English Idioms: Fruits and Vegetables!

Hello, guys. Welcome back to www.engvid.com, the place to be on the internet to learn your English.

Today, we're looking at fruit idioms. They're a useful way of describing various

situations that happen in life, mainly in a social context. Okay? So this is good if

you're going to be spending some time in an English-speaking country, and you want to

drop in a really cool phrase, here. So it's like:

"Hey. I'm really cool, because I can use my fruit idioms." Okay?

So I'm just going to be telling a story about my mate, Dan,

he's a really good friend of mine, using these different fruit idioms, and I want you to

be able to use them, too, by the end of the lesson. You've got 10 minutes to master it.

Right. Maybe less.

Okay, so, fruit idioms. My mate, Dan. He's had a bad time recently, so he's taken to be...

He's taken to become a "couch potato". He started becoming a couch potato. Now, a

couch is something you lie on, it's like a sofa. Okay? It's like a sofa, and it's a potato,

it's not a very glamorous vegetable, is it? I don't know if you know the football player

Wayne Rooney, but we sometimes call him "Potato Head". Yeah, it's not very kind of... It's

not like an exotic pineapple, is it? It's like, potato. Yeah? So, a sofa potato. I don't

have a brown pen, I'm sorry. So if you're a potato lying on a sofa, you're not going

to get the girls, really, and you're not going to have much fun, because you're sort of lying

there, watching the football. Yeah? So, a "couch potato" is a lazy person who watches

a lot of television, lying down. That's my fruit. Pretty good, huh?

So, Dan, he's lying, he's behaving as a couch potato. So what do I need to do? Well, I need

to "dangle a carrot". I need to invite him to enter, and to participate in life. Participate:

to take part in. So, I dangle. I say:

"Dan, come and have some beer. Dan, we're going surfing.

Dan, I'll give you some money. Come with me."

Okay, so I... To dangle a carrot,

it's like I imagine that Dan is maybe a goat. I imagine he's an animal that wants to eat

a carrot. So if I offer my animal a carrot, he's going to follow my carrot. So I've drawn

some money. If I'm... If I'm offering him some money, maybe he comes towards me.

"Dangle a carrot". It's like to kind of... To offer a reward, maybe. Offer reward.

Now, Dan really likes the carrot that I dangled. And so we went to a party,

and we "went bananas".

Yeah? "Went", past tense of "go". So we went bananas. We had a really good party. Yeah!

Yeah? This is me, and this is Dan, he's saying: "Yeah! I'm having a good time." Okay?

And then he was "full of beans".

Yeah? He's a happy chap. He's full of energy. The opposite

of couch potato. He's full of beans. He's ready to play sports, he's ready to do anything.

Okay? Rah. Full: complete. Full of beans. Imagine little beans of energy.

Unfortunately, a bad person came along, and he was... Me and Dan both thought that he

was a bad... "Bad apple". Okay? A "bad apple" is not a nice person. Little bit...

Ooh, bad apple. Yeah? It's like: "Ooh, stay away." Okay?

And he was rotten... So if I'm eating an apple, and it's kind of a bit mushy, it's not very

nice, and it's got like insects in it, okay? It's rotten. Okay? It's an old apple that's...

It's no longer any good. Okay? It's rotten. This is the core in here. So if it's rotten,

it's not just this bit that's rotten; it's all the way to the core, all the way in. So

all of it is bad. All of this person is bad. He's rotten all the way through him. Okay?

Bad person.

So we don't like this bad person. So, what we do is we

"upset the apple cart" a little bit.

Now, "upsetting the apple cart". This is a phrase from quite a long time ago. Probably

100 years ago in the markets, especially in Fulham, North End Road, good place to go and

check out if you're visiting London. You'd have these market people, and they'd be pushing

their carts of apples, and saying:

"Pound for a bag. Pound for a bag. Come and buy my lovely apples." Okay?

In a slightly more authentic accent, perhaps. So if I... If I pissed them

off, I would upset the apple cart, because they're... They're... They're... It's like

a shopping trolley. A cart, and it's fallen over. So they're like:

"That's my f'ing cart, that is!"

Yeah? So they're really annoyed, because I've upset it. So, this man here,

he's rotten to the core, so I upset his apple cart, and I tell him to go away. Okay?

So that person's gone away, I've upset them, I've upset the apple cart, and I say to Dan:

"Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan. Come on, mate. We need to 'cherry pick' our friends."

"Cherry pick". So, we're looking at our fruit, "a pick" is when I select. Okay? I choose. I

choose: "Mmm, that's a nice cherry. It's not rotten. I'll pick that one." If I cherry pick...

Yeah? It's like when you're playing football, and it's like:

"You. You can be on my team."

Okay? We need to choose our friends.

And not only did we choose nice friends-okay?-but we actually got quite a nice girl who came

along to join our party as we were going bananas.

And she was a real "peach", it means quite beautiful.

And she soon became the "apple of his eye".

Okay? So, personal pronoun: "my", "his", "her".

Yeah? In this case, it's "his".

"The apple of his eye".

So, we're not talking about a bad apple; we're talking about a really nice, tasty apple.

Okay? And Dan really likes eating this apple. It's like:

"Ah, apple." Yeah? So "the apple of his eye", it's his imagination.

He's thinking: "Apple, apple, apple", and it's this peach that... This girl that Dan likes.

So I tell Dan:

"It's okay, Dan. You can do it. You just need to act, you just need to

behave, you just need to be as 'cool as a cucumber'."

Okay? So, "cool as a cucumber",

that's a simile. Yeah? Sorry. Not a very good "s". There we are. Simile. "Cool as a cucumber",

because it uses that "as." I want him to be as calm, as cool, as refreshing as the cucumber.

The cucumber just sits there and gets eaten. Dan just needs to be cool. Okay?

He cannot be "in a pickle". He can't be:

"[Makes noises] I don't know what to do! [Makes noises]".

Okay? This is a pickle. Okay, "pickle", it's like a spicy food. Okay? If I'm... If I'm

having an Indian curry, I might add some pickle to it. Okay? And then it's

"[makes noises]".

Yeah? So Dan: "No, I don't want you in a pickle. I want you cool as a cucumber."

Well done. You've worked hard today. I want you to test your knowledge now by going to

www.engvid.com and having a go at doing the quiz on this lesson.

Hopefully it will help you to remember the correct use of these great phrases.

I don't want you being couch potatoes.

I'm dangling a little carrot, here, saying:

"Learn good English, learn good English. It

will take you places. It will help your future."

And I want you to be full of beans when you're

learning English with me. Okay? I want you to have lots of energy.

And, yeah. Obviously,

cherry pick the phrases you think are going to be most useful to you, and maybe you'll

find the apple of your eye. Okay.

Do feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel, and

thanks, and thank you for joining me.