13 Phrasal Verbs with Animals: fish for, clam up, wolf down...

Hi.

Welcome to www.engvid.com.

I'm Adam.

In today's lesson, it's a little bit of a special treat for you guys.

It's phrasal verbs.

I know you guys love the phrasal verbs, but a little bit different.

What's different about these phrasal verbs is that they don't actually use a verb.

They use a noun with a preposition, and together these work to create a verb.

Even more special is the fact that all of them include an animal.

So, I take an animal, add a preposition, and you get a completely different verb than you

could even imagine.

Some of them you can guess because of the animal's nature, but most of them you're going

to need to be told about.

So, we're going to look at "pig out", "wolf down", "fish for", "horse around", "monkey

with", "ferret out" - ferrets is an interesting animal - "chicken out", "clam up", "weasel

out", usually you weasel out of something, "squirrel away" - this is a tricky word, squirrel

- "bear with", "duck out", and "rat on".

Okay?

So, these are the animals we're looking at, and I'll explain to you each one.

So, "pig out" and "wolf down", they're kind of similar.

They both have to do with eating.

If you "pig out", it means you're eating a lot, because the idea is that pigs eat a lot,

they're always eating, always eating.

So, if you "pig out", you're eating a lot.

If you "wolf" something down, it means you're eating it very fast.

So, some people wolf down their food that they're pigging out on.

They can do both things at the same time.

So, for example, if you go to an all-you-can-eat buffet, you go to a restaurant, you pay one

price and there's all kinds of tables full of food, and you can eat as much as you want,

so a lot of people go to these buffets and they just pig out on all the food.

If you're really, really, really hungry and you go to a restaurant or you go home and

you make yourself a meal, and then you just wolf it down, you eat it right away, it's

gone in seconds.

Okay?

So, that's what these two phrasals mean.

"Fish for", this is a little bit tricky.

If you're thinking about fish and you think about fishermen, they have a rod and a line

and they throw the hook and the bait into the water, and they're fishing for something.

They want to try to catch some fish.

So, when a person fishes for something, they're trying to catch some information or some detail

or some gossip.

So, if your friend is asking you a lot of different questions, it sounds...

It seems to you like they're trying to get something specific, then they are fishing

for details.

They are fishing for gossip.

They're trying to catch something from you.

So, be careful with them.

If you're "horsing around", this one's a little bit hard to guess.

A horse just runs around and playfully.

If you're horsing around, you're just playing with someone or something.

Right?

So, if you're just like...

If you go to your friend and you're like, you know, push him, but for fun, not for...

Not angry or anything, just push him or you do some little trick or have some fun with

somebody, you're just horsing around.

You're not serious, you're just playful, having a good time.

Okay?

That's "horse around".

"Monkey with".

Now, a lot of people, especially men, they like to get into their car engine, for example,

or into their home stereo, and they go inside and they bring their tools and they're, you

know, they're trying to fix something, they're trying to change something because they think

they really know the engine, they really know mechanics.

What they're really doing is monkeying around.

They monkey with the engine because at the end of the day, they don't actually know what

they're doing, they're probably going to make some mistakes.

Like a monkey, fixing the engine is the same as a person who doesn't know engines fixing

the engine.

So, if you're monkeying around, you're doing little changes and little fixes, but you don't

really know what you're doing.

"Ferret out".

Now, first of all, what is a ferret?

It's a little bit hard to explain.

I recommend that you get on your...

Get on the internet and do a Google search or whatever search you use and look at a picture

of a ferret.

It looks a little bit like a rat, but it's longer, and it has fur, and you know, it like

walks around all over the place and does all kinds of little things.

If you ferret out...

Now, if you've ever seen a ferret in action, like a real ferret, they go into every little

corner looking for stuff, looking for food, looking for something.

So, if you ferret something out, it means you, like, discover.

You ferret out the information, you ferret out the secret, you ferret out something.

You discover something, like a little ferret that goes everywhere.

Okay?

They're kind of cute, but not that much fun.

"Chicken out".

Now, a lot of people probably heard of the word "chicken" to mean, like, a coward or

somebody who's afraid of something.

So, if you chicken out of a situation or a...

If you go...

You want to do something or you promise to do something and then you chicken out, it

means that you decided not to do it because you were too afraid.

Okay?

Maybe a little bit cowardly.

So, a lot of people, they say, "Yeah, this year I'm going to go on the big roller coaster",

and then they go to the amusement park and they get to the roller coaster, and they look

up and they see the big drop, and they say, "Hmm, maybe no.

Next year I'll do it."

So, they chickened out.

They didn't go on it because they were too afraid.

Okay?

"Clam up".

A clam, like seafood, it's like this shell and it opens and closes, and there's some

- like, a clam inside.

So, if you clam up, then you - basically, you don't speak.

Your lips close like a clam and no sound comes out.

Now, two things.

Two ways to use this expression.

If you tell someone to clam up, which is a little bit old-fashioned, you don't hear people

saying that anymore, but you used to hear some teacher say it, "Clam up", means "shut

up", means "close your mouth, stop talking".

But if a person clams up, it means maybe they got really nervous and they just - they couldn't

speak.

So, if - again, in school, if your teacher calls on you to answer a question and you

clam up, it means you get really tight and quiet and don't say anything.

You're too nervous.

If you go to a job interview and the interviewer asks you questions and you clam up, not a

very good sign that you'll be a good worker, so make sure you speak well.

Okay?

Now, "weasel out of".

A weasel is very similar to a ferret.

Again, you can do a search for what a weasel looks like.

A weasel is a little bit bigger than a ferret.

Now, a weasel can basically get into every little space - it's a wild animal.

You won't - like, a ferret, some people have as pets.

Weasels you can't have as a pet.

It's a wild animal.

But it knows how to get into places and it knows how to get the food and it knows how

to get away from a predator, another animal that's trying to catch it.

So, when we say "weasel out of", it means we can find, like, a little bit of a sneaky

way or we can find our way out of a difficult situation.

So, the boss in your company, the boss wants somebody to work on the weekend.

And you say, "Oh, you know, my mother is sick, I've got to go take care of her", so you weaseled

out of the situation and somebody else had to come in and work because you didn't want

to do it.

So, you weaseled out of having to work on the weekend.

Okay?

You found a sneaky way to get out.

Squirrel away.

Squirrels also look a little bit like rats, but they have a big tail, very furry.

They climb up trees and they eat nuts.

In Canada, we have a lot of them.

They're kind of cute, but stay away from them.

Don't go near them.

They bite.

So, if you squirrel something away - so, squirrels, if you ever see how they collect food, they'll

take a nut, they'll put it in one cheek, it blows up like this, and then they'll take

another nut, put it in another cheek, then another nut, and then they go up to the tree

and they hide the nuts for the winter.

So, if you squirrel something away, it means you're saving it.

So, some people squirrel away a few dollars every month for a vacation or for retirement

or whatever.

So, basically it means squirrel away, save a little bit.

Okay.

Bear with.

So, a bear, everybody knows a bear.

If you bear with something, it means you endure it or you tolerate it.

So, if you have pain, you have to bear with the pain until the doctor can come and fix

it, for example.

Sometimes you can just say, just bear the pain, but if you bear with, you can bear with

the doctor fixing stuff, you can bear with a situation, you can tolerate or endure usually

a difficult situation.

Now, a duck.

Now, if you ever hear anybody yelling, duck, automatically go like this, because something

is coming at your head.

So, to duck means to go like this.

It's also, of course, the animal, like Donald Duck.

But if you duck out of a place, it means you leave without anybody noticing.

So, if you duck out of the party or you duck out of the ceremony, it means you went like

this and nobody could see you, and you left and went your way, and it's all good.

And last one, rat on.

A rat is like a big mouse, grey, long tail, lives in, like, dirty places.

If you rat on someone, it means you tell about them.

They have a secret or they did something bad, and you tell the police, oh, this guy did

it or that person did it.

Or if the teacher is writing something on the board, and in the back, he or she hears

some giggling, and he turns around, the teacher turns around and says, "Who did that?"

And then one boy or one student says, "Oh, he did it."

So, that first boy rats on the other boy and gets the other boy in trouble, okay?

It's not good to rat on people.

If you can avoid it, avoid it, but sometimes it happens, okay?

So, there you go.

We have a whole bunch of new phrasal verbs.

Remember, all the animals are not actually verbs, but when you combine them with these

prepositions, they become verbs with very specific meanings.

And these are very, very common.

You will hear these, native speakers use these all the time, so get familiar with them and

make sure you know how to use them, okay?

Now, if you want to make sure, if you want to practice your understanding of these, go

to www.engvid.com.

There's a quiz below the video.

You can test your knowledge of these phrasal verbs.

You can also ask questions if you're not sure about any of these.

I'll be happy to answer them.

And that's it.

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Bye-bye.