The Roots of Everyday English Expressions: The Bible & Folk Tales

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

In today's video, I want to share with you some expressions, some common expressions

in English.

But what makes these particular expressions interesting is where they came from, their

source.

So, most of these are from either superstition

or from the Bible, believe it or not.

People quote the Bible quite often.

Many people don't realize they're quoting the Bible, but they are.

So, first of all, what is a superstition?

A superstition is a type of belief that is not really based on anything.

It's just a story that happened that was popular

many, many, many years ago, and that parents

told their kids, who told their kids, who

told their kids, and people started believing

it even though there's no scientific reason to.

I'll give you an example.

Some people believe that if you break a

mirror, you will have seven years of bad luck.

Some people think that if you see a black

cat crossing in front of you, you should spit

or you will have bad luck.

So, these are types of superstitions.

So, I'm going to give you a few expressions that are based on superstition that people

use all the time.

We're going to start with "knock on wood".

So, I don't have any wood here, but I would

knock on wood after I say something positive.

So, I say, "Oh, I think my son is going to be accepted into Harvard.

Knock on wood."

Now, if there's a piece of wood somewhere,

most people will knock and say the expression

"knock on wood" because what they want to do, they don't want to jinx what they just

said.

To jinx something is to bring bad luck on it.

So, you want to avoid the bad luck, so you knock on wood and then you're safe.

Why?

Who knows?

Some old story became a superstition and people accepted it.

"Hail Mary".

"Hail Mary" is from a religion, not necessarily the Bible.

It's a name of a prayer.

"Hail Mary, full of grace", etc., etc.

Now, what's interesting about this is I'm not actually talking about the prayer.

I'm talking about football, American football.

And the "Hail Mary" pass is something that is popular in the sport.

A "Hail Mary" pass generally happens near

the end of a game or near the end of a half,

and one team is behind in points.

So, they're running out of time.

They don't have enough time to slowly move

up the field, so they try a "Hail Mary" pass,

which means trying to pass all the way across

the field and hope that the catcher, the person

who's supposed to catch the ball catches it and gets the touchdown.

Now, people...

This is...

This started in the NFL, in football.

Now, people use this anytime that they need to do something desperate, in business, in

social life, anything.

When you're running out of chances, when you're

running out of time and you're desperate,

you'll do a "Hail Mary".

You'll basically fire everybody to save money.

You'll hire somebody, a professional, even though he costs too much, but it's a "Hail

Mary" pass.

You need to do something desperate in order to score the touchdown, in order to succeed

in what you're trying to do.

So, good expression.

To have "deja vu".

Now, technically not English, but we use it in English all the time.

To have "deja vu" is to think you've seen something before, or you've done something

before, or you've experienced something before,

and when you're doing it now, it seems very,

very familiar, like you've done it before, maybe even in a past life.

So, in a past life, you ask the prettiest

girl in school to go on a date, and now you're

going up to her, and for some reason, you feel like, "Wait, I've done this before."

Maybe you're a little bit more nervous, maybe

you're a little bit less nervous, but it seems

very familiar to you, so you go ahead and do it.

If some of you have seen the movie "The Matrix",

you remember when the cat moved in front of

Neo, and then the cat moved again?

That is "deja vu".

But we use it in everyday life when something seems very, very familiar.

A Bible thumper.

This is not from the Bible, but we relate it to the Bible.

A Bible thumper is a person who - this is

thumping, basically hitting, so he keeps hitting

the Bible.

Basically, we say this about a person who tries to push a religion on other people,

or somebody who always quotes from the Bible.

So, if you go to certain places in the US, for

example, there are a lot of Bible thumpers.

People who are always talking about what the

Bible says, or that everybody should go to

church and study the Bible, and stuff like that.

Not the best word, but sometimes you'll see -

you'll hear people using this about politicians

who are a little bit too religious, who want

people to do things a certain way, or somebody

who's a little bit too good, like not - doesn't

smoke, doesn't drink, doesn't do anything

- oh, he's probably a Bible thumper, because he lives by the Bible.

So, that's an expression you might hear as well.

Murphy's Law.

Now, technically, it's not a real law, but

Murphy's Law states that if anything bad can

happen, it probably will happen.

So, people usually say this after something bad has happened.

So, I was on my way to a job interview, and on my way I got a flat tire, and I missed

the job interview, and I didn't get the job.

And I told my friend about it, and he goes, "Well, you know, Murphy's Law.

What are you going to do?"

Basically, not too bad, bad luck.

Nothing you can do about it, but people often quote this law.

If something bad can happen, it probably will.

A very common expression, and especially in business situations, the blind leading the

blind.

So, a blind person obviously can't lead another

blind person, because neither of them knows

where they're going.

So, in business, if you have somebody, like a manager, who's not very good at his job,

but he is responsible for training new employees

who don't know what's going on because they're

new, we say, "Oh, look, the blind leading the blind."

So, both of them are going to fail.

So, we're saying that both of them don't know what they're doing.

But the blind is the first one, the second

one is the one who needs to learn something,

and following the one who doesn't know how to teach.

The writing is on the wall.

So, when we say the writing is on the wall, it means it's very easy to assume something

is going to happen.

It's almost... it's a very strong prediction.

So, I see, like a co-worker, let's say I go to business again, a co-worker is fighting

with the boss.

So, like, the next time it happens, everybody's

saying, "Hmm, she shouldn't do that.

I mean, the writing is on the wall.

She's going to get fired soon."

Right?

It's very obvious what is going to happen.

Very easy to predict what is going to happen based on what is happening now.

So, if somebody says the writing is on the wall, it's already... the future is already

understood, basically.

The prediction is already clear.

Next, "chasing rainbows" or "chasing a pot of gold".

Basically, technically they actually go together.

You're chasing a rainbow to find the pot of gold, but people say, like, "He's chasing

rainbow" or "He's chasing a pot of gold".

Now, let me... before I get into that, let me introduce you to "leprechaun".

"Leprechaun".

This is from Irish mythology.

The leprechaun is like a little guy who goes... who chases after the rainbow.

So, he thinks at the end of the rainbow there's a pot of gold.

So, people who are chasing a pot of gold or

people who are chasing the rainbow or people

who chase the leprechaun are trying to get something, but they are fantasizing.

It's not realistic.

They're not going to get that thing they want.

So, a person... let's say, for example, a person has absolutely limited or very, very

basic understanding of computers.

He likes computers, he likes to go on the computer and do stuff, but he doesn't know

programming, he doesn't know hardware, he doesn't know software.

He just likes computers.

So, this person thinks, "Oh, you know what?

I should apply to MIT or I should apply to the University of Waterloo in Canada."

These are, like, in the whole world, these

are, like, two of the top schools for computer

science in the world.

So, this guy obviously is not going to be accepted.

He knows nothing about computers.

The people who are going to these schools can already build computers, they're just

going to learn even more things.

So, we say he's applying to MIT, he's chasing

rainbows, means he's chasing a dream that

he will never find, he will never reach.

A fly in the ointment.

You'll actually hear this a lot in movies with a good guy and a bad guy.

The good guy is always the fly in the ointment.

The bad guy has a plan.

He's going to take over the world, or he's going to steal a billion dollars, or he's

going to do something bad, and then the good

guy comes and just does one little thing,

and that one little thing destroys the whole plan of the bad guy.

So, a fly in the ointment is something very

small, maybe very minor, but it's bad enough

to ruin everything; to ruin the plans, to ruin whatever it is you're making.

So, actually, if you want to think more literal, think of soup.

You made a beautiful, delicious soup, chicken soup, let's say, and a fly fell in.

Now, personally, I would take the fly out and eat my soup anyway, but a lot of people

would just throw out the whole pot of soup because the fly made it dirty.

One little thing ruined the whole pot of soup.

So, all kinds of people, all kinds of ways.

Oh, sorry, I have one more.

Fall by the wayside.

I had to put it up here because I ran out of room.

If something falls by the wayside, it means a couple of meanings.

One, people just gave up on it.

This is from the Bible, by the way, and "fly

in the ointment" and "blind leading the blind",

these are all from the Bible, direct quote.

Fall by the wayside, so in the Bible, you should plant seeds in the land, and even if

some of the seeds fall to the side, that's okay, the birds will come and eat them and

everybody's happy.

If something falls by the wayside, it means

you either gave up on it or just forgot about

it, or it just, you know, didn't catch up.

So, some students, some students, even though

they try hard, they can't keep up, and the

teacher must continue with the program, so

some of the students might fall by the wayside.

That's unfortunate, but the majority of the

class will continue on and succeed and graduate.

Those that fall by the wayside will have to figure out something else to do.

Or, a company had a plan to introduce some new policies, but, you know, everybody got

busy, things got distracting, and that idea

just fell by the wayside, was just forgotten

about or given up on.

So, there you go.

So, some good expressions here.

Again, these are used quite regularly, it's

good to understand what they mean, where they

came from.

Again, a lot of people don't even know it's from the Bible or from superstition, they

just say it, but it's good to have a little bit

of an understanding of some of these expressions.

Anyway, if you have any questions about these,

please go to www.engvid.com and ask me in

the comments section.

There's also a quiz, you can test your

understanding of these expressions, and that's it.

If you liked the video, I hope you liked it, give me a thumbs up.

Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and ring the little bell there, this will give

you notifications of future videos.

And come back soon, I'll give you some more interesting English expressions.

See you then.

Bye bye.