Learn the English Phrases ITCHING TO DO SOMETHING and SCRATCH YOUR HEAD

So, I don't know about you, but in our part of the world,

we have mosquitos, and sometimes the mosquitos bite me,

and then it itches.

I have an itch because a mosquito has bit me,

so then I want to scratch that itch, right?

But the word itch, we use as well in a phrase

itching to do something.

If I am itching to do something,

it means I have a strong desire to do it.

Right now, I am just itching to get back to work.

I'm itching to go shopping in Toronto

with Jen for a weekend.

I'm just itching to do these things.

So in English, when you say

that you are itching to do something,

it means that you really, really want to do it badly.

I think pretty much everyone in the whole world right now

is just itching to go outside,

and they are just itching for life to go back to normal.

So again, an itch is something where you want to scratch it,

but we also use it in the phrase itching to do something.

Speaking of scratching, I wanted to teach you the phrase

scratch your head as well.

In English, we use the phrase scratch your head

when we are trying to figure something out.

So maybe you have a riddle that someone has told you

and you can't think of the answer to the riddle,

so you might actually scratch your head

as you're thinking about it.

You might actually do it.

But usually in English, we just use the phrase.

We describe things that we can't figure out

as things where we needed to scratch our heads.

So I could say, the other day,

I was trying to fix my lawn mower,

and I couldn't figure out how to do it,

and so I was scratching my head

while I was trying to figure it out.

So anyways, to review, if you're itching to do something,

it means you want to do it really, really badly,

and if you scratch your head,

it means you're trying to figure something out.

Anyways, Bob the Canadian here.

Hope you're having a good day.

I'll see you on Thursday with a new English lesson.