14 ENGLISH IDIOMS & EXPRESSIONS from food

Hi. Welcome back. Today, we're going to be looking at some idioms related to

food. And we got lots of lovely things in store for you today; we've got idioms

to do with the actual eating of the food, after you've eaten, a few things

loosely connected with food, but then special treat at the end because we

always have something sweet at the end, don't we? Not if you're my son and going

to Forest School, though. Anyway, at the end, we're going to have some

Shakespeare quotes about food and see what the great bard himself had to say

about food. Okay, our first one. Are we ready? Have we got a pencil? Are we

listening? "To have a lot on one's plate". So, here's my great medieval

plate, and I've got meat, and I've got vegetables, and I've got... I don't

know. Let's have some fish on there, too. Now, this is metaphorical, and it

means that I have a lot to do. So, all these things on my plate are things that

I need to do. So, you might say to someone who's having a very busy day:

"Gosh, you've got a lot on your plate today, haven't you?" "To keep something

under wraps". Now, I don't know if you've ever gone to a table, and you're

like: "Hmm, I wonder what it is." Because the plate... you've got the

food, and then over the food there's some maybe tinfoil and you can't see

what you're going to be eating. The food has been "kept under wraps". So,

generally, outside of this context, if something is "kept under wraps" it means

that it's a secret. It's only going to be revealed at the chosen moment. "Kept

under wraps" — kept secret. "To bite the bullet". This relates to another video

I've done on phrasal verbs to do with weapons and things, but you can check

that out another time. "To bite the bullet". "Bullet" you put in the gun. If

you bite the bullet, then you are going: "Okay, let's go and do this, then."

You're like... you're kind of, like, taking the punishment and you're like:

"Okay, I can deal with this". "To bite the bullet" — it's like: "Okay, come on,

then."

"To step up to the plate". Here, we have to imagine the world's most enormous

plate. Yep. This is a plate that would fill a giant, it's so big. Now, if we

"step up to the plate", we're going: "Yeah, I can eat all of that food. I am

not scared of this huge plate of food". "Stepping up to the plate" means to

accept the challenge. It's crunch time. "Crunch". A sound word; onomatopoeia.

Onomatopoeia word — it means to do with sound. Because "crunch" is the noise

that we make when you crunch into a sandwich or something crispy. What it

means is it's the moment of reckoning. Yeah? It's the decisive moment. I wonder

if you can tell the date that I recorded this, because on Saturday, it's going to

be crunch time for the England rugby team about to play in the World Cup

Final. Doo-doo-doo-doo. "Crunch time" — the important, decisive moment. "A

bitter" — "a bitter" means like kind of sour, like a lemon — "pill" — like

medicine — "a bitter pill to swallow". Now, "swallow" is when it goes down into

your tummy. Yeah? Pills are meant to make you better. Yeah? We have some

medicine; it's meant to make you better. But if it's... if it's a bitter pill,

then it doesn't taste very nice, so it makes us better but it's not a nice way

of making us better. So, typically, we would say that if we hear a bit of bad

news. If something a bit upsetting happens, you just say: "Yeah, it's a bit

of a bitter pill to swallow — that one, but I'll be okay." It's a bit like:

"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger" — it's that kind of idea. "We're gonna

get stronger from this!" Okay, so we've consumed our meal, and we're feeling

quite full now. "Gut". "Gut" is the stomach. "What's your gut?" Huh? What's

that mean? It refers to "gut instinct". There's... there's an idea that you feel

ideas right down here in the pit of your stomach, so some people feel fear right

down here. Like: "Ah! I'm so scared!" and they feel it here in their tummy.

So, your "gut instinct" is like your real, most attuned instinct. Yep. It's

not kind of up here in the head. It's like what you really, really feel about

things. "What's your gut?" It means: "What do you think? What...? What's

your...? What's your honest answer?" My gut... yeah. My stomach, my gut tells me

that it's going to be a long day, but a productive day. My gut instinct is that

it is probably going to rain later. Okay? Now, here's my belt. If I have

had... some people, when they've had a really big meal. actually undo, like,

their top button because they feel so full. "Belt-tightening" is when your,

you know... you tighten your belt when your waistline is going to get smaller.

So, if you say: "We need to do some belt-tightening here", it means: We're

going to be doing a little bit less eating, and what it really means is that

we're going to be going into a period of time where we're not going to be

spending much money. Okay? If you tighten your belt, you're spending less,

eating less. "To scale something back". If you imagine kitchen scales —yeah —

we're measuring the flour. We've got the flour here; the weight here. It's

normally the other way around, isn't it? Yeah, we've got the flour here and the

weight here. If we're scaling it back, then we... we're using a little bit

less. "To scale a project back" means we put less into it, like less flour into

the cake.

Okay, the actual food. So, "brownies", you know... like a chocolate sort of

cake biscuity thing. Everyone likes brownies. "Brownie points" are when you

win favour with someone. "Oh, you've got some brownie points there. Great

answer!" Yeah? It means when someone has earned something good; it's kind of like

a game. "To compare apples to oranges". You know what? Don't worry too much

about this because we don't use that one very often, so I'm going to rub that

off. Only going to teach you the stuff you really need to know. Okay. "A cash

cow". Now, I've got a friend who runs a band, called: "The Cash Cows". Great

band — do check them out. Now, "a cash cow" is a project that nets you lots of

money. Like, you set it up, and it makes money and it doesn't require a lot of

work to keep that... that idea generating money. "A dog eat dog world".

Dogs eating dogs. That's not a very nice image, is it? So, if we've got a world

where dogs are eating dogs, then we are living in a vicious and cruel world,

which is what this phrase means. "To pull one's weight". Now, if you do a

pull up, you're pulling up your weight. But the idea here is that you're sort of

pulling your weight through life. It means you're... you're, like supporting

yourself. But if you "pull your weight" in a group context, it means you are

contributing your... what you can to that group. Yep. Contributing what you

should contribute. So, the... the idea here, we've got heat and we've got cold.

Heat is associated with passion, and sort of anger, and fieriness; and cold

is like: "Calm down; everything be calm." So, if you throw cold water over

something, you're just going: "Okay, calm down. We're... we're... we're not

going to do that now. We're just going to stop and we're going to wait." Okay?

It's time to show you some Shakespeare quotes about food. I always enjoy

reading Shakespeare, because he has a wonderful sense of humour, which you

might notice in these quotes here. This is a absolutely classic insult: "Truly,

thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg." So, just some Old English to

explain for you. "Thou" means you, and "art" means are. "You are damned", like

"damnation" is like the end of the world; you're going to... it's going to

be terrible for you forever and ever. "like" — so it's a simile — "like an

ill-roasted egg". Okay? So, I know we don't normally roast eggs; it makes it

even worse that the egg has been roast. So, what can we tell here about what

Shakespeare thinks about food? Well, it needs to be cooked properly. Yeah. The

poor egg deserves at least to be poached, or scrambled, or whatever in

exactly the right way to make it a delicious egg; not a kind of sort of

thing stuck to the bottom of an oven. I know they didn't have ovens then. Okay,

next one. "Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers." So, abbreviation

for "it is" — "an ill", meaning not... not really right; kind of... or it could

be unwell as well. "Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers" because

when we cook, you know... we want to get involved in the food and taste it —

if... if the cook does not want to do that, it shows that the food is

disgusting; and therefore that the cook is not doing a good job. So, you know...

he's all about enjoying it. "He hath eaten me out of house and home." Do you

want to have a go at saying that? "He hath eaten me out of house and home."

So, we don't normally use the: "He hath" bit because that's Old English, but we

very much still use this phrase: "to eat someone out of house and home".

Typically, we might think of teenagers coming back home and eating all of the

contents of a fridge. So, if you "eat someone out of house and home", there is

no more food in the house, and the home is the same thing. Yeah? All of the food

is gone. There's a lovely story called: "The Tiger that Came to Tea" by Ju-...

Judy Kerr. Julia Kerr. It's got... like a book written in the 1960s for

children. And the tiger that comes to tea eats all of the food in the house;

the tiger eats them out of house and home. And then, finally, from "Twelfth

Night": "If music be the food of love, play on." That's probably the most

well-known quotation out of the four, and it's a metaphor. To briefly explain

it, we have music and love is being compared to food. So, if we don't eat,

then we don't survive. Yeah. So, food gives us life in the same way that music

encourages love. So, he's talking to the musicians here. "Play on" — keep

playing. Keep studying. Do have a go at the quiz now. Thank you for watching,

and I will see you very soon.