English Recordings

The movie theater’s closed. You’ve deprived us of the joy of watching a movie on the big screen.

Playing up, showing off or letting someone down: phrasal verbs for bad behaviour (1)
By Liz Walter

It struck me recently that there are rather a lot of phrasal verbs connected with people behaving badly so I thought this might be a useful topic. In fact, there are so many of them that there will be two posts: this one on children’s behaviour and general bad behaviour and one on more serious wrongdoing such as violence, bullying and dishonesty.

When children behave badly, for example by being rude or uncooperative, we say they are “acting up” (UK & US)/ “playing up” (UK). The phrasal verb “act out” is often used when children behave badly because they are unhappy or upset.
+ The kids always act up when they’re tired.
+ She’s been acting out since her mum and I split up.

For less serious bad behaviour, for instance in class, we use the phrasal verb “mess around” (UK & US) / “mess about” (UK). If the behaviour is designed to make other people laugh, we might say “fool around” or “clown around”:
+ I wish I hadn’t messed around so much at school.
+ Nobody can concentrate when you’re clowning around like this.

When children “answer back” or “talk back,” they answer an adult rudely.
+ Don’t you dare answer me back!
+ He always talked back to the teachers.

Let’s move on to adult bad behaviour. If you accuse someone of “sucking up to” a person in authority, you mean that they are doing things to try to make that person like them, in a way you find unpleasant or unfair. If you “trifle with” someone, you treat them in a way that shows that you do not really care about them, often for your own pleasure or amusement:
+ I can’t stand Anna. She’s always sucking up to our boss.
+ She thought it was a serious relationship, but Paul was just trifling with her.

There are a few phrasal verbs connected with acting unpleasantly because you think you are better than other people. If you “lord it over” someone, you act as if you are better than them and can therefore “boss them around” (tell them what to do):
+ I’m fed up with Kieran lording it over everyone.
+ Stop bossing me around!

If you “talk down to” someone, you talk to them as though you think they are less clever or important than you, and if you “show off” you say or do things to try to make people admire you, in a way that other people do not like:
+ He hated the way his uncle talked down to him.
+ She was always showing off about her famous dad.

One very useful phrasal verb to end with: if you “let someone down,” you fail to do something you had said you would do, in a way that is disappointing or hurtful. You can also say that you “let yourself down” if you do something that you are ashamed of:
+ I know I can trust Aidan. He’d never let me down.
+ When I stole that money, I let my family down and I let myself down.

I hope this post doesn’t let you down, and that you find lots of useful phrasal verbs to learn!

From darkness into the light: metaphors of darkness and light
By Liz Walter

‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.’
‘In the midst of darkness, light persists.’

These quotes, from Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, perfectly demonstrate the way darkness and light are used as metaphors in English (and many other languages), with darkness suggesting ignorance, evil and unhappiness and light signifying knowledge, purity and happiness. There are many common phrases that exemplify this, and this post will look at some of the most common ones.

We’ll start with ignorance and knowledge. If you “keep something dark,” you keep it secret, and if you are “in the dark about something,” you don’t know anything about it:
+ They were planning to leave, but they kept it dark.
+ We were completely in the dark about what was happening.

Conversely, if you “bring something to light” or if something “comes to light,” people find out about it, while if you “cast/shed/throw light on something,” you give people information about it:
+ New facts were brought to light by scholars.
+ This evidence did not come to light until after the trial.
+ Are you able to shed any light on this subject?

Now we turn to metaphors of evil and goodness or purity. We use the word “dark” to talk about bad actions or characteristics. Other adjectives connected with darkness, for example “shady,” “shadowy” and “murky” are also used to denote dishonesty:
+ There’s a dark side to her character.
+ They’re involved in various murky business deals.

On the other hand, we use terms such as “a shining light” or “a beacon/ray of light” to describe people or things that are good or give hope, especially in a generally bad environment. Similarly, we talk about someone or something being “a shining example” of something good:
+ He was a beacon of light in an evil world.
+ The factory was a shining example of good working practice.

I will finish with metaphors of unhappiness and happiness. If we are “in a dark place,” we are unhappy or having difficult problems. Someone who is “in a dark mood” is unhappy or angry. We also talk about “a dark time” or “dark period,” and if we “make dark predictions,” we are pessimistic about the future:
+ I lost my job and my friends and found myself in a very dark place indeed.
+ He was in a particularly dark mood that day.
+ This was one of the darkest periods in European history.

Someone who is “the light of your life” is the person you love most and who makes you feel happy, and if you say there is “light at the end of the tunnel,” you mean that although things are difficult now, you believe that they will soon get better:
+ Laura really is the light of my life.
+ We’ve been struggling to build up the business, but at last we can see light at the end of the tunnel.

I hope you will find these phrases useful. Do you have similar darkness and light metaphors in your language?

Same old same old: talking about things that don’t change
By Liz Walter

Whilst writing about proverbs (see previous posts), I came across the phrase ‘A leopard doesn’t change its spots’, which means that a bad person never changes their character. That set me thinking about other ways of talking about people or things that don’t change.

‘Unchanging’ is a general, slightly formal adjective to describe things that never change. We use the word ‘invariable’ for things that do not change and cannot be changed. It is quite often used in technical or scientific contexts. The adverb ‘invariably’ is more common in general language as an alternative to saying ‘always’:
+ The message from their campaign was clear and unchanging.
+ We determined the coordinates of the invariable points.
+ Invariably, they were late.

If we describe rules, laws, or facts as ‘immutable,’ we mean that they never change and cannot be changed. This is a formal word, but it is often used in a slightly joky or sarcastic way. More informally, we talk about ‘hard-and-fast’ rules. Both are more often used in negative than positive sentences:
+ It’s not an immutable law of nature that men should be paid more than women.
+ There’s no hard-and-fast rule about which herbs to use.

People or things that are ‘consistent’ always behave or happen in the same way. The adverb ‘consistently’ is common too:
+ We try to be consistent in the way we discipline our children.
+ This school has consistently been in the top 10 acting schools in the country.

If something (especially a decision or plan) is ‘set in stone,’ it is difficult or impossible to change. This phrase is often used in negative sentences:
+ The design for the new town square isn’t set in stone yet, so do give us any ideas you have.

Something that is ‘irreversible’ cannot be changed back to the way it was before. We often use this adjective to describe damage or decisions:
+ We are doing irreversible damage to the environment.

We use the adjectives ‘entrenched’ and ‘unshakeable’ to describe attitudes, ideas and beliefs that are difficult or impossible to change. ‘Ingrained’ is similar, and also commonly describes habits:
+ Their views on immigration are deeply entrenched.
+ Her unshakeable conviction that education can change lives has shaped her career.
+ Over the course of our lives, habits become ingrained.

We use the words ‘steady’ or ‘constant’ to describe a level, speed, etc. that doesn’t change:
+ They were walking at a steady pace.
+ Store the food at a constant temperature.

I’ll finish with the phrase from the title. ‘Same old same old’ is an informal way of conveying a feeling of boredom or frustration when things don’t change:
+ I thought his speech would be radical, but it was just the same old same old.
+ I hope you find these words useful, and do comment if you can think of other nice ways to describe things that don’t change!

No smoke without fire: proverbs in English (3)
By Liz Walter

I have recently written two posts about proverbs, but there are so many more incredibly useful and common ones, I decided to write one more! It is difficult to choose from a long list of lovely, colourful phrases, but I believe that every reasonably advanced learner of English needs to know the ones that follow.

To begin with, the proverb in the title ‘(There’s) no smoke without fire’, means that if you hear something unpleasant about someone, it is probably at least partly true. Another very common proverb is ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth (UK)/soup (US)/stew(US)’. This means that if too many people become involved in trying to do something, it will go badly.

There are a few proverbs connected with doing things rather than thinking or talking about them. ‘Actions speak louder than words’ means that the things you do mean more than the things you say, while ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’ means that it is not good enough to intend to do something good if you don’t actually do it. If you tell someone to ‘Strike while the iron is hot’, you mean that they should act quickly to take advantage of an opportunity or a beneficial situation.

A proverb that seems particularly apt at the moment is ‘Every cloud (has a silver lining)’. This means there is always something good that comes from a bad situation (for example neighbours showing unusual kindness to one another during the coronavirus epidemic!). Similarly comforting, if someone is missing a person who has gone away, we often say ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’, meaning that we like one another more when we are apart.

A couple of nice proverbs about similarity are ‘Birds of a feather (flock together)’ and ‘When in Rome (do as the Romans do)’. The first means that people usually choose others with similar personality traits as their friends and companions, and the second that you should follow the customs of a place that you are visiting, even if they seem strange to you.

We use the proverb ‘The grass is always greener (on the other side)’ to express the idea that we often believe other people’s situations are better than our own, when in reality they may not be. This phrase is often used as a rebuke to someone who expresses jealousy. Another typically judgmental proverb is ‘Empty vessels (make the most noise)’, which means that stupid people are more likely to speak a lot, whereas wise people are quiet until they have something worth saying.

Until I started writing about them, I really didn’t realise how deeply embedded in our language proverbs are. I hope you will find this a useful selection, though there are of course many, many more!

Don’t count your chickens: proverbs in English (2)
By Liz Walter

In my last post, I introduced a few proverbs that are common in English, especially in conversations. In this one, I am going to look at some common uses of proverbs: to give warnings, to criticize, and to comfort people. I mentioned last month that some proverbs are so well-known that we often use only the first part. Where this is the case, I will show the part that can be omitted in brackets.

Let’s start with some warnings. A good one is ‘Don’t count your chickens (before they hatch/before they are hatched)’. This means that we should be careful not to rely on something that we may not get or that may not happen. A very similar proverb is ‘A bird in the hand (is worth two in the bush)’, meaning that something we already have is more valuable than something we think we may get in the future.

There are a few proverbs relating to being careful before you act. A simple one is ‘Look before you leap’. Similarly, we say ‘Better (to be) safe than sorry’, meaning that it is best to be cautious if risk-taking could have a bad consequence. If we want to warn someone not to try to do too much, we often say ‘Don’t bite off more than you can chew’. We might warn someone to be strict with a child, employee, etc., by saying ‘Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile’, meaning that if you give them a small amount of freedom, they will try to get much more.

Proverbs can often sound critical, especially if they are directed at the person you are talking to. For instance, if someone justifies a bad action by saying that it was a response to another bad action, we might tell them sternly that ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right’. Similarly, when we say ‘People (who live) in glass houses (shouldn’t throw stones)’, we mean that people shouldn’t criticize other people for bad qualities they have themselves. And if someone complains that the poor quality of their work was caused by substandard equipment, we sometimes show cynicism by saying ‘A bad workman always blames his tools’.

Proverbs aren’t all moralistic; some of them are designed to make us feel better. For instance, if someone is disappointed because they are making slow progress, we can say ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’, meaning that worthwhile things often take a long time. Similarly, if someone is frustrated because they can’t work out how to achieve something, we can say ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’, meaning that if they want it enough, a solution will be found. And if someone is worried because something has gone wrong or they have upset someone, we can say ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs’, meaning that it is impossible to achieve things without some bad effects.

I hope you find these proverbs useful. Do you have the same ones in your languages? Look out for a final post about proverbs next month!

Fools rush in: proverbs in English (1)
By Liz Walter

Proverbs may seem rather old-fashioned or strange but when I started thinking about writing this post, I was amazed to realize how many of them are in common use. They serve as a convenient shorthand for something that would often be more complicated to say in a different way. We frequently use them at the end of a conversation to sum up what has been said, and many of them are so familiar that we can omit part of the phrase and still understand what is meant.

Take the proverb in the title of this post, for example. Its full form is ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’. The idea is that it is silly to become involved in a situation that you do not understand or are not equipped to deal with, and that a wiser person would hold back. It is easy to imagine a conversation about someone who has got into trouble by publicly expressing an opinion or interfering in a situation with unfortunate results being summed up with ‘Ah well, fools rush in …’.

This phrase is typical of proverbs in another way: they are often rather judgmental and moralistic. The usual idea is that they express a generally accepted truth that can provide us with moral guidance or offer an explanation for things that happen. For example, the proverb ‘A stitch in time saves nine’ is an instruction to maintain things in a good condition all the time because if we don’t, they will be much harder to repair in future. Similarly, a story about an older person failing to learn something new may be met with ‘You can’t teach old dogs new tricks’, meaning that as we age, we lose the ability to change and learn, and therefore this failure is normal and should have been expected.

Other common proverbs that give general advice are ‘Make hay while the sun shines’ (= you should take advantage of a favourable situation to do something you want to do), ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’ (= don’t talk about a difficult subject if nobody is thinking about it any more) and ‘It’s no good crying over spilt milk’ (= you can’t do anything about a bad thing that has already happened).

Proverbs that state generally held beliefs, often as a response to or explanation for a situation, include ‘Blood is thicker than water’ (= people will always help and protect their own family more than other people), ‘Still waters run deep’ (= quiet people are often surprisingly interesting or passionate) and ‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’ (= even if you give someone a good opportunity, they may not take it).

Next month I will write about some common proverbs that are used to warn, criticize, or comfort people.

We think the other Crown Jewels aren’t safe. The Imperial Crown is not here as the Queen will wear it for her opening session in Parliament soon. St Edward’s crown will be moved to a new secret location, and we’re going to take the sceptre to Scotland Yard.

You can have these 3 gadgets: the poisonous lipstick, the X-ray binoculars and the soporific umbrella.

We can talk without being overheard when we’re at mid-height!

The Imperial Crown is not safe? When is the opening of the Parliament? Oh my god! It’s tomorrow! Take a break, go to Borough Market and have a fish n’ chips there. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the Houses of Parliament!

We think the other Crown Jewels aren’t safe. The Imperial Crown is not here as the Queen will wear it for her opening session in Parliament soon. St Edward’s crown will be moved to a new secret location, and we’re going to take the sceptre to Scotland Yard.

I can tell by his accent that he is German.