English Vocabulary - Negative Characteristics - arrogant, vain, snob...

Rational numbers. Hi, James from EngVid. Yeah, there's a reason why I teach English. Don't

understand math. Today, we have a lesson. What possible lesson could we be teaching

for negative characteristics? It's a vocabulary lesson, so pay attention. I'm going to teach

you how to speak about people. We're going to have one on positive characteristics, obviously,

but sometimes people have a negative way of portraying themselves, and to portray is to

show. Today, we're going to talk about some of those attitudes you see in people, and

we're going to explain what they are. Number one, I watched a movie years ago. It's called

The Devil's Advocate. At the end of the movie, one of my favorite scenes, Keanu Reeves stars

in it, and Al Pacino, and Al Pacino says, "Vanity, my favorite sin." Now, why do we

have that there? I'm going to use red, because red is the color of the devil. There, a little

devil. He's all happy. We've got our little EngVid movie here. Vanity. Well, vanity is

when you're very proud of your looks or abilities. Let's just say you're born good looking, like

me. No, actually, not like me, but if you're born good looking, and you really are proud

of it. Now, your abilities and your looks are genetic gifts, so really, you should be

proud of your parents, but some people take, because they are good looking, or because

they have good ability or superior ability, another word is talented or gifted. Talented

means natural talent. Gifted means above or superior to others. Sometimes, a lot of people

are very proud of these things, so they think they are better than other people. So, if

you see someone, like you and your friend are walking on the street, and they keep looking

in every gloss mirror that they see, they're probably vain and very proud of their looks.

Okay? Vain. Now, if they're very proud of their abilities, they can also be vain. They

talk about how good they are at things. Okay? Very proud.

The next one, once people get vain, they usually get arrogant. You know, what do you mean by

arrogance? Well, a lot of people, especially in English, they will say, "These words all

are basically the same. They are, but they're different, and this is why I want to teach

them to you." An arrogant person tends to exaggerate their worth or importance. A lot

of times, that's based on the fact that they're very proud of maybe their looks or their abilities,

so they say, "Because I am good-looking, I am great." You and I both know that's not

necessarily true, but in their head, they make it bigger, and that's only the first

part, right? They exaggerate how important they are or how valuable they are, but the

second thing they do is that they make it too much for you. They talk about how good-looking

you are and how good-looking they are compared to, well, me. Sorry, that's me twice. I shouldn't

say that. Maybe I am vain. I don't know, but they will talk about, you know, "I am," if

you're arrogant, "I am the best soccer player ever," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because

I have these abilities. So, the arrogance comes usually from an ability or their looks,

all right? So, we're going to move over. Mr. Devil is going to maybe tickle the worm here.

He's not very happy about it. I'm going to skip. Okay? I'm going to skip over this way.

Why I skip? Because arrogance and conceited, a lot of times, people confuse these words

and say they're the same. Well, they're not, and we'll watch carefully. When you're conceited,

see, they have the same root. They both come from being vain. When you're vain, you're

proud of your looks. Because of that, you usually have a very high opinion of yourself,

right? "Because I am good-looking, I am great." Now, from there, or "I am smart, therefore

I am great," they usually lead to arrogance. They exaggerate it. They make it even bigger

than that, yeah? They're like, "Okay, because I am great, I must be good at all things."

They think they're better than everybody else. We'll get to the next two words here, right?

So this is just having a high opinion of yourself. This is exaggerating it and making others

feel badly because of it. Next. Well, if you're arrogant and you're conceited and you're vain,

you're probably going to become a snob. Interesting word, snob. I'll give you the history after

I teach you the word. A snob is a person who could, number one, like a monkey, imitate.

Imitate people in a superior position. So if they see a superior person wearing a tie,

then they start wearing a tie and going, "I am just like them because I wear a tie." If

they start driving Mercedes, they go, "I am just like them because I drive a Mercedes."

They think by imitation and associating. Now, look here. I wrote the word "hang." Hang is

a common word because it's when common people want to act like they are special or noble.

We'll get there in a second, right? So they want to hang with the others. Now, the real

people with money would actually say, "You want to associate with us, be among us, participate,

not hang with us." That's my little joke about this, yeah? So they want to imitate or they

want to hang with those in a superior position.

The second thing about snobs is this. They look down on other people. So here's my little

monkey guy. If I'm superior, little monkey man's looking up. I look down on him because

you are lower than me, monkey man. You are nothing. They actually look down on you because

they feel that they're superior like Superman. They go, "Super," looking down. And the third

thing, they act superior. Puff their chest out. Puff means make bigger. They walk, "I'm

super. Nothing bad about me." Kind of silly. Yeah, I know. But you know what's really silly?

There's a lot of the people who are snobs don't even know what the word means. So I'm

going to give you a quick history so you can put them in their place.

The word "snob" really comes from two words, "sans nobilité." It was French. You see,

a few hundred years ago, there were only kings and queens, and then poor people or common

people, which would be myself. "Sans nobilité" meant you have no title. I was not a king,

prince, queen, or anything. Just a commoner. But what happened was the middle class started

making money. Let's get the middle class in. They started making money. "We're rich.

Yeah, let's buy houses." Okay, so they started making money. And as they made money, what

happened was they got as rich as some kings and princes. Now, the kings and princes were

very offended by this, and they would turn around and say, "You may have our money, but

you do not have our title. You are sans, without, nobilité, without title." And that's how

they said, "That's why we will always be kings and queens, and you will always be a commoner."

Now, of course, the middle class people felt badly about this. They felt bad because they

weren't -- they didn't have the title. But the poor people, you see, they were on the

bottom looking up, going, "Sans nobilité, it's you think you're better than me." And

because they said they didn't understand, the poor people didn't understand it was the

rich people looking at the middle class, they actually thought sans nobilité, or snob -- remember,

they couldn't say sans nobilité -- becomes snob. They said, "You think you're better

than me. You're a snob." And then we have snob. So now, whenever you see a snob, you

can go, "Do you even know what the word means? Do you? Do you, little man? Do you? No!" Right?

Sans nobilité.

Anyway, now, after we've got this, we're going to come down to here. What do all of these

people have in common? Because if you've noticed, I call this an adjective. Adjective. "You

are a vain" -- oops, sorry. "You are a vain man, Mr. Devil." "Don't be so arrogant. You

are an arrogant person." "You are a conceited woman." Oh, sorry. "You are a snobby woman,"

or a snob. "You are a snob." Actually, snob, I made a mistake here. And snob is the noun

to be a snob. You are a snob, right? And we have the adjective, right? Snobby is the adjective,

so snob. And conceited we have, but bragging is what these people do. Usually, when these

people feel superior to you, or above you, within the word super, they tend to brag.

They tell you how wonderful they are, or how wonderful their things are. Do you see my

watch? Yes, it's a hair watch. It's got hair on it. It's worth $20 million. I don't think

you have one of these. There's only five of them made in the world. It takes approximately

40 years to grow one. I'm so wonderful, aren't I? Yeah, this is what they do. They brag.

So if you have someone in your life, it's okay to say, "Hey, I got a new pen. Do you

like it?" But if I say, "It's my expo from Canada. It's one of a kind, you know, really.

You can't find one of these unless you go to Canada." Now, okay, what I'm saying is

if they're like that, they're bragging to you, and you just have to figure out which

one they are. So it could be a great English guessing game. Are you vain, arrogant, a snob,

or conceited? Buzzer number three, Bob. Okay, anyway, listen. I don't want to be too vain,

but I think we do an okay job here, so I'm going to teach you. Next time we do these,

I'll show you the opposites, positive, which is being modest. I think we do a good job

here, but I think you have done a good job by paying attention and learning these words.

Learning new adjectives, a new noun, a new verb. Cool, see? That's modest. Take a compliment,

push it on, right? Look, I want you to learn some more, okay? And not to be too conceited

or anything. I'm kind of proud without being arrogant, but I think this place is a great

place to go and learn, right? I'm not bragging. Other people have said it's good, like my

mother, and she always tells me the truth. Anyway, listen, have a great day, and please

go to www.ing, sorry, James' way, www.ing, as in English, vid, as in video,.com. I'll

see you there, okay? Don't be too proud or arrogant thinking you're going to learn something

somewhere else and get a better job, I'm telling you.