933. The Best Expressions in English are from Shakespeare ✍️ Learn English Vocabulary

Episode Transcript
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You're listening to Luke's English podcast. For more information, visit
teacher Luke dot co dot uk. Hello listeners, welcome back
to Luke's English podcast. How are you doing today? I
hope you're doing fine and that you're ready for some
more listening practice and also to give your vocabulary a

(01:11):
bit of a boost with this episode. I've been preparing
this one for ages. Just no end of preparation for
this one. Lots of time spent getting everything ready but
now it's time to actually record. So here we are,
Here we go. This episode is going to be quite
similar to a premium episode, actually, just because you know

(01:35):
premium episodes. In premium episodes, I always teach you vocab
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link in the description for it. Okay, so let's start

(03:03):
doing that. In five four three to one, here we go.
This should be episode number nine hundred and thirty three
called The Best Expressions in English Are from Shakespeare slash
Learn English Vocabulary. Hello everyone, Welcome back to Luke's English Podcast,

(03:24):
a podcast for learners of English. In this episode, we're
continuing the Shakespeare theme, following on from the previous episode,
which was that conversation with my mum and dad about
Shakespeare's life and work. Have you heard that? It's episode
number nine hundred and thirty two, What's So Great About Shakespeare?

(03:45):
If you've ever wondered why people think Shakespeare is so
great or what Hamlet is all about, then that episode
is for you. It should be a decent introduction to Shakespeare.
People seem to like the episode. The people who've listened
to it seem to like it. There were some lovely
comments on it from listeners. Thank you for commenting if

(04:05):
you did. I'm very happy that so many people enjoyed it.
And yes, I am very lucky to have parents like that.
By the way, I've done a full language review for
that conversation, two episodes in which I look at a
lot of the specific words and phrases that my parents
used during the conversation, and I break it all down,
explaining things, giving more examples, pointing out specific meanings and

(04:28):
other important details. So you can really learn to speak
English like my parents if you want. So that's two
episodes of LP Premium, the first two parts of Premium
series p. Sixty eight available now. You can get those
episodes by becoming a Premium subscriber link in the description right. So,
learn English expressions with Shakespeare. That's the idea. In this episode,

(04:52):
I'm going to teach you some English with William Shakespeare,
and you're going to get some very useful, natural and
lovely phrases that people use all the time these days,
which originally came into English through the work of Shakespeare.
We'll also explore Shakespeare's work a bit too, as we
look at which plays these expressions come from. So in

(05:15):
terms of expressions, to show you what I mean, I'm
now going to give you some samples of English in
a variety of situations. So I'm just going to read
some read out some samples of English to you from
situations like these. So a football manager doing a TV interview,
an expert talking about the future of AI, a news

(05:38):
report about a natural disaster, your friend describing a crazy
thing that happened to her. Your English teacher talking about
how to network in English. Some friends talking about a
roller coaster ride they went on at a theme park.
A roller coaster that's like a crazy, exciting ride that

(06:00):
you would go on at a theme park like Disneyland.
I've described roller coasters in the past as crazy danger trains.
I think it's like kind of like a train that
that does loops and spins around and goes really fast.
So anyway, some friends talking about a roller coaster ride
they went on at a theme park, and two people

(06:20):
on a date. So I'm going to read these little
extracts of English from those situations now, and you'll hear
various words and phrases in each situation. So listen carefully.
Here's a question which bits of vocabulary? So which phrases
or expressions or idioms here do you think are from Shakespeare? Okay? Right,

(06:43):
So there are twelve expressions from Shakespeare, by the way,
and a few other nice bits of vocabulary in fact
that you could also learn. But can you spot twelve
expressions that came from Shakespeare?

Speaker 6 (06:55):
Right?

Speaker 5 (06:56):
So the first one is a football manager is talking
to the prayer about his team's upcoming game against Manchester
City in the FA Cup. So this football manager, his
team is very small. They're called Chadwick FC. You've probably
never heard of them because they don't exist because I
just made them up. So Chadwick FC and the very

(07:22):
small team, and so they are definitely the underdog team, right,
meaning that they're the smaller team who nobody expects to win.
It's them, this tiny little team, Chadwick FC, versus the
giant Manchester City. So Dave Smith is the manager of
Chadwicker FC, and he's being interviewed on a sports program.

(07:43):
So the interviewer says, so, Dave Smith, manager of Chadwick FC.
Big game next week FA Cup semi final. You're up
against the great Manchester City. This is a tall order
for Chadwick, isn't it? And Dave says, well, a lot
of people are talking about this game like we don't
stand a chance. But this is the FA Cup. Surprises happen,

(08:06):
upsets happen. All I can say is that we'll give
it our all. We'll bring the game to them and
fight fire with fire. And a victory for Manchester City
here is not a foregone conclusion by any means. We
know their record in the Premiership, but they're not the
be all and end all. As long as we're still
in the competition then we have a fighting chance. And again,

(08:30):
this is the FA Cup. Anything can happen, and nobody
should underestimate Chadwick FC. H In the end, they lost
five nil, but anyway, so that's that next situation is.
And by the way, I'll explain this stuff. I'm going
to break these things down. I'm going to point out
which expressions are from Shakespeare in each of these things. Okay,

(08:53):
the second one second situation is a linguistics expert is
giving a talk about the future of AI and language learning.
And this is what he says. He says, what we
are seeing in terms of the advances in AI is
nothing less than a complete sea change in the world
of language learning. So far we've only scraped the surface.

(09:16):
It really is the tip of the iceberg. Okay, So
talking about big changes in language learning thanks to the
development of AI. Third situation, a reporter gives a news
update from a town which has been severely damaged by

(09:36):
a flood. So, flood is when let's say a river,
there's so much rain that a river breaks, it bursts
its banks, and all the water flows beyond the banks
of the river, maybe into a nearby town, and the
town gets flooded. Right, that's a flood. So there's too
much water, and the water is in people's homes and

(09:58):
it's damaging all the properties. So a reporter, a news reporter,
is giving an update from a town which has been
severely damaged by a flood. Here it is residents are
describing Willow upon Thames this afternoon as a very sorry sight. Indeed,
after flood damage has made many of the homes here uninhabitable,

(10:20):
the roads impassable, and the town center completely cut off
from almost all modes of transport except boats and helicopters. Okay,
So where was the Shakespearean expression in there? I will
give you the answer in a moment. Just bear with me.
The next situation is your friend telling you about telling

(10:41):
you a story about a robbery. So your friend's home
was robbed. Some thieves broke in to the home and
burgled it, robbed it, okay, And this is your friend
talking about it. So she says this. So we were
in bed about to go to sleep, when all of
a sudden they there was this huge cracking noise from

(11:02):
the front door like that, and then she continues, But
as luck would have it, Jeremy had just installed an alarm,
like literally a couple of days before, but hadn't put
up the stickers on the door, so it wasn't obvious.
So as soon as they forced the door open, the
alarm went off, and the security camera got a photo

(11:24):
of all their faces, and the police managed to find
and arrest all the robbers. In one fell swoop, that's
your friend describing this robbery, where the police, thanks to
the footage from the security camera, they caught the robbers
and arrested them. In one fell swoop the fifth situation,

(11:46):
your English teacher is giving a lesson about social English
in a networking situation at work. So your English teacher
is talking about, so how do we network in a
business situation? What kind of social English can we learn?
And what should we be doing in order to communicate
effectively in this situation? And she says, one of the

(12:07):
most important things to do at the start of a
meeting is to find a way to break the ice
and to get the ball rolling. Okay, And you're probably thinking,
I know, Luke, it's break the ice. Another person, No,
it's get the ball rolling. Could be both, could be
just one. We'll see in a moment. Next, you're describing
a roller coaster ride you went on at a theme

(12:29):
park during a holiday, a very exciting, crazy danger train,
which is you know, that's basically what a roller coaster is,
isn't it anyway? So you say, oh my god, it
was insane. I tell you, it's not for the faint
of heart, this ride, but it is awesome. Have you
ever been on a really exciting roller coaster? That's what

(12:50):
that was about. Number seven is a newsreader giving details
of a death. It's the death of a celebrity So
a movie a fam this movie star has died, and
the news reader is reading the report about it, and
he says, the star of the Impossible Journey films was

(13:11):
found dead in his Hollywood home yesterday afternoon. Police do
not suspect foul play at this time. So the star
of the Impossible Journey films. Yeah, not Mission Impossible. No no, no, no, no,
the Impossible Journey films. The star of the Impossible Journey
films was found dead in his Hollywood home yesterday afternoon.

(13:32):
Police do not suspect foul play at this time. Number eight,
You're talking to an ex girlfriend in a cafe who
you haven't seen for a long time, and you say,
isn't it funny? This is exactly where we first met
each other. So much has changed, but here we are again,

(13:54):
You say to your ex girlfriend, Yes, in the same
cafe where you first met each other. Isn't it funny?
This is exactly where we first met each other. So
much has changed, but here we are again. And the
girl or I don't know who's the other person says, yeah,
I know. It's like we've come full circle, isn't it okay?

(14:19):
So which expressions in there do you think were from Shakespeare,
then well here they are. So it was a foregone conclusion,
a sea change, a sorry sight, all of a sudden,
as luck would have it, in one fell swoop, the
be all and end all, to break the ice, faint

(14:40):
hearted or not for the faint of heart, foul play,
to fight fire with fire, and to come full circle.
So I'll be going through all of those things in
proper detail in this episode in a moment. In fact,
that set of phrases is part of a longern lists
that I've put together that also includes these expressions which

(15:05):
I'm about to list now, which I will be covering
in another episode or two later in LP Premium. So
I'll be doing like the first ten or something items
in the list, the ones I've just dealt with, and
then more in later episodes. Have you ever heard these
phrases before? If not, good because it means that there's

(15:25):
a gap in your English which I can fill. So
these other ones are things like this for goodness sake,
to set your teeth on edge, good riddance, to vanish
into thin air in your heart of hearts, to go
on a wild goose chase to your heart's content. The
world is my oyster, a heart of gold, come what

(15:48):
may high time, too much of a good thing, hot blooded,
a laughing stock, to not sleep one wink, to send
someone packing, to be in a pickle, to say there's
method in my madness, to be in stitches, to lie low,
to make your hair stand on end, and to have
seen better days. So what I'm trying to do here

(16:11):
is to show you the ways that Shakespeare brought so
much color and richness to English by adding lots of
idioms and expressions to the language. So we're looking at
some of these expressions, and my aim is to help
you start using them yourself, expanding your range of vocabulary,
and along the way we'll learn what the expressions really mean.

(16:33):
I'll give you loads of examples so you can get
the full nuances of their use, and also we will
briefly explore the plays they come from. I think if
Shakespeare was an English teacher on YouTube, right, if he
was an English teacher with a YouTube channel, which would
definitely be called English with Bill by the way, I

(16:54):
mean it would, wouldn't it. If Shakespeare was an English
teacher today and he was on YouTube, I don't know,
maybe not, Maybe he would come up with something more
in more original than English with Bill. But anyway, let's
say if Shakespeare was an English teacher with a YouTube
channel or a podcast, then I think this is definitely

(17:14):
the vocabulary he would teach right on English with Bill. So,
like I said in the last episode, these idioms and
expressions from Shakespeare are some of the best ones that
we have in English. In my opinion, this is because
they're rich in imagery and emotion. They capture universal experiences,
universal human experiences. They're often quite musical and poetic. Just

(17:38):
the way that they sound, they just sound nice. They've
stood the test of time, and they connect us to culture,
history and identity. This is why the best idioms are
from Shakespeare, because they just have a certain quality to them. Now,
I do want to make a couple of things really

(17:58):
clear at this point though. So first thing is this,
Shakespeare's English is quite old fashioned. You'll know that if
you read any of his work, and we'll see some examples.
So Shakespeare's English is quite old fashioned, but not these expressions,
because these ones have stood the test of time. These
are the ones that we use every day, right, So

(18:20):
these ones aren't old fashioned. And also I'm talking about
common expressions, And I'm not talking about quotes from Shakespeare
like to be or not to be, or sayings from
Shakespeare like all's well, that ends well, right, So I'm
not talking about those sorts of things. So let me
just expand on that for a moment. But firstly, it

(18:43):
is not the case that every single word Shakespeare wrote
is now a phrase that's used in everyday English. Right,
So just randomly quoting from Shakespeare when you talk would
probably make you sound quite pretentious and old fashioned.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Right.

Speaker 5 (18:58):
So if someone said to you, oh, you're very honest,
aren't you, and you say, I, sir, to be honest
as this world goes is to be one man picked
out of ten thousand hmmm, And people would just think
you sound a bit pretentious if you do that. So
I'm not just saying that everything from Shakespeare can be
applied to modern English. It's not the case. Also, most

(19:20):
people probably don't know their quoting from Shakespeare when they
use these phrases, which they do. I mean they do
a lot. A lot of us say these things every
day without even realizing they come from Shakespeare's work. So
people will just be having a chat or just going
about their business using English on a daily basis, possibly

(19:42):
using a lot of phrases that originally came from Shakespeare's
work without even realizing it. And you can imagine like
a group of people having a chat and then in
the background there's the ghost of William Shakespeare just standing there, going, yeah,
you're welcome everyone, or in fact, he would probably say
thou art welcome or something like that. Right, So I'm

(20:04):
not talking about quoting lines directly from Shakespeare's plays. I'm
just talking about those specific phrases that are part of
our common language today. And the other distinction I want
to make is that I'm not talking about the sayings
that we have which come from Shakespeare. These are specific
lines or quotes which we repeat in order to convey
some piece of wisdom or universal knowledge, like well, you know,

(20:27):
it's as they say, all the worlds are stage, or well,
all's well that ends well, I suppose, or well like
the saying goes all that glitters is not gold, although
most of the time people say all that glitters is
not gold. So I'm not talking about those things, those
sorts of quotes that represent wisdom of Shakespeare. Now, there

(20:50):
is definitely loads of wisdom in Shakespeare, and quotes like
these reflect that. But still, this episode is not about
sayings which reflect the wisdom of Shakespeare. I'll say it again.
What we're looking at is short phrases or idioms which
we still use as part of our normal, everyday communication,
which very neatly express certain ideas or concepts which have

(21:12):
a certain depth or quality to them, and which most
people probably don't even realize were introduced by Shakespeare. So
let's have a look at some of these expressions where
they came from, so which play, which scene, what they mean,
and plenty of examples. You can download the PDF for
this episode free. It contains all the notes I'm reading
from and a full transcript. There will also be some

(21:35):
memory exercises of vocab quiz and a list of discussion
questions for speaking practice. You'll find a link in the description.
As I've said, I have a list of more than
thirty expressions here, which is too many for one single episode.
So I'll go through about ten of them here, I think,
or at least I'll go for about an hour and
we'll see how many we can cover, and then I'll

(21:59):
deal with the rest in some other episodes, which i'll
publish in the premium version of my podcast. If you
want to get those other episodes too, plus the rest
of this Learn English with Shakespeare series, including the language
review episodes that I talked about. Sign up for LP
Premium Teacher Luke dot co dot uk slash Premium right.
So that is where I publish regular extra episodes every month,

(22:21):
and it's not just bonus content. It includes fully crafted
lessons on vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation with PDF worksheets and
video versions. Two hundred over two hundred episodes in the
archive now plus new ones every month. Link in the
description there you go.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
Right.

Speaker 5 (22:39):
So the first expression then is a foregone conclusion of
foregone conclusion. So let's imagine a situation where you can
imagine maybe to a competition. Right, there's going to be
a competition. Let's say it's a sporting competition. Let's say
it's a rock climbing competition, and you've got two people

(23:00):
doing a competitive climb. They're racing up a wall, and
you're thinking who's going to win. Now, you might say
that the result of the competition is not a foregone,
foregone conclusion. It's not a foregone conclusion. Now, the reason
that you would say that is because it's not obvious
who's going to win. So the result of this climbing

(23:21):
competition was not a foregone conclusion because the climbers had
very similar skill levels and so we had no idea
who the winner would be. Right, it was not a
foregone conclusion. So some more example sentences, the one I
had before a victory for Manchester City here is not
a foregone conclusion by any means. That was Dave Smith,

(23:43):
the Chadwick FC manager. Another example in a legal context,
the jury's decision the jury in a court case. The
jury's decision was a foregone conclusion after the overwhelming evidence
presented in court. The evidence was so overwhelming, I mean
the evidence presented, let's say, evidence to prove that the

(24:06):
defendant murdered someone. Right, The evidence presented by the lawyer
was overwhelming. There was too much of it and it
was just too convincing. It was a foregone conclusion that
the jury's verdict would be guilty, right, because the evidence

(24:26):
presented in court was overwhelming. There was so much of
it and it was so convincing. Another example, we knew
exactly what the jury would decide. It was obvious the
evidence that the defendant was guilty was overwhelming. It was
a foregone conclusion. Yeah, the verdict was a foregone conclusion. Okay,

(24:54):
So the definition then, and you know, unless you've already
worked it out, because this is the best way to
learn vocabularies. You get lots of examples, and you look
at the examples, look at the phrase in context, and
you basically work it out. Right, But anyway, here's a definition.
So a foregone conclusion is an inevitable outcome or a

(25:15):
predetermined outcome. An outcome is a thing that happens in
the end. So when you know exactly what's going to
happen because it's obvious or because it's been decided already somehow.
This is particularly for things like contests, matches, elections, decisions
by a court, or anything else that can be predicted

(25:37):
in some way. If it seems obvious what's going to happen,
it's a foregone conclusion. As if we've already decided what
will happen. It's not that we've planned for it to happen,
but it's just obvious that that will be what happens.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
Right.

Speaker 5 (25:54):
In terms of the origin of this, it's from Othello
Act three, Scene three, the quote is but this denoted
a foregone conclusion. So in the play, in the play Othello,
I don't know if you're aware of it, But in
the play, the character Othello is deceived by Iago. So

(26:18):
Iago is lying to Othello, and as a result, Othello
believes that his wife or girlfriend, Desdemona, has been unfaithful.
So Othello believes that Desdemona has been cheating on him
or been unfaithful with someone else. Right, So, when Iago

(26:39):
suggests that Cassio this other guy, not the watch, there's
nothing to do with watch this. When Iargo suggests that
Cassio has been seen with Desdemona's handkerchief, so Iago says
to oh, yeah, Cassio, I saw him with the Desdemona's handkerchief.
So hm. When Iago says this, Othello declares it a

(27:05):
foregone conclusion, meaning that he's already decided that she is guilty,
even without proof. Well, it's a foregone conclusion then, So
in terms of modern uses, it could be in politics,
in sports, in personal life. For example, in politics, election
outcomes in heavily one sided regions or where the election

(27:28):
is obviously fixed. So you think of an election in
some cases it's just obvious who's going to win, maybe
because in certain places a certain political party just always
wins because this part, maybe this area of the country
or something, they always vote for one candidate or one party,

(27:51):
so the result is always a foregone conclusion. Or we're
talking about a situation where the election is fixed, meaning
it's the result has been rigged, meaning that they're cheating,
that they are fixing the outcome, fixing the votes, and
there's foul play going on. There's another bit of Shakespeare

(28:14):
in English, there's cheating going on and the results are
being manipulated through corruption. So that would be you know,
the result of the election, you know, is a foregone conclusion,
or the result seems to be a foregone conclusion, or
you might say it's not a foregone conclusion by any means,

(28:34):
which is often how it's used in the negative, as
if to say there's still chants, there's still a chance
for It's a way of saying anything can happen, you know,
anything can happen. In sport, a team a team is
so dominant that their victory seems inevitable. The result of

(28:56):
the FA Cup match between Manchester City and Wickham Wanderers
seemed to be a foregone conclusion. But that was before
one of the biggest surprises in FA Cup history took
place this Saturday afternoon, which saw City plunge out of
the Cup in second in the second round and Wanderers
celebrate the biggest win in recent memory. So it seemed

(29:18):
to be a foregone conclusion because you thought Manchester City
versus Wick and Wanderers, well, obviously man City are going
to win. But you know, in this case it went
the other way. In personal life, you know, maybe when
someone assumes the worst in a relationship before knowing the
full story. For example, what do you think is she cheating? Well,

(29:39):
it's a foregone conclusion as far as I'm concerned, okay.
And some more examples. You might say talking about a job,
a job is available and you're wondering who is going
to get the job, or maybe someone you were hoping
to get a job in the company, but someone else
got the job, maybe like the son of the boss

(30:04):
of the company was given the job, and you're like, well,
and you'd say, given his connections, his promotion was a
foregone conclusion. Given his connections, his promotion was a foregone conclusion.
It's like, well, who's going to get the job. Well,
it's it's a foregone conclusion, isn't it. Of course it's
going to be him. You know, he's the son of
the boss. The outcome of the debate was a foregone conclusion.

(30:28):
She had all the facts on her side. So you
just witnessed a debate in a debating society and you're
waiting for the outcome. You're waiting for the judges or
the audience to decide who won the debate, and you
can you might think you said, well, it's it's a
foregone conclusion. She clearly won the debate.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
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Speaker 2 (30:51):
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Speaker 3 (30:53):
There are people who I know we're praying two horses.
They are community workers by day.

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I'm parimlodies with exclusive stories from multi award winning journalists.

Speaker 4 (31:04):
We should be skeptical about some of these because when
I looked at the names of some of these files,
they were very, very significant. The way you want to
hear it, this is a guy with gons and with
a veil and.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
Straight head over to the bell. Heil available wherever you
get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
A cast is home to the world's best podcasts, including
the David McWilliams podcast, I'm Grandmam and the one you're
listening to right now.

Speaker 5 (31:34):
Now. Examples, examples, examples, We always want examples, and especially
you know when you're when you're learning English and you
come across phrases like this, you think to yourself, well, Luke,
this is a this is kind of new to me.
I hadn't really, I've never come across this phrase before.

(31:54):
I've noticed this in students, right. So I'll be teaching
a class and I'll teach a piece of in English,
maybe a bit of vocabulary, and the students in the
class have never heard or encountered that expression before, and
their reaction is to kind of go, hmm, I've never
never heard this one before.

Speaker 7 (32:13):
Hmm.

Speaker 5 (32:13):
No, I don't think. I don't think. No, I don't
trust it. No, thanks not today. Because they've never heard
the expression before, they somehow feel distrustful and unwilling to
then learn it, which kind of think, well, wait a minute,
this is the whole point, isn't it. That you've come
here to learn English from me, and yeah, you should

(32:34):
be looking for the language that you've never heard before.
It's just an interesting thing about human psychology. But I've
noticed it lots and lots of times, and it might
happen with you, right, It might be something that happens
with you. When you come across new bits of language,
especially when they are being taught to you by someone,
you might kind of think, no, no, I'm not so sure,
nah naw, you're all right, and I think I'll just

(32:57):
leave it. Thanks. It's very tempting to do that. But
the whole point here is that we are trying to
help you broaden your range of vocabulary. But there's something
interesting about that. I've loved to explore that phenomenon a
bit more, that psychological phenomenon of like, well, something unknown. Therefore,

(33:18):
I will just sort of I'll just ignore it. I'll
survive without it, instead of kind of taking that step
outside your comfort zone and kind of going, well, I'm
not too sure about this, but yeah, okay, all right,
I'll try and use it. I'll try and use it.
I'll see. I think it's always really important to try
and look for real world examples of the vocab being used,

(33:44):
and then you start to be convinced. You start to think, ah, okay,
all right, Oh wait a minute, So wait a minute,
everyone is using this. It's not just this mad English
teacher who for some reason has taken it upon himself
to try and persuade me to use this phrase for
some nefarious purpose. No, it's actually a phrase that everyone's using.

(34:07):
And the reason that you've never heard it before as well,
perhaps just because you've you haven't sort of spent enough
time with the language, with English in a variety of
contexts to expose yourself to all of these things, or
because you're unfamiliar with the phrase. When you hear it,
you you filter it out. And what I mean What

(34:30):
I mean by that is that when we're operating in
a second language, especially when we are listening, because listening
is very it's like the ephemeral form of English, isn't it.
It's very impermanent. I mean, the words exist in the ether,
you hear them, but they as soon as they've been spoken,
they're gone. It's not like when you're reading, the words

(34:53):
are right there in permanent print in front of your
very eyes, and after you've read the line you can
go back and oh, look the word is still there.
It's a lot more permanent and a lot more tangible.
The spoken form of English is not is very intangible
and ephemeral, meaning that, yeah, those words and phrases, as

(35:17):
soon as they've been spoken, they kind of disappear. And
as a result of that, when someone is talking to you,
or when you're listening to something, you know, a film
or a ted talk or whatever it is, and these
bits of language pass you by. What you're doing when
you're listening is normally you're trying to understand the bits
that you understand. Right you, maybe you understand seventy eighty

(35:40):
percent of what you're listening to, and it's the bits
that you understand. Maybe it's less. It could be a
times it drops down to even twenty five thirty percent.
You're just like, h, I think I get the general
idea from the words that I'm understanding, but there are holes,
there are gaps here in what I can actually identify.

(36:00):
So I think I understand. It'll just survive until I
understand a bit more and I'm back up to understanding
seventy or eighty percent. But there was a bit there
where I didn't really understand a lot of the things
that were being said. But I'd sort of survived now
those bits that you don't really understand. They are invisible
to you in a way. It's not as if you
can hear a passage that someone is saying, and you

(36:22):
could identify every letter of every word and spell every
word correctly. As you're listening to it, you know, it's
just they're just noises, They're just sounds. What I'm trying
to say is that when you don't know a word
or phrase, you don't really hear it either, right, because
you're not used to encountering it as a specific item

(36:47):
of vocabulary, and it's just a noise to you until
you've noticed it, kind of grabbed it, checked it identified
that it's a foregone conclusion. That that's three words, a
foregone conclusion, six syllables, and you see it written down,

(37:07):
ah foregne like f o r gne a foregone conclusion. Right, Okay, ah,
this is a thing. So this is a thing. And
when you know it's a thing in the future, you
are much much more likely to notice it again. In fact,
if it's in your mind and you're doing enough listening
or reading, you'll suddenly start to notice the word more

(37:30):
and more. I've talked about this on the podcast previously.
I talked with Amber about this a few years ago.
There was a famous example of the word. It was
Hobson's choice and gas lighting as well. We sort of
discovered these words, or we talked about these words. The
other one was the burlap sack from one of the

(37:52):
mystery stories. Amber and I talked about these words and phrases,
and then we went off and lived our lives and
we kept we notice that we kept coming across these
words and phrases again and again and again, and we
would text each other. I found another burlap sack or
gas lighting again. It's that when you make yourself aware

(38:13):
of certain phrases, then you start to notice them more
and more and more. Okay, So what I'm saying is
that learning new vocabulary is quite a diverse process. Part
of it is accepting that new language is something that
you have to kind of go out of your comfort

(38:34):
zone to start using. But to make that process easier,
you have to look for real world examples of it.
And the more you notice it being used in the
real world, the more you can first of all, convince
yourself okay, this is a commonly used expression, and secondly,
start to notice the typical situations in which it's used,

(38:55):
the sort of contexts in which it's used, and also
you start to notice the grammatical way in which it's
used as well. For example, we say it's not a
foregone conclusion. The result of this thing is not a
foregone conclusion. And remember this is from Shakespeare. So this
does sound great. You know, it sounds impressive to say, well,

(39:16):
the result is not a foregone conclusion. You're talking about politics,
You're talking about an election. What do you think is
going to happen. Well, it's not a foregone conclusion by
any means. Ten points to you for doing that. Now,
a way that you can search for real world examples
of phrases is to use English, which you might well

(39:36):
be aware of already. It's a great website, yoe you
g lsh like YouTube, but combined with English you end
up with Younglish euglish dot com. It's basically a way
to search YouTube for samples of spoken English. So if

(39:57):
we hold on a sect, let me just open the window.
So if we look for examples of a foregone conclusion
on English, this is what we find. So let's have
a look at this. So this is going to require
a little bit of interpretation from me. So so yeah,
so what English does. It gives you a number of
different results that include, in this case, the expression foregone conclusion,

(40:22):
and it puts them in a list and you can
skip between them. It also gives you the subtitles underneath.
So what we've discovered here is a video from the
School of Life, a fantastic YouTube channel, which is all
about sort of self help, and it's about how to
survive a loss of reputation. So if you, let's say

(40:43):
you are someone who let's say you're an English teacher
on YouTube, and you make a video where you get
something completely wrong and you end up teaching English really badly,
like you teach some bad spelling or bad grammar or something,
and oh god, you know, the Internet decides that you're

(41:06):
an idiot. So your reputation has been damaged. You've lost
your reputation as a great, trustworthy English teacher. How do
you survive that situation? That's what the video is about.
And let's skip back a bit.

Speaker 7 (41:22):
Everything that depends on the minds of people in general
is now impossible. What people might think disappears from the calculation.
It's a foregone conclusion. They'll think always that one is
a demon.

Speaker 5 (41:35):
So this is talking about the fact that if your
reputation gets destroyed, then you become convinced that everyone will
think you're terrible. So what people think of you becomes
a foregone conclusion. You will just assume that they think
you're a bad thing. Okay, moving on, So okay, so

(41:57):
we move on to another one, which is a ted
talk by n Goldacre, who is a scientist who and
a journalist, and he devotes a lot of his time
and attention to battling bad science okay, misinformation in the
world of science and fighting against it. And he's talking

(42:19):
about antipsychotic drugs against schizophrenia.

Speaker 6 (42:25):
Let's see, but that's not the only way that you
can rig your data. You can also rig your data
by making the thing that you compare your new drug
against really rubbish. You can give the competing drug in
too lower dose so that people aren't properly treated. You
can give the competing drug in too higher dose so
that people get side effects. And this is exactly what
happened with antipsychotic medication for schizophrenia. Twenty years ago, a

(42:47):
new generation of antipsychotic drugs were brought in and the
promise was that they would have fewer side effects. So
people set about doing trials of these new drugs against
the old drugs. But they gave the old drugs in
ridiculously high doses, twenty milligrams a day of halipara. And
it's a foregone conclusion if you give a drug at
that higher dose, that it will have more side effects
and that your new drug will look better.

Speaker 5 (43:06):
So he's talking about a trial, scientific test of some
new anti anti psychotic drugs against some old ones. A trial. Now,
the problem with these trials scientific trials is sometimes they
are not objective, and sometimes, let's say, pharmaceutical companies might

(43:27):
be guilty of fixing the trial so it makes their
new medicine look much more effective compared to old medicines.
But that's just because the way that they've done the
test is not very reliable and the outcome has been
predetermined by the way that the test was done. And
so the outcome of this medical trial to test these drugs,

(43:50):
the outcome of that becomes a foregone conclusion. When you
look at the way that the test was carried out.
It's obviously a bad test which is going to result
in a certain result. So the result in that context
is a foregone conclusion. That's what he's talking about, that they.

Speaker 6 (44:05):
Would have fewer side effects. So people set about doing
trials of these new drugs against the old drugs, but
they gave the old drugs in ridiculously high doses, twenty
milligrams a day of halaparadot. And it's a foregone conclusion
if you give a drug at that higher dose, that
it will have more side effects and that your new
drug will look better.

Speaker 5 (44:22):
Right, Okay, we could go on with that, but we won't.
But there are more and more examples of a foregone conclusion.
You can have a lot of fun with English. Another
thing that's interesting about it is that you can hear
people just using the expressions without really thinking about it.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
You know.

Speaker 5 (44:40):
I mean, I'm thinking about it because I'm introducing them
to you intentionally to help you learn them. But here
you can just notice people just using them naturally, so
you can actually hear how people pronounce these things. Right,
the result is a foregone conclusion, A foregone conclusion, A
foregone conclusion, four gone conclusion. So that's the first and

(45:05):
fourth syllables across the phrase okay, that's the sort of
thing you should be looking for. Oh my goodness, we've
been going for how long and I've only I'm still
on the first item of vocab. Anyway, discussion questions, So
can you think of a recent election that was a
foregone conclusion? How about the result of a sports match?

(45:27):
And with these discussion questions, the idea is that you
just practice speaking practice you're speaking, give your answers to
the questions, and try to use the target vocab in
your answer. So you'd say, well, the result of the
election in Fredonia was a foregone conclusion, mainly because the

(45:49):
President of Fredonia always wins the election because there's only
one party, because the president had all the members of
the opposition parties thrown in jail or killed. So, of course,
whenever there's one of these fake elections, it's always a
foregone conclusion that the president of the Freedom Party is

(46:11):
going to win. You know, it's disgusting, isn't it. How
About the result of a sports match, Well, I don't know,
England versus who Argentina. Well, it's obviously a foregone conclusion
that England are going to win the game. Oh I've
just just really annoyed about well, the entire planet, because

(46:33):
of course that's not that's not what would happen. Of course,
Argentina are always usually going to be England. I would say,
I don't know if it's a foregone conclusion, but I
think England are the underdogs in that match. Let's say,
let's put it that way. Next thing in the list
is the expression a sea change, which is again a

(46:55):
lovely expression, a sea change, so examples the AI the
linguist talking about AI. What we're seeing in terms of
the advances in AI is nothing less than a complete
sea change in the world of language learning, or another one.
The introduction of AI in the workplace has brought a

(47:18):
sea change in how businesses operate. So you've probably worked
it out. A sea change is a profound transformation, a
big change, a bit like the way the sea or
the ocean can shift on a huge scale, or the
way the epic power of the sea can change things,
eroding and reshaping the land, changing anything that it touches.

(47:44):
So it's an evocative image a sea change, suggesting a deep,
profound and long lasting change. Right, there's been a sea
change in the way we live. There's been a sea
change in the government's approach to the economy. You know
the origin, the Shakespearean origin of this. A sea change

(48:09):
is a phrase in a Shakespeare play with the most
beautiful of Shakespeare's poetry. By the way, some of these
notes I've I should credit has been the origin of
some of the comments about the origins I've taken from
a website called No Sweat Shakespeare, which is a really

(48:31):
useful website if you're studying Shakespeare's work. So I've in
my research I looked at No Sweat Shakespeare. I looked
at Phrases dot org and a few other websites that
I'll bet referring to. So the origin of this information
now is from No Sweat Shakespeare dot com. So sea

(48:52):
change is a phrase in a Shakespeare play with the
most beautiful of Shakespeare's poetry. It's from a song sung
by Oar in The Tempest. So the play is The Tempest.
The character is Ariel, She's a spirit who sings a song.
So first a bit of background about the Tempest, which
is one of Shakespeare's most mysterious plays. In a nutshell,

(49:16):
the story of the Tempest centers on a character called
Prospero he is the rightful Duke of Milan. Right, so
he's a sort of nobleman, a royal person, the Duke
of Milan. But he was betrayed by his ambitious brother Antonio.
Antonio betrayed him and he was exiled to a remote

(49:39):
island with his young daughter Miranda. So Prospero should be
the Duke of Milan, but Antonio, his brother, betrayed him
and sent him out where he's imprisoned on a remote
island in the sea with his young daughter Miranda. Years later,
Prospero now a powerful sorcerer, a kind of wizard, thanks

(50:04):
to the island's spirits and his extensive studies. So Prospero
sent to this island. This island is populated by sort
of strange spirits, weird natural supernatural forces on this island,
and they have turned Prospero into a powerful wizard. He's

(50:24):
been studying with them and he's turned into this sort
of sorcerer. So Prospero now is this powerful sorcerer. He
conjures a violent tempest, so he creates a big storm,
a big weather storm that ship wrecks his enemies. So
his enemies enemy's ship gets wrecked on the rocks, and

(50:49):
his enemies include Antonio, his brother, King Alonso of Naples,
and Alonso's son Ferdinand. They get shipwrecked onto the island
where Prospero is living, and over the course of the play,
Prospero orchestrates so he arranges and manipulates a series of

(51:11):
magical events and encounters, encounters with spirits and a monster
and stuff in order to take revenge on his enemies,
test their sense of morality, and ultimately decide their futures.
During the story, love blossoms. Love grows between Miranda, So

(51:35):
Prospero's daughter who's on the island with him, and Ferdinand,
the son of one of the other one of his enemies.
So love blossoms between Miranda and Ferdinand. Various comedic and
treacherous plots unfold unfold, involving the shipwrecked nobles, the royal people,
and the island's inhabitants, like the monstrous Caliban and the

(51:56):
airy spirit Arial that's not Arial from the little murm
made but another Ariel, and Prospero grapples with the consequences
of his power and his desire for revenge. Yeah, so
it's a tale of a wronged duke using magic to
confront his past and ultimately choosing a path of redemption.

(52:20):
Fascinating and mysterious play. In this particular scene where the
phrase sea change occurs, the spirit Ariel sings to a
character called Ferdinand. Sings to Ferdinand about his father who
was shipwrecked and fell into the sea. So Ariel is

(52:40):
singing this mysterious and beautiful song to Ferdinand, telling him,
or trying to maybe manipulate him into thinking that his
father was killed in the shipwreck and his body now
lies deep underwater. And she sings these lines. She sings,
full fathom, five thy father, lies of his bones are

(53:04):
coral made. Those are pearls that were his eyes. Nothing
of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea
change into something rich and strange. Sea nymphs hourly ring
his knell, ding dong hark. Now I hear them ding
dong bell. So she's lying to him. She's suggesting that

(53:27):
his father drowned, which is not actually true as far
as I understand. So let me explain that, right, Let
me explain those lines. Because Shakespeare is a bit impenetrable.
But when things are explained, then the beauty is revealed. Right,
So full fathom five, thy father lies, So full fathom five.

(53:51):
A fathom is a unit of depth in water equal
to six feet, so one fathom is six feet, so
full fathom five means thirty feet deep. Okay, So this
immediately establishes the father's supposed drowning. You drown when you
die underwater because you can't breathe. And his location at

(54:11):
the bottom of the sea. So basically, your father lies
thirty feet at the bottom of the sea, thirty feet down.
Of his bones are coral made. His bones, you know,
the parts of his skeleton, of his bones are coral made.
This is a poetic and imaginative transformation. Instead of decaying, right, decomposing,

(54:35):
His father's bones have metamorphosed or changed into coral, which
is like that hard substance. Is it a creature? Is
it a plant? Coral which grows underwater?

Speaker 6 (54:50):
Right?

Speaker 5 (54:50):
You get these huge coral reefs, like the Great Barrier
Reef in Australia where so many fish live and so on. Coral.
So his the father's bones have changed into coral, a
beautiful and intricate underwater formation. This suggests a peaceful and
natural integration into the marine environment. That Ferdinand's father has

(55:16):
sort of been transformed into a natural part of the
underwater world. Those are pearls that were his eyes. So,
again continuing the theme of transformation, the father's eyes are
now envisioned as precious pearls. Right, precious jewel, not jewel.

(55:39):
They're not jewel. They're not stones, are they pearls? They're
actually made by oysters, but they're used in jewelry, beautiful
white round. I think they counters stones, don't they because
they're made from dirt. Anyway, the father's eyes are now
envisioned as precious pearls, so his eyes have turned into pearls.

(56:03):
This imagery evokes beauty and value because pearls are valuable,
arising from what once was a vital part of a
living being. So the eyes have become these valuable trinkets.
Nothing of him that doth fade, so doth is like

(56:24):
saying does right. Nothing of him that does fade, So
nothing of him, no part of him has faded, meaning
his somehow, his life force or something beautiful is still remains.
So this line contradicts the natural process of decomposition. It

(56:45):
suggests that the father's essence has not diminished or decayed,
but has instead been transformed into something enduring, something that lasts,
in this case the beauty of pearls and the natural
wonder of coral and other underwater life. Right, So nothing
of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea change.

(57:10):
So this but doth suffer a sea change, meaning, but
does suffer a sea change, but has been drastically transformed
by the ocean. This is the key line explaining the
unusual transformations described. Sea change refers to a profound and
mysterious transformation brought about by the sea. It implies a

(57:32):
complete alteration of form and substance. Right, but doth suffer
a sea change into something rich and strange. This describes
the result of the sea change. The father's remains have
become something valuable, something rich and unfamiliar or wondrous, so strange,

(57:53):
in this case, moving beyond the realm of ordinary human existence.
So he's kind of in his drowned state, he has
somehow turned into something otherworldly. Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell.

(58:13):
So sa nymphs are mythical female spirits of the sea.
A knell is the slow solemn ringing of a bell
dong dong. That's a knell, typically announcing a death or
a funeral. So the image of sea nymphs, these underwater

(58:38):
spirits constantly ringing a bell for the father emphasizes the
finality of his supposed demise and adds a mystical mournful quality.
What a mysterious image of this man who's drowned and
these sea spirits are ringing the bell in the deeps

(59:00):
of the ocean ding dong. This is the hon a
matapaic sound of the bell being rung, bringing the image
to life and making it more immediate and sensory for Ferdinand,
hark now I hear them ding dong bell, So hark.
This is an archaic word or old fashioned word meaning

(59:23):
listen or pay attention, And this draws Ferdinand's attention to
the sounds, like she's saying, listen, I can hear the bell.
Now I hear them ding dong. This reinforces the auditory experience,
making Ferdinand and the audience and no doubt. When this
is performed on stage there is a bell being rung.

(59:44):
It sort of makes the audience and Ferdinand believe in
the ongoing melancholic ringing of the se nymph's bell, solidifying
the illusion of his father's watery grave. So it's all
part of this deception where Ferdinand is being convinced that

(01:00:06):
his father has died underwater, but an extraordinary, beautiful and
mysterious passage. And the word a sea change is at
the heart of that, which you know, is very interesting
when you realize this phrase gets used a lot. It
really has stood the test of time since it was written,

(01:00:28):
you know, so many years ago, five hundred years ago,
nearly five hundred years ago, and we're still using it today,
and it's used in the newspapers, and it's used in
conversations and things like that. But this is the origin
of it. And it's beautiful, isn't it. In essence, these
lines paint a fantastical picture of death by drowning, where

(01:00:50):
the body undergoes a beautiful and otherworldly transformation rather than
simple decay. The imagery is both sorrowful, meaning sad and
strangely come designed to affect Ferdinand deeply and set the
stage for prosperose further manipulations. So yes, the meaning of

(01:01:12):
sea change has evolved into something much more than its
original meaning this is important. The original meaning is something
being literally changed by the sea, something like the polishing
of beach pebbles, turning them from their original state into
something smooth and beautiful, you know, like, for example, when
on the beach you sometimes will find glass. But the

(01:01:33):
glass has been in the sea or in the sand
for many years, and it's all smooth and rounded like
a little pebble. But you realize it's a piece of glass.
Let's look at modern applications of this. So in terms
of technology, right, talking about technology, the shift from traditional
media to digital platforms, for example, that could be described

(01:01:54):
as a sea change. For example, we've seen a sea
change in the way people consume content. In terms of culture,
changes in societal attitudes, such as acceptance of remote work. Recently,
you know, the way that we work has changed, and
now it's much more normal to work from home, for example,

(01:02:15):
especially with you know, technology that makes it possible. And
also what happened with COVID nineteen where we were forced
to work from home and then we all realized, oh
wait a minute, I could just do this all the time. So,
for example, COVID nineteen brought about a sea change in
the way we live and work. Let me just drink

(01:02:36):
some water, excuse me. Or personal life. You can imagine
a person, for example, undergoing a major lifestyle shift after
a life event. For example, she's been through a bit
of a sea change over the last couple of years.

(01:02:57):
More examples, after traveling the world, she underwent to sea
change in her perspective on life. Or the company's leadership
saw a seed change after the merger, meaning after the
company merged with another company, there was a sea change
in the leadership, meaning a general change in the way
the company was being led. We could look at Eglish again.

(01:03:20):
Why not. This is Tim berners Lee, computer scientists, inventor
of the World Wide Web. This is the guy who
people say invented the Internet. And what's he talking about?

Speaker 8 (01:03:36):
You asked the linked data which they've now put together
thirty two hits, each of which is a protein which
has those properties, And you can look at the power
of being able to ask those questions of a scientist,
questions which actually bridge across different disciplines. Is really a
complete sea change. It's very very important. Scientists are totally
stymied at the moment. The power of the data that

(01:03:58):
other scientists have collected is locked up, and we need
to get it unlocked so we can tackle those huge problems.

Speaker 5 (01:04:06):
I guess he's talking about the way that the way
that the Internet has linked data, so data information is
now all linked up together. And in terms of science, like,
for example, doing scientific research into I don't know something

(01:04:27):
about protein whatever, you know, just one of the millions
of things that scientists that do research into. Let's say
scientists are researching protein or something, and now the fact
that they can connect all of the information that they've
got with all what the other scientists have got so
quickly that this represents a sea change in scientific research.

Speaker 8 (01:04:52):
The power of being able to ask those questions as
a scientist, questions which actually bridge across different disciplines, is
really complete sea change. It's very very important.

Speaker 5 (01:05:02):
Okay, all right, how long have I been going now?
I think it's got to be around about an hour,
So anyway, discussion questions what events in recent memory have
caused a sea change in your opinion? Well, I mean,
you know, COVID nineteen is one of the big examples,
isn't it. COVID nineteen is certainly you could say it

(01:05:25):
caused a sea change in a few different in a
few different ways. We've talked about the way that we work,
but has it called did it cause a sea change?
In any other way? Any other events that have caused
a sea change? You know, you talk about developments in
technology have massive changes. What technological developments have brought about

(01:05:49):
a sea change? And you could say things like this,
there has been a sea change in blah blah blah,
or this represented a sea change in blah blah blah. Remember,
try to give answers to those questions. Try to use
the phrases when you're doing it right. Let's move on
to so this is this is only the third in
my list. Okay, well let's do this one. I guess

(01:06:14):
I've been going for about an hour then, but let
me let me do at least let me try and
do a couple more right, Okay, because I've got a
lot to get through. So a sorry sight, you're a
sorry sight, someone might say if they see you. I mean,

(01:06:34):
let's say, okay, let's say here's the situation. You you
went out, you're you're living in England, and you went
out for a nice walk because the weather was sunny
and you thought, yeah, a sunny day, I'll go for
a walk. I'll just pop to the shops and I'll
go for a walk, and I'll enjoy this nice sunny day.
And of course you don't bring an umbrella, and you

(01:06:59):
go out for your walk, and after half an hour,
suddenly the clouds appear over your head and you think,
wait a minute, what happened to my sunny day? And
then before long, yes, it starts raining, and then it's
a complete downpour and you're soaking wet. You didn't have
an umber, you didn't bring an umbrella, so you're totally
soaking wet. Finally you manage to find you get back

(01:07:20):
to your house where you're staying, and you come in
and your housemate takes one look at you, dripping wet
with water and looking all miserable, and they say, oh,
you're a sorry sight. What happened? And you go, well,
obviously I got caught in the rain. Obviously didn't bring
an umbrella. Oh you should have brought a brolly schoolboy era, Well,

(01:07:43):
the sun was shining. How am I supposed to know?
You're a sorry sight? Another example sentence This is from
earlier on. Remember we talked about the flooded town that
news report residents are describing Willow upon Thames, that's the
name of the town this afternoon, as a very sorry sight. Indeed,

(01:08:04):
after flood damage has made many of the homes here uninhabitable, right,
so the town is described as a sorry sight. A
person can be a sorry sight, the town can be
a sorry sight. Another one after the storm, the town
was a sorry sight with trees uprooted and buildings damaged.

(01:08:24):
And you're a sorry site. What happened to you? So
a sorry site is a pitiful, unpleasant or regrettable thing
to see something that is in really bad shape, really
really bad condition, and it makes you feel pity. Oh
are you all right? Unpleasant? Oh god, this looks terrible. God,

(01:08:45):
what a sorry sight. This comes from Macbeth Shakespeare play Macbeth,
act to scene to the context. In the play, Macbeth
says this after he's murdered King Duncan, and he looks
at his blood stained hands and realizes what he's done.

(01:09:06):
He realizes the gravity of his crime, and he looks
at his blood covered hands, and he says, this is
a sorry sight. In modern uses, it could be used,
you know, for all sorts of things in politics, in sports,
personal life, most of the examples I'm looking at. I
tried to give examples from a range of different situations.
We've ended up with politics, sports and personal life. So

(01:09:30):
in terms of politics, it could be used to describe
a failed government project. Let's say the government tried to
build a new business park, a huge development outside London,
but then the money ran out and they weren't able
to finish the development, and so what's left is a
very sorry site. Is like a half finished business park

(01:09:55):
which nobody can use and it looks terrible. The new
business park, which was once hailed as the biggest development
outside of London, is now a sorry site since funding
dried up. In sports, you could have a once great
team that's now in decline, a team that used to
be brilliant and they're not anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
So.

Speaker 5 (01:10:17):
For example, one of the best teams in the UK,
Chadwick FC, are a sorry site these days. I said
Chadwick FC was a made up team. Actually I used
to play for a team called Chadwick FC because this
was the name of a town where I used to
live back when I was a teenager, and the team

(01:10:39):
was a sorry site. I can tell you that, much
like maybe the worst Sunday League football team in England.
So in England we have football games, amateur football games
on Sunday mornings. It's called Sunday League.

Speaker 6 (01:10:54):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:10:55):
These are amateur football leagues and up and down the country,
teams from small towns plague against each other. And I
was playing for Chadwick FC. And I was fifteen years old, right,
So this was an adult team and they needed a goalkeeper.
Their goalkeeper was not reliable and he kept letting them down.

(01:11:19):
He would like not turn up for games and nobody
liked him, so they got rid of him. They kicked
him out of the team. But then they realized that
they needed a goalkeeper. And I was playing with the
youth team. We used to do training together on Sunday
mornings at the end of the field when the adults
the grown ups were playing their games. We would be

(01:11:42):
with the kids playing at the end of the park.
And someone saw me and decided that I was good.
There was the guy who ran the kids football training,
knew the other guys in the adult team, and this
guy thought I was a really good goalkeeper. Now I
was all right. I was quite athletic. I could dive

(01:12:03):
and save shots and stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:12:04):
Like that.

Speaker 5 (01:12:05):
I was a pretty good goalkeeper. In fact, I had
a nickname which was the Barrier. They called me the Barrier,
that was my nickname. But I was fifteen, you know,
and I wasn't that big. But they needed a goalkeeper
and so they got me to playing goal for them.
So there I was a fifteen year old goalkeeper for

(01:12:25):
Chadwick FC. And yeah, we were a pitably, pitifully bad team.
It was a sorry state of affairs, it really was.
And we would lose games like eight nil, you know,
there was a typical score. So I would let in
about eight goals every game, playing on these freezing cold

(01:12:49):
Sunday mornings on some terrible football pitch in some little
town somewhere in the middle of England. And these football
pitches that we played on were off and in really
bad condition. The pitch was a sorry sight. And often
I'd be you know, because I'm standing in goal, because
I'm the goalkeeper. Often there would be a big kind

(01:13:10):
of hole in the ground in front of the goal,
you know, and the hole would be full of water
because it had rained that night, and mud and stones
as well. Often the pitch often had the pitches had
stones on them and stuff and all sorts of stuff,
so I'd be like diving around in this stuff. I

(01:13:32):
would let in about eight goals each game, but I
would still play the best game that any keeper had played,
do you know what I mean? So I'd play an
amazing game, but I would still let in eight goals,
meaning that I would save I would save so many
more shots that the team that our team was so

(01:13:54):
bad that the other team would get so many more
shots on target that despite the fact that I'd saved ten,
they would still score eight. And I wasn't good in
the air. As a goalkeeper. You've got to be very
strong and physical when the ball comes over. You've got
to leap up into the air above all the other

(01:14:16):
guys and really sort of slam your body against them
and grab the ball, maybe kick some people in the
back with your knee. Be a bit physical and brutal.
I wasn't. I was quite sort of slim and sensitive,
but quite quite able to dive and leap around and

(01:14:37):
stop the ball. So yeah, we were a sorry sight.
The pitch was a sorry sight, and normally I was
a sorry sight at the end of a game covered
in mud, water blood as well sometimes, So yeah, Chadwick
FC a real team in fact. So that's it for

(01:14:57):
sport and then for personal life. Imagine like a place
like your home, right, a neglected home, like a place
where some guy is living on his own and he
doesn't clean up. His kitchen is a total mess. You
go round to his house and you look at the
kitchen and there's all the dirty plates and stuff, and you, God,

(01:15:19):
this is a sorry sight, isn't it. Look at this?
Or a worker someone you work with is just spent
all night working in the office and you might say, God,
you're a sorry sight. Or someone who's soaking wet from
the rain. As I said before, you're a sorry site
what happened? Or a place Gosh, this place is a
sorry site, isn't it? Like a very untidy room? The

(01:15:41):
abandoned amusement park was a sorry site. He looked like
a sorry sight after pulling an all night Yes, okay,
you get the idea. There are more examples from you
glitsch it just in case you're not convinced. But let's
look at the discussion questions. Have you ever been a
sorry site? What happened? Can you think of a time
when you could have been described as a sorry sight?

(01:16:04):
What happened to you? Can you tell the story and
can you say I was a sorry sight at the
end of your story like I did. Are there any
places near you which are a sorry site? What happened
to them?

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
Hm?

Speaker 5 (01:16:19):
You know what? I think we're going to stop here
because I decided at the beginning of this that I
wouldn't do more than an hour. I just decided to
try to keep things under control here and to restrict
this to at least an hour. I got through three
bits of vocab, but the other things that I was
planning to go through include if we remember, we also

(01:16:45):
have all of a sudden meaning suddenly as luck would
have it, meaning luckily in One Fell Swoop. Okay, the
police arrested the criminals in One Fell Swoop the be
all and end all, like Manchester City. They're good, but
they're not the be all and end all. To break

(01:17:06):
the ice, you've got to maybe ask a question just
to break the ice. It's not for the faint of heart.
I've been watching the HBO series The Last of Us
series two. I don't know if you've seen it. Don't worry.
I won't give any spoilers. But the Last of US,
Season two, episode two, that's not for the faint of heart.

(01:17:30):
It was intense. If you know about the show, maybe
you've seen it as well and you'll know what I mean.
But WHOA. So the show is about it's like, you know,
it's kind of like one of these zombie stories. Again,
we've seen so many of them, but this does it
very well. It's about a fungal infection, a very very

(01:17:52):
nasty fungal infection which infects the brain. Anyway, but the episode,
season two, episode two of The Last Us involves, well,
there are all sorts of things that happen, and it's
not for the faint of heart. I was watching it
and I was like, thinking, this is intense. My wife
was on the sofa next to me. We were watching
different things, but I kept going like that and ah,

(01:18:17):
and she was saying, are you okay? And I said, oh, yeah,
I'm fine, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah fine. It's just this
TV show. But it was intense. Not for the faint
of heart. Foul play. You know, the movie star was
found dead in his hotel room, but the police are
suggesting that there's no evidence of foul play, meaning it's

(01:18:41):
it wasn't murder to fight fire with fire. They attacked us,
but we're going to attack them back. We will fight
fire with fire. And to come full circle, this is
where we met each other all those years ago, but
so many things have changed. But here we are again.
It's like we've full circle, isn't it. Okay, Now, I'm

(01:19:04):
going to go through all those things, but I'm not
going to go through them now because that's enough, I
think for this episode. But I will be covering the
rest of these expressions on NEP premium. Let me just
fly forwards on the PDF, which I'll be I'll edit
the PDF together and you'll be able to download it.

Speaker 4 (01:19:24):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:19:25):
But yes, for now, that's the end of the episode,
but it's not finished. As I said. On the PDF,
you will find a memory exercise for the three expressions
that we looked at. Now, hold on a minute, let
me back up a bit. Okay, let me come full
circle and go back to where we started, which was
those twelve twelve those different situations, right, the football manager,

(01:19:49):
the AI expert. Let me go through those things again,
so you can notice some of the other expressions and
I'll highlight them, but also some other bits of language too.
So I'm just going to do a a very quick
final ten minutes or so here, just to make sure
that there's something more than just three items of vocab

(01:20:10):
in the PDF worksheets. So just ten more minutes, right,
Let me just go through those situations because there are
other bits of English that I can teach to you here.
So a football manager talking to the press about his
team's upcoming game against Manchester City in the FA Cup.
His team is very small, Chadwick FC. You might have
heard of them, and they're the underdog team. So Dave Smith,
manager of Chadwick FC, Big game next week, FA Cup

(01:20:32):
semi final. You're up against the great Manchester City. This
is a tall order for Chadwick, isn't it a tall order?
That means a very difficult thing to achieve? And he says, well,
a lot of people are talking about this game like
we don't stand a chance, we don't stand a chance,
We've got no chance, meaning we probably won't win. But

(01:20:56):
this is the FA Cup. Surprises happen, up Sets happen.
An upset is something unexpected which makes things kind of
go wrong. In this case, Chadwick FC beating Manchester City. Wow,
that was unexpected. That changes that changes things. That was
an upset. Upsets happen. All I can say is that

(01:21:20):
we'll give it our all. If you give something, you're all.
It means you give it everything, you try your best.
We'll give it our all. We'll bring the game to them,
which means that we will take an aggressive, proactive approach.
We'll try to dominate the game. We'll bring the game
to them. We know we are up we know what

(01:21:41):
we're up against. If you're up against something, it means
you're facing it right, You're you're sort of fighting against it.
I know what I'm up against it. I'm up against
a lot here, meaning you've got challenges. We know they're strong,
but we will fight fire with fire. There's a Shakespearean phrase,
and a victory for Manchester City here is not a

(01:22:04):
foregone conclusion by any means foregone conclusion. We know their
record in the Premiership, but they're not the be all
and end all. There's a Shakespearean phrase which is going
to come up later in the series. As long as
we're still in this competition, then we have a fighting chance.
And again, this is the FA Cup. Anything can happen,
and nobody should underestimate Chadwick FC. We still have a

(01:22:26):
fighting chance. That means we have a chance to win
if we fight. They lost five nil eight nil. Linguistics expert,
what we're seeing in terms of the advances in AI
is nothing less than a complete sea change in the
world of language learning. So far, we've only scraped the surface.

(01:22:49):
So if you scrape the surface, it means you just
look at the surface. We've only looked at a small amount,
a bit like with this series in terms of expressions
from Shakespeare. Unfortunately, we only scraped the surface with this episode.
I just like to take a very detailed look at
these things. You know. That's why these things take so long,

(01:23:12):
because I try to do them properly, rather than just
giving you two examples and moving on, Rather than just
coming up with a good title for an episode and
then delivering some half baked lists to you and then
just ending it all within ten minutes, which on the
face of it seems like something good because it's only
ten minutes, But does it have real educational value? Does

(01:23:35):
the stuff really stick in? Do you really know what
those phrases and things mean if you've just been given
a ten minute list. Anyway, so we've only scraped the surface.
It really is the tip of the iceberg. So I
scraped the surface. We haven't gone all the way into
the subject. We've only looked at the very surface level.
It's only the tip of the iceberg. The tip of

(01:23:57):
the iceberg phrase that you might be aware of already.
It's the part, the top part that we can see,
but there's a lot more that we can't see that's
under the surface. Just like with an iceberg. Reporter giving
a news update from a town that's damaged by a flood,
residents are describing Willow upon Thames this afternoon as a

(01:24:18):
very sorry sight. Indeed, after flood damage has made many
of the homes here uninhabitable. They can't be lived in.
The road's impassable, meaning you can't drive down them. They're
blocked and the town center completely cut off, meaning disconnected

(01:24:39):
from almost all modes of transport except boats and helicopters.
Why do they always end their reports like that, leaving
the town center completely cut off from almost all modes
of transport except boats and helicopters. This is Michael m

(01:25:00):
Michael for the BBC Modes of transport, you can say
types of transport, forms of transport or modes of transport,
which is quite nice, isn't it. Your friend is telling
you about a robbery. We were in bed, about to
go to sleep, when all of a sudden, there's the
Shakespearean phrase. It will come up later in the series.

(01:25:24):
Available to premium subscribers Teacher Luke dot co dot uk
slash Premium. All of a sudden, there was this huge
cracking noise from the front door, ah as robbers broke in,
and then they continued. But as luck would have it,
there's a phrase that's going to come up in the series, Jeremy.

(01:25:44):
This is presumably her boyfriend or husband had just installed
an alarm, like literally a couple of days before, but
hadn't put up the stickers on the door, so it
wasn't obvious. So if the stickers had been on the door,
then they wouldn't have burgled the house, I suppose. So
as soon as they forced the door open, the alarm

(01:26:05):
went off, and yes, alarm alarms go off, meaning they
start ringing right and the security camera got a photo
of all their faces. The police managed to find and
arrest all the robbers in one fell swoop. There's the
other Shakespearean phrase, in one fell swoop your English teacher

(01:26:26):
giving a lesson about social English. One of the most
important things to do at the start of a meeting
is to find a way to break the ice and
get the ball rolling. So to break the ice is
the phrase from Shakespeare meaning sort of you know, in
the beginning of a social situation. Sometimes things are a
bit cold, like at the beginning of a party. Everyone's
standing there feeling kind of uncomfortable. Don't know anyone, and

(01:26:51):
you might, you know, ask a question to break the ice.
So how do you know?

Speaker 7 (01:26:56):
How do you know?

Speaker 5 (01:26:56):
Dave, And get the ball rolling. To get the ball
rolling means to get things started, to get the momentum going.
Once the ball is rolling, then you can start playing
with it. Right, you're describing a roller coaster ride you
went on at a theme park. Oh my god, it

(01:27:17):
was insane. I tell you, it's not for the faint
of heart, this ride, but it's awesome. If so, the
faint of heart or the faint hearted, that means people
who are not brave, not courageous. So if you say
that something is not for the faint of heart, you
mean that it's only for people who are really brave.

(01:27:38):
A newsreader about the details of the death of a celebrity.
The star of The Impossible Journey films, was found dead
in his Hollywood home yesterday afternoon. Police do not suspect
foul play at this time. Foul play meaning criminal activity,
often murder the opposite of fair play. And you're talking

(01:28:03):
to an ex girlfriend in a cafe who you haven't
seen for a long time, and she says, isn't it
funny this is exactly where we first met each other.
So much has changed, but here we are again. And
you say, I know, it's like we've come full circle.
Now would you like to come back to my place?
And she says, what are you thinking? Don't be ridiculous.

(01:28:25):
You know I'm married to Richard. And you say, but
you're not wearing your wedding ring and she goes, oh,
that's right, I must have taken it off. So there
were the shakespeare In expressions and a few other bits
of vocab thrown in as well. Check the PDF. You'll
find some memory exercises, some sort of vocabulary quiz with

(01:28:48):
a list of the vocab that you're expected to remember
and that we'll be in the exercises. Okay, and discussion
questions as well. Check them out. Use the exercises. They
can really help you to reinforce what you've learned from
the episode. You'll find a link in the description. It's
just free to download from my website. Thank you for
listening to this episode. If you want to get the

(01:29:09):
rest of the series, where I'll be going into detail
about a lot more expressions than just check out LP
Premium link in the description. Otherwise, have a lovely day, morning, afternoon, evening,
or night. Leave your comments in the comment section. If
you made it through to this part of the episode,
just use any of the bits of vocab that have

(01:29:30):
come up. I'll let you choose, but just to prove
that you've made it this far, say something about a
circle coming full circle. That would be good, or use
any of the other expressions in your comment or not.
You could just comment anything, anything at all, but I'd
love to hear from you. Thanks for watching, Thanks for listening.

(01:29:53):
As my timer again, I will drink so I'm going
to make myself a cup of tea. Now, okay, speak
to you in the next step pisode of this podcast.
The free next free episode will be about something completely different,
but in premium you'll be getting more Shakespeare themed stuff
as we go through p sixty eight, which is the

(01:30:17):
premium series that I'm working on with all of this language, Okay,
I am planning to do one more episode which will
be looking at specifically looking at lines from Shakespeare's plays.
We did a bit of the tempest in this one,
but I want to do some stuff where we look
at look at some famous scenes from shakespeare plays, read

(01:30:37):
them out and explore what the language all means. So
that's something else that I'm going to be doing at
some point. It won't be the next episode. It'll come later,
all right, Great cheers everyone, have a lovely afternoon, evening, morning,
all night. I know I've already said that, but there
you go. I said it again. Until next time, I
will just say good bye bye bye bo bo. Thanks

(01:31:03):
for listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit
teacher Luke dot com dot UK. If you enjoyed this
episode of Luke's English Podcast, consider signing up for Luke's

(01:31:26):
English Podcast Premium. You'll get regular premium episodes with stories, vocabulary,
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(01:31:48):
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