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CONVERSATIONAL VOCABULARY

Hello, everyone. Aaron here. I’m now going to talk about some of the words and phrases that Dan and I use in our conversation.

1. okie dokie

The first is “okie dokie.” This is what Dan says at the very beginning of the conversation. He says, “Okie dokie. Aaron Campbell. How you doing?” Like this. Of course, “How you doing?” is very colloquial way of saying hello or how are you, and “okie dokie” is also a colloquial way of saying okay. So, he starts the conversation by saying, “Okay. Okie dokie.” Now this, as I’ve said, has a colloquial, very casual feel to it and you should only use it sparingly. Don’t use it all the time. You’ll drive people crazy. Okie dokie?

1. come on

The next is “come on.” Dan says this after I tell him the I’ve never cheated death and he says, “Oh, come on.” Because he thinks that I do have a story about cheating death. He’s sure of it. When I tell him I don’t, he says, “Oh, come on.” And, basically, what that means is start telling the truth. Stop lying. Don’t tease me. Don’t joke with me. Stop joking. Come on. Or, “come off it” is another way he might say it. Come off it. Come on. So, for example, if a friend tells you that she hasn’t eaten food for an entire week and she’s really hungry, you might say, “Oh, come on. Surely you’ve had some food in the last week.” Like this.

Now, you can also use this same phrase if you’re dealing with something that’s really difficult, and you want it to change, but it’s not changing, and it makes you frustrated. For example, if you’re trying to visit a website and you really need the information on that website, but it doesn’t load in the brows-er. Maybe you have a slow internet connection, so you might say, “Oh, this is loading too slowly. Come on. Come on.” It’s kind of a sign of frustration. Or, maybe if you’re with a child and the child is walking really slowly but you’re in a hurry, you might say to the child, “Would you please walk faster? Come on. Come on. Stop doing that. Do the opposite. Instead of go slow, go fast. Come on.” Like this. So, it can also be a sign of frustration.

1. hairy

Okay. The next one is hairy. We’re talking about risky situations and I say, “Yeah, I’ve actually been in some hairy situations.” So, in this case, hairy means risky or even scary. In some cases, it can mean exciting and this comes from the physiological reaction that some people get when they get scared and their hair stands up on its end, the hair on your arms or the hair on the back of your neck, it stands up when you’re really scared so that’s where hairy comes from. You might say, “Oh, be careful driving on that mountain road. It has some really hairy turns. You have to be really careful.” And, that means very dangerous, scary turns and if you’re not careful, you might drive your car right over the cliff.

Or, maybe you’re in an airplane and it has a hairy landing. It’s very bumpy. You feel like you’re going to crash and it scares everyone on the airplane. “Ooh, that was a hairy landing.” Or, you might talk about it in exciting terms. “I rode a roller coaster last month and it had some really hairy drops.” Like this. Or, maybe you have a series of exams in your class for a course that you’re taking, and they end up being a series of very difficult exams right in a row. You could say, “Wow, that was a really hairy series of exams.” It just means really dreadful, difficult, a little bit scary. It gives you anxiety. It’s hairy. Like this. Okay.

1. tail tucked between your legs

All right. Let’s move on to the next one. Tail tucked between your legs. And, I tell Dan, “Well, there was a few times where I was stuck at sea and another time where I think I cheated death.” And, he says, “Oh, so you ran home with your tail tucked between your legs, huh?” And, I say, “Yeah, my tail tucked be-tween my legs, quivering and shaking in fear.” So, this comes from actually what happens when dogs are very, very scared. If you’ve ever seen a dog that’s really nervous or scared, it will run away with its tail tucked between its legs and sometimes its ears will come down. Perhaps you’ve seen a dog do this when it’s either scared, or frightened, or embarrassed, or ashamed about something. I mean, dogs do this all the time.

For example, if you come home and your dog has pooped on the floor. Your dog knows that he’s not supposed to do that. And as soon as he sees you, he’ll put his tail between his legs and run away, and you know he’s done something wrong. Or, maybe your dog ate something from the kitchen table, and he knows he’s not supposed to eat it. But, as soon as you see him, you get angry at him, and he runs away with his tail between his legs.

Of course, we can apply this to non-canines, non-dogs by saying, “Yeah, the team, the football team thought they were going to win the game, but they actually ended up losing to a much weaker team, and they left the field with their tail between their legs.” Like this. Or, maybe you are certain you’re go-ing to get the contract, and your proposal got rejected in favor of another company’s proposal who you thought was much inferior to your company, and you leave with your tail between your legs. You go back to your office with your tail between your legs. You’re just embarrassed. You’re ashamed. Like this. And so that’s what it means. You think of dogs.

1. get my grub on

Okay. A little bit later in the conversation, Dan says, “Don’t worry. I would know what you wanted. You wanted me to get up to the top and get my grub on. Of course, Dan is talking about the situation where he would be attached to a rope hanging over a cliff and his friend is attached to the same rope be-low him. In this case, he would cut the rope, send his friend, in this case me, to his death in order to get up to the top and get his grub on. And, what that means is get food. Of course, Dan is joking. But, when you use this phrase “get your something on,” it means to do that thing. So, in this case, grub is food. So, to get his grub on would mean to eat very enthusiastically.

This is a new way of speaking in the last 10 years or so. A lot of young people may speak this way. It reminds me of a song Get Ur Freak On by the rap art-ist Missy Elliott. Get Ur Freak On. You could say, “I could get my groove on,” when you go out to the dance floor. You’d get your groove on. Or, if you’re going out drinking with friends, you might say, “We’re going to go get our drink on.” Or, if you want to dress up really nicely and drive around in a cool car, you might get your swag on. So, this is a really contemporary way of talk-ing about food, or drink, or style. Yeah. Just be aware of it. If you hear it, that’s what it means. Okay.

1. got a lot of flak

All right. The next one is “got a lot of flak.” We’re talking about this guy, this climber named Yates who cut the rope and sent his friend to his death. And, even though his friend didn’t die, Yates got a lot of flak for it. What do you think that means? Well, flak is actually anti-aircraft fire. So, in World War II when let’s say American pilots were on a bombing raid whether they were bombing let’s say Germany or Japan, anti-aircraft fire would come up and shoot those planes down. Of course, the pilots were very frightened of this and they called it flak. So, if those pilots got a lot of flak, it means that they were shot at and put in great danger.

We still use this term. Today, “to get a lot of flak” means to get a lot of criti-cism, attacks by someone else. And, that’s usually due to your actions. If you get a lot of flak from someone, it’s because you’ve done something and they’re not happy about it. For example, right now, President Donald Drumpf in the United States, he’s getting a lot of flak in the media for his outrageous statements. And, his spokesperson, Sean Spicer, takes a lot of flak directly from reporters everyday. They’ve taken lots of flak and perhaps deservedly so. Have you ever taken flak for something you’ve done? Perhaps we all have at some point in our lives. We do things. We make mistakes and we get flak for it. When was the last time someone gave you flak and did you deserve it?

1. pretty cool

Okay. The next one is “pretty cool.” That’s pretty cool. We’re, again, talking about the story of the two climbers, and the actual climber Simpson who fell to his supposed death and actually survived was actually quite supportive of his friend who cut the rope and said that he would have done the same thing. It was a logical thing to do. And, I say, “That’s pretty cool of him.” That’s pretty cool of Simpson to do. “Pretty cool of” means very positive of, admira-ble of, nice of, good of.

For example, I know a guy named George and he’s a pretty cool guy. He’s a pretty cool guy. He’s nice to everybody. He’s down to earth. He’s very hum-ble. He’s a pretty cool guy. It means he’s a good guy. He’s pretty cool. I have a new boss and she’s pretty cool. She’s very fair. She’s a good listener. She’s a great leader. I like her. She’s pretty cool. I feel comfortable around her. So that what it means. “Pretty cool” means really good, really positive, really nice, really admirable.

Here’s another example. A guy I know named John, his wife got really, really sick. She got to go to the hospital and she was in the hospital for a whole month but he had to work and he’s got kids but he had to work, and so his kids were kind of on their own, but the neighbors really helped out. They watched the kids. They cooked meals for John and the kids. They took care of taking care of his yard. That was pretty cool of them, don’t you think? That was pretty cool what they did. It’s something positive. Use that phrase. It’s a very casual, colloquial phrase but it’s really useful.

1. crowdsourcing

All right. Moving on. The next is “crowdsourcing.” We’re talking about this website that asks … It gives a survey to people and asking them to choose who should die in these hypothetical situations where a driverless car must make a choice between killing one group of people and another group of people or one person and another person. And, what they’re doing is they’re sending this survey out all over the world, and they’re getting different peo-ple’s opinions from all different walks of life, and this is something called crowdsourcing. They’re actually going to use the answers in their research to develop these semi-intelligent automated cars that drive themselves. “Crowd,” of course, means many people and “sourcing” comes from the word “outsourcing.” That means looking outside of your group for work, looking outside of your immediate company for people to do work to help you out. In this case, we’re looking at many, many people to either give mon-ey or do work.

Wikipedia, everybody knows Wikipedia. That is the result of great crowdsourcing. Lots and lots of people all over the world contribute to it and it makes it great. Kickstarter is a website that does crowdfunding which is a type of crowdsourcing and they basically … Like, for example, if you have a good idea of something you want to develop and you need money for it, then you can put it on Kickstarter, tell people what it is and people will donate small amounts. But, those small amounts, they really add up if thousands and thousands of people donate to your project because they like your idea. Most people can afford $10 or $20 who use the internet regularly. And, it may not seem like a lot of money, but when thousands of people do it, wow, that can really add up so crowdsourcing. That’s what it means.

1. on the tip of my tongue

Okay. Just a few more to go here. On the tip of my tongue. Dan was asking me about the name of those documents that you use when people express their wishes to either be removed from life support if their quality of life is very low and I said, “Yeah, I think there’s a name for those documents but it’s not coming to the tip of my tongue right now.” I eventually said, “It’s a living will,” which I believe that’s what it is. When you can’t think of a word or a phrase but you know that you know it because you’ve said it before and sometimes our brains just don’t produce what we know that we know, we say, “It’s on the tip of my tongue. It’s on the tip of his tongue. It’s on the tip of her tongue.”

This often happens with names. You meet a person at a party or at an event and they’re really nice. And then, later, you see them maybe 10 minutes or 15 minutes later and you’ve forgotten their name but it’s on the tip of your tongue. Was it John, or Jason, or George? I can’t remember. It’s on the tip of my tongue. I’ll remember it later. Same with words and phrases or names of restaurants, names of places. We often forget. Sometimes they’re on the tip of our tongue. We know we’re about to say them but we just can’t think of it.

1. there you go

Okay. The next is “there you go.” There you go. This is what Dan says. I even-tually come out and say, “Oh, it’s a living will.” And, Dan says, “Yes, a living will. There you go.” “There you go” is an emphatic statement that you can make that means you did it. That’s right. Well done. Good job. That’s it. You got it. Like that. There you go.

We often say this when there’s some kind of result that appears suddenly that we’ve been waiting for. For example, your friend is trying to solve a diffi-cult puzzle, and she’s working on it for a long, long time, and she’s getting frustrated, but then eventually something clicks. She figures it out and she solves it. She’s really happy and then you say, “There you go. You did it. Good job. There you go.”

A child learning to ride a bicycle keeps falling over and scraping her knees and elbows and getting frustrated but she keeps trying. She keeps getting back up and eventually she can ride down the street without falling over. She’s very happy and then you can say to her, “There you go. You did a great job. That’s the way to do it. There you go.” Like this.

Here’s another common way to use this. Instead of saying, “There you go,” you can say, “There we go. There we go.” Like this. For example, let’s say you are sitting in a car on a cold winter morning with a friend, and you’re trying to start the car engine, but it won’t start, and you keep trying and trying. It won’t start and you pump the gas a few times and both of you are nervous that the car is not going to start, and you’re going to be stuck there in the cold freez-ing driveway. And, finally, it starts up and both of you are very relieved and you say, “Ah, there we go. There we go. Now, we’re in business. Now, we’re ready to go to work or now we’re ready to go to the amusement park,” or wherever you’re going. There we go.

Or, if you’re trying to solve a computer problem. I’m sure if you’re like me you’ve got computer problems all the time and it’s a little bit frustrating. But, if you solved it, you could say, “There we go. We got it.” You don’t always have to say “you.” If you want to include yourself in it, you say “we.” You don’t say, “There I go.” You say, “There we go. There we go. I got it. There we go. I did it.” Like this.

1. pull the plug

Okay. Last one. Pull the plug. Pull the plug. We’re talking about life support, and Dan is talking about how his mother kept saying to pull the plug and all these different conditions if she had it. This means to end something is to pull the plug. Of course, we’re talking about ending someone’s life here in this example because when you pull the plug … A plug is that thing that you stick into the wall that gets the electricity, that taps into an electric wire to al-low you to run a machine, some kind of electronic machine. And so, when people are in the hospital and sometimes they’re attached to a machine that pumps their heart, or pumps their blood, or pumps oxygen into their lungs, it keeps them alive. Without that machine, they would die. If you pull the plug, it cuts the electricity to that machine and that is in effect killing that person because without that machine, they will die. And so, when you pull the plug, that means to allow another person to die naturally, to end their life. That comes from being on life support.

But, we will use this phrase to simply mean to end something outside of life support, all kinds of things in life. For example, let’s say you’re doing a busi-ness deal, and you’re setting it up, and everything is going well, but suddenly you get a bad feeling, and you don’t like the way that it’s going. You can pull the plug on that deal and just back out and say, “Sorry, I’m not going to go through with this. Please find someone else. I’ve changed my mind. I’ve pulled the plug on this deal.”

Or, maybe there’s a concert that’s going to happen and you hear … It’s an outdoor concert of live music, but you hear that there could be a lightning storm on the way. The event promoter might pull the plug on the event in order to avoid the potential of people being struck by lightning, so he’ll pull the plug on the event. It could make some people upset but he’s pulled the plug because he thinks that’s the right thing to do. If you’re in a bad relation-ship, pull the plug, perhaps. I mean, if it’s a very bad, destructive relationship, you might pull the plug on that relationship. End it. Move on. Like this.

Okay. I am going to pull the plug right now on this lesson. I’m going to end it. I’m going to pull the plug. I hope that you have learned a few new words and phrases that you can now use in conversation and, of course, recognize it when you hear it. I hope you find them useful. Okay. Until next time. See you later.