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CONVERSATIONAL VOCABULARY

THE EARTH IS FLAT

Hello there ladies and gentlemen, Aaron here, I’m now going to talk about some of the words and phrases that Dan and I used in our conversation about Flatearthers and bears. So, let’s get started.

1. an accident waiting to happen

The first phrase is an accident waiting to happen, what is an accident waiting to happen? Well I’m talking about human beings befriending bears, and I’m saying that, that’s an accident waiting to happen. That means the conditions are present for something negative to happen, for something bad to happen, some kind of accident. So, in this case befriending bears, the bears get very comfortable with human beings and it’s just a matter of time before a bear doesn’t like something a human does or maybe the bear is feeling sick, and the bear attacks and kills someone or maims someone. It’s an accident waiting to happen. If you let children, young children play with a lighter, a cigarette lighter, that’s an accident waiting to happen. It’s just a matter of time before one of them gets burned or they burn the house down. Same with letting children sit in the front seat of a car without a seat belt, that’s an accident waiting to happen. It’s just a matter of time before something terrible will happen. So, that’s how it’s used.

1. don’t want anything to do with (something)

The next one is don’t want to have anything to do with something. So, this is what I use when I’m talking about bears and humans, I say, I think most bears don’t want to have anything to do with humans. So, this phrase, to not want to have anything to do with something or someone, means you want no relationship with it. You want no connection with it. It’s a very common way to speak. Another way to say it is want nothing to do with, bears want nothing to do with humans. Or bears have nothing to do with humans, bears have nothing to do with humans.

Bears want nothing to do with humans. Bears don’t want to have anything to do with humans. Bears got nothing to do with humans. That’s kind of a more colloquial way to say it, they got nothing to do with them.

So, let me give you a few more examples, let’s say I have two really good friends and right now they’re having an argument, they’re really fighting, you know what?

I want nothing to do with it, I’ll let them settle it. I don’t want to get involved, I don’t want any connection with that, I want nothing to do with it. Or maybe there’s a gangster who lives down the street, and you know what? I got nothing to do with that guy, I don’t want anything to do with him. It sounds like trouble to me. Or maybe the police are investigating a noise complaint in the neighborhood and they knock on my door, and I was not the cause of the noise complaint so I can tell the police, hey I got nothing to do with that noise complaint. I wasn’t making any noise, maybe it’s the people next door like this.

1. aficionado

Okay the next one is aficionado, what’s an aficionado? Well if you’re a Spanish speaker or maybe someone who speaks Portuguese or any of the romance languages you can probably guess what this word means. It basically means someone who is very, very interested in something to the point that it makes them a connoisseur, or an expert on the subject. For example, I have an uncle who loves to drink wine, and not only does he loves to drink wine he’s very knowledgeable about wine. He knows exactly how it’s made, what the best conditions for making it are, how to buy it, he’s a real wine aficionado. I know another man who lives not too far away from me, and he is a classic film aficionado. He loves classic films, especially black and white films and he spends lots and lots of time every week watching old movies. He’s a classic film aficionado. Are you an aficionado of something? Perhaps you are.

1. self-proclaimed

Actually, just after I talk about this man, he’s not the first bear aficionado, so a person who is an expert on bears or who really loves bears. But I also say selfproclaimed bear lover, so that adjective, self-proclaimed, when do we use that?

What does it mean? Well to proclaim means to announce, so if you proclaim something you announce it, in a very public kind of way. So, self-proclaimed would mean self-announced, meaning that you are the one who is giving yourself some kind of title. So, in this case this man is a self-proclaimed bear lover. It’s not other people that say he’s a bear lover, he claims to be a bear lover. He claims it, he proclaims it. He’s a self-proclaimed bear lover.

Another example might be someone who claims, they say, they announce that they are very good at healing other people. Maybe through some special energy or some kind of practice where they go into a trance. That’s a self-proclaimed healer, right? If they say that they do it. Now if other people recognize that, that person is a healer then it’s no longer self-proclaimed. Many people would say that person is a healer. Another example might be Donald Trump, the current President of the United States, he’s a self-proclaimed master negotiator. He’s the ‘Art of the Deal’, he wrote a book on it, he’s self-proclaimed master at negotiation.

Whether he truly is or not a master negotiator is up to other people to decide.

But he certainly proclaims it, he’s a self-proclaimed master negotiator. What do you think?

1. to budge

Moving on, Dan uses an interesting verb a bit later, he’s talking about the pro bear and the anti-bear people. People who are against the bears and people who are for being friends with the bears in this little town. They had different views, much, much different perspectives on the issue and neither of them were willing to budge. So, that’s the term we’re looking at here, to budge. To budge means to move very slightly, just a slight movement, barely noticeable, a budge. Now that’s the literal meaning of it but a more figurative meaning is to change your opinion of something in a direction of compromise. So, for example these anti bear and pro bear people they held firm to their opinions, they were not willing to budge, they were not willing to change them at all. They held their opinions firmly, they were not willing to budge.

Recently the US government had a shut down because both sides of the political parties refused to budge. They refused to compromise, they refused to change their opinions, even slightly, they refused to budge. If you use very persuasive language, in a very strong persuasive argument you can get people to budge on their position, you can get people to budge on their views, that’s what persuasive speakers can do.

1. to buy (something)

Alright, moving on to the next one, and perhaps you’ve heard this one before?

Maybe we’ve mentioned it in a previous lesson. We’re talking about landing on the moon, and I say yeah that’s just a hoax. Dan says I’m not a believer in that, and I said you’re not a believer? I don’t buy that either, I don’t buy that either, that we’ve never landed on the moon. So, if you don’t buy something it means you just don’t believe it. I don’t believe in the conspiracy theory that humans never landed on the moon, I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that. So, to buy something means to believe it, do you buy it? Do you believe it? I don’t buy it, I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it to be true.

Recently, we have a cookie jar in our kitchen, and recently my daughter has been taking cookies at times that she shouldn’t be eating them. Recently I thought that she may have taken some cookies and I said, hey did you take some of those cookies? She says, no, not at all, I’ll eat them after dinner. But I didn’t buy it, I saw some cookie crumbs that looked pretty fresh near the cookie jar. So, I didn’t buy her explanation, I didn’t buy her excuse. Let’s take another example, let’s say you’re headed to a friend’s house and he says, oh don’t worry you don’t need to take a taxi from the train station, it’s only a short 10 minute walk to my house.

Well I looked at it on the map before I left and man I don’t buy it, it must take at least 20 minutes to walk, I might take a cab instead. I just don’t buy it, I don’t buy his explanation. So, yeah, it looks too far, I don’t believe it, I don’t buy it.

1. inside job

Then I asked Dan shortly after that, I say how about 9/11, meaning everyone knows 9/11 the big attack on the World Trade Centers in 2001. I said that it was an inside job, do you buy that? Do you believe it, that it was an inside job? Do you believe that conspiracy theory? So, what’s an inside job? Well in this context we talk about a job as being some kind of criminal activity. Some kind of event that is set up and orchestrated, and carried out with the purpose of stealing or inflicting damage, or something like that. If it’s an inside job it means people on the inside, meaning people who are close to the situation were responsible for it. So, in a typical situation you have a group of criminals let’s say that wants to rob a bank, and so they research the bank and they make their plans and then late one night they get dressed up in black suits and they go and steal money from the bank.

They break in, they rob the bank, they take off never to return. The police have to look for them. That’s the typical way to rob a bank.

But let’s imagine a bank was robbed and it turns out that it wasn’t a group of criminals, it was actually the bank manager who made it look like there were a group of criminals that robbed the bank. In fact it was an inside job, he was the one responsible for the break in and he’s the manager of the bank, that’s an inside job. Another example might be money that was stolen from a cash register at a restaurant, everyone thinks that one of the customers must have done it, but in fact it was the cook, he needed the cash. An inside job, perhaps you know of some inside jobs in movies or perhaps in real life.

1. not put anything past (someone/something)

Okay moving on, Dan says something that I think is also very useful to know, and that is I guess I just don’t put anything past the government. I don’t put anything past the government. We’re talking about 9/11 and I asked Dan you know does he have any doubts about it? He says, well he does express some doubt and he says that I just don’t put anything past the government. What does that mean?

Well to not put something past someone means to consider that person or that entity capable of doing something, usually bad. So, in this case he doesn’t put anything past the government, meaning like he believes that the government is indeed capable of doing something bad.

I know a guy, he’s actually a really nice guy, but he tends to be kind of greedy when it comes to money. So, I wouldn’t put it past him to cheat on his taxes, when he fills out his taxes at the end of the year to send into the government. I wouldn’t put it past him to cheat on his taxes. That means I think he’s capable of doing that, even though he shouldn’t do that, he’s capable of it, I wouldn’t put it past him.

I know another woman whose kind of crazy, and I think she might be a drug addict, I’m not sure. But I wouldn’t put it past her to steal money from her own family in order to buy drugs or whatever. She’s kind of crazy and unstable, yeah, I wouldn’t put it past her to do that. I think she’s capable of stealing money from her own family.

1. doesn’t add up

Okay, so remember that when you hear it, that’s what it means. The next one is a simple one and very useful also. We’re talking about the building number seven, the conspiracy theory that building number seven during the 9/11 attacks actually was … The collapse of that building was the result of a controlled demolition, meaning that it was set up, it fell at the speed of gravity on its own footprint, that’s never happened before in the history of sky scrapers. It just doesn’t add up, and that’s what the phrase we’re looking for here. It doesn’t add up, it doesn’t make sense. To add something up means to put the pieces together to make a whole, and if it doesn’t add up that means the pieces don’t fit.

Something is strange, something is unusual, something is wrong with this picture.

Maybe let’s take another example, lets imagine a woman, a young woman and she’s very interested in Spanish culture and she studies Spanish for four years and spends lots of time and money, and she perfects her Spanish and then suddenly I hear that she moves to China. Now she’s living in China, it just doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make sense, like why would she do that? Yeah, something doesn’t add up. I know another guy he quit his job, his career as a medical doctor to work in a restaurant. Not as like a manager, but as a cook, and I just don’t understand it, it just doesn’t add up. He was a successful doctor, he helped many people and now he’s cooking in a kitchen. There’s nothing wrong with cooking in a kitchen, it’s a wonderful thing, but it just doesn’t add up. Who would have guessed that he would ever do such a thing like this. That’s what it means, that’s how we use it.

1. publicity hound

Moving right along, the next one is publicity hound. We’re talking about Mad Mike, and Dan says that some people say he’s just a publicity hound. He doesn’t actually believe the earth is flat, what he’s looking for is publicity, or attention in the news. He wants to be in the news, he wants to be on YouTube, he wants people to talk about him and write about him, like we’re doing now, we’re talking about him. That’s what he’s most interested in, he doesn’t care really about the flat earth movement, so some people say. So, a publicity hound, do you know what a hound is? A hound is a kind of dog that’s used for hunting, so you can imagine someone who hunts for publicity, who hunts for attention is a publicity hound.

Usually these are people who are well known but not super famous, they’re just kind of a lesser known type of celebrity. The reason they’re kind of known still, in spite of perhaps their lack of talent or whatever, is they’re constantly seeking publicity, they want to be in the news. So, they do crazy things, like they get in fights, they get arrested, they do something crazy, they buy something outrageous. They’re just looking to get into the news.

When I hear this, every society has publicity hounds, but I guess recently in American society I would say the Kardashian sisters they tend to be this type of celebrity, that is always looking to get into the news for some reason or another. I could be wrong about that, but that’s just my impression.

1. rock solid

Alright moving on, rock solid. That’s a nice adjective, rock solid proof. So, if something is rock solid it is solid as a rock is solid. It’s super solid, it’s very hard, and what it means it’s very sure, it’s very stable, it’s very trustworthy. If something is rock solid it’s 100%, rock solid proof, rock solid evidence. The team, the sports team had no points scored on them during the game because of their rock solid defense. They had a rock solid defense, strong as a rock, trustworthy as a rock.

It’s a rock solid plan, they don’t need to change it, it’s rock solid, it’s perfect. Rock solid trust, I have rock solid trust in my best friend, I know he’ll never betray me, I have rock solid trust in him. So, it just means very solid, it’s rock solid.

1. to break bread

Alright finally broke bread, to break bread. We’re talking, Dan and I are joking around right at the end and I say, well that’s how I found you, that’s how we met right? Dan says, yeah we broke bread and built bridges. We’re just kind of goofing around but basically to break bread is something you should know, and literally of course it means to take a loaf of bread, break it into pieces and share it amongst a group of people in a way that everyone has something to eat. Of course, that’s the literal, the original meaning of it. Nowadays it’s often used in a figurative way to refer to a friendly kind of encounter between people that’s based on trust and confidence but it’s very informal, it’s kind of sharing. Has that feeling of just sitting down, having a nice time, sharing your thoughts and feelings, talking, laughing. You’re breaking bread, you’re connecting with people in a meaningful friendly kind of way. Yeah, it’s good to break bread, especially with new people who you’ve never met before. Yeah it helps us feel more connected to those around us. So, let’s break bread, who have you broken bread with recently?

Alright that brings us to the end of this commentary, I hope you’ve found the words and phrases useful. Remember try to use them when you’re speaking, and hopefully you’ll recognize them when you hear them now. Alright, if you have any questions please post them in the forum, we’ll see you there. Bye, bye.