SHOULDA, WOULDA, COULDA - English Addict - 282 - 🔴LIVE Learning from England / 25th Feb 2024

we are back together again.

It is so nice to see you here once more.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome once again.

It has been a very busy weekend.

Yes, I was on yesterday and I am back today.

It is, of course, English addict coming to you live and direct

from the birthplace of the English language, which just happens to be.

Well, you know where it is.

It's England.

We are back together again.

It is so nice to see you here again once more.

Hi, everybody.

Yes, this is Mr.

Duncan in England.

Well, that's what it should say down there.

But of course, sometimes things don't go the way they should.

It's not my fault.

You can blame vomit for that.

Okay. Remakes. It's your fault,

not my fault.

Hi, everybody. This is Mr. Duncan in England.

How are you today?

Are you okay?

I hope so. Are you happy?

I hope you are very, very happy today.

Is it working?

Come on.

I was hoping that would work.

You say,

but it doesn't look as if it's going to work.

well,

you know, in life, you can't have everything.

Sometimes you want everything.

But then again, where would you put it?

Where would you put it if you had everything in the world?

Where would you put it?

There would be nowhere to put it because you would have too much stuff.

If you had everything

in here we are again.

English addicts up there. That's what it says.

Just up there. Can you see it?

English addict.

I am one of those.

It also says it here on my T-shirts.

And I have a feeling maybe you are crazy

about English as well.

Or maybe you are just crazy. Who knows?

We are back together Sunday.

It is Sunday.

We are already coming towards the end of the month.

I can't believe it.

It seems as if this month has gone by so quickly.

Very fast.

In fact, for those wondering,

I talk about the English language, but of course, it's not just me on Sunday.

We also have coming up later on, Mr.

Steve will be with us.

For those worried he will be with us.

There he is, dancing,

getting himself warmed up for today's live stream.

So Mr.

Steve will be with us at around about 2:30.

So there it is, your Mr.

Steve Warning

or your Mr.

Steve Alert.

He is coming up and around about 20 minutes from now.

I hope you are having a good day.

It's not too bad here. Busy yesterday?

If you joined me yesterday.

Well done for finding me.

Because I wasn't going to do a live stream yesterday.

But I decided that I should.

Because this month is a short month.

It only has 29 days.

So I thought maybe I will do

some extra live streams,

and that is what I have done.

So I was with you yesterday and I'm here today as well.

Hello, everyone. It's nice to see you here.

We also have the live chat.

It would not be English addict

without all of you out there in YouTube land.

Hello to Beatrice.

we will be looking at some of your photographs

in a few moments.

Well, then, Beatrice, you are first on today's live chat.

Also, we have another one of our regulars, another regular here

on English Addict who is Man Day.

He's here today.

Hello, Louis.

Also, we have Olga Palmira, by the way.

How is your foot?

Is it getting better?

I hope so.

Also, we have Zika.

We also have Patrick.

Hello, Patrick.

A big boys role to you.

I hope you are having a good day as this is here.

I know you were joining us yesterday as well, so it's nice to see you back here today.

Sufi. Yes.

This is English.

It is English.

And those things that you saw on the thumbnail

are also part of the English language.

You are right.

Hello, Ahmed.

Ahmad, hello to you.

By the way, if it is your first time with me

on the live chat, say hello.

Don't be shy.

Give it a try.

Say hello.

Hello. Also to Marsha.

Hello, Marsha.

It is nice to see you here as well.

So many people joining me already today on the live chat,

by the way, today we are talking about ways of using English.

And I suppose this leads to a question

that I often well, I'm often asked the question

and sometimes I have to put that particular question right,

because some people believe there is more than one English.

I can tell you now, definitely there is only one

English language, the root,

where all the other words and all the other phrases come from.

And of course, when we are talking about accents, we have the similar situation.

Accents.

Define places or areas.

It is not the actual language itself.

So quite often when we look at accents, you might travel around the country from one place to another.

Even if everyone speaks English, you will hear accents,

but also you might hear words used in different ways,

different types of use of the English language.

However,

it remains the same.

The root of all of those differences

and variations is still English.

There is only one English.

You see, this might be a new thing.

There is only one English, but there are many variations

of that particular thing.

It's true.

So that's what we're looking at today.

We're looking at expressions, types of slang

ways of speaking colloquialisms.

that's a nice word.

It's not easy to say

colloquialisms.

When we talk about colloquial English,

we are talking about English that is spoken in different places.

And of course, in different ways

in formal English,

informal use of words.

So this is something we are looking at today on English addicts.

And of course we are here for 2 hours.

So relax, make yourself a hot

beverage, have something to drink, have something nearby.

Maybe you are a little hungry, so maybe you could have

a little nibble at the same time.

If you have a nipple, it means you eat something.

Not a lot of food, but a little.

Just a little bit of food to keep you going during the live stream.

So of course you can have a little nibble

to keep you busy.

Mr. Steve will be here.

A lot of people already worried.

Where is Mr. Steve? Don't worry.

He will be with us.

Here it is. You're Mr. Steve.

Warning 15 minutes before Mr.

Steve appears.

He will be here live in the studio.

I don't know where he is at the moment.

He seems to have vanished.

He's being very busy.

By the way, on Saturday, yesterday

afternoon, Steve was performing in a show

and I went to see him on Friday night.

Would you like to see Mr.

Steve singing?

Here he is.

So there is Steve singing his little heart out.

He was in a show

by Gilbert and Sullivan.

You may have heard of them. The Gondoliers.

It is a musical show.

It is. I suppose you would describe it as an operetta.

And Mr.

Steve likes to perform on the stage.

He likes to act.

He likes to perform.

He likes to dress up in strange clothes sometimes,

but that has nothing to do with his acting

and he enjoys it as well.

Sadly, I can't play you the actual music because of copyright,

unfortunately, but we will be talking a bit about that later on.

Mr. Steve is a man who is very talented.

I think it is safe to say

he is a man of many talents.

He can do all sorts of things, I would say,

and I am I am surprised Mr.

Steve can put his hand to anything.

So if you put your hand to something, it means you try it.

So it's a great idiom.

It means you try something, you put your hand to something,

you try to do it, or of course you do it.

You take your hand to something.

You are actually doing that thing.

So I think it's a very interesting expression to take your hand.

Steve is very practical.

He does a lot of things around the house, a lot of the

the hard work and the heavy work.

For example, in a few weeks

as spring arrives here in England, Mr.

Steve will be out in the garden.

He will be cutting the grass.

He will be here in a few minutes.

Mr. Steve

Very practical.

He does lots of things.

I remember a couple of years ago he went into the garden and he did a lot of changes.

He made a lot of changes.

He did a lot of work in the garden.

And I have to say I was quite amazed.

In fact, I was very surprised at how much Steve can do.

Last year he was busy chopping

logs in the back garden with a giant axe.

Mr. Steve was in the garden waving

this giant axe all over the place.

It's a little worrying, actually, when you see someone

wielding an axe.

Well, that's an interesting word wield.

If you wield something, it means you wave

or you move it around in a disorganised, honest way.

You wield something.

Maybe you are chopping a tree down, you might

wield

an axe

timber out.

It's possible.

It's possible.

The live chance is very busy.

Nice to see you here, Nicole.

Hello, Nicole.

Nice to see you back with us.

Mellion is here. Hello, Marlene.

You see, it's not hard to give me

a little message on the live chat,

so let me know you are there because sometimes I worry.

Sometimes I think there is no one there watching.

So when I see your message,

it makes me feel happy.

It will.

From my heart, I have to say.

Christina.

Hello, Christina.

We also have watching in Brazil.

It's Pedro Beaumont

who's watching in Brazil.

Hello to you as well.

Quite quote bar is here quite high.

Bar says I am going to get myself a drink,

have a drink, sit down, make yourself comfortable.

Maybe you are watching me on your mobile phone.

Maybe you are watching me on your computer, on the big monitor.

Or maybe

if you are feeling very relaxed,

maybe you are lying down on your sofa or on the couch

watching me on your big screen TV.

Maybe if you are.

Am I looking okay?

How do I look on your 50 inch television?

Do I look okay? Not too scary, I hope.

Hello, sir.

Kuttab, hello to you as well.

Very nice to see so many people here.

It is busy.

It's a busy one.

We have Mr. Steve coming up in 10 minutes.

I will give it you again.

The Mr.

Steve Warning.

So you are prepared for this.

This is what will be happening soon.

Live on YouTube.

FB And as you know, if you have been watching before in the past,

you will know that we have no idea what we are going to say to each other.

So anything can happen.

Can I say hello to Beatrice?

Thank you very much, Beatrice, for the photographs you sent

of the place you often visit.

You often tell us that you go up to the mountains.

But I was always wondering what the mountains

looked like, the ones that you actually visit.

So Beatrice has actually sent some lovely photographs.

I will show one and we will.

We will have a look at some more later with Mr. Steve.

So there is one of them.

Can you see it?

It's a very nice scenic place.

Very nice indeed.

Thank you, Beatrice, for that.

And we will look at some more of these photographs a little later on.

And there is a very unusual feature

about this particular mountain, a very unusual feature.

I wonder if you can spot what the feature is.

So all of that coming up in a few moments from now.

We will show some more of those photographs

in a few moments time.

by the way, something I want to mention.

Steve might talk about this later on as well, but I want to mention it now.

We have decided

you might disagree with this,

but we have decided to start drinking

full cream milk.

So for many years we used to have something called Semi-Skimmed.

So that means some of the fat is taken out of the milk.

However, over recent times we've discovered

that full cream milk.

So that is milk that as it's got all of the cream inside, it's had nothing.

Take it away. Full cream milk is

delicious in everything t coffee,

porridge, everything, in fact.

So we've started using or drinking full cream milk.

A lot of people refer to it as whole milk

wh0le whole, which means of course, complete.

So whole milk is complete milk.

It has everything still in the actual milk, including the cream.

So over the years a lot of people started to cut back

on the amount of things that they ate, especially fat

and for many years we were told

that certain types of fat is bad for you.

But of course nowadays many

medical experts have changed their mind.

So maybe we do need a little bit of fat in our daily diet.

But I have to say

I do like fresh whole milk.

And of course there is the other one as well.

The they called it skim and milk.

It's disgusting.

How can anyone drink skimmed milk?

So that has virtually all of the fat taken out,

which means when you drink it,

it's almost like drinking water.

There is no taste, there is no cream, there is nothing.

So to be honest with you, I don't like skim milk.

And over the past couple of months, we have started

drinking less semi-skimmed milk.

So these days we often have whole milk instead.

Because between you and me.

Well, first of all, we don't drink that much milk anyway,

and it tastes absolutely delicious.

It really, really does.

I like it.

And Mr. Steve likes it as well.

I would say most people will go between

semi-skimmed and whole, so I would imagine most people will go

between those two types of milk person only.

I prefer whole milk.

You get all of the cream, all of the taste and everything.

One thing I've never tried, I've never tried fresh milk,

straight,

straight from the cow.

I've never tried that.

So I've tried milk that's been processed,

but I've never had actually had

fresh milk straight from the cow.

Never,

never tried it.

I've never milked a cow ever.

I've heard it's a very interesting feeling

when you do it, when you have to grab hold of those things

and pull them,

and then hopefully milk will come out

and always make sure you have a biscuit

nearby as well to collect the milk.

In talking of cows,

we might have some cows coming up in a few moments

because I know you love the cows, you love to see the lovely cows.

We have many cows at the back of the garden this year.

They haven't arrived yet.

It's a little bit too early for the cows, but maybe in a couple of months

or maybe just a few weeks from now, we will have some cows in the garden again.

So if you want to tell me what type of milk you like,

please let me know on the live chat.

He will be with us in a few moments.

Mr. Steve will be here soon.

This is your final warning.

Mr. Steve will be here in a few moments.

In fact, right after this.

There I was having a splash around with my puddle dance,

talking of puddled, here is a man who is often described as ‘puddled’

He's coming up in a moment.

Mr. Steve is on his way.

English addict.

That's what it says on the screen, because that's what it is.

English addict is here with you.

And of course, joining me now

in his own little comfortable corner,

he welcomes it is the man who likes to appear on the Internet.

He likes to appear on the stage.

He likes to appear in front of the local magistrate.

He gets all over the place. It is

Mr. Steve

London.

I know, Mr. Duncan.

Hello, beautiful, wonderful, loyal viewers from across the globe and the universe

watching us today, trying to teach you some English.

I can't wait to read your lovely comments in the live chat.

I can't see your faces, which would be nice, but I can't wait to to to look at your comments

and read them out and see your little own perspective on what we're talking about.

So how are you, Mr. Duncan?

Well, first of all,

it helps if the microphone is above you.

right.

Okay.

So let's start again. Mr. Duncan.

That's okay.

See, the thing is, I'm going to explain what happens before I come on.

Sometimes Steve arrives and I'm still setting everything up and it doesn't give me a chance.

You see, he starts asking me questions. Shall I sit here?

What shall I do with this? Where shall I go?

And I'm trying to set everything up and Steve is just asking all these questions.

So then I forgot to put the microphone near Steve

because he was above me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.

I wasn't Mr. Duncan. He's exaggerating.

I can tell you how.

You know, when I sat down, I felt something's sticking in me today.

Mr. Duncan. Really?

When I sat down in the seat and guess what was on the seat, I don't know.

This lump of blue tack.

Okay, That's very interesting, Steve.

Well, I know, but, you know, I like Jack, you know,

have a nice, clean area to sit down to and have to sit on lumps of blue tack. Mr.

Duncan Well, I'm sure.

I'm sure you've been in worse places than that.

Anyway, today we are back together.

You were not here last week. And yesterday.

And also on Friday you were performing on stage.

We will briefly mention this.

I will show a little bit of Mr.

Steve on the stage. Are you ready? Here it comes.

So there is Steve singing his little heart out.

And this was on Friday night.

We can't actually play the music itself because, well, you know, because of the

the copyright goblins lurking around.

So I'm on the right, by the way. Right, Steve?

Yes. Well, we kind of recognise you.

I just of course, you're the one on the right.

We did not think you were the guy on the left.

Unless, of course, you've been eating lots of pies.

But there is Steve.

So what were you doing there?

Steve So this is Gilbert and Sullivan,

which is, it's a light opera or operetta

as it's sometimes described.

So it's an opera, but it's light opera and it's sort of 1890s, that kind of 1880s, 1890s,

comic opera by the famous

writers of the time, Gilbert and Sullivan.

Yes. Well, the interesting thing is they were,

they were the innovators of what we now call satire.

So they were the first satirists.

They were the first people to actually make fun of those

in authority, such as politicians and people with high status.

So it is interesting to note that Gilbert

and Sullivan were the first ever satirists.

They were the ones that used to make fun, or they started to make fun of those

who were in authority, especially politics.

They seem to have a big problem with people in politics

such as the the, the Lords.

So they would often make fun of those people, wouldn't they?

Steve? Yes, particularly pompous people in authority.

It was the sort of satire, satire of its day.

Well, it's done to music. It did, yeah.

Well, satire didn't really exist before genius.

So that's the interesting thing.

They were they really were the innovators.

So you are going back a very long way.

And it is interesting to note that I suppose also Shakespeare

is another one who made a satire,

I think,

in the way he used the English

language, used to cause an uproar in its day because it used to make fun

of very sort of prominent figures in authority

and but, you know, we still do that, but

but not not cleverly to music in the way that they did then of course.

But yeah it's lovely music it's it's happy

jolly music and it's fun.

It's comic, it's it's comic opera.

So people come to watch it.

It's old fashioned.

It's very old fashioned.

And it's going out of popularity and has done for

certainly of the last 40 or 50 years in this country.

But it's still very popular in America.

It's still very popular in Australia and other countries around the world.

But we try in our own little way and our own amateur way

to keep the traditions of the comic opera alive.

Well, you know, it's part of our heritage, part of our tradition. Yes.

Well, you have lots of people coming up and they were complimenting the show,

but also also your your performance as well.

This particular one, if anyone's ever if anybody wants to look it up,

Gilbert and Sullivan, this one was called the Gondoliers.

The gondoliers.

So it's very Italian theme to it.

The gondoliers from Venice taking people in their boats,

wooing the ladies and, and, and having fun.

So it's an Italian take on, on, on that sort of John Yeah.

So to speak.

So yeah, it's, it's set in Italy and

in fact the piazza where it's set is still, it still exists today.

I can't remember the name of it but actually was based on a particular place in Italy.

So anybody watching from Italy can look that up.

The gondoliers, the history of that and we'll see that it's actually

based on a place in Italy and it's just friendly, lovely music

and everybody went out laughing and, and saying that they had had a good fun.

So that's, that's, that's, that's what we want to do.

Entertain and keep up the traditions of the comic opera

talking of which entertaining is something we want to do as well today on English Addict.

We have lots of things coming up today.

Now we received some lovely

photographs from Beatrice.

Hello, Beatrice.

I did actually ask for some photographs of the mountains

because quite often Beatrice will go to the mountains

and very kindly she has sent some photographs.

So here is one of them.

And isn't that lovely?

So that gives you a very nice flavour

or a sense of the place.

Very open with beautiful mountains in the distance.

Another photograph. Here's another one.

Look at that.

And there is something rather unusual about this particular mountain.

I'm not sure if you can spot it, Steve, but this mountain

has something very interesting about it

and if you look closely, you can actually see on this particular mountain

the place where Beatrice likes to go and spend her time.

You will see there is a human face staring upwards.

It's not unusual.

I will give you another look, another view,

but I will turn the photograph around so you can see what I mean.

Look at that.

There is a human face.

I can't see that.

What is it? One of those?

Yes, it's one of those situations where your brain

will try and and make sense,

because the brain is very much focussed on recognising human faces.

So if it sees patterns in rocks and in the landscape,

then we often see human face like in the moon and a man in the moon.

So can you see yet? I'm not sure if we have that long.

Yeah, I've only got two eyes and then a sort of smiling face and a nose.

Yes, there's a smiling face.

I think I can see that Mr. Jones.

He looks like he's just watching something far away.

So that is very interesting.

It is interesting.

Sometimes clouds will do the same thing.

Clouds sometimes will will form

certain shapes, or maybe they will resemble something.

Or maybe in the morning when you are having your breakfast,

maybe you put some toast inside the electric toaster

and then it pops up and there you can see there's a face of Jesus, for goodness sake.

How did that get there? See?

So it kind of happened.

You can see shapes and figures

in all sorts of situations.

So so sometimes when you look at the sky, you can see a face in the clouds

or in the case of Beatrice, as with her photographs,

you could see a face in the mountains.

Yes, up

towards the heavens.

The human brain wants to see those patterns because it's very important for us to recognise people's faces.

We can always remember a face.

It's something that

our brains are very good at.

It is remembering somebodies face, you see,

and then you see it ten years later and you will recognise the person.

And so we built into us

to try and see patterns of eyes and nose and a mouth,

some eyes if we, if we see it and it's by coincidence, as you say, on a piece of toast

or on a mountain or in a field or something, we are over in the moon.

The man in the moon we will see a face even

because our brains are a try to do that.

That's it.

Some people believe that the moon is made of cheese.

Some people believe that it is a giant death star.

Who knows?

But you can definitely see a little man's face when you look at the moon.

It looks like he's he's looking directly back.

And you say,

Olga's asked if the music was live, what it was.

They have recorded it. It was just we only had piano.

We didn't actually have an orchestra.

We just had a piano accompaniment.

And that because it was just a concert.

So the whole performance was live.

It was live, yes. With an audience.

And we did record it, but

we didn't have an orchestra because it was just a fund raising concerns.

It wasn't a full on stage production.

It was just a fundraising concert that we put together in eight weeks.

Now, Nystrom mentioned something very interesting

using popular culture in The Simpsons.

Who remembers Sideshow Bob now?

He was the he was the the baddie who kept trying to kill Bart Simpson.

And he would he would keep appearing in various episodes.

And he was always trying to to kill Bart Simpson.

And In one episode, he was actually performing a piece

from HMS Pinafore, which is, of course, by Gilbert

and Sullivan, a very famous operetta

by G and S, and that was Sideshow Bob.

He was doing it.

So you might find Gilbert and Sullivan

used in popular culture quite often.

I believe in an A in one of the and one of the Star Trek movies.

I believe they used

a segment of

Gilbert and Sullivan in that particular one of those movies.

I think it was Dieter you know, the Android.

He's actually singing a piece of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Very interesting how these things occur and appear,

you know, even in modern culture, still very popular in America, probably.

I mean, its popularity is decreasing because it was obviously very old.

But what happens is that people put them on it, slightly,

rewrite it to fit in with with modern

events and modern people, change the name

sometimes and change some of the wording to make it more modern.

And the reason it survived is because the music is so nice. Yes,

the melodies that were written are so lovely

and so clever that it survived all these all these years, well over 100 years.

But sometimes to bring it up to date,

a company will change some of the words

and the names of people in it to make it more up to date.

But certainly in this country it definitely is dying out

because our audience is a very old, very elderly.

They would have grown up with it.

It would have been in schools.

Their parents would have had recordings of it at home.

And you talk to anybody in the audience of a certain age

and I mean sort of 70 plus, and they would always say,

my parents used to play these records and it's nice to hear the songs again.

But of course, people don't really buy.

It's Gilbert and Sullivan that goes all play.

Steve It's like anything, anything, even even music

from the 1970s and also the 1980s.

A lot of people see that is very old fashioned

because it is for a certain age group.

So every, every generation comes and goes,

and then there are new fashions, new styles,

and you always find as the generations

move on those things from the from the past will stay,

but they will slowly over time, they will slowly fade away.

Now, one of our friends last weekend was telling us about

I don't know

where it's happening, but apparently there is

there is a disco that takes place

and it takes place before the

the main disco or the main club opens.

So lots of people in their fifties and sixties

like us can go along and have have a dance, but they do it in the afternoon.

No, not at night. Yes.

So before the proper before the actual nightclub opens,

they will actually have a disco in the afternoon

for people like us who are who are getting on a bit and they play all of the eighties music

so we can have a dance to two things like Wham

and culture Club and the Pet Shop Boys and things

like Abba, things we love from the 1980s

and the 1990s. Yes.

So yeah, it's because we all used to go out whatever music was playing in the eighties and nineties

that we would dance to, might even be a bit of

disco music, you know, traditional

disco music and that we would go and dance to that.

You can now rather than stay up late, you can, you can go between two and five

and go to one of the special disco is just for people of a certain age.

It reminds me a little bit of those, those restaurants and places

where you can go in the afternoon and have a meal early.

And they they normally say it's people over 50 or over 60

and they can go there in the afternoon and they can have a discount meal.

So they have a nice meal, but it's it's a little cheaper

and it's aimed at people who are older.

And I think this disco is very similar, so we might be able to go along.

Stephen, have have a dance with all the other people

who remember the music from the 1970s and the 1980s.

Wouldn't that be great?

It sounds like fun, actually, yes, I do.

I do that.

The trouble is, though, it's it's nice to go to under a dancefloor and see young people.

I don't really want to be dancing with a load of old people who are of the same age as me.

It's sort of struggling to even get up.

So I don't think that it's going to be much for Steve.

You know what that is?

That is a jest.

Well, yes, you are very naughty.

We will see some young people, you say, because you weren't here

yesterday, you didn't see what we were talking about.

We had a very long conversation about prejudice and ageism.

How how younger people how have a negative

point of view or a negative way of looking at people who are older.

But I think it works the other way round as well.

But yeah, yes, it can happen, but I think it's a great

excuse and it's a great way

of having fun because you can have fun in every age.

You are never too old to have fun.

Now also mentioning Can I say thank you to Louis?

Can I say thank you, Louis Monday

for your letter that you wrote, your email message that you send?

Very nice. And I do agree with the things you said.

And it is interesting when you look back on your childhood

how certain things resonate

or they stay with you through your life.

So thank you, Louis, for that, for that message that you sent

as well.

Very, very nice today.

Steve, we are looking at ways of using words.

And as I often say and I say it

very often, there is only one English language,

only one English language,

that is the root language and everything else that comes off.

It is a variation of that one language.

So maybe you are talking about things such as slang

or maybe colloquialisms, which isn't easy to say.

So we are looking at that a little bit later on.

Also, in a few moments, we are going to look at

a certain type of behaviour

and it is something that's in the news again.

Steve, I don't know if you read about this, but

there is at the moment a campaign

to get lots and lots of different types of green energy

are being produced in certain parts of the country

by the sea and also in the countryside.

However, the only problem is many of these types of

of energy production often involve

a lot of space or many areas being taken up

normally by things such as wind farms.

So those big things that turn around in the wind,

normally there are maybe two or three

or maybe there are many, many wind

turbines lined up next to each other.

But there is a kind of cause

that we often talk about, and this is a very British thing

and soon as it comes on the screen, Steve, I think you will recognise it.

Here it is.

What is a NIMBY?

NIMBY, NIMBY, Yes.

And I am BE

Why is it what would you call an Akron?

Akron.

Go on. You tell me. Mr. Duncan.

Yes, it is. It's a type of an acronym.

An acronym are the initials

of something that form another word. Yes.

So this particular thing, NIMBY, actually has a meaning.

And the meaning is not in my backyard.

This is a way of showing that you disagree

with something that is going to be built near to where you live.

So maybe you live in the countryside like we do,

and maybe someone wants to build

maybe a large factory or maybe something large

that will take up a lot of the space, like a wind farm, as you say.

A wind farm. And

people object

to it and they say that they don't want it nearby.

And we often describe those types of people who object

as NIMBYs.

They are people who will often say, not in my back yard.

Yes, they believe in the thing

that should be built like a wind farm.

yes, we must have green energy.

This is the problem with the NIMBYs

is that they want something to happen,

but they don't want it to happen near where they live. Yes.

So for example, are often described as NIMBYs

or wealthy middle class people,

because if we just take the example that you mentioned, Mr.

Duncan, of the wind farm.

Well, the wind farm, of course, a lot of politicians will say, well,

we must have wind farms, we must have green energy, but they won't have it near where they live.

So not in my backyard means not near where I live.

And so they will often push for it.

Green energy.

We must green energy, but no, I don't want it near me.

Or housing, for example.

A new housing estate, because supposedly we don't have enough houses in this country

or new builds of houses.

But of course politicians will often build them in places

that are not near them, like in green belt or in farmland.

And people said, Well, I don't want that new town near,

you know, I think we should have more houses.

But no, don't have don't have it near me.

So it's a form of sort of what's the word I'm looking for, Mr.

Duncan.

It's hypocrisy that NIMBYs are really hypocrites in a way, because quite they want it.

They want it, but they don't want it near them.

Yes, that's it.

So I think this is a very interesting human behaviour

where a person wants something but they don't want it near them.

I suppose you might say the same thing about another big subject,

the migrant crisis that we are having.

Well, not just here, but across Europe as well, where lots of people are coming into the country.

But there are places where people can be put whilst

their application for residency is processed.

But no one wants to have

migrant camps or places near to them,

even though they will stand up and say those things have to exist.

Yeah.

Or or stand up for the rights of migrants.

There is, there is a lot of hypocrisy.

But then if you wanted to build a migrant camp

near where they live, they would suddenly object.

And of course this is this is hypocrisy.

Politicians often they are often

accused of being hypocrites because they will say that something must happen,

but they don't want to have that thing near them or the people they represent.

But they want it somewhere but not near them.

So that is what we mean when we say NIMBY.

We are talking about a person

who objects to something being placed nearby.

I'm about to cough my head off.

Yes, it's another example, and this is quite common.

You know, a religious group want to want to build

a place for them to go and worship in.

And, you know, people say, no, yes, you must.

You must have your place of worship.

And then they decide they want to build it in this particular place.

And certainly the people that were on their side said, well, fine, you can have your place.

Well, I don't want it here.

And then they will put up

their will.

They will object to planning applications and things like that.

And we see that a lot around here.

Somebody wants to sell their land and we'll have an extension

or something like that and and people will object to it.

But yeah, the NIMBY is basically a hypocrite.

But then on the other hand, if, for example, I mean, I mean, just take myself as an example, okay?

You know, I believe in, you know, we should be having more green energy.

We should be putting up more wind farms.

But if somebody said, right, fine,

there's a nice big space at the back of your house.

There's acres of field and the farmer's going to sell it, and this energy company

is going to come along and put up a wind farm 100,

you know, miles, 100 yards from your house.

I would object because actually in the example of the wind farm, I don't think they should be onshore

anyway, offshore this anyway, this is a that's a different debate altogether.

This is this is not what we're talking about.

I know it's a bit, but you can see how it could easily Yes.

How you could be thought as a hypocrite in in cases like that.

So, yes, it happens all the time.

People are very good at giving advice, but they're not very good at taking their own advice.

And that is a human thing.

So I think when people say not in my backyard,

they are often being a little hypocritical.

You to be honest with you.

I'm going to break all of the conventions

of what we've just been talking about because I quite like wind farms.

Hey, I don't know why whenever I see one, if you're driving in the car and you go by

and all those little things are waving to you

from the top of the hill, it's like it's like lots of little hands

waving, saying hello,

we are providing some lovely clean energy for you. Yes.

But then waving to you.

It's quite nice, Mr. Duncan. They are very noisy.

As someone told me the other day, that they work near a factory

and this factory put up a quite a big

not as big

as the ones you see on the commercial scale for for, for energy production.

But this company put up a big

what you call it, propeller. No.

What's the word I'm looking for? A turbine?

Yes, a wind turbine.

A a on the back of their factory to generate power.

And apparently when it's windy, it's almost all you can hear is the drone from this.

It's incredibly noisy and everyone's objected nearby and they've had I think they've taken it down.

They had to take it down. And that was just one.

So I think they are extremely noisy.

And, you know, this is very controversial, the fact that we're a small country anyway,

and then they put them on the nice hillside.

Imagine, Beatrice is a lovely hillside.

They're covered in wind, covered in wind turbines.

It would ruin the outlook. Well, who knows?

That might happen because Argentina now

has has changed its direction with many different things.

Maybe the green agenda

in Argentina might go in one way or the other.

Now, they they have a new a new president there.

So I'm not sure what his opinion is of of green energy.

But but it all depends.

You see, it all depends on the locality and also the attitude.

But I think in this country, people are they're not sure

if they want green energy or not because I suppose

if there is no alternative, you would have to have it.

And I think wind production is well,

wind, electricity or electricity produced from wind is probably

the one that is the most popular, but it's also one of the most wasteful,

because when you build one of those wind turbines,

it uses all sorts of different energy to construct

and did you know the large blades,

those big things that stick out and go round?

They only last for a certain amount of time

and then they have to be disposed of

and they can't be reused.

So it is strange how that particular type of of energy production

is actually quite wasteful in a strange way.

I, I don't know in the full term of its life

whether how the how the equation would work out there.

Well, there is there are pictures that have been produced on on the

on social media showing these large areas where all of these

these old blades are all piled up and they can't do anything with them.

I think they're made of glass fibre. Yes.

And you can't you can't recycle.

I think they're very difficult to recycle.

So, yes, obviously it's a bit like nuclear power, isn't it?

There's always some waste somewhere that's difficult to get rid of. Yes.

Whereas with this is the same with coal.

Gas, of course, is is very clean.

You build your gas plant and then all you've all you've got is gas going in.

I mean, obviously it's producing CO2.

but yes, I mean they're very they are relatively cheap to produce.

That's why it's become popular.

And in this country we've got lots of wind.

Well, if we were closer to

I mean, if we were living in, say, Portugal,

then I would imagine that solar power

is going to be a very popular

way of producing alternative energy

and solar panels last sort of 25 years.

Well, that's the interesting part that we can't because we don't we don't have enough sun

That's the interesting thing. I think solar

has has been around for so many years.

I remember now when I was young, when I was in my early teens,

maybe at the beginning of the 1980s, solar power

did exist and there were there were types of solar power,

not not quite as extravagant

as the ones that exist now, but it did exist.

Solar powered cars were always

seen as the thing of the future,

cars that you could just drive around

and they would constantly charge themselves

for from the sunlight or from just natural light.

But of course, in reality it's not quite the same.

But solar power I think is a good one.

The other one, of course, is nuclear.

You are right, Steve.

I still think it's a top of the list, so this is only my opinion.

But I think nuclear is still the best form and I think it's only a matter of time

before we all have our little nuclear reactor at the back of our houses.

So that's what they're looking at now, isn't it?

They're looking at these small these small scale nuclear reactors

that will be in local areas providing electricity.

So I think that might be the way to go, despite the fact

that if it goes wrong, well, it's not much fun.

I know.

And if there's ever a war, you know what, one attack

on a nuclear power plant and, you know, it's pretty much wiped out the country.

But I do like the idea of having a small one.

So maybe you could have one at home.

Just a tiny little nuclear reactor.

It's really small because they don't need to be large

if it's just providing power for one house.

So you could have this little reactor at the back of your house and it's just doing that

and it will last for for maybe 500 years or something like that.

It will just keep running and running and then you don't have to worry.

Well, I mean, if they if they ever managed to

to work out fusion power,

which they are getting making,

I mean, they've been trying ever since I can remember, certainly in the seventies

when I used to watch science programmes, they thought they were going to crack nuclear fusion.

Yes. As a source of power.

And even now, they've they still really haven't made that much progress.

They are making progress.

That's the ultimate.

If we can crack that, then that that's free energy forever.

And solar, wind and new and nuclear power stations that we have

now will vanish if they have a crack fusion power that's the ultimate goal.

But is proving a very hard

technology to to to master.

We still seem to be a long way from having a mr.

Fusion in the back of our car.

Well, people seem to think that we are getting very close to that.

We are starting to get very close to it.

But that will be cheap and less energy forever.

And we will we will do that.

Yes, One day we will we will work out how to do it

and then all our power problems will be solved.

Not in our lifetime, though.

I think we will.

I think we could well see fusion power. I disagree.

I couldn't disagree with you more, Steve. I really don't.

I don't agree with that.

I don't think we're going to see it in our lifetime because we've got we're too mixed up now

in all of this mess of going electric

and everything being plugged in to the electric supply.

I think all of that has slowed down the progress quite a lot.

We need to we need to push forward and get those nuclear

reactors installed and under the the kitchen sink

or maybe at the back of the house, you just have this little glowing green box.

I like that.

Lewis makes a good point.

But Lewis is saying that Portugal now has 40%

of its energy comes from renewables.

So that's probably a mixture of

solar and wind, I would think.

I don't know.

I mean, in this country now, I think we're up to 27%, something like that.

Huge strides are being made,

but at the same time, energy consumption is going up all time as well.

So we're only really keeping pace with the annual increase in demand for energy

that is ever going up anyway.

I mean, we don't I don't think we have any coal fired power stations anymore,

certainly predominantly with gas in this country, which is obviously giving off CO2.

And we have started the manufacture of new nuclear power plants.

That's definitely going ahead now. Yes.

But it's going to be a mixture, certainly, as you're probably right, Mr.

Duncan, in our lifetimes, we probably won't see fusion

or we may see the early stages of it.

It's rather like the space race as well with all of that,

because we were all going to take a trip to Mars

and now suddenly we're only going as far as the moon

because we realised that Mars is still too far away, still hard to get to.

We're still concentrating on that.

But now we've realised that we can go to the moon instead and have a look around there.

Much easier to get to.

But yes, the point is this today

was a lot of people don't like having things nearby,

even though they want to enjoy the benefit of those things.

So that was the point we were making with NIMBY.

And there's another example a nuclear power plant.

So, you know, a government says we need

for new nuclear power plants, something which I think is what we do need.

That's that's enough, Steve, of that because we're running out of time.

Yeah, but if somebody was the only point I was making correctly was if somebody

if then the government decided to build it a mile of the road from you.

Yeah. You'd probably be checked.

Well, yes, of course.

Because you might agree that we need them, but you don't want them near you.

So you're a NIMBY that says.

Well, that's, that's what I mean.

It will always happen.

There will always be people objecting to something nearby.

And quite often it is a thing that is very useful or can help.

A lot of people anyway, can become an environment we are looking at.

Colloquialism.

I wonder

how many times you would say how many times can you say that word?

Colloquialism, colloquialism, colloquialism.

It's a very difficult word to pronounce.

It's not easy to say even for native English

speakers, we know luckily it was okay.

So I'm just trying to say it to show how difficult it is.

Yes, but it is Well, I'm sure I'm you will give us plenty of examples over the next few minutes,

as I will as well.

All of that coming up in a moment.

We are looking at the ways of using English, informal English, you might say,

and the way in which English can be changed depending

on your location.

English addict is with you today.

I hope you are having a good day

and everything is going your way.

Mr Steve is here

we are talking all about ways

of using English colloquialisms.

It is not an easy thing to say.

It is a little difficult to say, in fact, but

it is a very common part of any language, in fact.

So I'm sure they exist in all languages, different

informal or slang terms.

They exist not only in English, but also other languages as well.

So we are looking at very loose

ways of using certain words.

And it is interesting to note how that can change

from from area to area, even here in the UK.

Steve When, you think about it even right here

in the UK, you might actually find

that certain words or certain ways of describing something

change from one place to another,

and that is how English can be altered

or changed depending on what your location is.

So that is what we are looking at today, something a little bit different.

So I suppose when we talk about different types

of expressions or different types of words,

you might ask

yourself one question What is real English?

What is it?

What is the English language?

How does it exist? Why does it exist?

And how do we use English

to create other types of

dialect or local language?

Well, first of all, it's worth mentioning, Steve, that there is only one English language.

The language is the root.

The language is the place where all the other things

come from, including accents.

Quite often you will have variations or changes,

but the language itself only exists

as a singular thing.

So there is only one English language,

but there are many ways of using it.

So you might see some examples, Steve, of that.

You might have formal and informal professional and also everyday English.

So there is a difference between those two things.

Isn't that you mean like, yes, the language of science

or the language of a lawyer or a solicitor

or yes, in medical

in the medical field where things have to be said.

Certainly in in law things have to be said in a certain way.

I don't like and it has its own

its own its own English, really.

And you can't really alter it.

Whereas in normal, everyday English, that's a different thing altogether.

Is that what you mean?

Yes. When we talk about professional and, informal,

or maybe everyday English and professional English,

quite often you have specific word

that are used in various fields and you are right, a good example

that science is a good one.

So maybe something where particular words are used

so that would be professional or something

that is used in a certain type of work or a certain field

law would be another law in law is in the courts solicitors.

Certainly the way it's written, there are certain

procedures and different ways of writing things.

And yes, and a lot of Latin is used in law

and quite often also in medicine as well

as So when we talk about parts of the body, many of those have derived

from from old languages early languages,

and they've just been adapted into English.

So when we talk about something formal, we are talking about something

that also would be the correct thing to do at a certain time.

For example, if you are writing a letter to someone

you normally do it

in formal writing,

especially if you are doing something such as applying for a job,

something where you need to be

very precise with what you are saying or what you are writing.

So in that situation, if you are approaching someone

and you are inquiring about a job,

perhaps you have to use different types

of English, formal English, nothing informal,

no slang, no abbreviations.

Quite often you have to use formal English.

So I would say that is the line

that divides those different types of English professional.

And every day, every day be every anything.

Just natural ways of speaking slang,

abbreviations, things that we will be looking

at a little bit later on. Yes.

As you say, if you're applying for a job, if you're writing to a customer,

if you are writing to a solicitor,

or if a solicitor is writing to you or an estate agent,

then it's going to be written, as you say, in a formal way,

using as much correct?

Grammar.

Certainly correct grammar would be important

and certain phrases that you would use values.

You always end the letter. Don't your business letter yours.

If you say Dear sir, you will say yours sincerely afterwards.

This is what my always told me.

If you put Dear sir, then it's

yours sincerely at the end.

That's formal writing. Yes, of you.

But the name of somebody and you can say yours

faithfully, can't you.

You, it's that's formal writing.

Whereas you wouldn't say that if you were writing to a friend for example.

I mean does anyone write to friends anymore.

I don't know because

we text now. Don't we.

Yes. With formal writing, with it with a pen is very much going out of fashion

as we had a discussion with some friends of ours only last week.

Yes So I think traditional, traditional ways of

of writing or communicating, they still exist.

But I think more and more as time has gone on,

it is more of a professional field rather than everyday use.

However, I still think there are situation ones

where you should always be aware of writing formally.

If you are doing something where your first impression is important, especially

if all they have is a piece of paper or an email, that's all they have to judge you on.

So you have to make sure you wait.

You the right impression from the start.

Choose your words carefully can sometimes get you

so you know, if you're doing if you're writing formally because as you say,

you've got it there, you would say Dear sir or dear

madam or dear Mr.

or Mrs.

Smith. Well, no wonder the name follows.

And then you would put at the end yours faithfully or yours sincerely.

I don't know what you would say in your country's watching.

So here are some examples.

Steve.

Okay, so formally

you have Hello.

So, hello is I would say that is formal.

So if you greet someone, you say hello.

However, maybe informal would be.

Hi there.

Hi there.

So you wouldn't go for a job interview and say hi there

you would say hello. Hello.

Hello. Good to meet you.

Nice to meet you. Hello.

And you introduce yourself and say hello.

And you wouldn't use their first name if you hadn't met enough.

Or you would.

And you may.

Maybe also we might say sir or madam.

So for a man, sir.

Hello, sir.

Or for a lady.

Hello, madam. Madam, Can I help you, sir?

Can I help you?

They use a Latin America.

They? Yes. As a form of respect.

And then we.

And then we have the other.

The opposite. Which would be. Mate.

All right, mate.

Hello, mate.

Hello, mate.

Hello, mate. Well, you all right, mate?

Nice to see you, mate.

So quite often we will use that informally.

That is not formal.

And of course, maybe if we see a lady or young

a young lady, we might say, Girl, Hey, girl.

Hey, girl,

you is hot.

No, don't say that.

If you're going for a job interview, definitely don't say you write an email to somebody and it starts.

Dear Mrs.

Smith or Dear Madam, then you know

it's formal writing.

If you know them most.

Dear John de Souza.

So? So. Might even be dear.

Just. Hi. Yes.

So there is a definite difference between those two things.

Things that are are formal

and things that might be informal.

Hello. Hi there.

There is a difference.

There is a difference in tone.

And also it gives a very different impression

of the person using it as well.

Types of words used or the way

a word is used in everyday life.

So when we talk about formal and informal,

we might look at types of words used or the

a word is used in everyday life.

And it is interesting when we look at different words, there are many ways of expressing one thing.

In many ways, however, some of those words might only be used

in certain places, certain parts of the country.

So I will use England as an example.

If you go north, you might hear different

words used to describe certain things.

If you go south, you will hear different words

used to describe different things.

So as you travel around, even though everyone is speaking English,

the use of the words or the way in which they speak

or use English can change.

And that is very subtle.

That is something that changes as you move around.

Of course, we also have accents, which is a completely different thing altogether.

So today we're just looking at the syntax,

we're looking at the use of the sentences

and the words themselves.

So what is real English?

Real English is the root, but There are many variations.

The use of English changes in different parts of a country.

So you might find accents, but also words

used will change as well as you move around.

So is there anything you can think of

straightaway, Steve Maybe a certain word or

type of word that will be used in one place

but not in another, even though that thing is English?

Yeah, I mean, I agree.

Greetings are quite often different in different parts of the country, aren't they?

I mean, you can go to. I think it's London.

Hello, Cock.

that there might use that.

That's a colloquialism.

It's a local area way of greeting somebody.

We've got quite a lot in the West Midlands.

kids, certain phrases

that eat basically 90% or

5% of what somebody might say in a different region you could understand.

And then occasionally there will be these odd phrases that a local or colloquialisms,

as you would say, words or phrases

which aren't used throughout the country,

but you can usually much guess what they mean because of the way they say it.

Okay. Or you might just want to ask, what does that mean?

That's funny.

I'm just after the examples.

First of all, I can't of one.

okay. You don't get off the top of my head.

I remember a few weeks ago we went to Liverpool and a lot of people say,

Kid, I'll kid All right, well, kid, kid,

they will often use kid as a way of greeting.

All right, All right, kid. And I tell a kids,

so maybe a family member they might refer to as are kids.

Yeah. okay.

I d it just means how are you, my child?

Well, maybe just as a greeting to a person they are familiar with as well.

So maybe we would say pal p a l All right, pal.

You're my pal. All right, kid.

Right. Kid with the accent.

All right, all right, kid.

So that would be a colloquial way of saying hello

or asking if someone is all right.

So it is interesting to note that those things can change

as you move around the country.

Here's an interesting question from Giovani.

If I met along the street

when I'm walking a stranger,

what?

How should I greet them?

Well, maybe.

Maybe not speaking to them at all

would be a good idea because it is a retreat these days.

It's often the wisest option.

I think if I if you in the UK, if you just meet somebody and I don't know,

you end up talking to somebody, you might just say hi or hello.

Yeah.

Or if it was a

if you were in Liverpool, he might say something that Mr.

Duncan just said.

But yeah, you would just say hi, you know, if they got a dog they were walking a dog or something.

And the, and this, this, this point happened where

some conversation started. Hi.

nice to meet you.

Who are you? Yes, you might be.

You might be a group of you, two or three of you walking and you come across another group.

hi. Wasn't it lovely weather today and.

hello.

And then afterwards you would, you might say.

nice to meet you. Yes, have a good day.

Well, we find that, but just would be fine. That's it.

We find that quite often, don't we Steve, when we're at walking.

So we will walk.

And then maybe one or two people are coming.

The other way opposite towards us. They are.

And sometimes we will say hi.

hello. That's it.

And maybe the

other person or the other people will say hi and that's it.

They were there won't be any other conversation taking place

and that the end of it.

So it's very brief.

Hi. Well, smile.

That's a smile.

Just to let them know that you're not going to attack them.

Yeah, it's basically that's it.

It's sort of acknowledging the existence

of other people without getting too involved.

Of course, we get very and it's very easy to get offended if you go for a walk

and you pass somebody, there's nobody else around

and somebody passes you and they don't acknowledge you.

It's actually,

it's quite an it you take it as rudeness.

Yes, it is, But it is.

but of course, in, in a busy street in London, you're not going to say hello to everybody that you pass.

No, because they would think that there was something with you.

They think you're a bit weird.

I think the general rule in London is you don't look you don't make eye contact.

You don't you don't make any contact with anyone in London.

You just the same in most big cities, you just look,

the more people

are around you, the less you're going to engage with them.

And but if you're out walking in the country and you you come across somebody even in the town,

if they're I would say if we go into much Wenlock,

we're not really going to be acknowledging people as we're going down the street,

even if it's not very busy unless you know them, unless you know the names.

Right. Smile.

You might pick up a nice, you know, and certainly if you're going into a shop

and somebody is coming out and they might hold the door open for you, you might.

Thank you.

I but generally and

but if you're out walking in the country

or a path, a public footpath

where you're not going to see people very often

and then suddenly somebody walks towards you, you would

normally out of

politeness and probably really just to try and

make sure that,

you know, you want to make sure that the people you're coming across aren't going to attack you.

Yeah, it's, it's just a natural thing to I, I just a wave and a smile.

And if they walk past you and completely ignore you, it's very rude.

I take that as a quite offensive.

That's offensive to me, particularly if you've said hello to them

and they don't say hello back.

That's quite offensive.

I mean, they don't have to say hello to you.

But no, I actually find that quite offensive.

If you're in the middle of nowhere, you haven't seen anybody for 10 minutes

and then somebody walks past you and they just

they don't even make eye contact with you.

It annoying. I find that quite rude.

It is.

It is very annoying when that happens.

I'm walking on Steve.

I would say we find that if it's particularly if it's people who live in the towns

and they come to the country, they they won't say hello to you

because they're not used to greeting and saying hello to people.

You live in a city because normally you just ignore people.

That's that's the joke we often make.

You can always tell when someone is is from the town.

Yes, from another town or or a large area because they won't

speak to other people and you know that they're from a city or something like that.

That is the rule.

You never speak to other people.

You never make eye contact.

It's regional accents and local

colloquialisms are often

used as my voice starts to disintegrate.

So many places have their own way

of of speaking using words or of course, accents.

And sometimes the two things come together and quite often

you might find the accents and also the words almost

develop their own personality.

It can happen in certain places.

Liverpool is a very good example because we were there

and whilst I was walking around Liverpool I did hear a lot

of Scouse accents.

Scouse So that is the colloquial term for a person who lives in Liverpool.

Do you know why?

Steve I know I don't suppose you know once

Scouse is a type of meal made with meat,

vegetables, onion and potatoes,

like a big stew, thick stew,

and the name of that is Scouse.

And when potatoes were first introduced

to this country, well, because the port where most of the potatoes were brought

in was Liverpool, a lot of people used potatoes

in their cooking and one particular dish was, I think it was lump

Scouse or loose Scouse, it was the name of the actual dish.

I think it came from somewhere in Europe.

And that particular dish became very popular in Liverpool,

hence the term Scouse.

It is a type of meal, a dish served with meat

and potatoes and lots of vegetables, carrots

normally like a very thick stew so that you get

just going back to what we said earlier, Valentin makes a good point.

You know, if you're sitting in the underground or the subway, it's not a good idea to.

Start smiling and greeting people because you might get beaten up.

They will just they will just think that you are crazy. Yes.

Or beat you up. Yeah. So. Yeah.

So you have to choose the right time in the right place to be pleasant and friendly,

because sometimes being friendly can get you into a lot of trouble.

Palmira said that she remembers that phrase Alright kid,

because relatives not living far.

Liverpool said that the Liverpool accent is

a particularly strong accent, and even for anybody that lives

in the UK, it's a it's one of those accents and you probably have them in your country,

probably in comedy shows or whatever, where

the Scouse or the Liverpool accent is often one that's

I wouldn't go so far to say ridicule, but it's seen

as it's good for comic effects.

Yeah, because the Scouse accent to most people is seen as quite a funny accent,

just like the Midlands accent is.

Whereas the London Scouse

is seen as quite an aggressive accent, like the London accent.

Well, each each accent seems to have its own tag.

Or maybe the type of view that people have of it.

So the Scouse accent, the Liverpool accent might be seen as a little bit aggressive.

Yeah. Where is the Birmingham accent?

Well, I think a lot of people misinterpret that

as a person being a bit stupid,

which of course is unfair and not accurate.

I want to know because if it's tone whether I have another one.

Steve Yes, so we have, we have other accents like very,

very far down south Cornwall,

a very gentle accent, but very sort of welcoming and warm.

So each accent does kind of

have its own theme or its own tag

that people associate when they hear that accent.

Liverpool, a little bit aggressive.

Birmingham, a little stupid.

Not true, though.

I just want to make that clear. It's not true.

But that is what people tend to think.

And then you go down south Cornwall, everyone is friendly

and polite and quite, quite humble and homely.

So well, it's just the impression the accent gives soon.

It's not necessarily true, of course, but it's just the impression that the accent gives.

London accent is quite an aggressive accent. Cockney.

A Cockney accent is a is an aggressive accent.

You always think of gangsters. Yes.

And it sounds aggressive.

So you must be very interested, actually, to know about accents

in in your particular country, in France and Italy, Spain, Portugal,

whether you have, say, comedy programmes where dial backs

or accents from different parts of the country are often used in sort of comedy shows

as as a source of comedy where everybody else will laugh at that particular accent.

Because certainly in the UK, if you want a comic effect,

if you want somebody to sound funny, just give them a regional accent.

Yeah, and put them in a comedy show and people will laugh just at the accent.

Yeah, we're of course, the other one is what people do for comedy.

To make a person laugh is to use the accent whilst speaking English.

So maybe you have a French accent, but you are speaking English.

Or maybe German. Yes, Italian.

So that also can be a way

of creating humour. But.

But it might be unfair, but it can also be very amusing

at the same time, as long as it's done in a fun way.

I think that is the most important part because it's because you don't want to insult people.

No, but of course now it is becoming very difficult to.

Take the mickey or

take comedy from somebody else's accent,

particularly if they come from certain ethnic groups because it's difficult to being racist.

It's not really the same thing, though, is it?

Well, it's sort of because you don't, you know, accents have

it sort of fuses

over an hour into this sort of everything.

If you try to make fun of somebody's accent

or something in some way, it's often seen

as as as as the wrong thing to do.

Now, comedy is suffering quite a lot.

So because

some great will always stand up and say, you're taking the mickey out

to be the case against, my God, I'm going to make sure I'm a state.

This clearly there is a difference between race

and just the location of a person they live.

So I think that that's that that's the the race.

But it sort of bleeds over as what is what I'm says.

Yes. I'm not disagreeing.

I just will make that clear so we don't get any more complete emails

have complaint emails. Mr..

I always I get I got a few complaints from people.

Yes, of course I do.

People complain something I've said or done.

I was last week I mentioned something about Russia

and I think someone was a little bit offended

by it, were worried, but I was only joking at the time.

So you see it can happen.

So so quite often when you say something, you have to be clear or I have to be clear

because basically it's it's it's my show in I will

I will be the one getting cancelled, unfortunately.

Yes. Correct.

But it is you don't normally mimic a person

who who whose race

defines the way they speak.

I think you have there is there is definitely a line between those two things.

But we used to be I have a son you can make fun of a person from Liverpool,

I suppose, and I think people still do.

People still use accents and make fun of them.

Far less though now, but it's not racial.

I Think when there's a problem.

People now are very, very sensitive and are more sensitive than they used to be.

And people will complain if their accent is.

There's always somebody now

who just can't see comedy for comedy

and and people can't laugh at themselves like they used to be able to,

I don't think is the problem we have in society now.

Our Christina says that we do have comedies

in dialects in Italy.

So that's yeah, that's interesting to know because obviously

we only know from our own

sitcoms or situation comedies where

there'll be somebody in there with a funny accent that we'll all laugh at.

And it's easy to stereotype people.

Of course, as Mr.

Duncan said, if you wanted somebody to sound

thick and stupid, you would give them a midland accent,

which is very unfair, really, because it casts all Midland people in that way.

But I have Steve, I hope our friend Martin isn't watching.

I know, but that is just the way things are.

I mean,

people take Mickey out of my accent sometimes.

I used to go see got what would people would describe as a fairly neutral accent, I think.

I don't really have an accent.

You sound you sound snooty.

But when I grew up, my mother used to speak extremely.

I used to have a very posh accent. I used to speak very.

But of course a lot of people in the UK did have a very used to speak.

What we call the Queen's English, and a lot of people would try even

from not necessarily from rich families,

if you what we often find this autumn,

you often find this quite interesting.

You literally said quite all like,

like the Queen often say that, you know,

and but my parents had very they used to speak like this.

It was all very precise and very, very, very correct.

But they weren't from posh backgrounds.

They were my family.

My both my parents came from very poor backgrounds, but they spoke

with very precise, as you would call, the Queen's English.

Well, we don't we don't call it that now.

We call it our P.

Yes received pronunciation.

You might say that that my accent is a little bit hoppy,

but there is a lot of Stafford in my accent and a lot of people

don't realise that when they're listening to me because they can understand what I'm saying.

They think I'm speaking with a received pronunciation, but I'm not.

A lot of this is actually the Staffordshire area,

and so it is there, It is there.

I do have an accent, definitely, but when I went to school,

I went to school and I'm just saying accents and I've just finished this.

I went to school in Gloucestershire and they said I had a very, very posh.

They used to take the mickey out of me.

Okay.

I was a source of comedy for them with my posh accent.

But we often see a person like that

as being pompous and a bit of an oaf

anyway. Snob.

So we talk about different types

of usage of words, colloquial Realism.

It's a great word.

Colloquialism, colloquialism.

If you look at the words, you can get the pronunciation

quite easily from it, but it's still difficult to get your tongue around it.

Yes, you've got a lot of it, a lot of consonants, also a lot of confidence to get in there

to a local colloquialism,

colloquial colloquialism.

There's a bit of a yeah, we have slang as well as slang,

and slang is everyday use of English.

Maybe you changed the use of the word.

Maybe you introduce a brand new word or maybe a word that's used in other ways.

So slang, I always think, is a very interesting part

of any language because it is always changing.

It is always evolving and changing into something else

in formal speech everyday speech.

So when we meet our friends in the street, quite often are English,

or maybe the way we speak in our own native language will be more informal

and laid back local as well.

So maybe a local accent or a local dialect

or a way of of saying a particular thing.

So here are some examples, Steve one thing,

but but many ways of describing it and I will show you on the screen right now.

So we have a child,

child, a young person, a child,

so it can be a boy or young girl child.

And then of course we have ban.

Ban is often used in Scotland.

So when people speak to a child,

they see little bear and what is who is that?

We ban we mean small

so quite often in Scottish, in the Scottish accent or the Scottish dialect,

they will speak in English, they will use these particular words.

They have crept into English Ban means child.

And then we have Nipper

and little nipper

that is often used.

I think it's around Lancashire and that part of the country,

Northern England, Lancashire around that, that area.

I think quite often they will say Nipper as you would do.

That's a slang word for a child isn't it.

A slang word, just an alternative word

that isn't proper English, as you would say. Yes.

So we will often talk about a little nipper or a nipper.

The next door neighbour's nipper keeps kicking his football

over my house or over my garden fence or kid would be another one, wouldn't it?

That's that's like saying that's it.

So how's your kid Nipper?

Nipper.

Ban child which is the formal use.

So most people will say child or as Steve just said, as you just said.

So kid Kids, How are your kids?

That's a slang word for children. Yes.

So another one is Kitty Wink, wink.

Hello, Kitty winks.

Hi, Kitty winks.

Maybe if you're talking to a group of young children,

maybe you are going into a class or a school where there are lots of young children.

Hi, Kitty. Winks.

You are saying hello to the children.

It's a great expression.

It is informal.

Also another one.

I like this.

Lots, lots of parents will refer to their children

as ankle biters.

I love that one. That's great.

I've never heard of that.

Mr. Silk, where have you been, Steve?

Never heard in the whole of my life.

I've never heard that expression before.

You've never heard of ankle biter?

Nope. No. Okay,

There's another one.

Curtain crawler as well.

Another one curtain crawler.

Because apparently children like to hold onto the curtains

and try to climb up the sink, crawl or curtain climber.

But ankle biter is great because you could imagine a child going around

and they are they're not very tall and they normally get up to all sorts of mischief.

They will do bad things.

Maybe they will bite the ankles of their parents.

So an ankle biter is a firm expression for a child.

Spragg is another one.

Steve, you must have heard of that one.

yes. Prog.

That's a sort of disingenuous way to describe a child.

I would say that as is your next one as well.

You can say Kid and Nipper

are sort of fairly neutral ways of describing a child

if you start using words like frog and brat.

Yeah, what a brat.

Well, we'll come onto that one, but especially because

Strong

Sprung is informal, but also it might mean baby as well.

Or you might be asking someone if they have any children.

So do you have any sprouts?

But do you have do you have any sprigs?

How many sprigs If you got they might just be offspring,

children and yes, you'd be safer with kids

if you use the words sprung a DG refers.

It's a bit of a almost an insult.

Are you sprigs?

You know, it's almost an insult.

You're not really showing

very much respect to the parent if you just if you refer to their children as sprung.

It's quite dismissive.

Yes, it's very dismissive, not showing very much respect as if you use the next word, Brat.

The next one is brilliant, isn't it?

Now, we've all seen we've all been

in situations where we've had to deal with a little brat.

I remember the time we

went to Turkey Steve, we went to a place

and the reason why we went there is because it said no children.

There are no children guaranteed at this particular place

because we want to go there and have peace and quiet and not have screaming children around us.

And we got there and there was one family and they they had with them

their little kid, a girl.

And she was a little brat.

She kept trying to get attention by,

making lots of noise and doing all sorts of things.

She she wanted to be the centre of attention because I think

her parents spoilt her.

They gave her everything she wanted, so she loved the attention

and she was a real rest.

So that means normally we the word brat

to mean a spoilt child or maybe a child

who always expects everything to be given to them misbehaving.

A misbehaving child, particularly in public where there's other people around.

I do remember that I was I was terrible.

That kid really did deserve a little.

Yes, because she was so naughty.

She did bringing the cutlery together.

She did it on purpose. Yes.

She was doing Jews seeking.

And her father wouldn't wouldn't, wouldn't stop her doing it

because he knew if he did, she would start screaming and shouting.

Yes, there was spoilt child.

In fact, Steve, I would go one step further and say they were encouraging her to do it.

Some parents do do that.

They encourage their children to be just rude, just rudely.

Is I word this ruling now unruly, unruly

or disruptive, disruptive or unruly because they like the attention themselves

just as when people go out to restaurants and take their dogs with them,

they or their pets.

And in fact, I had they want the attention.

Somebody the other day went on a train journey.

A colleague of mine was going to a work meeting,

a two hour train journey, and he sat down

and was horrified to see that the lady opposite had two cats with her

on the train, which I didn't think was allowed, but,

you know, proceeded to pretty much ruin.

I didn't think you could take cats.

You can take animals on a train.

Yeah, but I didn't think you could sit opposite other people with animals.

But I think, well,

when I used to commute a lot, there was always dogs.

There would always be a dog somewhere on the train, normally

making lots of noise or just just annoyed because it had to stay on the train.

It didn't want to.

So so I don't I don't know.

I don't I don't think there was a rule bringing animals onto a train.

Especially, of course, if you're blind, you might have a guide dog.

Yes, well, maybe a guide cat, maybe, maybe that's a real thing nowadays.

Maybe we have guide cats that can take you along

and you just follow the sound of their purring.

I guess a spoilt brat says Louis, is

we all know what a spoilt brat is when we see one.

Yes, it's an attention child.

It disrupts everything and everyone around them.

They are the worst. Here we go. Steve.

Informal English can change the form of a word, but not the meaning

so quite often we will change the word the way we say it.

Or maybe there will be a different pronunciation

and quite often a different spelling as well.

So here are some examples of that.

Coulda, coulda.

We often hear this in song.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda, coulda could have.

So when a person says I could have, I could have been someone

I could have, I could have been a successful life streamer.

I could have been a big Internet influencer.

I could I could have or of course, should have.

I should have.

I should have been more caring.

I should be more, say, more money should have,

should have, should have,

should have.

Coulda could have.

Yes, of course we have. Woulda.

We've got to go through these quite quickly, I'm afraid, because we are four,

3 minutes away from the end. Yes, it's going fast.

Woulda would have I would have

I woulda higher is another one.

Yes, higher.

Yeah.

My parents my parents used to hate that phrase. Hi.

Hello. Hello there. Hi.

Yeah, I used to hate that.

Here we go. Another one. Gonna.

I'm going to.

I'm going to write a letter to my friend.

I'm going to. I'm going to see you tomorrow.

I'm going to going to go.

Then I'm going to.

I'm going to see you tomorrow.

I'm going to.

I'm going to see you on Wednesday on the live chat.

Want to I want to I want to see you tomorrow.

I want to see you on Wednesday.

I want a glass of milk.

Yes, I want to of course.

What these are is just easy ways of saying things.

It's a shortcut.

It's it's much harder to say.

I want to go to the shops.

I want to go to the shops is much easier.

Some people might say it's lazy, lazy, lazy English.

Yeah, but this has crept into a lot of types of ways of speaking English at the moment.

You will often hear now there is a type of London

speech of the English accent

or an English accent, which has it's kind of derived

from the London accent, but it's also

it also contains other elements as well.

So maybe from street culture as well.

So the modern way of using English has changed a lot, especially with young people.

I'm not criticising because English always changes.

Yeah, during my life there have been many new English words

English slang, English ways

of pronouncing words or using words.

So it's always evolving.

And that's the reason why I like English so much.

Inaki makes a good point here very quickly.

Are these abbreviations used in written English?

No, they might in in a text message.

Yes, you might not.

Not in formal English, but very relaxed, everyday English.

So you might use them, as Steve says in a SMS messages.

Text messages.

Gotcha. Is it that Christina says got I got to go to?

Yeah. There's nothing good in a rap song

that's probably derived from American Aziz.

Aziz says that we do have these colloquialisms

in Arab English in Arab countries as well.

Most in Arab countries has its colloquial language beside the formal Arabic.

So yeah, it's good to know that other countries do have this as well.

Yes, it also means thanks for that.

Well, I know from my experiences of living in China

that there are regional accents

and and that used to happen in China

where people would look down on certain accents.

So maybe people who lived in the countryside or rural areas

their way of speaking Chinese

or the way they use certain words was different

and other people would make fun of of those particular

they would say that they were uneducated or a little a little stupid.

But of course the reality was much different.

So we even in China, it happened.

And offensive words quite often offensive words

can still be used in colloquial languages

or local languages because they don't realise they might not even realise that those words

are now offensive.

So when we're talking about race for example, you might find certain words.

I'm not saying any of the words,

but you might go to certain parts of this country and still hear certain words used.

I suppose one of them would be I don't think I don't think this is wrong.

If I say this, even though a lot of people find out,

we'll soon find out if I suddenly disappear.

You'll know why

coloured

you will often travel around the country and you still hear

people talk about anyone who is not white as coloured.

And it doesn't mean that they're being necessarily racist,

but it's just that that local

way of using that particular term.

And I think that is the only one I can use to be honest, without getting disconnected.

Yeah, my, my, my parents used to use that phrase to describe,

let's say, darker skinned people, any non-white, non-white.

But of course, we know now that that actually is offensive to non-white people.

But to us to to a British

white person, certainly my mother, for example, coloured

seemed like a nice way of saying anyway, you know, you wouldn't use

it, but it wasn't offensive.

Just felt to to, you know, if it felt less offensive to use that word.

We know it is offensive, but to us it felt

less offensive, use it and it certainly wasn't meant anyway.

The point the point I'm making is sometimes offensive.

Words could might be used colloquially, but not necessarily in an offensive way.

Yeah, just that that is a game.

Very it's it's very delicate.

Language is delicate.

It is like a little flower growing,

but it doesn't really know where it is growing.

It is just growing wherever it can.

And language is very similar to that.

So it doesn't necessarily mean that something is being said out of spite or hate.

It might just exist as that particular word,

but not always.

Of course, I'm not excusing the use of any bad words at all.

And finally, Steve, finally, the root of all

in formal English derives from the established language.

So when we talk about English as the root, there is only one English,

only one English language.

Not to be confused when we talk about American English, that is also

a slight variation on that one

root, that one English language.

I know I always get into trouble.

A lot of people disagree with me, but they're wrong, basically.

Yes. Yes. Valentine You're correct.

You are correct in what?

I know what you're saying. They're intelligent and. You're right.

But for my mother to use that word felt wrong to her

as it does to and it still feels funny to me.

She said it as well.

She said it even though it was wrong.

She felt wrong doing it. Yes. Well, if for example.

Well, if you feel wrong saying something, why would you say it?

No, I meant for my mother to say coloured.

describe a black.

Keep saying it so we don't have to keep saying it now. I know.

But that felt

my mother

would felt very uncomfortable, as would a lot of people of that generation to use the word black.

Okay.

But we know that, you know, it's just I'm a white person.

Nothing offensive in that.

Okay, Steve, you've got to please stop speaking now.

I'm just this is this is true. I'm not offending anybody.

No, I'm not saying you are offending anyone's hope.

I'm not just about to literally leave.

And now we've just opened a giant can of worms by.

But I think it's a can of worms. It's fine. Anyway. But.

But it is true.

Sometimes you have to be careful what you say in other places.

It might not be offensive.

In others it might be.

And of course it also on your age as well. Yes.

So if you're if you are over 60 or 70, your

your use of language might be a little bit more fruity.

Let's just say yes.

Anyway, it's time to go.

Steve, go.

sorry. I'm just saying time to go. okay.

We we've reached the end of today's live stream.

Have you been nice and comfortable, Steve, In your comfortable corner?

I have.

I must say, Mr.

Duncan, I haven't pointed the new device that you've.

You've you've purchased here.

I don't know if people can see that or.

Well, I'm hoping they can't.

They can't.

It's a little it's a little special device that holds

the the laptop in the perfect angle for me

to be able to look at the live stream without having to strain my neck.

So what I've got to say, I do have to strain to look at the screen.

It's an iPad and iPod.

Did I call it laptop and iPod?

Yes, that's it.

It's just stand basically.

Yes, it's it's a stand that comes across.

It allows me to very comfortably. Yes.

Observe the comments on that.

I you know, I went to so trouble to make sure no one could see that.

And you've just literally explained it in so much detail.

Well, I'm just saying I'm just pointing out that you did a good thing that Mr.

Duncan. I did help helping.

I don't want people to see it, but I'm not saying they can say I'm just.

Let's go. Mr.

Duncan, No one wants to know about my equipment.

No, you're always talking about your equipment.

We're still talking about the same thing.

I'm not sure a can of worms.

Yes, Inaki, that's a good phrase.

Yes, a can of worms is when you talk about something

that has lots of implications and and maybe many effects.

So which is something is let out.

Imagine if you have a can and you open it and all these worms come out

and you have to try and catch them one, you say one thing,

but actually then you're opening up a box that could there

the discussion could go off in all sorts of usually

conflicting and controversial ways.

It's not a box of worms. It's a can.

It's a can of worms. Yep. Of the yeah, it's

yeah it's it's to describe the fact

that a conversation could could take let's say quite a disruptive turn.

Yeah.

It's like if you suddenly start talking about religion or politics that's it.

And you're saying anything that is open for debate might be described

as opening a can of worms where that debate could suddenly get very heated way.

Or, as Mr.

Steve says, a box of worms, a box of access, a can of worms.

Yeah.

Thank you, Steve, for being with us today.

We have enjoyed it almost.

And we will see you next Sunday.

Next Sunday, by the way, is next month

into March.

Already Already into March. Mr. Duncan.

Yes, I know these first few months of the year always go very quickly

don't that January February it was good but spring is on the way.

So there's hope.

There's a rebirth.

There's there's a lovely, nice spring weather to come for us, or at least to us here in most of Europe.

So we look forward to that and I look forward to I will be here next week.

Good as far as I know.

So nice to be here and hope you all learnt something today.

I look forward to seeing you all again next week.

Thank you, Mr.

Steve, for being with us today.

And there he goes. Mr.

Steve is now leaving the building.

I think we're still on.

Are we still on?

Okay, good. I'm glad to hear that.

I love it when. Mr.

Steve leaves the room because everything in here goes up and down

because this this studio is built

literally on cardboard.

So whenever anyone moves in here,

everything goes up and down like that.

Anyway, I'm going now.

I hope you have enjoyed today's live stream.

It has been fun, amongst other things.

Other words I could use also to describe it as well.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for joining me.

It's been a lot of fun being with you today.

This is Mr. Duncan.

Thank you for watching.

Give me a lovely like as well.

If you like this, please give me one of these.

And I might go to bed tonight with a smile on my face.

and of

course, until Wednesday, which is when I'm back with you.

I think it will be the final

live stream of February on Wednesday.

See you then and have a good time.

This is Mr.

Duncan in the birthplace of English, saying Thanks for watching.

See you soon.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and have a good week until we meet again and.

Of course, until the next time we meet right here on YouTube.

You know what's coming next?

Yes, you do.

Stay happy and

ta ta for now...

see you on Wednesday.