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Conversational Vocabulary

Hi, everyone. Aaron here. In this recording, I want to talk about some of the words and phrases that Dan and I use in our conversation about animals and altruism. All of these words and phrases are very, very useful, and they occur naturally in conversation, so I want to give some definitions and examples so that you can better understand how they’re used and hopefully be able to use them in conversation yourself.

1. the abyss

So let’s get started. The first is “the abyss”. This is a word that I mention when Dan and I are joking around about rodents and I say, “Yes, a little gerbil saved me from the abyss.” What is the abyss? Well, the abyss is this idea of this deep, dark, black hole into which you fall and can never get out of. It’s like disappearing forever. It’s a very deep, dark, depressing place of sadness and grief and woe. To fall into the abyss means to basically be at the lowest possible point of your life.

We can pull people out of the abyss after they fall into the abyss. We can help them by pulling them out, or some people climb out of the abyss themselves. Of course, this is all metaphorical, this is not literal. We don’t literally fall into a hole.

It’s just a figurative way of talking about a very dark and depressing place. Some people spend a good part of their lives teetering on the edge of the abyss; that is, they’re almost ready to fall into it, but for some reason they don’t.

1. take pity on (someone)

So anyway, have you every fallen into the abyss or know someone who has fallen into the abyss? If so, you might take pity on them, and that’s the next phrase here, “to take pity on” someone. Actually, I use this when I’m, again, joking with Dan. I tell Dan that I saved his life when he was drowning in the Kamogawa River, and I took pity on you and I saved you, Dan. I took pity on you.

So to take pity on someone means to recognize that they are in a

disadvantageous situation, and you decide to help them out. You feel sorry for someone, and you help them, or you decide to help them. So for example, maybe on your work every day in the morning you pass by a bridge and you see the same homeless man sitting there every morning. And he looks cold and sad and hungry, and one day you take pity on him and you go and buy him some food and give it to him. That’s a kind gesture, it’s a nice thing to do. But you took pity on him and you helped him out. Any time that you feel sorry for someone who’s in a disadvantageous situation and you help them out, you take pity on them, or you have pity for them.

You can also use this in a negative way, For example, “I have no pity for you. You got yourself into that situation knowingly, based on poor decisions that you made, and I warned you many times, and now I have no pity for you.” So that could be a very cold way to look at a situation, to have no pity for someone.

1. mesmerized

Let’s move on. The next one is “mesmerized”. I was talking about this troupe of monkeys that came down the mountain, and I was mesmerized by them. This term basically means fascinated or amazed. We can also use it as an adjective meaning mesmerizing. Something that is mesmerizing mesmerizes you. It’s a verb as well, mesmerize, to mesmerize. So for example, “The sunsets in Florida are mesmerizing. You can’t take your eyes off of them. They’re so strikingly beautiful that they mesmerize you. They are mesmerizing.” “I saw a Balinesian dance recently, and it was mesmerizing. The movements of the body, the music, the costumes. Wow, it was mesmerizing. I felt like I was in another world. It took me to a faraway place. My attention was enveloped in the dance, and I forgot about my life. It was mesmerizing.” So that’s what that means. Have you ever been mesmerized by something?

1. slam dunked

The next one is “slam dunked”. This is what Dan says. He says that he had a drink slam dunked out of his hand by the Michael Jordan of monkeys. So, what does this mean? First of all, a slam dunk comes from basketball, and you’re probably familiar with this term. It just means to forcibly throw the ball with your bare hands into the basket, not from afar but from right up close. You have to jump way up high and smash it down. That’s called a slam dunk. “To slam dunk” is the verb, and if you slam dunk something, it means to also forcibly smash it down, so this is a very literal meaning of the term “slam dunk”. “Dan had his drink slam dunked out of his hand by a monkey, the Michael Jordan of monkeys,” meaning he’s kind of joking that this is like a basketball player, a great basketball player.

You should know that the literal meaning of “slam dunk”, the physical meaning, is not the one that’s most commonly used. The most commonly used meaning of “slam dunk” is the figurative one, which means a great success. So usually when you hear slam dunk, outside of basketball contexts, it means a great success. So for example, “I know a little boy, and at the age of five he started playing the piano, and he practiced really, really hard, and about a year later he gave his first piano recital, his first piano performance in front of all the members of the community, and it was a slam dunk.” It was so successful, everyone was very proud of this young boy who worked really hard. The performance was perfect. It was a slam dunk. It was a great success. So that’s how it’s normally used, not the way Dan used it.

1. ganked

All right, the next one, just a little bit later I say, referring to the same monkey that slam dunked the drink out of Dan’s hand, I say, “Wow, he ganked that.” This is kind of an American slang term that comes from the inner city, and it basically means to steal. If you gank something, you steal something. I wouldn’t use this term, because most people won’t understand you unless they’re from the United States, or maybe from a big city in the United States, but it just means to steal, to gank something means to steal something. So the monkey stole the drink out of Dan’s hand. He ganked it. I think this comes from “gangster”, a gangster, someone who’s involved in some kind of organized crime. Stealing is part of crime, and so “to gank” comes from “gangster”, and it means to steal. Have you ever had anything ganked from your bag or from your house? I have.

1. hang out

The next one is “hang out”. This is a very common phrasal verb. We’re talking about the guy that survived in the forest because he was offered food and shelter by monkeys. I guess they threw fruit down to him from the trees. We were kind of joking around about this guy, and we were saying that he would say to the monkeys, “Hey, let’s hang out. Let me hang out, guys. Let me hang out with you.”

To hang out with. And so, “to hang out with” is basically to spend time with, to enjoy another person’s or group of people’s company.

Often we use this term with friends or family. “I’m going to hang out with my friends this weekend,” or “On Sunday nights I hang out at home with my family. I just spend time with them.” Enjoy time with. So “hang out”, that’s very common, “Let’s hang out.” Do you like to hang out with your friends, and if so, where do you hang out? Do you hang out at the park? Do you hang out at a shopping center? Do you hang out at a café? Where do you like to hang out?

1. rustlers

All right, moving along, “rustlers”. That’s the next one, “rustlers”. We’re talking about these monkeys that would steal dogs and keep them as pets, and I said, “They’re like dog rustlers.” So what is that, a rustler? A rustler is … and this comes from American English from several centuries ago in the 1800’s, more than likely … a rustler was a cattle thief, so someone who stole cattle, especially out in the Wild West. That was a terrible crime, to steal cattle back then, because that was property and it was worth something, quite valuable actually. So you could be hanged or shot for stealing cattle if you were a rustler. So a rustler is a cattle thief. So in this instance, I’m saying they’re like dog rustlers, they steal dogs from their owners. Monkeys stealing dogs. It’s kind of a strange thing, but very interesting at the same time.

1. shtick

Let’s move on to the next one. This is “shtick”. We were talking again about dogs and how they are really good at making friends with people and being very loyal to them and playful to them, so that the owner enjoys having the dog around.

“That’s their shtick,” is what I said. So a “shtick”, this is actually a term that almost certainly comes from the Yiddish language, and it basically means it’s the thing that you’re really good at, that wins you favor with other people, that you can use to either make a living, or it’s something that you do that maybe is unique, and you’re really good at. It’s kind of like a gimmick, in a way, that attracts you to other people or helps you earn a living. It’s your shtick.

So English teaching is my shtick. You might say that creating lessons for people, audio lessons or video lessons using a special method for getting more fluent and becoming a better communicator, that’s my shtick. That’s our shtick here at Deep English. So what’s your shtick? What are you really good at? What do you do to either make a living or to have friends or to get your way in life? That’s your shtick. So the dog’s shtick is to be very loyal to its owner.

1. ingratiate oneself

And of course, this is related with the next term, “to ingratiate oneself”. Dan says that yes, those dogs, they ingratiated themselves to the owners. So to ingratiate yourself means specifically to bring yourself into favor with another person by trying to please them or make them feel good or stroke their ego. It’s basically getting on the good side of someone, trying to gain approval from them. So for example, you might have a party at your house, and you ingratiate yourself with the guests. You go around and you say nice things and give people compliments, serve them drinks, you’re ingratiating yourself to your guests. Sometimes employees will ingratiate themselves to the boss of the office or of the company.

They’ll say nice things, they’ll try to appear very helpful and hard-working. And if you do this too much, people won’t like it. Other people won’t like it, and even the boss herself may not like it so much.

There are some phrasal verbs that you can use in place of “ingratiate yourself”.

For example, “suck up to”. “The secretary often sucks up to his boss.” “You shouldn’t suck up to people frequently. It’s not a good thing to do.” “Kiss up” is another one, to kiss up to someone, to ingratiate yourself with them. Or “to brown nose”, there’s another one. To brown nose, it’s kind of a idiomatic way of saying ingratiate yourself. “He is a brown nose. He brown noses too much with the boss.” Like this. I’m sure you know some people who are brown noses, who ingratiate themselves with people in authority.

1. How about that?

Let’s move on to the last few. Here’s a really, really interesting and useful phrase, and this is something I say when Dan is talking about the man who tried to commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, who survived it. And now he’s a mental heath advocate, and he travels around the world giving talks, helping people to overcome their mental illnesses like depression. And I say, in response to that, “How about that.” And then a little bit later I say, “That’s cool.” This term, “how about that”, it’s actually a question, “How about that?” But it’s said with a different intonation. “Oh, how about that. How about that. How about that.” So it sounds almost like a statement, and what it means is, “Really? Is that so? Hmm, interesting. Wow, that’s cool. That’s nice.”

It’s just a way of expressing to the speaker that you’re listening and you found what they said mildly interesting. That’s an important point. We don’t say, “How about that” when something is really, really interesting or fascinating. We would instead say something like, “Really? Wow. Wow, I can’t believe it. That’s amazing.

No way. Really?” So there’s a difference. So if someone says something mildly interesting, we’ll say, “Oh, how about that. Oh, that’s interesting. Well, that’s cool.

That’s nice.” Like that. And if somebody says something that’s just completely normal, that has no element of being interesting, we might just say, “Uh-huh.

Yeah. Okay. I see. Okay.” Like that. So these are different ways of being an active listener, responding to what another person is saying, so as to keep that conversation going. This is a really good conversational strategy to use as a listener.

1. take it upon oneself

Let’s move on to the next one, “take it upon oneself”, to “take it upon yourself”, to “take it upon himself”. We’re talking about beavers, these three beavers that took it upon themselves to save this lost boy in the forest from the freezing temperatures of the night by covering him with their own bodies. They took it upon themselves to do this. So what does that phrase mean? Well, it means to take the responsibility for something, to assume the responsibility of doing something that you actually don’t need to do. It’s not your role to do it. Those beavers, they had no obligation to spend their entire night keeping this child warm. They decided to do it. For some reason, they decided to make it their business to keep this child warm to save his life. They took that responsibility.

They didn’t need anyone’s permission, no one’s approval, just their own approval, and they decided to do it.

So we take it upon ourselves to do things that we don’t actually have to do, but they’re a responsibility that we take on, and hopefully it’s something helpful to society or other people. Let me give you a few examples. In the road, in front of my house, one day I discovered a small crack in the road, and over time, as the months went by, the crack got bigger and bigger, and soon it started to become a hole. I called up the city government, and they said, “Oh well, we’re too busy right now, we can’t fix that.” So I took it upon myself to go out and buy some concrete and fill in the hole, and I did it myself. I didn’t wait more time for the city to come and fix it. I took it upon myself to do it. So that’s one example.

Another example might be there is a group of high school kids on a bus, and they’re being very noisy and disruptive, and it’s kind of bothering some of the other passengers. In fact, it could even be a little dangerous, because it distracts the attention of the driver. But the driver’s busy, and he’s focused on the road, so an old man took it upon himself to tell the high school boys and girls to be quiet, to quiet down, to sit down in their seats, and instructed them how distracting and dangerous that actually is to everyone on the bus. He didn’t have to do that. It wasn’t really his business, but he made it his business, he took it upon himself to educate these kids. Of course, some of them didn’t like to hear that, but he did it, the old man, and he took it upon himself to do it. So he took the responsibility for, he made it his business.

1. mind blowing

We’re on to the very last one, “mind-blowing”. “Mind-blowing”. Dan says, “Yeah, that’s mind-blowing to think of beavers feeling a connection with this lost boy.”

You can probably guess the meaning of “mind-blowing” from the context. It means something incredible. It’s really hard to believe. It’s unbelievable. It’s out of this world. It’s so hard to imagine, it blows your mind. It causes your mind to explode, to blow up. It’s mind-blowing. For example, there’s a child in the second grade, and his ability to solve complex math problems is absolutely mind blowing. He’s a genius, and he’ll probably be a university professor in another five years. He can do amazing math problems. It’s mind-blowing. Or let’s say you go to the concert, a rock concert, and the main guitarist of the rock band does this mind-blowing solo performance during one of the songs, and it just blows you away. It’s mind-blowing. It’s mind-boggling how amazing it was. So “mind blowing”. I’m sure you’ve had a mind-blowing experience at some point in your life.

All right. That brings me to the end of this vocabulary commentary. I hope that you found some of these definitions and examples useful and easy to understand. If you have further questions, please post them in the forum and we’ll do our best to answer them. All right, guys. Until next time.