Monthly Archives: November 2013

154. British Slang (H to M)

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The series about informal British expressions continues here. You can read a list of the words in this episode below. *Caution – there is some rude content in this episode.*

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Other Slang Episodes In This Series
British Slang (A-C)
British Slang (D-G)
British Slang (H-M)
British Slang (N-Z)

British Slang Expressions (H to M)

Please be aware that some of the words in this episode are quite rude. Also, I must apologise for the explosive sound of the microphone whenever I say the word “KIP” – this is because of the plosive sound of the ‘K’ in ‘kip’. I had the mic a bit too close to my mouth for that one. I do apologise.

Thanks also to www.effingpot.com for providing some of the words and definitions you can read below. The explanations I give in this episode are all my own.

Haggle – To haggle is to argue or negotiate over a price. Most people that wangle stuff are usually quite good at haggling. I just learnt that in the USA you dicker over a price, particularly for used cars!

Hard – After your 20 pints of lager, the curry or the doner, your average 20 year old feels hard. Since his male organ has no chance of working at this stage, hard clearly refers to something else – it means he is ready to fight anything or anybody or to take on any bet. This is the time to make fun of drunken lads by betting them they can’t jump off the end of the pier, hang on to the back of a bus etc.

Hiya – Short for hi there, this is a friendly way of saying hello.

Horses for courses – This is a common saying that means each to his own. What suits one person might be horrible for someone else. If my Dad was trying to understand why my brother had wanted to get his ear pierced he might say “Oh well, it’s horses for courses I suppose”!

Hump – If you have got the hump it means you are in a mood. If you are having a hump, it means you are having sex. Care is advised when you try using these words for the first time. It could be embarrassing!

Hunky-dory – My English dictionary tells me that hunky-dory means excellent. We would generally use it to mean that everything is cool and groovy, on plan, no worries and generally going well.

I’m easy – This expression means I don’t care or it’s all the same to me. Not to be confused with how easy it is to lure the person into bed!

Irony/sarcasm – The cornerstones of British humour. This is one of the biggest differences between the nations. The sense of humour simply doesn’t translate too well.

Jammy – If you are really lucky or flukey, you are also very jammy. It would be quite acceptable to call your friend a jammy b****rd if they won the lottery.

Kip – A short sleep, forty winks, or a snooze. You have a kip in front of the telly on a Sunday afternoon.

Knackered – The morning after twenty pints and the curry, you’d probably feel knackered. Another way to describe it is to say you feel shagged. Basically worn out, good for nothing, tired out, knackered.

Knees up – If you’re having a knees up, you’re going to a dance or party.

Knob – Yet another word for your willy.

Knockers – Another word for breasts.

Leg it – This is a way of saying run or run for it. Usually said by kids having just been caught doing something naughty. Well it was when I was a kid!

Left, right and centre – If you have been looking left, right and centre, it means you have been searching all over.

Love bite – You call them hickies – the things you do to yourself as a youngster with the vacuum cleaner attachment to make it look like someone fancies you!

Lurgy – If you have the lurgy it means you are ill, you have the Flu. Don’t go near people with the lurgy in case you get it!

Luvvly-jubbly – Clearly another way of saying lovely. Made famous by the TV show Only Fools and Horses.

Man

Mate – Most chaps like to go to the pub with their mates. Mate means friend or chum.

Mental

Morish – Also spelt “moreish”, this word is used to describe desserts in my house, when a single helping is simply not enough. You need more! It applies to anything – not just desserts.

Mug – If someone is a bit of a mug, it means they are gullible. Most used car salesmen rely on a mug to show up so they can sell something!

Are you mugging me off?

Here’s a nasty scene from the film “The Football Factory” (not a great film really) involving the expression ‘are you mugging me off?’. Watch out, it’s full of swearing.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPtqfAMyGq8&w=500&h=281]

153. The Talking Dog Story

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Another funny improvised story to entertain you while you do more English listening practice.

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In this episode I decided to improvise another story for you. A lot of listeners really liked episode 125. The Pink Gorilla Story (full transcript available), which I improvised into a microphone earlier this year. I received some very nicely written messages from people saying they’d like more of that kind of story on Luke’s English Podcast, so here is another one in a similar style. You’re a fan of Lukes English Podcast which means you must be a bright minded person, so I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of The Talking Dog Story!

The story is based on an old joke about a talking dog. The joke is usually just a minute long, but I decided to extend the joke into a longer story. Most of the details in this episode are just improvised while I talk. I’m just making it up off the top of my head. As a learner of English, your challenge is to keep up with me. Can you follow what is going on? Do you get the self-referential elements and the surreal or ironic humour? Can you identify the punch-line to the joke? I’m sure you can if you listen! As you are a fan of Luke’s English Podcast you are probably the kind of person who understands and appreciates this kind of  humourous story telling. So, get stuck in!

Keep listening to the end, because you’ll hear the short version of the story told by someone else. If you fancy it, why not have a go at transcribing some of this. It’s a really good way to develop your English in an intensive way.

Enjoy the story. You can listen to it by clicking “play” on the embedded player at the top of this page. You can download it by right clicking on the ‘download’ text, also at the top of this page.

All the best, and have a great day.

Luke

Doctor Who Episode – Language Analysis

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doctor-who-50th-largeHello Luke’s English Podcast People, (LEPPers?)

Remember the podcast episode about Doctor Who from a few years ago? (Click here to listen) It featured a conversation with Lee Arnott, who is something of an expert on Doctor Who. He knows more about Doctor Who than most people in the whole universe.

Well, here is some language analysis by a very brilliant English teacher called Richard Gallen, who I used to work with in London. Richard analysed the conversation I had with Lee, and wrote the following text for you to read. You can use this analysis to learn more about descriptive language, and to understand in more detail the conversation I had with Lee about The Doctor.

If you’re a Doctor Who fan, you can use this as an excuse to get excited about the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who which is coming soon (not to mention the arrival of the 12th Doctor, played by the brilliant Peter Capaldi).

If you’re not a Doctor Who fan (or interested in linguistics) then scroll down to the bottom of the  page. There’s a cat video for you to enjoy (I’m assuming you like cat videos. I mean, who doesn’t like cat videos?)

Cheers!

So, here is the language analysis by Richard Gallen:

Language Analysis

Lee and Luke explain Doctor Who – language for explaining and describing

Luke: Right, if you imagine somebody who’s never heard of Dr Who before, right, how can you explain who he really is. So, so, if, what are the most important things that you should know about Dr Who if you’ve never heard of him before, basically.

Lee: Well, Dr Who is, err, a TV show that it’s main character, a character called The Doctor, who is in fact an alien, has a machine that can travel through time and space, which means that he is able to go anywhere in any planet, any point in the future, the past, whenever.

Luke: Erm, what’s the name of that machine?

Lee: It’s called The Tardis.

Luke : And can you just describe The Tardis? That’s like his spaceship, yeah? Can you describe The Tardis for us? Because in Britain here, everybody knows The Tardis, like, almost everybody knows it. It’s very familiar to us. It’s almost like an icon of British culture. But what is The Tardis? What does it look like?

Lee: Well, The Tardis looks like a 1960s police box, and in the days before mobile telephones and actually people having telephones in their houses, these blue police boxes were like an old phone box, and they also had a double function in that if a criminal caught a policeman [if a policeman caught a criminal] they would be locked up inside this police box, and they also had a phone, so they were a very common object in 1960s Britain, early 1960s Britain when Dr Who started.

Extra information clauses

Describing a film or book can be a little difficult. It’s quite hard to keep people interested. That’s why when we introduce a character we sometimes say something interesting or exciting about them

a character called The Doctor, who is in fact an alien

..then there’s Princess Leia who is fact Luke’s sister

In 1988 she met this man called Greenlee, who was in fact the top CIA agent in Bolivia at the time.

In the examples above ‘who’ refers to the noun before it (The Doctor/Princess Leia/ this man called Greenlee). In the example below ‘which means that’ doen’t only refer to the noun before, it refers to the whole clause before:

It’s a machine that can travel through time and space, which means that he is able to go anywhere in any planet, any point in the future, the past, whenever

The most common verb after ‘which’ in extra information clauses is ‘means’ .It often says something about the result of an event

I slept through my alarm clock which meant that I had to run like crazy for the train

Gilardino scored a goal very late in the match which meant that Italy qualified for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

In that..

When Lee was describing police boxes in England he said:

they had a double function in that if a policeman caught a criminal they would be locked up inside this police box

we use ‘in that’ when we think we could be more precise about something we’ve just said :  ‘in that’+example

He was quite reserved in many ways but he was also very sociable in that heliked entertaining,

It’s already old news (in that it was announced 6 hours ago…) but President Obama has been awarded the Nobel peace prize

The most common adjectives that come just before ‘in that’ are:

unique / unlucky / unusual/ fortunate

UNICEF is unique in that they are in countries, before, during and after emergency situations and humanitarian crises

Gordon Brown was unlucky, in that he became PM when we were on the edge of a disaster

She was fortunate, in that she had so much money she didn’t need to work

Like

‘Like’ is very common when we describe:

And can you just describe The TARDIS? That’s like his spaceship, yeah?

Luke is trying to explain what the TARDIS is…. But he can’t find exactly the right words. This is very common in conversation and when we describe things because it’s difficult to be precise all the time

As the examples below show, sometimes we are imprecise because we want to exaggerate. ‘Like’ is very common to introduce an exaggeration:

It’s [almost] like….. an icon of British culture

Because in Britain here, everybody knows The TARDIS, like, almost everybody knows it

Some other examples:

..and it was so good, it was like, one the best meals I ever had.

..and for a few months he was like, crazy about me, he was calling me and sending me flowers

Notice how we pause just after ‘like’ when we use it in this way

Other uses of  ‘like’

We use ‘like’ in questions to ask for a description:

But what is The TARDIS? What does it look like?

‘Like’ also means similar to:

These blue police boxes were like an old phone box

When ‘like’ means ‘similar to’ we use adverbs to make the comparison softer or stronger

a bit like /rather like /  (to soften)

just like /exactly / a lot like (to strengthen)

Horse surfing is a lot like surfing, just with horses

The currents in the sea were really strong and, for a minute, it is was almost like a huge monster was sucking me under

The following ‘sense’ verbs are common before ‘like’ when we use it in this way.

feel/ taste/ sound/ look/ smell

It felt like I had been waiting for hours but it was in fact only 20 minutes

He smelt like he hadn’t had a shower for weeks

She looks like she’s been crying

Now here’s that  cat video I promised you…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IytNBm8WA1c&w=500&h=300]

152. I’m leaving Podomatic… and moving to Audioboo.fm

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In this episode I give you a news update about how Luke’s English Podcast is moving to a new host, www.audioboo.fm

You can find the relevant details below, and listen to the episode using the embedded player below.

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Why are you leaving Podomatic Luke?
There are a few reasons. One of them is that it’s too expensive for me to stay with podomatic. I can’t justify paying a fairly large amount of money every year to use Podomatic when I can find a better service for a lower price somewhere else. It’s been fantastic with Podomatic, but I don’t think they’re right for me any more. Last year I promised myself that I would move to a new host by November, and so I’m keeping to that promise.

Money is not the only reason. I also believe that www.audioboo.fm will be a better host for you as a listener to this service. It should work better, with fewer technical problems. It should be easy for you and me to embed audio players to other websites. It also gives you the chance to add voice comments to episodes of the podcast.

Where are you moving to?
All the episodes are now available here www.audioboo.fm/channel/lukesenglishpodcast
Audioboo is a British company, registered in the UK and with offices on Tower Bridge Road which is right in the heart of London. They specialise in audio hosing, providing audio sharing services for podcasters (like Stephen Fry), teachers (like me), and broadcasters (like the BBC). So I’ll be moving in with a community of like-minded people. In fact, you can use Audioboo to find plenty of other listening resources and great things to listen to as a way of keeping up-to-date with British English. Visit audioboo.fm and have a look around. You can sign up for a free account which will allow you to make comments and post your own voice messages if you want to.

What about teacherluke.podomatic.com? What about all the amazing episodes of the podcast which you’ve uploaded there?
They have all been moved over to audioboo, and they’re just sitting there waiting for you to listen to them. It could be a good opportunity to rediscover them. Go and have a look www.audioboo.fm/channel/lukesenglishpodcast
To download episodes from audioboo, just ‘right click’ the play button and you can ‘save file as’ or ‘download file’. If you want to download from an embedded player on WordPress, just click where it says ‘audioBoo’ and then you’ll visit the audioboo page for that episode. Then you right-click the play button, and download.
Podomatic will probably close my pro account soon, and I won’t be able to upload there, and you won’t be able to listen to episodes on podomatic. :( So it’s bye bye to teacherluke.podomatic.com.
I actually feel quite sad about this because I’ve been using that URL for years and I’ve grown quite attached to it. I’m never going to say “teacherluke.podomatic.com” ever again… (actually you might be quite glad about that)
Soon, I will post a link onto my podomatic page which says “I’ve moved!” and I’ll include a link to the new location. Hopefully, that will re-direct all the people who no-doubt will continue to visit the podomatic page. I expect my downloads/visits will drop as a result of this, but so be it. It was time to change, and I think it’s a step in the right direction.

What about teacherluke.wordpress.com?
That’s now THE main page for Luke’s English Podcast. That’s where I’ll post new episodes and stuff. You should go there and click Follow Blog By Email to be added to the mailing list. http://teacherluke.wordpress.com

What about iTunes? Will episodes still automatically download?
The iTunes service should not be disrupted at all. The plan is to connect iTunes to my new RSS feed where all the episodes are available. You’ll still be able to get new & old episodes from iTunes.

There may be a few technical faults as a result of the change-over. Sorry about that, but it shouldn’t last long.

So, everything’s cool?
Yes, everything’s cool. Go to teacherluke.wordpress.com for all your Luke’s English Podcast needs. I’ll still post new episodes and other stuff onto Facebook and Twitter as usual.

Tell us more about those cool audio comments you mentioned.
Okay then. This is cool because you’ll be able to record spoken responses to episodes of the podcast. It’s finally a way for you to directly interact with me and other listeners (LEPers?)
You can practise some speaking, talk to me and talk to other Luke’s English Podcast People (LEPPers?? really?)
How do you do it? Just find an episode of the podcast on www.audioboo.fm/channel/lukesenglishpodcast and scroll down to the comments section. You’ll need to sign up for audioboo, which is simple and free. Then you can click ‘Record a Comment’ and you can record something there (with your phone-mic if you’re on a smartphone or a microphone connected to the computer) or you can upload a file that you’ve prepared earlier. It’s really easy. You should go and check it out. Try leaving a comment under this episode.
Finally you, my LEPPers can speak to me and each other, directly online. HOW COOL IS THAT? (It’s quite cool)

What about old comments from podomatic?
I’ll add them as an archive under the relevant episode pages on WordPress.

What if I want to leave you a donation as encouragement for your hard work?
Go to http://teacherluke.wordpress.com and there’s a lovely donate button in the top-right corner of the page. Click that and you can use PayPal to send me something, if you fancy it.

That’s it! Thanks for listening, and I really hope you continue to enjoy the podcast and find it to be a great way to keep improving your English listening (and perhaps some speaking now as well).

Cheers!

Luke
www.teacherluke.wordpress.com
www.audioboo.fm/channel/lukesenglishpodcast