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CONVERSATIONAL VOCABULARY

GOOGLE EARTH HELPS MAN FIND HIS WAY HOME

Hi everybody, Aaron here. In this lesson I’m going to talk about some of the vocabulary words and phrases that Dan and I used in our conversation this month.

1. What’s the latest?

And the first is at the very beginning of the conversation I greet Dan by saying, “Hey, Dan. What’s the latest?”

What’s the latest? This is one of the many ways that you can say hello to a friend in English, and it’s very similar to the question, “What’s new?” What’s new means tell me something. Let’s talk. Give me some information that we can talk about.

So I could say, “What’s the latest,” meaning the latest news or the latest thing with you.

1. bupkis

And Dan’s answer is, “I got bupkis.” What’s bupkis? Bupkis is actually a Yiddish word and it basically means nothing. “So what’s new Dan?” “Nothing’s new. I got bupkis.”

You often hear the term bupkis with the word got in front of it. It’s a common collocation. I got bupkis. She’s got bupkis. What do you got? I got bupkis. I got nothing. You got any good ideas? No. I got bupkis. You got any money? Oh, I forgot it. I got bupkis. So you could say this. I wouldn’t use it all the time, but occasionally it’s fun to use Yiddish words. I like Yiddish. It’s a really interesting language.

Moving on, the answer to this question, “What’s the latest,” Dan says, “I got bupkis,” and then he says, “Well, how about you,” or, “What about yourself?” And this is another way of saying how about you.

1. doing one’s thing

And I answer, “You know, I’m just doing my thing.” I’m doing my thing. This is another way of saying I’m fine. How are you? I’m fine. How are you? I’m doing my thing. How about yourself? I’m doing my thing. What’s the latest? I got bupkis.

How about you? I’m just doing my thing. It just means I’m fine, I’m doing what I normally do. Nothing really is new to talk about. I’m just doing my thing.

1. out of sight, out of mind

The next one is out of sight, out of mind. Dan asked me, “Did you see the movie Lion?” And I said, “Yeah, I did see it, but I saw it when it first came out, years ago, and it’s just been out of sight, out of mind.” This is a very common expression that people will use to mean I forgot about it. It was out of my sight, meaning out of my periphery of awareness, and it was for that reason because I didn’t know, I wasn’t able to actually see it, it wasn’t in front of me, I wasn’t dealing with it, it was out of my mind. It just disappeared from existence. And then suddenly I remembered it when we were doing this lesson. It’s like, “Oh yeah. I have seen that movie, Lion. Okay, yeah, the reason I didn’t think about it is because it was out of sight, out of mind.”

If you ever forget someone’s birthday or a special occasion or if you forget about an important meeting, you can give the excuse, “Oh man, I’m so sorry. It was just out of sight, out of mind. I totally forgot about it. It wasn’t something I was dealing with on a regular basis day to day and therefore it was gone from my consciousness. Out of sight, out of mind.”

1. guesstimate

All right. Moving on, a bit later in the conversation Dan is talking about the fact that the main character in the Lion, a boy who became a young man named Saroo was looking for his family in India that he had been separated from for such a long time, and he was using Google Earth or Google Maps to try to do it. He says, “It was like nine hours a day for three years. That’s what he guesstimates.” I want to draw your attention to this term, guesstimate. It’s a verb. In fact, this is … It’s not really a word that has been around very long. It’s a very new term. What it basically is it’s a combination of two different verbs, the verb guess and the verb estimate.

Basically to guess and to estimate have very, very similar meanings. You’ll sometimes, occasionally, and I’ve noticed this actually over the past five years or so, that there are more instances of this now in the English language where people are combining adjectives that are very similar. One that comes to mind right now is the adjective ginormous. My sister says this all the time. “It’s ginormous.”

I never used that term growing up. I’ve never heard that term before, but as soon as you hear it, you know exactly what it means. It’s a combination of gigantic and enormous which essentially mean exactly the same thing. Something as gigantic it means it’s very large, it’s huge, it’s gargantuan. Enormous means the same thing.

So you combine them and it becomes ginormous.

In this case to guesstimate is to guess or estimate at a certain figure. This young man estimates, he guesses, he guesstimates that he spent nine hours a day for three years searching for his hometown. So guesstimate. What do you guesstimate? I’ve actually never used that term before and I probably never will.

Maybe I’m just a little traditional when it comes to the use of English.

1. a drop in the bucket

The next one is a drop in the bucket. This is a nice little idiom. A drop in the bucket. We’re talking about the fact that the production company of the movie Lion, after they did really well with this story financially, they started, they raised money. They started some kind of movement to help children who are on the streets in India. Dan says that they raised a couple of hundred thousand dollars, which is a large sum of money we normally think, but actually it’s a drop in the bucket.

What he means by that if you imagine, a drop of water going into a bucket, it’s not much. That’s pretty much what a drop in the bucket means. It’s a very small, almost insignificant amount. He’s saying that a couple of hundred thousand dollars doesn’t even come close to solving the issue. It just is one little tiny piece of help, which I’m sure the people who are helped appreciate, but it’s just a drop in the bucket. It’s actually insignificant. Far more money is needed to actually do something significant about the problem.

Some other examples of the use of this idiom might be let’s say you volunteer to pick up trash in your city, and you live in a big city, and spend all day working really hard and sweating and your back hurts and your feet have blisters on them, and you’ve picked up four or five large bags of trash throughout the day. Yet, you realize being out there in the street and doing all that hard work that it’s just a drop in the bucket. It’s such a small insignificant amount. It would take you probably years of doing that kind of work to really clean up all the trash in the city.

Or if you donate let’s say $100 to a charity organization, well, that’s great. You’ve done something good. But you have to realize that it’s just a drop in the bucket when you’re trying to solve problems like poverty or environmental problems or there are a million different social issues. But that doesn’t mean that it’s actually not important because drops in the bucket, if you have enough of them, it adds up, it fills the bucket and then you can create a small pond and a lake and eventually a giant ocean. And that’s how it works. So don’t think that because something is a drop in the bucket that it’s not really important because it is.

1. a bit fuzzy

Moving on. A bit fuzzy. We’re talking about memories. What surprised me or amazed me about this story was that this young man was able to find his hometown just based on memories from the distant past. How many memories do you have of your childhood at the age of four or the age of five? I can only remember very, very small amounts of things that I’ve done at that time. Most people, they only have a few memories. And even the memories they do have are a little bit vague, a little bit unclear. They’re fuzzy. And that’s what the use of this term, a bit fuzzy.

There are actually a couple of meanings of fuzzy. One of the meanings of the adjective fuzzy refers to sort of a physical appearance of being kind of frizzy in texture or the way something looks. We often use fuzzy to describe someone’s head or their hair. He’s got fuzzy hair. He’s got a fuzzy head because his hair is kind of growing out of it. And you can have a fuzzy face if you have a beard. If you’re a man and you start growing your beard, it becomes fuzzy. Bears are fuzzy.

Fuzzy bear. These are common collocations.

But fuzzy can also refer to something that’s not quite as tangible like an idea. An idea can be fuzzy if it’s not fully formed or it’s not completely clear. A radio signal.

You can’t really touch a radio signal. You can’t really see it. But it’s there. You can get a fuzzy signal which means that you hear the crackling noises … in a fuzzy signal. It’s not completely clear. Same with the TV signal. If you’re using an antenna and you’re receiving a fuzzy picture, that means your connection is not very strong and it’s resulting in a fuzzy picture, a picture that’s not clear, that’s kind of hard to see. So in this case we’re talking about memories, and I said, “His memories were probably a bit fuzzy because so many years had gone by. They were not clear anymore.” Fuzzy memories, fuzzy ideas, fuzzy signals.

1. a huge rush

All right. The next one is a huge rush. We’re talking about he spent all that time like three years, nine hours a day searching, searching, and searching for his hometown, his long lost hometown. And he knows that if he does find that hometown, what it means is he will know exactly where it is geographically and he will be able to go and visit and hunt down his family again. And what a wonderful feeling that would be. It must have been a huge rush as soon as he found it.

What I mean by that is … Well, let’s actually, let’s take a look at the term rush. A rush is generally speaking a very sudden, quick movement in a certain direction. If you’re let’s say that you’re at a train station, and the train, the announcement comes on and the man says, “Okay, the train headed for Tokyo on track number four is leaving in one minute.” People might start rushing for that train to make sure they catch it before it leaves and they start running. So it’s a sudden movement in one direction, a rush.

But we can also use this term to refer to our feelings. For example, the sudden onset of an intense feeling is also a rush. You could have a rush of anger if something suddenly makes you angry, or a rush of excitement if something excites you quickly in the moment. In this case, I’m talking about something similar. It was a huge rush for him, like a rush of excitement, a rush of pleasure, a rush of euphoria, happiness, adrenaline. I’m sure as soon as he realized he was looking at his hometown that he spent three years searching for and where he hasn’t been for decades, wow, I bet his heart started pumping really fast and I’m sure he probably had to catch his breath and he just … a sudden feeling, a rush came over him. That’s a rush.

What gives you a rush? Some people ride roller coasters. That gives them a rush.

Other people skydive. It gives them a rush, a rush of adrenaline. Some people do drugs because drugs can give you a rush. Or in this case, Saroo finding his hometown, that gave him a rush, an intense feeling of excitement or euphoria.

1. Orwellian behemoth

All right. Just a few more here. The next one is something Dan says. We’re talking about surveillance and how technology has enabled organizations to keep track of people by observing and recording their behaviors whether it’s through cameras or whether it’s through the internet or face recognition technology, et cetera, everything is under surveillance. And we’re talking of course in this case about Google Earth or Google Maps or just the company Google. Dan describes them as being an Orwellian behemoth. They’re this Orwellian behemoth. But here’s a story about them saving the day, by enabling this boy to find his mother, his family, his long lost mother and family.

What does he mean by Orwellian behemoth? First of all, a behemoth is a term that refers to a very large monster or creature. It’s a behemoth. King Kong was a behemoth or Godzilla was a behemoth. It’s just a very large monster. Alternatively however, we can also use the same term to refer to a very large and powerful organization. We might think of the company Amazon as being a behemoth. It’s in every country. It’s gigantic. It’s very powerful. Google is the same. Google is another behemoth when it comes to companies in the world. They have a great deal of power and influence on our lives.

He refers to this behemoth as being Orwellian. And that adjective, Orwellian, comes from the author, the English author George Orwell who in the 1900s he wrote some very famous novels, one of which is Animal Farm and the other one of course is 1984. That’s probably his most famous one. Of course in 1984 Orwell writes about the dangers of totalitarianism or constant government surveillance and control over their citizens through surveillance and through propaganda and ultimately waging war, for the purposes of waging war. Anyway, very famous book.

So when we call something Orwellian, we’re referring to its relationship or its connection to things like surveillance or propaganda. So Dan calls Google an Orwellian behemoth. Just so you know what those mean so you’re clear on that.

Whether you agree or not, that’s a different discussion.

1. boobs

Moving right along, we’re talking about some of the crazy things that happened with Google Maps and Google Earth and about this woman who went to look at her house on street view and saw a picture of herself there with her face blurred out but her chest in which her breasts were exposed, was showing, and she sued Google over that. I used the term boobs instead of breasts. I just wanted to draw your attention to it so you kind of … it’s kind of an interesting term. When you’re referring to a woman’s breast, breast is the most proper common term. But some people will say boob and it’s kind of a more, a more slang way of referring to a woman’s breast.

A boob or sometimes you’ll boobies. You’ll also hear terms like tits, it’s very common, or titties. But interestingly, boob in American English means idiot or fool. You can call someone a boob if they’re acting silly or stupid. It’s not a really strong insult but it’s kind of a light playful type of insult. But in British English it means embarrassing mistake. A boob is an embarrassing mistake. I just find it interesting how the term, a slang term for breast has negative connotations in both American and British English for its alternative meanings. I wonder about the relationship between those there. Interesting anyway

1. steer clear

Moving on, a couple more here. Steer clear. I wanted to draw your attention to this little expression. At the very end of the conversation I say to Dan, “You should try to steer clear of the satellites and street view cameras moving forward after this conversation,” because we’re talking about surveillance. Maybe some of the crazy things that happened because of street view cameras and satellite shots.

To steer clear of something. Of course, to steer is to maneuver a car or a vehicle.

We have a steering wheel on a car that helps us turn that car and maneuver it through the streets. If you steer clear of something, you’re avoiding it on purpose.

You’re driving around it in a literal sense. For example, if you’re driving down the road and you see a giant puddle, a ginormous puddle, I just used that word, in the street, you can steer clear of it by driving around it. Same with the garbage bag in the middle of the road. You don’t want to run over it because you don’t know what’s actually in it. It could damage your car. So you steer clear of it. You go around it.

But it can also mean just avoiding something completely. It doesn’t necessarily have to be physical although it often is. If you’re walking in the forest, you can …

you should steer clear of poisonous plants and animals. Or if you’re in the city at night, you might want to steer clear of certain areas of the city that are known to have gang violence or something like that. You might want to when you’re surfing the internet or when you’re navigating to different websites, you might want to steer clear of certain dangerous websites that might put viruses on to your hard drive. That’s what it means to steer clear of, to avoid coming in contact with.

1. tin foil hats

All right, and finally, tin foil hats. At the very end Dan says, “Yeah, stay inside and put your tin foil hats on.” What’s a tin foil hat? Well, a tin foil hat is a hat, it’s literally a hat that’s made from aluminum foil, that very thin metallic looking paper that we often use in cooking in the kitchen.

Some people have this belief that if you make a hat out of aluminum foil, it will shield or protect your brain from electromagnetic fields, from people trying to read your mind, from mind control, or someone being able to read your mind or who knows what kind of wild things people believe. But if anyone wears a tin foil hat, it’s probably because they’re trying to protect their brain from some kind of unseen force or signal.

The reason I draw your attention to this is because this term tin foil hat has actually become kind of a stereotype to refer to people or to a person who is full of paranoia, someone paranoid. And maybe that kind of person also believes in pseudoscience or conspiracy theories that there are aliens amongst us or that men actually haven’t walked on the Moon, it’s just a hoax.

Actually I know some guy who believes that the exhaust from airplanes, like jet airplanes that are flying high in the sky, if you ever observed that exhaust that comes out the back that’s usually, it leaves a trail like a white trail. Some people including this guy that I know believe that that is like a part of an Orwellian plot by the government to poison citizens, give them cancer, which fuels the medical industry and they make lots of money off of it. Anyway, he believes that. He could be right. I mean I don’t know. I don’t believe that. So because of that I might say, “Yeah, that guy believes that and the next thing you know he’s going to be wearing a tin foil hat like this.” Yeah, that’s what it means, a tin foil hat. Do you have your tin foil hat ready?

Okay, that brings me to the end of this commentary. I hope you found these explanations useful. Of course as always, if you’re unclear or unsure or want to hear a few more examples, just tell us in the forum and we’ll be happy to help you out. Okay, see you.