11 Stylish English Collocations: “feel free”, “crystal clear”, “special someone”...

Hi, everybody.

Welcome to www.engvid.com.

I'm Adam.

I have a bit of a dual purpose lesson for you.

I'm going to talk to you a little bit about collocations, and I'm going to talk to you

about alliteration, which is actually a very important tool for those of you who need to

practice writing, okay?

It gives you a little bit of style, as you'll see in a moment.

So first of all, what are collocations?

Collocations are pairings or groupings of words that commonly appear together.

Now, sometimes these can be idiomatic, meaning that when you put a couple of words together

or three or four words together, it might change their meaning, but other times, it's

just...

They're just commonly put together because that's how the language works.

So, for example, you do homework.

You don't take homework.

You don't make homework.

So, "do" and "homework" are always put together, and this is a collocation.

Now, alliteration is a stylistic tool where you're putting words that begin with the same

letter together; "f" and "f", "c" and "c".

And this creates a bit of a sound, and again, remember, it's mostly for writing, but it

creates a sound in the reader's mind that makes it a little bit prettier, I guess you

could call it.

So, what I'm going to show you today are 11 collocations that are also alliterative;

means they use alliteration when they're joined together.

Some of them are idiomatic, some of them are very straightforward.

The words...

Each word separately works the same as when it's in a combination.

Okay?

So, for example, "feel free".

So, I have the "f" and I have the "f", so "feel free".

This is a very common collocation, people use it all the time.

It basically means, like, "help yourself" or "don't be shy" or, like, basically, "mi

casa es su casa", "my house is your house", right?

Do whatever you want.

So, basically, don't hold yourself back.

Feel free to do whatever you want.

If you want to eat some food, yeah, feel free.

Go to the fridge, take whatever you want.

Can I use your computer?

Yeah, feel free.

No problem.

Use it like it's yours, right?

Very common thing.

So, "feel" and "free", each word by itself basically stays the same in the collocation.

"Crystal clear".

This is a little bit more idiomatic, although "crystal" is basically a very clear glass,

and that's why it's clear, so it's a little bit redundant, but we use this collocation

quite often as well.

So, if somebody asks you, "Do you understand?", yes, it's crystal clear, okay?

Or somebody may ask, "Is this clear?", yes, crystal clear.

If you want to emphasize that the explanation was very easy to understand, right?

There's no questions, no misunderstandings, and again, crystal clear, CC, that's your

alliteration.

Now, another reason I made this lesson is because collocations are a little bit tricky

for a lot of people.

The alliteration sometimes makes it a little bit easier to remember, so I hope this helps

a little bit.

Is that clear?

Crystal clear?

Anyway.

"Special someone".

So, now, when we talk about a special someone, this is a little bit idiomatic.

If I say "someone special", "someone special" means they could be very gifted, very talented,

very beautiful, very something, right?

But a "special someone" basically means someone you have a very close relationship to.

So, your husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend is your special someone.

We don't say this about a family member.

A family member, you can think of as someone special.

They are special to you.

But your special someone is your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, etc.

"Hot-headed".

Now, if you think about your head, it's at the top of your body, all the heat rises up,

so maybe it's a little bit warm, but it's not hot.

"Hot-headed" is, again, idiomatic.

When we say someone is hot-headed or...

Yeah, someone is hot-headed, that means that they get angry very easily.

They have a very short temper.

If someone is hot-headed and you say the wrong thing to them, they will yell back at you,

or they will get very angry, or they will throw a chair against the wall, right?

They overreact.

What we also sometimes do say is a "hot-head".

We can say someone is a hot-head and we put the two words together to create a compound,

and it's one word, "hot-head", or as an adjective, that person is hot-headed, right?

And again, "hh" to make the alliteration.

Now, very often when you go to a store, you can mix and match items.

So, a store will say, "Buy any five pieces for $20", right?

And you can mix and match.

So, you can take one from this department, one from this department, and put them together.

Or for example, clothing, especially, let's say, a bikini store.

You don't have to buy a complete set.

You can take one bikini top that's this design, and another bikini bottom that's this design.

You can mix and match.

And this is a very common collocation, and it's very literal.

Mix the items and match the things that work well together.

You can also mix and match items at a restaurant, you can do it at any clothing store.

Basically, when you're going shopping, that's when you're going to see this particular collocation

with "mm", okay?

"Cold calculation".

Now, this is a little bit harder to explain, and technically, it's very straightforward.

It's not really idiomatic.

If you think of "cold", "cold" doesn't always mean, like, temperature.

A person can be cold, means, like, feeling cold, or a person could be cold, meaning they

don't have much warmth inside, they don't have a heart.

They think in terms of reason, not in terms of feelings.

They use their head, not their heart.

So, you can say they're a little bit cold.

Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but that's what people often think.

So, a person like that, who always thinks with his or her head, basically, he calculates

everything in a very logical way.

So, everything is a cold calculation.

This person does not think about how people are affected, this person doesn't think about

consequences for other people.

He or she thinks about his own needs, his own interests, okay?

So, everything that he does is based on a cold calculation.

It's very logical, very thought out, no feelings involved, okay?

That's the meaning of this.

So, again, if you think about governments, most governments are cold, I guess you could

say.

Okay?

When a government decides to go to war against another country, it's a very cold calculation.

Lots of people are going to die, but the government is thinking about the economy, it's thinking

about oil, it's thinking about expanding its power, so it's only about cold, hard facts.

Not feelings, not caring, really, about other people.

Very cold calculation.

"CC", of course, "KK" sound.

"First and foremost", now, "first and foremost", let me say that this is a very useful expression,

okay?

"First" means this is the first thing I'm going to tell you, and also the most important

thing that I want to mention.

So, we use this to start a sentence, especially in writing.

You could use it in speaking as well.

When you say "first and foremost", you are emphasizing the point you're about to make

is very, very important.

And before you consider anything else, you must consider this point.

If you don't consider this point, everything else is not really important.

So, when you're making an argument in an essay, for example, for those of you who are going

to take an English exam, IELTS, TOEFL, etc., this is a very useful tool when you start

your body paragraphs to introduce a very strong argument.

"First and foremost, kids should stop eating sugary drinks... drinking sugary pops because...".

Example.

Anyway.

"First and foremost", FF.

Pressure point.

Now, for those of you who like to get massages, there are all kinds of different massages,

but some of them are pressure point massages where they... there's particular points on

your body that if you apply pressure to them, they affect all the rest of the body.

So, that's the literal meaning of pressure point.

In terms of a person's feelings or a person's emotional state or mental state, everybody

has pressure points where if you push that person a little bit past that point, they

may react in a very strange or violent or unusual way.

Right?

So, everybody has pressure points.

And if you really want to have good interactions with people, you need to understand each person's

individual pressure points.

So, some people, you can make fun of them in a bar with lots of people around, and they

will laugh and have a good time anyway because they don't care.

Some people, if you say one thing a little bit negative about them, they blow up.

Right?

Obviously, these people are hot-headed, but again, you have to understand what that point

is not to press.

So, for example, mothers and daughters, this is a great example.

Mothers and daughters are masters of each other's pressure points.

So, my sister and my mother, I know they knew exactly which points to press when they wanted

to make the other one angry or a little bit crazy.

Oh, I lost something there.

But...

So, pressure points.

I don't have many pressure points.

I'm very easygoing.

Rags to riches.

Rags are, like, very dirty, old pieces of cloth.

Like, when you're...

If you wear your clothing every single day for a year, after one year, it will look like

rags.

It will be dirty, it will be torn, it will have rough edges, so those are rags.

Riches basically means you're rich.

So, rags to riches means going from being poor to being rich, or from going from a very

bad situation to a very good situation.

Mostly, we use this to talk about somebody who became very successful, financially successful.

Somebody who worked very hard, maybe came from a lower income family and then moved

him or herself up to upper class family, or president of a company, or whatever.

So, we usually use it to talk about money, but we can also talk about a rags to riches

story basically about success.

Somebody who's not necessarily poor, but didn't really have any success in life or any...

Nobody knew who this person was, nobody thought anything of this person, and suddenly this

person became very famous or very successful, we say it's like a rags to riches story.

This is a very common expression as well when you talk...

When you look at somebody's life and how it changed from not so good to very good.

Safe and sound.

Now, safe and sound actually mean the same thing.

Sound actually means physically healthy or physically safe.

Safe just means every other meaning of safe, right?

So, when we say safe and sound, we're just emphasizing that emotionally, physically,

everything is okay, especially when somebody goes on a trip, right?

So, if I go on a journey, when I get there, I would call my family and say, "I arrived,

I'm safe and sound, I'll call you next week when I'm heading back."

Very common expression as well.

Very straightforward, just as it means, okay?

The rags to riches, a little bit idiomatic there.

Last one, tall tale.

Tall and tale, tale means story, like an old story that has a meaning in it, but generally

story.

A tall tale is idiomatic, it means an unbelievable story, right?

So, when you...

When your child has an excuse why he didn't do his homework or why the couch is upside

down, for example, he'll say, "Oh, you know, the dog was chasing...

Another dog came into the house and our dog was chasing it, and they ran over the couch

and it fell over, and then the dog's owner came in and he was trying to catch them, but

I didn't do anything.

I was just sitting here watching."

Right?

So, then the parents understand this is a tall tale.

Essentially, it means a lie.

When you lie to somebody and you give them a very fancy story to try to cover the lie,

that is a tall tale, and we usually use it to talk about it with kids because they have

very good imaginations, right?

Okay, and those are all the collocations I have for today.

Again, they may be a little bit tricky, but they're going to be easy to remember because

of the alliteration.

And if you're using...

If you're doing any writing, try to use alliteration to add a little bit of style, a little bit

of prettiness, I guess, to your writing so the writer...

The reader doesn't get bored.

Okay?

If you have any questions about any of these, please go to www.engvid.com and ask in the

comments section, I'll be happy to explain some more.

There's also a quiz where you can test out your knowledge of these expressions, and yeah.

Don't forget to come back next week.

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and see you again soon with more interesting English things.

Bye-bye.