Learn the English Phrases "by weight" and "dead weight"

In this English lesson,

I'd like to help you learn the English phrase "by weight."

When you buy something, you can either buy it by weight.

You pay a certain amount per pound or per kilogram,

or I think the opposite is by volume.

When I buy gas, I pay per liter.

But when something is sold by weight,

you pay for a certain number of pounds or kilograms

or whatever other measure of weight they are using.

When we sell bouquets, we sell by quantity.

You buy 12, sorry, you buy 12 flowers in a bouquet,

so you're buying I guess by volume

but I would say by quantity.

When I buy gas, it's by volume,

and when I buy things like bulk food at the grocery store,

where you scoop it yourself and put it in a bag,

often you pay by weight.

We actually have a store called Bulk Barn in Canada

where you can buy everything by weight, candies, chocolate.

I like buying chocolate by weight, although the scoop I make

usually ends up costing more than I'm expecting.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today

is the phrase "dead weight."

This refers to anyone who isn't doing their job.

We also would say they're not pulling their weight.

If you watch a sports game, if you watch a football game

and one person isn't running very fast

and they don't play very good defense

and they never score a goal,

you might say that they're dead weight.

You would describe that person as being dead weight.

Not a very nice way to be described,

but if you're dead weight,

it means you're not really doing anything.

So to review, when you buy something by weight,

you're paying by the pound or by the kilogram

depending on how you measure things in your country.

And when someone is dead weight,

it means that they're not contributing the way they should

to a team or at work or someone else.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video.

This comment is from Axmed.

"Hello teacher Bob the Canadian.

"Is this phrase correct?

"'I met the President, or I met with the President'?"

My response, both are correct,

but with slightly different meanings,

so I'm glad you brought this up.

"I met the President."

This means you saw him or her once briefly,

maybe shook his or her hand

and maybe got your picture taken.

"I met with the President,"

this means you probably sat down for a bit of time

and talked with the President.

So thanks for that comment by the way, Axmed.

Yes, you can see from my response,

slightly different meanings.

The first one simply means that maybe you were somewhere

and the President was there and you said "hi"

and got a selfie taken with the President,

and then the second one

would mean you actually had a meeting.

You actually sat down and you talked about things.

You probably must be a very important person

if you had an actual meeting with the President,

although everyday people sometimes can meet the President

or Prime Minister.

Someone I work with actually met the Prime Minister

and got his picture taken.

I was surprised.

He didn't meet with the Prime Minister.

He met the Prime Minister at like a meet and greet

in a park I think that's where it was.

So I was a little bit jealous.

I thought, Bob the Canadian

should someday get a picture with the Prime Minister.

That would be really, really cool, of Canada.

By the way, did you know that's one of my dreams,

which will probably never happen?

I would love it if the Canadian Tourism Board

hired me as an ambassador for Canada

promoting this beautiful country.

I thought, wouldn't it be cool

if when I retire from teaching,

if the Canadian government sent me

all over Canada making English lessons to show off

this beautiful, beautiful country that I live in?

I don't think that'll ever happen,

(vehicle roars)

but it's worth dreaming about, isn't it?

Maybe I should meet

with the Prime Minister someday to talk about it.

Maybe I should see if I can schedule a meeting

and convince him to give me that job.

Bob the Canadian,

Tourist Ambassador for the country of Canada.

That would be a lot of fun.

Anyways, thanks for watching

and I'll see you in a few days

with another short English lesson.

Bye.