English Idioms - HAIR

Choices, choices. Hey, hi, James from EngVid. What I would like you to do is, because you know I'm always reading, if you look for the video where I was in Cambodia, I wanted to go to Cambodia, there's a cool lesson and it ties in because today's lesson is about hair.

And the lesson I did with the Cambodia book, I used one phrase about hair. I used the phrase about hair. Try and find out which one it is and then you'll have almost the complete set.

I chose hair today because I talked about hairy, whoops, I can't tell you, you'll figure it out when you go there. But it's partly because it's winter in Canada right now and I have no hair, so it's cold. So on my way here I was thinking how cold it is, I wish I had hair, like lots and lots of hair to make my head warm.

And I was thinking about Thailand and Cambodia because they're warm places. Long story short, I want to tell you a story about Ezekiel. Okay? Sorry, that's his full name. His real name is Mr. E. You're supposed to figure that out.

About Mr. E. You see, here's a story I'm going to tell. You're going to listen to the story carefully and I will use some idioms and they're all related to hair and at the end, once again, go back through the story and see if you understand it, right? So, Mr. E and hair. The Mr. E of hair.

Anyway, Mr. E was out with his friends one day and, well, they went for a beer. Well, one beer. Mr. E don't play like that. Mr. E had several beers because he wanted to let his hair down, you see, because he's usually a very stressed guy. He wanted to let his hair down.

So he had a few beers. Let his hair down. Anyway, so he had a few beers and then what happened was he got into a breadth. Sorry, a hair's breadth of getting into a fight. What does that mean? Well, breadth means wide.

It's another way of saying how wide, the breadth of something, the width of it, okay? So he almost got in and remember, hairs are very tiny so it means he got really close. When you say I got into a breadth, a hair's breadth of something, it means I got really close to something or it's really close because it's very small.

So he got very close to getting into a fight, a hair's breadth, okay? So he got into a hair's breadth, getting into a fight. Really? Yeah, well, he took too many drinks to let his hair down. So what happened after that? Well, he met a guy with a hair trigger.

Now a trigger is a part of a gun that you pull for the bullets to come out. This guy had a hair trigger. When you have a hair trigger, it means it's very sensitive. Anything will cause the bullet to release. Now, you can have, you know, if a gun has a hair trigger, just touch it, pull it out.

If a person has a hair trigger temper, it means they get angry quickly, right? Quickly, quickly, quickly. So if there's a hair trigger situation, it means anything can change it, not quickly. Anyway, so he got into a hair's breadth of getting into a fight with a guy with a hair trigger. This is not good, alright?

So why did they do this? Well, Mr. E was splitting hairs about some discussion they were having about a hair brain scheme. What does splitting hair mean? It means when you try to make definitions, they're almost not even important or, yeah, they don't mean anything. They're just getting to be ridiculous.

Some people will say, you know, well, ah, so one of my favorites is beneath, underneath, and under. They all mean under, basically. But people will say, well, there's a difference between underneath and under. They're different. Yes, there's only those differences. I'm like, there's not really. It just means under. That's it, man.

But they want to split the difference so much so it's not even important anymore, okay? Because basically, under is under, okay? So he almost got into this fight with this hair trigger guy because he was splitting hairs, meaning making differences that don't really matter, okay?

Now, why is because this guy had a hair brain scheme. When something's a hair brain scheme, or hair brained, it means, well, it means foolish or stupid. It comes from hair, but not the hair you know. It comes from this hair. Some of you have probably never seen this before. It's h-a-r-e.

This is a type of rabbit. They are known for crazy behavior. I know, I sounded like a church guy there, right? Come down, Jesus is here, okay? But hair brained means crazy because these rabbits were known to go, oh, oh, over here, over here, over here, over here.

It's just erratic. Erratic means like unknowable, unpredictable, okay? So it used to be hair brained, but then people would hear hair brained and if they weren't educated enough, they would say, oh, hair. And they would think the hair was literally growing out of the brain like a mushroom or something. I don't know.

So that's where it came from. So hair brained means something that's, you know, foolish or stupid. So remember, they were splitting hairs over some hair brained scheme. Remember the story.

Alright, so that's why the fight almost happened. So finally, anyway, they went home, they went to sleep. Mr. Reid woke up the next morning and he had the hair of a dog that bit him. What the? I know, actually I did it in another video much better. I was like, what the fuck? So then you would know what I'm actually saying.

Anyway, hair of the dog, woof. When we say have the hair of the dog, it's very, very specific. It means if you were drinking beer at night and you have a hangover, and the hangover is the pain that you get from drinking too much and the stomach problems the next day. Hangover means hang, like hanging clothing, it stays with you.

And overnight, so overnight from drinking, you get a hangover, okay? So what they say is have a hair, there's your hair, of the dog that bit you. Bites, right? The dog bites you, it hurts.

So saying if you were drinking beer last night and your head hurts, wake up in the morning, have another beer. You were drinking vodka, drink more vodka. It's kind of logical because if you stay drunk, you don't feel any pain. Kind of stupid because then you never get sober. Sober means not to be drunk anymore. It means you're no longer alcohol in your system and you're functioning normally.

So if we say are you sober today, it means with good thoughts, that's one. Or number two, no alcohol in your body to stop your proper thinking. So anyway, that's the story. Let's go over it quickly. Let's see if you got it right.

Okay, Mr. E went out one night and had a few drinks with his friends to let his hair down, okay? Now, when he did that, he almost got into a hair's breadth of a fight. Why? Because he was talking to a guy with a hair trigger and they got into an argument splitting hairs over some hair-bringing scheme that this guy had.

Anyway, at the end of the night, Mr. E went home and then woke up the next morning and had a hair of the dog that bit him. Go through the definitions and if you go through it, go through the video again and put it together and you'll get the understanding of the story. Hope you had fun.

Anyway, not to split hairs or anything, but I got to get going soon. Okay, Ezekiel's got a hair trigger and he's got to go for dinner or something like that. I got this hair-bringing scheme to pick up some girls. I'll start buying them a couple of drinks and they can get their hair down. Anyway, I've got a hair's breadth of time left, so I got to get out of here.

It's been fun, but you know, before I go, I always put this down for you to take it here, okay? Here, here, hair, hair. Not pronounce the same. We'll do a lesson on that one time. What's the difference between here and hair? Here and hair. Okay? www.eng as in English, vid as in video.com. So nicely written, huh? You like that?

Okay, that's where we are. Come and get some free lessons. It's not a hair-bringing idea. It's a great idea, actually. And not to split hairs, but we are, you know, pretty good, I think, at what we do. You know, there are other people who are pretty good at what we do.

You know, you come down and let your hair down. Relax. Get to know myself and your teachers. Do some of the quizzes that are up there. You know, you might probably come back up to that, you know, hair of the dog that bit you. Learn some more English. Anyway, gots to go. Have a great time, and I will see you at EngVid. Ciao.

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