Learn Real English: 12 Current Words & Expressions

Hi, everybody. Welcome to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. In

today's lesson, we're going to look at some popular culture

expressions. These are words that are very popular today;

they may or may not be popular in a few years. Right? And the

reason that it's important to understand these is because

you're going to see or hear these words a lot now, but

they're not words that are very common, or they're not words

that you would see in an English learning textbook, for example.

They are words that suddenly appear in mainstream media, or

in, like, Hollywood, or in things like that -- that

basically celebrities, or influencers, or people who are

popular and have a big audience make common. Right? So, these

are not everyday words; these are words that somebody made

popular. Okay? And we're going to... You're going to have an

idea once I get going.

For example: "to throw shade at someone". Ten years ago, you

would not have heard this expression. Ten years from now,

you might not hear this expression anymore. But today,

this is a very common expression. "To throw shade"

means to insult someone publicly. But the key is that

it's not a very obvious insult; it's a very subtle or very

hinted-at insult. And it's usually celebrities at

celebrities. Because who is in the public eye? Celebrities.

Everyday people, like you or me, nobody cares what we actually

say. So, nobody's listening to us, so we can't really throw

shade in public. We can do it in private, but then it's just

insult; it's not shade.

Now, the main idea is that it's shade. "Shade" means "not

direct". Right? So, if... If one musician makes a joke, but

doesn't mention the... another musician's name, but the nature

of the joke everybody understands is about that

musician, then that is called "throwing shade". The first

musician could directly insult to the second musician, but she

doesn't. She says something that everybody understands to be

about the second musician, and therefore she can't be blamed,

really, for anything. Although it usually goes back and forth

both ways. Okay? So, to insult in a very subtle but public way.

"Gaslighting", this is a very common expression. This is

actually an old expression, but it's become popular again, in

the new political, American-political situation.

You'll hear it more commonly in the US than you will other

places, but "to gaslight someone"... So, one person can

"gaslight" someone or a person can "gaslight" a whole group of

people. It basically means "to manipulate". But how? How do you

manipulate people? You lie to them, or you make them think

that they... their reality is questionable.

So, if I tell you lies every day, every day, every day, and

then you question me, and I would say: "What are you talking

about? I never said that." So, I tell you the lie, and then I

deny it. And then I again, and again, and again, until finally,

you start to think that maybe the problem is in your mind; you

start to doubt yourself, you start to think that your reality

might not be 100% accurate, or you start questioning what is

actually true and what is not. You don't know what to believe,

who to believe, etcetera. So, the person who did this to you

gaslighted you or gaslit you, and that's the whole intention

of it. So, especially in the political environment we live in

today. Some politicians are actively trying to gaslight the

public; they lie to them, lie to them, and they say: "No. I never

said that." Or: "No, no, I said the opposite. I don't know why

you think this." Right? So, they're manipulating them. And

it's working, which is a scary thing. So, that's "gaslighting".

"Trigger". "Trigger" is a very popular word now as well. When

someone is triggered, it means something got them emotionally

active; it made them somehow emotional, usually in a negative

way. So, somebody said something, and that made me very

angry, and maybe it offended me. It made me feel attacked or

insulted. And then I get very angry and I want to take some

action. This is also very common in the political landscape these

days, especially in the US, where if someone triggers

someone, the... It makes them angry, but sometimes... It's

gotten to the point where the person getting angry is getting

angry about everything. Right? So, the political right is

accusing the political left of always being triggered, which

leads...

Actually, I'll go... I'll skip a few and go to this word:

"snowflake". So, the political right, started calling people on

the left "snowflakes" because "snowflakes"... Basically,

"snowflake" means somebody who's not really special. Right? He's

just like everybody else. But now it means that somebody who

gets easily offended. So, a lot of people accused the liberals

in the US of being snowflakes. It's very easy to make them

upset; it's very easy to offend them. They're always trying to

be politically correct, trying to make everybody happy, which

is a little bit impossible. So, it's gotten to the point where

people on, like, on the left... on the right, like Republicans,

are actively and happily trying to trigger the snowflakes on the

left. And the problem is that the liberals, the Democrats are

starting to look a little bit weak, because everybody thinks

they are snowflakes.

So, I'll give you a common example these days. It's

becoming increasingly popular for people to say what pronoun

they want to be called by. So: "Hi. My name is Adam. I prefer

'he' and 'him'." So, like, basically, I'm saying I'm a

male, so call me by my male pronouns. Some people say they

prefer to be called "they". People don't want to be

gender... They want to be... They don't want to be

gender-binary; they want to be neutral. So, anyways, this is

one of the things that people are talking about. If you call

somebody, if somebody says: "'He'. I want to be called 'he'

or 'she'", and you call me "they", I will be triggered, I

will be angry, and I will complain and I will be upset

about it. And then you will call me a "snowflake" because I'm

getting upset about nothing really serious. So, "snowflake"

and "triggers" kind of go together.

Now, a "snub". A "snub" is basically ignoring something or

someone a little bit with the intent of making them feel bad.

So, if you think about the Oscars, the movies or any award

show -- somebody is getting a lot of praise for their acting,

or directing, or production. And everybody thinks: "Oh, yeah,

this... This actor is going to win an Academy Award." And then

the Oscar committee announces the nominations, who is

considered to be the best actor, and they snub this actor. It

means they don't include him in the nominations. That means they

ignore him; they think his, that his performance was not very

good. So, a "snub" can be considered an insult. But mostly

it means you're not included or not considered for something,

and people take offense to that as well.

I'm sure if you follow Instagram or social media, you've probably

seen "BAE" a lot. A lot of people think that "BAE" is short

for "baby". Actually, it's an acronym: Before Anyone Else. So,

basically, your special person. You will do something for this

person before anyone else. So, it could be baby, your baby, but

it's basically your boyfriend or girlfriend, the... Or your

lover. Doesn't... depends on the situation. "Before Anyone Else"

is the actual expression.

"Ghost". This is actually a verb: "to ghost". So, "to ghost"

means, for example, in a party... If you're at a party

and you leave without saying: "Goodbye" to anybody, like,

nobody knows that you left. Suddenly, they realize you're

not there -- that means you ghosted; you left quietly

without telling anybody. Or on a conversation, on a telephone

conversation, someone calls you and your friend picks up and you

say: "Hello?" You say... Somebody says: "Yeah. Can I talk

to Bill?" And Bill is standing right here. It means I'm not

here. Right? So, they say: "Oh, I'm sorry. Bill's not here. Can

he call you back?" So that Bill is ghosting the person on the

phone. That's another use of it.

And if you have a relationship with someone, you're talking or

texting, whatever, and then suddenly one person just stops

communication; never writes back, never calls -- just stops

any communication. So. that, also, is called "ghosting".

That's a common expression these days.

Another thing to keep in mind about most of these expressions,

like, for example: "BAE", and "ghost", and things like that --

young people use it more than the older generations.

"Trigger", "snowflake", and "gaslighting" -- these are just

more of political words and expressions, so everybody's

using them. But a lot of the pop-culture words originate or

come with... from young people.

Now, then an example here is the word "woke". This is actually an

old word, but it has a resurgence. Basically, it's a

word that's become popular and then sort of disappears, nobody

uses it; and then it comes back to be popular, and maybe

disappears again. So, this is basically, like, now the third

time that it's become popular. "Woke" means aware; socially

aware of discrimination or injustice, especially when it

comes to, like, racial discrimination. If you think

you're being discriminated against, or if you notice that

there's a lot of discrimination against people of color; Black

people, Latinos, etcetera - then you are "woke".

And generally, if you're going to be woke, you're probably also

going to be "triggered". Right? I'm actually going to say

"triggered" when we're talking about a person or describing a

person. "To trigger" means to make someone triggered. And if

someone is woke, they can be easily upset; they can be easily

triggered by seeing how, let's say, police treat a certain

segment of the population, or how the government treats them,

or how anybody. Like, any one area the population treats

another area of the population, especially as the world is

becoming... There's a lot more White supremacy, and populism,

and all these things. People are becoming more woke. Okay?

On a more light tone, we have "GOAT". "GOAT" is also an

acronym; it's not the animal, it means: Greatest Of All Time.

Greatest Of All Time. So, it started... The conversation

started, I think. It became more and more popular when there was

a question: "Who is the GOAT? LeBron James or Michael Jordan?

Who is the greatest basketball player of all time?" And after

they started, then: "Okay, who's the GOAT in hockey? Who's the

GOAT in soccer? Who's the goat in football?" And then it

started to go outside of sports altogether: "Who's the GOAT

president? Who's the GOAT businessman?" All these things.

So: "Who's the best? The best of the best. The Greatest Of All

Time." And it's used quite a lot these days.

"Goals". "Goals", basically means "goals"; it's exactly what

it says, but it's very commonly used when people talk about what

they want to achieve. And you'll see this a lot on social media.

Right? Somebody puts a picture of a happy couple and they're

doing something fun, and in the comments, you'll see: "Oh,

couple goals". Or they're... They have very nice body; body

goals, or vacation goals, or whatever goals. So, whenever

people see something that they think is really good and they

want for themselves, instead of actually working towards it,

they'll just say: "Oh, body goals, couple goals. I want to

be like them." So, that's actually what it means: "I want

to be like", and whatever you're talking about. And notice that

it's not "goal"; it's always "goals". "Body goals, vacation

goals, couple goals". A very common word these days,

especially on social media.

"To binge". "To binge" means to do a lot of something in a very

short time. So, for example, if you... If you like the

Friends... The TV show, Friends, for example and you... You

want... You don't have much time, but you want to see all of

the shows, one day you will start and you will watch one

after the other, after the other. And after a day or two,

you've seen the entire series. You binged on the show. It's

also commonly used for when we talk about drinking alcohol, and

especially young people at university, and they have

parties and they binge drink. So, we can also use it as an

adjective. "Binge drinking" means drinking a lot; a huge

quantity in a short time, which is very dangerous when it comes

to alcohol. You can get very sick; you can even die from

alcohol poisoning. But doing anything in a huge quantity in a

short time is called "binging".

And "meme". "Meme" should be more or less popular; common to

a lot of people, but just in case: A "meme" is a very popular

picture, or expression, or movie scene, or... Or piece of music

that becomes so popular that people take it and manipulate it

into other situations. So, if you have a movie scene and it's

really funny or really strange, people will take that scene and

they will Photoshop it or they will add text, change the text

to fit it to other situations. And you'll see this a lot in,

like, Twitter or Instagram. People take a situation and

everybody makes a different version of it to make fun of it.

Because it's so popular, everyone recognizes the picture,

or the text, or whatever it is. So, that's called a "meme". And

it's usually pictures of people in different situations, but it

doesn't have to be that. Okay?

Now, the main thing to remember, here, is that these words may go

out of fashion; people may stop using them. But for now, for the

foreseeable future, it's good for you to understand what...

What they mean and how they're used.

But, anyway, if you're not sure about the explanations I gave,

please go to www.engvid.com. In the comment section, you can ask

me all the questions you have. There's also a quiz you can take

to make sure you understand how these words are used. And that's

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interesting lessons for you soon. Until then, see you.

Bye-bye.