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CONVERSATIONAL VOCABULARY

FEARS AND PHOBIAS

Hi everyone. Aaron here of Deep English. I’m now going to talk about the conversation that Dan and I had on the subject of fears and phobias. I’m going to draw your attention to some of the language usage that occurred in this conversation and we’ll give some examples and talk about some meanings. Let’s get started.

1. agoraphobia

The very first thing I want to draw your attention to is the term ‘phobia’. Dan mentions two types of phobias: claustrophobia and agoraphobia, and I ask him, “What’s the difference.” Dan says, “Actually, I’ve heard agoraphobia used to describe people who have a fear of small spaces and open spaces, so I’m not really sure. It seems strange that you would use it for both.” First of all, the term ‘phobia’ comes from Greek, the Greek term ‘phobos’. It, of course, means ‘fear’.

This is a suffix. You usually see it at the end of a term. It can also be used on its own: ‘a phobia’. We can change the suffix to ‘phobic’ and that makes it an adjective. Someone who suffers from agoraphobia, the noun, would be described as an agoraphobic person. Someone who suffers from claustrophobia is a claustrophobic person. You can change that into an adjective very, very easily.

Agoraphobia originally, in Greek, meant fear of the marketplace. Basically, it came to mean fear of wide, open, public spaces, and that was commonly used for a while. But now, this term seems to be used to describe fear of dangerous or uncomfortable environments. It could be used to describe any space, any environment that causes fear to arise in someone, an irrational or extreme fear to arise.

Claustrophobia definitely means fear of cramped, crowded small spaces. Usually people use the term agoraphobia to talk about fear of wide, open spaces.

Other common words or terms that use ‘phobia’ or ‘phobic’ as the suffix are xenophobia, which is the fear of people from other countries or people from strange places, and you also hear homophobia, or homophobic, fear of homosexuality. Those are often in the news, xenophobia and homophobia. Those are some other ones.

There’s a whole list, a very long list of phobias. It’s amazing how many phobias are out there. A lot of the terminology is quite difficult to pronounce and even native speakers don’t often understand what the meanings of those terms are. For example, arachnophobia. Can you guess the meaning of arachnophobia? I couldn’t. But when you look it up, it means fear of spiders. Some people have fear of spiders. Spiders are creepy. They’re creepy. They cause fear in a lot of people.

1. as __(adj) as that fear might/may __(verb)

Let’s move on. There’s a phrase that I used a little bit later in the conversation. I say, “There are a lot of people afraid of flying in airplanes, and as irrational as that fear might be, still many people have it and as long as you can deal with it, it’s a normal fear. So ‘as irrational as that fear might be’. So, as [adjective] as that [something, something] might [verb]. That’s a common pattern. You can look in the PDF to see it clearly.

Basically, we use this pattern to mean ‘even though’ or ‘in spite of’. Even though this fear of flying is completely irrational, you’re more likely to die in the car on the way to the airport than you are in the airplane, but yet people are more afraid of flying in the airplane and they don’t think anything of flying in a car. So in spite of the irrationality, even though it’s irrational, still many people have it. So as irrational as that fear might be, people still have it.

You might say to a friend who is breaking up with his girlfriend and who is very emotional about it, you might say, “Look, as difficult as this might be, you need to do it now. You need to do it soon.

There’s no reason to continue the relationship.”

We might talk about those men who were caught at sea and they had to survive without any fresh water. You might tell those men, “Hey, as crazy as this might sound, don’t drink the seawater. I know you’re surrounded by water and you get very, very thirsty but as crazy as it might sound, don’t drink it because it will make the situation worse and you’ll die.”

I have a friend here in Japan and in the winter when it’s cold, this guy walks around in T-shirts. Here I am in multiple layers and wearing a coat and gloves and hat and he’s out walking in a T-shirt. So as cold as it is, my friend is out there walking in a T-shirt. Why? He’s from Northern Canada. He’s used to it. For him it’s comfortable. For me it’s too cold. So as cold as it is, he still walks around with a T-shirt.

Take a look at that phrase, that pattern and see if you can incorporate that, as difficult as it might be, see if you can incorporate that into your speech patterns.

1. full-on, full-fledged

A little bit later in the conversation, I say, “Hey, do you have any full-on, full-fledged phobias that you can think of that have disrupted your life?” I asked Dan this question. I want to draw your attention to full-on and full-fledged. Both of these are terms that are very useful. They have slightly different meanings. ‘Full-on’, when we use that term to describe something, it means very intense, very extreme. I might say, “Oh did you see that premier league soccer game last weekend? Man, that was full-on! There were many goals, there were red cards, there were angry fans. It was full-on.

That was a full-on game,” which means very intense, very emotional, lots happening.

Here’s another example, I might say, “Yeah, you know my boss at work, man she is full-on. She is very passionate about the job. She expects a lot from her employees. She’s there early in the morning until late at night. She takes her job very seriously. She’s an excellent boss, but man, she is full-on.” I’m just saying she’s very intense; she’s very extreme about what she’s doing.

In this case, I’m asking Dan, does he have any full on phobias? Like completely intense, extreme fears.

Then I also say ‘full-fledged’. What’s the difference? Well, ‘full-fledged’ is similar to ‘full-on’ but it sort of means more along the lines of complete or completely developed or completely established, fully established. Actually, the term ‘fledge’ or ‘fledged’ comes from ‘feathers’, the feathers of a bird. A bird is full-fledged when it has all of its feathers. We talk about something that is full-fledged means it’s fully developed. A full-fledged phobia is a fully developed fear.

A full-fledged doctor is someone who has graduated from medical school, they’ve done their residency and finally they’ve started their own practice. They are a full-fledged doctor. My cousin just passed the bar exam in the state of Illinois and she is now a full-fledged lawyer in Chicago. I got a little bit sick last week. I had a runny nose, I had a sore throat, I had a small fever, but it was not a full-fledged illness. My friend on the other hand, he got the flu really bad, and it was a full-fledged case of the flu. So that’s how you would use those terms.

1. making headway

Let’s move on. The fourth term I want to draw your attention to is ‘making headway’. Dan is talking about the fact that he was panicking when he got caught in the undertow in the ocean when he was younger. He was trying to remain calm but he could see that he wasn’t making headway against the current and he started to panic.

To ‘make headway’ means to make progress, to achieve progress towards something. We often, not always, but we often use this term in the negative. Just like Dan did, he said, “I wasn’t making headway. I wasn’t making progress,” towards getting back to the beach and saving his own life.

We might say that the scientists in the last 10 or 15 years, even though they’re working really hard, they’re not making much headway at finding cures for cancer, and this is due to lack of funding.

Governments want to spend more on the military and fighting wars rather than saving lives and solving, curing cancer and AIDS and terrible diseases and things like that. They haven’t been making too much headway.

You hear this term a lot when talking about discussions or political discussions or negotiations. The negotiation isn’t making much headway due to tensions in the two parties. Or political discussions between the United States and North Korea are making little headway due to personal problems between the two leaders, or something along those lines.

So that’s making headway. Are you making headway in your attempt to achieve greater fluency in English? Are you making much headway? I hope so.

1. sucked - bummer

The next one is, these are actually two very colloquial terms, kind of slang terms, and one is ‘sucked’ or ‘sucks’ and the other is ‘bummer’. Dan, he’s talking about this situation of the friend who did not save him when Dan was drowning and Dan sees him late, and the friend says, “Yeah man, I’m really glad you didn’t die. That would have really sucked for a trip. That would have been a real bummer.”

This term ‘sucks’ or ‘sucked’, it basically refers to anything that’s bad, unpleasant, no good, something negative. For example, mean people suck, or violence sucks, or that movie I saw last night really sucked. Or I hear sometimes people might say, “Oh my Spanish sucks, or my Japanese sucks. I’m not good at it. It’s really difficult. I’m not accomplished. It sucks.” But I have to warn you, this is a very colloquial, very slang term and it has a very strong connotation.

It can actually get you in trouble. I would not recommend using the term ‘sucks’ or ‘sucked’ in any sort of polite or formal situation. I would only use it with close friends and that’s it. I wouldn’t use this in public very often. So you have to be careful about using this.

The next term is a ‘bummer’. A bummer is also related to a negative situation. It means a disappointing situation, an unpleasant state of affairs. For example, losing your job is a bummer.

That’s a disappointing situation. That’s an unpleasant situation. Breaking up with your boyfriend or girlfriend is a bummer. Losing your wallet is a bummer. Breaking your iPhone is a bummer. Those things that are just unpleasant, disappointing, depressing, et cetera. Be careful with this one. It doesn’t mean an extreme disappointing situation, only a mild or temporary disappointing situation.

If you bestfriend’s mother died tragically and your friend told you the news, you would not say, “Oh that’s a bummer,” because it has kind of a light connotation. It’s not real serious, heavy. Anything that’s really seriously heavy or tragic or painful, avoid using the term ‘bummer’ because it’s the wrong term to use. So if your bestfriend’s mother died, you might not say anything. You might say, “Oh my gosh, that’s terrible. That’s a tragedy. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard. I’m at a loss for words. How horrible that is.” But you will not say it’s a bummer. Don’t do that. Only light things are bummers.

1. gulped down

Let’s move on to the next one. This is ‘gulped down’. I’m talking about how I got nervous before speech and I ran to the bathroom and I gulped down water from the sink to wet my mouth and ran back into the room. To ‘gulp down’ means to drink quickly in large amounts. People gulp down sodas. They gulp down beer. If you’re really thirsty, you will gulp down lots and lots of water.

Another related verb is ‘to guzzle’, ‘to guzzle’ something. ‘To guzzle’ also means to gulp, to drink in fast, large quantities, quickly. A gas guzzler is a car that does not have good gas mileage. It drinks or consumes lots and lots of gasoline or petrol. So that’s a gas guzzler, we say.

1. throw you off

The next one is ‘throw you off’. Dan is talking about how he had been a teacher for 5, 6 or 7 years and he was used to speaking in front of students but then he was put into a different context with a different group of students, and then suddenly he got ‘thrown off’. This means that he lost his balance, his focus, his concentration, and he got confused or disoriented and fear arose.

A criminal who is running away from the police might run through a river to throw off the dogs from his scent. Somebody asked me a difficult question in my job interview and wow, it really threw me off. I couldn’t answer the question and then after that, I had difficulty expressing myself for the rest of the interview. Needless to say, I was not hired.

Another example, my daughter is working on some complex math problems and a miscalculation at the very beginning of one of the math problems threw her off, and it threw off her answer completely.

She just could not get the right answer because she made a minor mistake at the very beginning.

So that’s ‘to throw off’. Remember that. That means to confuse or to lose balance.

1. sneak up on you

Then I respond to what Dan says by saying, “Yeah, yeah. It can really sneak up on you.” I’m talking about how fear can sneak up on you when you least expect it. This has the meaning of, I imagine a cat stalking its prey, like stalking a mouse or stalking a bird. The cat sneaks up on the mouse. Walks very quietly, very slowly and then pounces.

We can say things like ‘old age sneaks up on you’. It just arrives before you even realize it. Or illness can sneak up on you. Money problems, if you’re not careful with your money, money problems can sneak up on you. My kids sometimes sneak up on me when I’m preparing food in the kitchen and they try to scare me, and sometimes it works. The basketball player Larry Bird sneaked up on Magic Johnson and stole the ball.

That’s what ‘sneak up’ on means. It means something that surprises you or makes an unexpected appearance when you least expect it.

1. putting it on the line

All right. We have a few more here. ‘Putting it on the line’. Dan talks about a lot of boxers and martial artists, talk about fear and how they’re not afraid of getting punched or getting an arm broken. But they are afraid of putting it on the line and losing. They’re not afraid of physical injury but they are afraid of losing, that’s why they get really nervous and excited before a fight because they don’t want to lose. Basically, ‘to put something on the line or just to put it on the line is to risk something, especially failure.

Let’s say my friend George, he’s putting his job on the line by making such risky decisions for his company, because if those decisions don’t work out, he may get fired. He’s putting his job on the line. Actually, we put our life on the line every time we get into a car. Riding in a car is a very dangerous thing and we don’t even think about it normally. We’re perfectly comfortable riding on a car but in fact, our life is on the line. We put it on the line. The lawyer decided to defend a murderer who was hated by the public, so he put his reputation on the line by doing that. That’s what it means to put it on the line.

There’s another related term which means ‘lay it on the line’. ‘To lay something on the line’ and that means to speak directly, frankly, truthfully, clearly, to lay it on the line. They’re slightly different meanings.

1. mammoth

All right. A couple more. ‘Mammoth’. This is talking about the whale, the story of the sailors who were attacked by a whale. It was a mammoth whale, Dan says. It was a mammoth whale. The term ‘mammoth’ usually refers to an animal that looks like a hairy elephant, a pre-historic animal from long, long ago. Those were giant elephant-like creatures. So this term ‘mammoth’ actually can be used as an adjective to mean big, large, huge, enormous, gigantic, gargantuan. There are many words that mean big in English. So mammoth, it was a mammoth whale.

1. more often than not

Finally, ‘more often than not’ is the phrase I want to draw your attention to. ‘More often than not’. I was talking about fear and I said, “I think we make our fears a lot worse by what we feed into them with our own imagination or our own thoughts. More often than not, they’re totally irrational. They’re totally hysterical.” The term ‘more often than not’ is another way of saying ‘most of the time’, ‘usually’, ‘frequently’.

Let me give you another example. Some of my students complain about not being very good at speaking English. They say things like, “I’m a poor English speaker. English is too difficult for me.” More often than not, it’s their negative attitude that is the source of the problem, not their ability.

That’s one example.

Let me give you another example. When you don’t understand a political change or a political movement or a social change or a business decision, if it seems confusing or strange or incomprehensible, ask yourself the question, “Where is the money?” because more often than not, there’s a financial reason behind it all. So ‘more often than not’ means ‘frequently’, ‘usually’, ‘most of the time’.

Well, I hope that you use all of these words and phrases that I have introduced to you here in your daily conversations so you can make faster progress toward English fluency. People who do not achieve progress, well, more often than not, they’re just not speaking enough. They’re not doing it on a consistent basis. Their speaking time is not enough. So get out there and speak guys. Talk to you later. Bye-bye.