Learn the English Phrases TO BE IN HOT WATER and TO MUDDY THE WATER

In this English lesson,

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase

to be in hot water.

We sometimes also say to get in hot water.

When you are in hot water, you are in trouble.

When you lie to someone

and then they find out that you lied to them,

you might be in hot water.

If I was to say to Jen

that I was going out to visit a friend,

and instead I went to the casino and started gambling,

if Jen found out, I would definitely be in hot water.

By the way, I would never do that. I would never lie to Jen.

That's just a bad thing to do when you're in a relationship.

But certainly, when you do something

that someone doesn't want you to do,

that person could certainly be annoyed with you

and you would then be in hot water.

Not a good situation to be in.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today

is the phrase to muddy the water.

When you muddy the water, it's when there's a conversation

and you introduce new information

that makes everyone a little bit confused.

Here's a good example.

Let's say we were trying to figure out

who stole something from the kitchen cupboard.

Well, stole is a strong word.

Who took something from the kitchen cupboard.

My example is usually the last cookie.

We're trying to figure out who took the last cookie.

Well, if I said to my son,

"Did you eat a cookie last night?"

and then I said to my daughter,

"Did you eat a cookie last night?"

and then if my other son started to talk

about how much he likes brownies

and whether we should be buying brownies,

and if we had brownies instead of cookies,

then this wouldn't be a problem,

I would say that he is starting to muddy the waters.

He's starting to introduce information

that has nothing to do with the current conversation,

and it's making everyone a little bit confused.

So he's starting to muddy the water.

We also sometimes say, and I just said it,

to muddy the waters.

Anyways, to review.

When you are in hot water, if you are in hot water,

or if you get in hot water,

it means that you are in trouble of some kind,

usually because of something you did,

maybe a lie or maybe just something that you did to someone.

And when you muddy the water,

it means that you introduce information

that kind of confuses all the people

who are having a conversation or a discussion.

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

This comment is from Athanasios, and the comment is this.

"Thanks for these useful phrases, Teacher Bob.

I have a funny feeling

that Teacher Bob is going to buy a pizza

for the whole family tomorrow at night.

LOL! Bon appetit, sir."

And my response is this.

"Your guess is very close,

although it might actually be tonight,"

which today is Friday, if you're watching this on Friday.

"We usually buy pizza on Friday nights,

about two times per month.

It's the most reasonably priced food from a restaurant."

So thanks, Athanasios.

That was a great use of the phrase a funny feeling

or the term a funny feeling,

but that was excellent.

Yes, good job.

I was gonna talk a little bit about

the pizza that we get every once in a while.

I've talked about from time to time,

that sometimes, about twice per month,

we'll go and we'll buy pizza.

I get it from the restaurant

that I went into when I made my video

of how to speak English at a restaurant on my other channel,

because I feel like it's a good idea to support them.

They helped me make a video that was quite successful,

so I like to go there and buy pizza at least twice a month,

sometimes longer.

And then we come home, and in the summer,

we sit at this picnic table to eat our pizza.

It's always fun to sit under the shade of this tree

on a summer night

and to sit at this picnic table,

and have a little bite to eat.

I think I used the phrase a few times per month

and a few times a month.

I think we must use those interchangeably.

I should teach that someday.

Anyways, Bob the Canadian here.

I hope you're having a great Friday,

and I'll see you in a couple days

with another short English lesson.

Bye.