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CONVERSATIONAL VOCABULARY

TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY

Hi everyone, I’m now going to talk about some of the vocabulary words and phrases that were used in the conversation between Dan and I about how little things can have big effects.

1. hindsight is 20/20

The very first one is ‘Hindsight is 20/20’. This is an idiom that is used quite frequently. If you haven’t heard it before, I think you will start to recognize it from now on. Basically, what it means is that it’s very easy to know the right thing to do after something has happened, like looking back in the past is very easy to know what the best way to proceed would have been, but it is very hard to predict the future. In the moment, we are sometimes presented with choices of how to act or what decisions to make, and we don’t always know what the best thing to do is. Looking back, it’s very easy to see what the best things to do would have been or what the right decision to make would have been.

‘Hind’. If you ever see this ‘hind’ it refers to behind or in back of. If we are talking about time, it’s the past. 20/20 is actually that comes from eye exams. It refers to sight. Seeing, the ability of your eyes to see well. If you go to the doctor and get your eyes checked, if your vision is perfect, if you have no problems seeing things, then the doctor writes down 20/20. It’s a measurement of how well you can see. When we say hindsight is 20/20, what we’re actually saying is it’s very easy to look at the past and see clearly to see what should have been done.

How would we use this? I think a good example might be the stock market. If we are talking about purchasing and selling stocks, because people buy stocks with the intent to make money. They think a stock will go up so you buy it low and you sell it high.

Stock prices are influenced by circumstances that happen in life. Natural disasters and decisions that are made in government and the urban flow the business world. It’s really hard to predict if a stock is going to go up or down. You may lose money thinking that you’re going to make money and vice versa, but when we look back, we can very easily see how certain events caused a stock to go up or down. When we’re talking about the stock market, we can easily say, yeah hindsight is 20/20. I should have sold instead of kept that stock, otherwise I wouldn’t have lost so much money like this.

In our conversation, we’re talking about it’s easy to look back and see that had the art school accepted Adolf Hitler, that maybe he never would have become this notorious war criminal that he become. Only if they had accepted him into art school it could have changed history forever. Hindsight is 20/20. It’s easy to look back and say that, but in the moment who knows?

Things are more complicated.

1. quandary

Let’s move on, the next one: ‘quandary’. Dan talks about the time machine quandary. If you could go back in time and kill Adolf Hitler would you do it? Quandary is basically a very difficult situation. It’s a predicament. It’s a dilemma, a state of uncertainty. It’s a very difficult decision to make. For some people it’s not a quandary. They would very easily decide, oh yes of course, I would kill Hitler, go back in time kill him and then maybe that would save lives 6 million Jews or however many millions that his regime was responsible for killing.

For others, it’s a moral quandary. Should we be solving problems by killing? If you go back in time and you do kill him, what if that led the rise of someone else that came into power who was far worse and who actually did take over the world? This is why he calls it a quandary, because it’s really not such an easy decision to make. Of course nobody wants to kills people if you are a very normal, moral, ethical human being, you are not interested in killing people so it becomes a quandary. Should you do something that you’re morally against in order to save the lives of other people. That’s a quandary.

There are many kinds of quandaries out there. We’re faced with them all the time. Right now in the United States an election is happening. A presidential election and many voters are in a quandary, because they dislike both of the major candidates. They can’t bring themselves to vote for one but then if they don’t vote, if they stay home, then they’re not exercising their right to vote. They’re giving up on democracy. It’s a quandary. What should I do? Should I vote for someone I dislike? Or should I not vote at all? Or is there a third option? What should I do?

That’s a quandary. Do you have any quandaries in your life?

1. got a thing about

Let’s move on to the next one: ‘got a thing about’. Dan we’re talking about killing. Dan mentions to Ellen. He says, “Hi, you won’t even kill a mosquito. Is that true? Didn’t you once tell me that you got a thing about killing bugs?” To have a thing about. Got a thing about. He’s got a thing about. He has a thing about. She has a thing about. She’s got a thing about. This basically means that you have some quark or hang up about a thing that is not the norm. It’s not what most people have.

For example, I know a guy who’s got a thing about public transportation. What that means is, he’s got a thing about it. He won’t take the subway. He won’t take the bus. He’ll either walk or he will drive his own. He just won’t get on public transportation, he’s afraid of getting sick, he doesn’t like the feeling of being around so many stranger. He’s got a thing about it. That’s not completely normal. Most people it doesn’t bother them to take public transportation.

I know another woman who’s got a thing about cleanliness. Everything has to be very clean and orderly around her, otherwise she gets very uncomfortable and she has to arrange things around her. If you go to her house, you can see everything is in perfect order and if you place something out of order, she cannot help herself but to come over and fix it. Put it back into order and then she feels comfortable again. That’s not completely the normal way that people do things. Not that there is anything wrong with it. I’m not saying it’s wrong or bad, it’s just that she’s got a thing about it. She’s got a thing about cleanliness. It’s important to her.

Dan said that I have a thing about killing bugs and yeah I do have a little thing about. I don’t like to kill things as a means of solving problems. If there is a mosquito in my house, yeah it’s inconvenient. I don’t like it. I don’t want to be bitten, but I’m not going to kill it. I will either catch it and put it outside, or if it’s a cockroach, I’ll sweep it up and throw it out. I got a thing about it. I just don’t like to kill things, but I will kill it if there are too many cockroaches I’ll set a cockroach trap. If there are too many mosquitoes then I need to do something about it,

because it’s endangering my health. What do you have a thing about? Do you got any things going on in your life? Do you have a thing about food or animals or weather? I’m sure everybody has a thing about something.

1. that ain’t gonna happen

Next one is: ‘that ain’t gonna happen’. We’re talking about the time machine and because I have a thing about killing bugs, Dan says you don’t get the keys to the time machine because you can’t kill Hitler. That ain’t gonna to happen. You’re not getting the keys to the time machine. That is not going to happen. Ain’t means is not. That is not and then gonna is a short way of saying going to. That is not going to happen, that ain’t gonna happen. That contraction ain’t means is not and I do not recommend using that frequently because it’s just a very, very casual … It’s actually part of almost a dialect of the sathan dialect. You should use is not or isn’t. Try not to use ain’t. It just doesn’t sound I don’t know. It carries connotations that are not always positive, but for a native speaker in certain situations it’s okay to say that ain’t gonna happen and has a very casual feel to it.

Of course ‘gonna’ is also something you should not say unless you happen to speak very quickly and fluently, because gonna does not sound natural if it’s spoken slowly and if your English is not so fluent. You should say something like that isn’t going to happen, but if you can speak quickly, that ain’t gonna happen, then that sounds nice. That sounds okay. It’s just very, very casual. I wouldn’t say that in a formal situation.

1. ~ism

Moving on: ‘species-ism’. I was talking about how apes had … Gorillas or chimpanzees I can’t remember what it was, had painted some paintings. They showed those paintings to some art critics and the art critics quite a few of them had really nice things to say about the paintings thinking that a human had done them. It turned out they were actually done by apes or monkeys. Maybe I don’t trust art critics, because they can’t even tell the difference between a human’s painting and a monkey’s painting and of course I’m facetious, I don’t really believe that. I’m just joking around with Dan and Dan is joking back with me and he says, “Hi, that’s species-ism or racism.” It’s not really racism because we’re different species. Basically what he’s talking about is a prejudice or some oppressive belief about something as racism would be sexism, would be classicism, ageism, there are all kinds of isms out there. When you attach the suffix, i-s-m, ism to any noun, it basically refers to some set of principles or practices or ideologies.

For example, a practice like plagiarism or criticism. It could be like a state or a condition like alcoholism or maybe some doctrine of belief like Buddhism or Hinduism or Judaism like a religious belief. In this case, we’re talking about a prejudice. Racism, sexism and so what Dan does and this is the interesting part, there is no such thing as species-ism. He makes it up in the moment. This is one of the cool things about English, is that you can take a suffix and you can attach it to a noun and create a totally new word. Nobody ever says species-ism, but he just made it up on the spot. You’ll notice sometimes native speakers will do things like this if they need a word that doesn’t exist. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say species-ism before. That’s a first for me.

1. house of cards

Let’s move on. ‘House of cards’ is the next one. House of cards. We’re talking about Richard Nixon and dances. He was really ripe to be taken down. Ready to be taken down and I say yeah, he was a house of cards. He really was a house of cards. I think you can guess the meaning of this. If you imagine a house made of playing cards, wow! So easy to knock that down. The very slightest, even a little change in the breeze or the slightest touch can knock the entire thing down. Usually we use this phrase to refer to like a building or a structure or an organization, or some plan, or argument that is just doesn’t have a good foundation at all and it’s ready to collapse. It’s very easy to knock it down.

You might say, yeah there is a building down the street. It’s 70 years old. It’s never been repaired. It’s a real house of cards. I wouldn’t go in there if I were you. Or yeah this guy at work, he has this big plan to make big changes and the structure of our organization, but it’s a real house of cards. It’s really not well planned out and it would fail for sure. It’s a house of cards, but now we’re talking about Richard Nixon and how he had done so many sneaky and illegal and crooked things that one little piece of tape brought him down, but what we’re trying to say is that he was a house of cards. Meaning that, if it wasn’t that piece of tape, it would have been something else, something small that would have revealed all of these things that he’d done.

We don’t usually refer to people that way, but I did in this instance. He was a house of cards.

He was ready to come down.

1. stick it to the man

Let’s move to the next one: ‘stick it to the man’. Dan we’re taking of course about Nixon still and he says that a lot of people mistrust government not just for Nixon, but that is a prime example of how you cannot trust the man. I say yeah, right stick it to the man. If you’ve never heard this before, you might think that when Dan says the man, that he is talking about Richard Nixon, but he’s not. What he’s talking about is authority, power. You cannot trust the man. Not Richard Nixon, the US government or the boss of your company, or the local government or the police organization. All the authority, the powers that be in your life, that is the man. Anything that could potentially oppress you or that sets laws or rules that control your life, that limit your freedom, that is the man.

He is saying that this whole situation about how the president of the United States misled people and broke into an apartment and had a lot of secret dealings, this is a good example.

You can’t trust the man. You can’t trust government. You can’t trust the powers that be. I say right, stick it to the man. What does that mean? Actually in this case it’s an association. I hear Dan say the man and then I think of this phrase stick it to the man which is a phrase that you’ll sometimes hear and it basically means, don’t allow corrupt power to limit your freedom. You should speak out against it. You should fight the power. You should hold those in power accountable for their actions and power should be transparent and you should demand that transparency.

Stick it to the man. Don’t let the man hold you down. All these kind of things. A lot of protesters, people who go out and they protest in the streets, they’re trying to stick it to the man. Not all of them but a lot of them are trying to say no to the powers that be that are limiting their freedoms. Have you ever stuck it to the man? Who is the man in your life? Who’s the man in your life? Are you the man? That’s what the man means. It doesn’t refer to Richard Nixon, it refers to power and authority.

1. rub off on

A couple more. We’re going to move on quickly here. Rub off on. Here is a nice phrasal verb.

Rub off on. What does that mean? Dan is talking about how a lot of people distrusted Bill Clinton and called him Slick Willie and then he says, “I think a lot of that is rubbed off on Hillary Clinton.” Basically to rub off on means to, if you imagine the act of rubbing which you do like with a rug to polish something. When you polish something you’re taking off the outer layer.

Maybe it’s a color, maybe it’s rust, maybe it’s dirt and to rub off onto something else means to transfer that dirty thing or that thing that you’re trying to get rid of and it goes on to something else. It doesn’t always have to be a negative dirty thing, it can also be a very positive meaning.

It basically means that whatever you’re associated with can rub off onto you. Whether it’s an idea or a practice, or a stigma, or a reputation that kind of thing. What he is saying is because Hillary Clinton was married to Bill Clinton and she’s associated with him, some of the things that Bill Clinton did have naturally transferred to her. When people see her and hear her speak, they think of Bill Clinton as well. He’s saying that rubbed off on Hillary Clinton. Ideas can rub off on you. For example, if you spend a lot of time reading novels by a particular author, then that person’s ideas can rub off on you. You might start incorporating those ideas into the decisions that you make in life, or in the conversations that you have with other people.

Habits can rub off on you. I’ve been in Japan for a very, very long time and a lot of the Japanese cultural mannerisms and ways of being in day-to-day life have rubbed off on me. When I go back to the United States, I find myself nodding my head in a very Japanese way when I’m talking to people and some of my friends notice it and they say, “hey, what are you doing?” I say, “Oh, I didn’t realize I was doing that. I guess some of those habits have rubbed off on me.”

It just means to be influenced by something else through association or through immersion in a particular state of affairs.

1. whip out

The very last one, whip out. Here is another phrasal verb, whip out. First of all a whip is a very long piece of leather or string or some kind of long material that you use to strike or hit something else. We think of a horse whip. You use it to whip a horse to make the horse run faster. Animal trainers use whips to keep the animals in line or to get the animal to do something it doesn’t want to do. Cow boys use whips to whip the cattle. That’s what a whip is.

You imagine something that’s quick and very fast and has a cracking sound to it, a surprising sound and to whip out has nothing to do with actually whipping but to do something very quickly, to take something out from a bag or from your pocket or from the inside of your jacket.

You can whip it out. Take out very quickly.

What we’re talking about is Roosevelt and how this speech that he had in his breast pocket saved his life by stopping a bullet that otherwise would have killed him. People didn’t believe it and he actually whipped it out and showed them this long-winded speech with a hole in it.

That’s the proof. He whipped it out and proved that he had been shot and of course he was bleeding as well. Some other examples of how you might use this. I was asked to donate some money recently and I happen to be carrying a little bit of cash with me, so I whipped out my wallet and I donated on the spot. I gave them a thousand Yen which is about $10.

A police officer sometimes has to whip out her gun in dangerous situations. Recently I was walking down the street and I heard a very strange noise and I looked over, but it was really dark so I whipped out a flashlight and I shined it over to my left and I saw a tanuki, which is like a wild dog like creature in Japan in the night. His eyes were shining. Whip out - just take out quickly like this.

All right guys this is the end of the vocab commentary. I hope you have found something useful here that you can apply in your conversations in daily life. If you have further questions, please do leave them in our discussion forum or you can email us at members@deepenglish.com and we’ll try out best to get right back to you. All right guys, have a good day.