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Conversational Vocabulary

Hi, everyone. Aaron here. I’m now going to talk about some of the words and phrases that Dan and I used in our conversation about underdogs, so let’s get started.

brain drain

The first is brain drain. The word brain, of course, refers to one’s intelligence, one’s smarts, and drain is like water going down the drain. When water goes down the drain, you never see it again. It’s gone. If you think about brain drain, it’s when the talent in your community, the smarts in your community, the knowhow, leaves and is gone, and never comes back. This happens quite a bit, especially in underdeveloped communities or underdeveloped countries. Really smart, talented people will go where the money is, or they’ll go where they can get a great education, and make lots of contacts with powerful and influential people, and they stay there, and they live this nice life, and they never come back to their communities to help apply what they’ve learned to help the community grow and develop, and that’s a problem. Is brain drain a problem where you live?

let bygones by bygones

The next one is let bygones be bygones. The word bygone really just refers to the past. It’s gone, right? The past is gone, and if you say, “Let bygones be bygones,” it’s like saying, “Let the past stay in the past. Let’s focus on the present and the future.” It’s another way of saying, “I forgive you. Let’s forgive each other. Let’s let bygones be bygones. Let’s forgive each other for any conflicts that we’ve had, any disagreements that we’ve had, any bad feelings that we’ve had, and let’s move forward.” Dan’s talking, of course in the conversation, he uses this phrase when he’s talking about the family that abused Kalpana when she was a teenager. If they saw her now, maybe they would say, “Oh, Kalpana. Let’s let bygones be bygones. Let’s be friends again, and hey, could you give us a loan? We need some money.” Like this. You should use this phrase if you want someone to forgive you, and if you’re willing to forgive them. If you’ve had a conflict or an argument with someone, you can go up to them and say, “Hey. Let’s let bygones be bygones. Let’s start fresh. Let’s start anew,” like this.

on a run

Okay. The next one is go on a run. I actually use this phrase when I’m talking about Lester City, the premiere league soccer team, football team, who won the premiere league championship which is a very difficult thing to do, last season. They did it by beating all of these amazing teams, and I said it was amazing the run they went on, winning games and beating all the big teams. To go on a run means to have a successive, meaning one after the other, a series of wins or successes or accomplishments, that kind of thing. If you do it one after the other, you’re on a run, right? On a run, so you’re … Usually actually we use this in the third person. We often don’t say, “I’m on a run,” or, “You’re on a run.” We’ll say, “He’s on a run,” or, “They’re on a run,” like this, or, “They went on a run,” “She went on a run and eventually won the championship,” like this.

On a streak is another way to put that, a winning streak, and another way, especially if you’re talking about yourself or if you’re referring to someone in the second person, you can say, “You’re on a roll. Wow. You’re doing great. You’re on a roll.” Or, “Hey, I’m on a roll. I’ve won three straight games. I’m on a roll,” so it has very similar meaning. Go on a run. Have a winning streak, or to be on a roll.

bookies

All right. The next one is bookies. Dan uses this vocabulary term. He says when Leicester City won the championship, they basically had 5,000 to one odds of doing that, and if someone had put down some money, they would’ve won a tremendous amount of money, and Dan says, “Yeah, I mean, there must’ve been some bookies that had to go out of business,” some bookies. What’s a bookie? Actually, this term comes from the term book maker, which is someone who basically runs a gambling operation, who takes bets from people and kind of has a shady, kind of seedy connotation.

If you use the word bookie, he’s a bookie, it just has a slightly negative feeling to it, like this person might be breaking the law because gambling is illegal in many places. They might be involved in a cash economy, and maybe not paying their taxes. It sort of has that feeling to it, but nowadays, it’s interesting. A lot of online betting is done online. A lot of betting is done online, so it’s kind of putting a lot of bookies, traditional bookies out of business because now it’s all electronic, and people can do it from wherever they are, and it’s a lot easier, so that’s what a bookie is.

odds

A little bit later, I asked Dan, “Hey, what do you think the odds are of you being mentor?” Dan says, “Well, I mean, first we would have to wager why you’re so confused about this situation.” Those are two terms that are actually related to gambling primarily, but we can use them in other situations. Odds are, it’s another way of saying chances.

The odds are for you. The odds are against you, right? When things are difficult, the odds are against you. The chances of you succeeding are small. The odds are against you. The odds are for you. The chances are succeeding are great, like this. Odds can be measured. Two to one odds is a 50/50 chances, or five to one odds, right? Five to one odds that he’s going to be the next James Bond. That’s 20% chance he’s going to be successful. The greater the odds, right, the more likely it is that the person is going to succeed, right? Has very good odds, two to one odds. Ooh, the odds are not so good. They’re 50 to one, or 100 to one, right, like this.

wager

Of course, when you are bet, you are wagering. To wager means to bet. It means to put up some money, and if you’re right, or if you’re successful, you get money back and then some. If you’re wrong, you lose your money. It goes down the drain right, like this.

hypothetical situations

Okay. The next is hypothetical situations. This is something that Dan mentions. He says these researchers were looking at underdogs in hypothetical situations, and they did this with all kinds of different situations, all kinds of different things. What is a hypothetical situation? You might know this term, and if you don’t, I’m sure you’ve probably heard it. Hypothetical means not actually real, only existing in the imagination. It’s actually a useful tool when exploring possibilities. Dan and I use hypothetical situations all the time to imagine what might happen if we take certain actions in our business. What will it do to our business? Things like this, and you’ll hear people use the term hypothetically speaking like this. Let me just give you an example of a hypothetical situation. Let’s say the sun is shining and you’re willing to go out and do some work in the yard.

I might say to you, “Well, if it were pouring down rain, would you still go out and work in the yard?” I’m creating a hypothetical situation by using the unreal conditional. If it were raining, would you go out and work in the yard? You can answer, “Well, hypothetically speaking, I suppose I would, because I’m committed to working in my yard, but if it were lightening and thundering, I probably wouldn’t go out there, right? Just hypothetically speaking, right?” It means it’s not actually real. It’s just in our imaginations.

mom-and-pop store

Also just one sentence later, Dan’s talking about one of the hypothetical situations, which is small businesses. You’ve got a big corporation, multinational store coming in, Wal-Mart, and you’ve got this little, small Mom and Pop store. Which one do you want to win, right? The Wal-Mart or the Mom and Pop store? He’s creating a hypothetical situation.

What I want to draw your attention to is the term Mom and Pop store. What is that? A Mom and Pop store is a very small private business, owned by a very small number of individuals, usually one person or two, like a couple, a mother and a father who are trying to support a family. They run a small shop, and that’s the only source of their income, essentially. 30, 40, 50 years ago this was very common in many places. Lots of people had small businesses, but in the last 20 years, or maybe 30 years, these big corporations with chain restaurants, and chain stores, and big chains with big money that can do a large volume of sales have come in, and they’ve put the Mom and Pop stores out of business because they can offer much bigger selections at much lower prices because of the volume that they’re doing. This has been a shame. People lose their livelihoods over this, so that’s what a Mom and Pop store is. You’ll sometimes hear people say, “Support your Mom and Pop stores. Support your local Mom and Pop store,” right, and that way keep them in business. Don’t put all your money into these big corporate chains.

no contest

Okay. Let’s go onto a few more. One is the phrase, “It’s no contest.” It’s no contest. Again, we’re talking about Wal-Mart, and I say, yeah, they might hypothetically say they’ll choose the Mom and Pop store, but the fact is they still go to Wal-Mart to shop because the prices are cheaper and there’s a much bigger selection. It’s just no contest. You can use this phrase, “It’s no contest” when you want to point out that in some sort of competitive situation, one side is clearly way stronger than the other side, right? It’s no contest. In this case, when it comes down to who’s going to be successful and stay in business, it’s just no context. How can you possibly, as a Mom and Pop store, compete with the kind of prices that Wal-Mart is offering for the exact same thing, right? How can you compete with that when people are struggling to make a living and support their families? They’re going to buy the cheaper priced item, so it’s just no contest.

Let me give you another example. I have played golf several times in my life, and I’m not very good at it. My father, on the other hand, loves to play golf, and he has lots of experience, and he’s really good. He does very well at golf and if I were to compete against my father, it would be no contest. Oh, that’s no contest. He would definitely win. No doubt about it. If my father went up against Tiger Woods, it’d be no contest. Tiger Woods would totally beat my father strongly, right?

get your butt kicked

Actually, this is related, my example is related to the next phrase I want to focus on, and that is get your butt kicked, or get my butt kicked. I’m talking about as a tennis player, I was often the underdog, and I would get my butt kicked quite frequently. To get your butt kicked means to lose soundly, to get beat badly, right? You got your butt kicked.

Actually, it’s probably more common to hear the phrase, “Get your ass kicked,” right? I could’ve said, “I would’ve gotten my ass kicked, or I got my ass kicked frequently,” but that phrase is, even though it’s very common, it’s more crude. It’s not as nice as saying get your but kicked, and so when you want to be somewhat polite, you could say, “Get your butt kicked.” If you’re with friends and you don’t need to be polite, you’re in a very casual situation, you can use the word ass. Other ways to say the same thing are to get destroyed. Tiger Woods would destroy my dad. That’s a hypothetical situation. Get creamed. I got creamed. I got whipped. I got whooped. I got dogged. There’s a million ways to say get beat. Yeah. I wonder why that is, maybe. Maybe our society’s a very competitive one.

Anyway, have you ever gotten your butt kicked? Have you ever kicked someone else’s butt, in a sport, or in a game? You won very strongly. You won very easily. You kicked the other person’s but like this.

on paper

A few more here. Another one is on paper. This is actually a really good one. You should learn this one. I say, whenever I went up against certain people, that is tennis players who definitely on paper would beat me, when I won, people were happy for me and I was really happy about my performance. People on paper who would beat me. Yeah, he would beat me on paper. On paper means sort of objectively, meaning that if you looked at, on two pieces of paper, if you looked at the attributes of each competitor, on the one hand, you have someone who’s already won the state tennis title, and he’s been playing tennis since the age of three, and he has a coach that has coached professional tennis players, and he’s bigger, he’s stronger, he’s faster.

You compare him with me. Wow, that’s no contest. On paper, this guy definitely would win, right, in a hypothetical situation. On paper, but in reality, in the real world, not on paper, not in the realm of ideas or hypothetical situations, in reality, I could win. As the underdog I could really fight hard. Maybe he has a bad day. Maybe he’s not feeling well. Maybe I have the best day ever, and I barely win. I can beat him, right? It’s not on paper. It’s in reality, and that’s the difference. On paper. Actually, this is really important in hiring. If you’re hiring employees for your company, or your business, some people look really good on paper. They look like the right person on paper. They have just the right amount of experience. They’ve got the right education. They look great on paper and that’s why you need to interview them, because in the interview, you can uncover different aspects of their personality, or their attitude that doesn’t show up on paper.

On paper they may look good, but in reality, they’re not right for the job because of their poor attitude, or because of their beliefs that they have about getting along with others, or being successful, et cetera. On paper. Remember that one. That’s a good one.

haves vs. have-nots

All right. Finally, one last comment, one last phrase. Haves versus have-nots. We’re talking about caste system, the Indian caste system, and Dan and I make the point that even though India has a formal caste system that used to be used many, many years ago, actually this caste system, this idea of caste, different groups of people, some of whom are more superior than others or should have more privileges than others, happens all over the world. It’s a human thing. It’s not an Indian thing. It’s a human thing, and even in the United States, we do have somewhat of an economic caste system that is tremendously disproportionate between haves and have-nots.

Haves are people who have. They have power. They have money. They have connections. They have privilege. Have-nots are the opposite. These are people who are disenfranchised. They maybe don’t have access to the kind of resources that they should. They don’t have access to maybe healthcare, or medicine. They don’t have a place to live. They struggle to find employment. They don’t have a good education. In some countries, especially places I’m thinking of like northern Europe or even here in Japan in a way, the separation between haves and have-nots is not so great. Most people have what they need, but in the United States, you’ve got super rich people and you’ve got super poor people, and everywhere in between. The range, the difference between haves and have-nots is great, and that’s a big problem in the States.

Anyway, that’s what we mean when we say haves and have-nots. Who are the haves in your society, and who are the have-nots? Okay. That bring us to the end of this vocabulary commentary. I hope you found it useful, and please, try to put these words and phrases into your daily conversation and writing. That’ll be helpful. Okay. I’ll see you around. Buh-bye.