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CONVERSATIONAL VOCABULARY

PSYCHICS, COWARDS AND CON ARTISTS

Hi, everybody. Aaron here of Deep English. I want to talk now about some of the words and phrases that Dan and I used in our most recent conversation.

1. hoodwink

The first is “hoodwink.” Dan asks me, “Are you easy to hoodwink?” and I say, “Yeah. Yeah, I can be gullible.” This verb, “hoodwink,” actually is a compound verb. It comes from the word “hood,” which is something you put over your head, and “wink,” which is what you do when you close your eyes. If you imagine someone throwing a hood over your head which causes you to close your eyes while they steal from you or take from you or manipulate you, try to deceive you, so that’s what “hoodwink” means, to deceive, to steal from, to take from in a very tricky sort of cunning kind of way.

Have you ever been hoodwinked by another person? I got hoodwinked a few years ago by a repairman, and I ended up paying a lot more than I should have. It’s not a good idea to hoodwink other people. You shouldn’t hoodwink others. I’m sure it feels bad to be hoodwinked by someone.

1. sob story

All right, the next one is “sob story.” Dan is talking about this Nepali guy that he met who tricked him into giving him some money. The way he did it was with a sob story. A sob story is a kind of a very sad, emotional kind of story that’s told by 1 person for the purpose of bringing on feelings of sympathy in the listener.

Very often, we connect this term, “sob story,” to a story that’s kind of manipulative. Like the person who’s telling the story is really trying to make the person feel bad in order to ask for something like money or a favor or some kind of, I don’t know, permission to do something. A teenager might tell a sob story to his parents in order that they will let him stay out later at night or something like this, or you might tell a sob story to someone you know that has money in order to try to get them to pay you some money or to give you some money.

That’s usually how this is used. It’s kind of a made-up story so people will feel bad for you and then help you. Has anyone ever told you a sob story, or have you ever given someone a sob story of your own?

1. shtick

All right, the third one is “shtick,” a “shtick.” We’re talking about this Tibetan man from Nepal that hoodwinked Dan and this other man that I met on my travels who did the same to me, and I realized that’s his shtick, and Dan says, “Yeah, that’s his shtick.”

A “shtick,” this word actually comes from the Yiddish language, and it basically means kind of like a routine or a performance that you do over and over that’s very much yours. It’s kind of your signature performance, your signature routine, almost like a gimmick, and you get good at this the more you do it. That’s your shtick. That’s your way of doing it. In this case, the way that Dan and I are talking about it, it was done for the purpose of getting money out of other people. That’s your shtick.

This can be used in many other different context. It doesn’t have to mean something that a con artist would do. Everyone could have a shtick of some sort. When I go into the classroom and I’m teaching English, I have my ways of doing things as a teacher and certain techniques, certain activities, certain ways of connecting with the students that are effective for me. That doesn’t mean other teachers can do them. That’s my shtick. Every teacher has his or her own shtick. What’s your shtick when it comes to your livelihood or your job?

1. so-called

Okay, let’s move on to the next one, “so-called.” This is a really good one you should know. You can put this in front of anything to express the view that that thing in some way is not really appropriate, not really correct, not really suitable. It kind of has a sarcastic feeling to it.

Dan actually uses this when we’re talking about a former student of ours who claimed to speak 7 or 8 languages fluently. Dan said, “Hey, Aaron, what happened to you when you tried to test her so-called ‘Chinese?’” He’s saying “so-called Chinese” instead of “Chinese” because the fact is her Chinese really didn’t exist or it was at such a basic level that it would not even come close to being a fluent level. When I tested her Chinese, she couldn’t really say anything, and so Dan says, “That’s her so-called Chinese.” It means it’s not really Chinese.

Another example might be, let’s say, a friend of yours got seriously injured in a car accident and it turns out that the reason the car accident happened is because your friend was drunk, and the reason that your friend was drinking and driving is because his so-called friend gave him the keys to the car when he knew he had been drinking. His so-called friend was part of the problem. We’re saying “so-called friend” because he’s not really a friend. If you give keys to your friend when he’s drunk, that’s not what friends do. You could say this. He’s the so-called friend of your friend.

There are some charities out there that collect lots and lots of money to give to people in need and … but some of those charities, they only give a very small percent of the money that comes in. The rest of the money is used to run the organization and pay really high salaries to the people that work there, and some of those people are driving around in really nice cars and, sometimes, flying first class from New York to Paris and, wow, that so-called charity only gives 5% of its revenue to the end recipient, so we could say it’s a so-called charity. It’s not really a charity if it’s being run that way.

1. nickel-and-dime

Okay, let’s move to the next one, “nickel-and-dime.” We’re talking about this incident in the news recently where mothers were being charged $39 by the hospital in the United States to hold their baby after the baby was born, after the baby was delivered. I said, “Wow, that’s amazing. Can you imagine that?” and Dan says, “Nickeling-and-diming,” and I say, “Yeah, that’s just crazy. Nickel-and-dime.”

A nickel and a dime, those are 2 coins in American currency. A nickel is $0.05 and a dime is $.10, so they’re kind of at the low end of the American currency. To nickel-and-dime, we can turn that into a verb, “to nickel-and dime.” It’s really an idiom. It means to charge a little bit of money for many, many things on a frequent basis for the purpose of making as much money as you possibly can.

If you’re on the receiving end of it, it’s a frustrating kind of feeling. Banking is a good example.

A lot of banks these days, not all banks, but a lot of banks nickel-and-dime their customers.

They attract customers with something that seems really reasonable in terms of the service that’s provided, but, once you start using the service, you realize, wow, there are so many little fees and charges and percentages and transaction fees and late fees and this fee and that fee and, soon, you’re paying all kinds of money, but just in very small increments, very small amounts, nickeled-and-dimed. I’m being nickeled-and-dimed by my bank.

Some airline companies have been guilty of nickeling-and-diming their customers. They’re charging for a drink of water or a little bag of peanuts or to take an extra bag on the plane, like little things that they never used to charge for. The customers are being nickeled-and-dimed like this, nickeled-and-dimed. I’m sure you’ve been nickeled-and-dimed before. Not such a good feeling.

1. con artists

All right, let’s move on, “con artists.” You probably already understand this, but a con artist is a person who cheats, tricks, deceives others as almost like a livelihood, as a way of living. “To con,” the verb “to con” means to trick and deceive. A con artist is someone who is devoted to that, skillful at that, at tricking and deceiving others. A con artist will identify a mark, and this is something that Dan says when we’re talking about Moise, the interpreter for the Turkish prison, and Dan says, “Yeah, I think people who are either desperate or greedy make the easiest marks for con artists.” A mark is like a target. The con artist will identify a mark and they’re looking for a special kind of mark, a mark that is mostly likely to give them the money that they’re looking for, to give them what it is that they’re trying to get from the deception, from the con.

If a mark looks too difficult or not attractive enough, then the con artist will not approach the mark. They only approach marks that are likely to succeed and get a good value out of. That’s the target of a con is a mark. I hope you’ve never been the mark of a con artist.

1. pull off

All right, let’s move on. This is a really good phrasal verb, “pull off.” It’s often used with “this” or “it,” to pull it off, to pull this off, to pull that off, to pull something off. Dan uses this actually in the conversation when he’s talking about the prisoners that learned Armenian, the Armenian language in order to very skillfully succeed at deceiving the guards of the prison. That’s not easy to do, I mean, to learn a new language quickly in order to make messages in it, hide those messages with the purpose of tricking or deceiving other people with the ultimate goal of getting out of prison through that deception, through that con. That’s a really complex thing to do. It’s a very difficult thing to pull off.

To pull off something means to successfully achieve it, to successfully complete it, and that is something very difficult. It’s not something easy. You don’t pull off something easy. You pull off something really challenging, really complex, really difficult. They pulled it off. It was amazing.

Another example might be, let’s say, a professional ice skater, and it’s the world championships, and she’s way behind. Maybe she’s a really, really top level, world class ice skater and she’s going into the final round and her main opponent has gotten a great score, so she knows this is her only chance to win. She knows that she’s going to have to do the most difficult routine perfectly in order to win it because, if she does her normal routine, her normal shtick, she’s not going to get enough points. She’s too far behind, so she has to try some really difficult, almost impossible maneuvers that are almost certain to fail, but, amazingly, she pulls it off. I don’t know what the terminology is for ice skaters, but the quadruple locks or whatever, and she does 3 of them in a row, and the crowd cheers, and she pulls off this amazing routine.

She pulled off the most amazing victory. She did something very complex, very challenging successfully. She pulled it off.

Have you ever pulled off a difficult feat? Have you ever pulled off a major victory when everyone thought you were going to lose? That’s how we use this, “to pull something off.” It feels good to pull something off that’s really difficult.

1. tap into

All right, just a few more here. We’ve got “tap into.” We’re talking about, again, these con artists who are trying to get out of prison and they’re really trying to deceive this interpreter, Mois, and they tell him that, “The third clue is in the mind of a businessman, but he’s so far away, we would need to tap into his mind with telepathy, but he’s too far away, so I guess we’re going to have to travel there.”

What does this mean, “to tap into?” It’s a nice little phrasal verb. A tap, if you look at the noun “tap,” it’s a thing that controls the flow of liquid. In your sink at home, in your kitchen, it has a tap, and you turn it and water comes out. A tap, when you go to the bar, a keg of beer has a tap into it which you use to access the beer inside the keg. Anytime you access liquid, you access it through a tap. The verb “tap” really means to get something, to make use of something and, in this case, liquid. If you tap into something, you’re going inside it in order to get something that’s inside and make use of it.

Now, commonly, we use, we talk about this when we’re talking about liquids, but, in this case, we can transfer it to just the act of getting inside something in order to extract something out of it. He’s talking about tapping into the mind of a businessman with telepathy in order to get information out of it.

You can tap into anything. you can tap into someone’s computer. You could tap into someone’s address book. You could tap into someone’s phone line. A wire tap is what investigators will do in order to eavesdrop or listen to someone’s private telephone conversation or private conversation that they’re having inside a hotel room or inside an office or something like that.

Tap, to tap, okay? To tap into, tap into his mind with telepathy.

1. to be in on something

Okay, the next one is “to be in on something.” We’re talking about the fact that these guys were going to actually pretend to be crazy so that the prison would send them to a mental hospital.

They had to act as if they were crazy in order to get that permission. I said, “Yeah, Moise was in on that, right? He was in on that.” To be in on something meant that Moise knew about it and he was actually trying to help it. He was trying to facilitate it. He wanted to make it happen.

Even though he worked for the prison, he wanted these prisoners to be able to travel to Constantinople in order to get the information that he wanted to have. He was in on this con.

He was in on it, meaning, he was an insider. He had full knowledge of what was going on.

You can be in on a secret plan in your office place to do something. Are you in on it or not? You could be in on a special business deal like an investment. Some people want to get in on a good investment before others do because you can make more money that way. That’s what it means to be in on something.

1. court-martialed

Okay, a few more, the next one is “court-martialed.” We’re talking about, after Jones and Hill and Moise left, a bunch of the prisoners escaped. They got caught and they came back, and they were going to be punished. One of the prisoners that took that photo previously sent it to the commander’s commander and then that commander got court-martialed, Dan says. The photo actually proved useful and got them out of trouble. To be court-martialed means to be sent to a military court of law where you are tried and, sometimes, acquitted, you’re let go, or you’re convicted and you go to a prison, a military prison or sentenced to death in some cases, depending on where in the world you’re from.

You don’t want to be court-martialed. If you’re a member of the military, that’s not a good thing. That’s what that means. When you hear that term, it means to be arrested, taken to court and then tried for a crime of some sort. Very common crimes in military would be fleeing your service during times of war. You go AWOL. You go missing. You run off. You run away.

That’s a bad thing. The military can’t have that happening. Otherwise, there’s no military to fight. That’s what it means to be “court-martialed.” That’s a very negative meaning.

1. red flag

All right, another one is “red flag.” Dan is talking about his mother’s friend, an elderly woman who went to Western Union to send money to a person who she thought was going to help her son who had been in trouble, and Western Union said to his mother’s friend, “Do you know who you’re sending this money to?” and she says, “Yeah. Well, actually, I don’t really know who they are, but…” And I say, yeah, that’s a red flag. A red flag is like a warning sign. It should be a warning signal, a signal of danger. Anything that causes you to recognize suddenly that there is danger present, that something is really wrong, that’s a red flag.

If your child suddenly gets a really high fever, that’s a red flag. That means they’ve got an infection. There’s something wrong. You need to get that child to the hospital. That’s a red flag like this. There are all kinds of red flags that come up in our day-to-day lives that we should recognize and notice and take action on, like this, a red flag.

1. I had nothing to do with it.

All right, the last one is a phrase that you should learn and sometimes use, and, that is, “I had nothing to do with it.” I had nothing to do with it. That’s a collocation. That’s very common, and all those words go together in that one phrase. I had nothing to do with it. We’re talking about a friend, one of my friend’s older brothers who left his wife at the altar. He canceled the wedding the night before. Dan says, “Were you invited to this wedding?” and I said, “No. I had nothing to do with it. It was just my friend’s older brother.” I had nothing to do with it. I had no contact with it. I had no relationship with it. I was not involved in any way, shape or form. I had nothing to do with it.

If something happens and someone starts asking you about it, you can say, “Hey, I had nothing to do with it.” Let’s say there was some kind of fight outside the supermarket, and the police show up and you’re there. You were there as a bystander watching, and the police start asking you questions about it, and you can say, “Hey, wait, I had nothing to do with it. I saw some commotion. I heard some people screaming, and I came over here and I saw the end of the fight. I had nothing to do with it. I was not involved in any way.”

The other day, I was on the Deep English website, and I was logged in as an administrator, and I was fixing a few things and, suddenly, the site went down. It crashed, but I swear I had nothing to do with it. The fact that it crashed was merely coincidental. I had no causal relationship with crashing the website. I did not have anything to do with it. I had nothing to do with it. It just happened. Luckily, we got it fixed in just a few minutes, but I had nothing to do with it. Like this. Use that when you have nothing to do with something. Okay?

All right, I hope you found these useful. Please try to put them to use in your conversation. All right, enjoy.