks out.

However, that’s actually not the most common way to use freak out when we’re talking about your body system. It is perfectly acceptable, what Dan says, but a more common use of this phrasal verb is when talking about people who get upset. Right? They freak out, very upset, not just mildly upset, very upset. For example, you could freak out in anger. There was a famous college basketball coach way back in the 80s. His name was Bobby Knight. He coached Indiana University, and sometimes he would get very upset on the court, and sometimes he would freak out. He’d pick up a chair, and he’d throw it onto the court in the middle of the game. Then the referees would have to eject him, and it made a big scene. He got very upset, very animated. He used to freak out, right, on the court.

He was famous for that, or maybe I should say infamous for doing that.

Some people freak out out of fear. They don’t get angry. They get really afraid and freak out. They might start screaming or shaking or shivering. People who are afraid of heights sometimes freak out when they find themselves in a very high place. They might really get upset, fall to their knees, and start shaking and quivering and moaning or whatever. Some people freak out because they’re in shock from grief or some kind of tragedy happens. If a father hears about the tragic death of his son, he could freak out and start yelling and screaming and hitting something. Yeah, people freak out sometimes. They lose their composure.

Perhaps you’ve freaked out in your life before, or maybe you’ve seen people freak out. Right. It’s quite common as part of our human condition, to get upset at times.

1. crackpot

All right. The very last one is crackpot. A crackpot. We’re talking about UFO research and how nobody wanted to look like a crackpot, right? So they just ignored UFOs. Right? Nobody wanted to look like a UFO nut, Dan says, a nut.

Nobody wanted to look like a crackpot. Nut and crackpot have the exact same meaning. It just means crazy person. Right? A nutcase. A lunatic. A wacko. A kook.

A loon. Right? A crackpot. Very important, when you use this phrase crackpot or nut or something like that, it’s not like a crazy person in a violent way or a very bad, bad way; it means a person who has some kind of crazy ideas or strange behaviors that are not necessarily harmful. They could be, but that’s not the main intention. So you wouldn’t call someone a crackpot if they’re evil. We would call that person psycho, right, or psychotic or something like that.

But crackpot has a softer, more gentle meaning, and it tends to mean people who are crazy because of their ideas. They’re a crackpot, right? Kind of a nutcase.

There’s one more way to say this. I just thought of it. Fruitcake. That’s a nice way to, I suppose, call someone a crazy person. He’s a total fruitcake. Right? It just means he has crazy ideas, strange behaviors. He’s a fruitcake, right?

Okay. That brings us to the end of this commentary. I do hope you’ve found something interesting and useful in some of these words and phrases. Please, recognize them when you hear them and definitely try to use them in your own conversations. Take care, everyone. We’ll talk to you next month.