Are You Using These 7 Words Incorrectly?

well hello there I'm Drew Badger and

hopefully you are here seeking knowledge

about how to express yourself in a more

intelligent and beautiful way anyway

in this video we're going to cover seven

words that people commonly misused and

hopefully get you to use them correctly

let's begin the first word is Peru and

this is something I've often used

incorrectly myself when you're thinking

about perusing a book the idea of people

typically have is that you're looking

through something very quickly on going

to peruse this book in two minutes and

take a look at it and then look at

something else but the meaning of Peru's

is actually is the opposite

so you want to prove something it means

to carefully looking through carefully

look through something you really want

to look through what you want to linger

through the book to peruse that

particular things i'm perusing an

article on perusing a book i'm looking

through it and giving it my sole

attention to peruse peruse now this next

one is just something i thought i would

throw into the lesson because it's a

common thing that native speakers

misused but it's also just a fun

interesting fact and this is the word

peacock peacock now peacock is actually

the word for the male of a species of P

foul and soapy foul is the name of the

kind of bird that peacock is just the

mail if you're looking at a female you

would say oh that's a beautiful p him a

peahen just like a chicken

we've got a hen and a rooster we've also

got a peacock and AP hand but the two

are in the species of bird called a

peafowl peafowl next door to it is 42 it

is

listen carefully to how this plans 42 it

is 42 with it so it's 42 we kiss you can

pronounce it like that people say it

quickly and blend it in a conversation

for to it is fortuitous now it sounds

like fortune so people often think that

it may be describing something that's

very lucky

so I was a very fortuitous thing that my

friend came in and gave me like some

lucky singer gave me a whole bunch of

money or something like that

now it might mean something that's lucky

but fortuitous just means something that

happens by accident so it was like a

very fortuitous thing that I was outside

and maybe I had an umbrella

it started to rain so in that sense it

happens to be a lucky thing like it's

fortunate for me but we're only

describing fortuitous or only using the

word fortuitous to describe maybe do

something that's like a coincidence that

happened that time for to it is 42 it is

next we have a word that's really abused

and overused and used incorrectly

especially by younger native English

speakers so as a learner be careful that

you don't make these mistakes as well so

this is literally now listen carefully

to the pronunciation of this litter

relief the pronunciation really we could

say literally literally but the

pronunciation becomes literally

literally literally listen carefully

i'll say it really slowly literally

literally literally literally literally

now what people use it for their saying

that you're kind of using it for

emphasis young kids will say like wow

it's like it was literally 200 degrees

outside

it was literally 200 degrees outside

when maybe the temperature was 80

degrees or something like that so this

is an incorrect use of the word

literally now people are often using it

again they're using it for emphasis and

trying to plow is literally freezing

cold outside maybe with 60 degrees or

something that someone sells a little

bit cold but they're describing it

they're trying to emphasize the

situation by saying literally now the

actual meaning the actual the real

meaning of literally is that it's

something that's real so if you say oh

it's literally 200 degrees outside then

it better be 200 degrees outside

so when you're talking about something

if you want to use literally and use it

correctly you're having to describe

something like he was literally eight

feet tall means like the person was

actually a tweet all when you saw not

like seven foot to or whatever so again

you're talking about literally and you

can use it that way your kind of

emphasizing something but you have to be

describing something that's actually

true literally literally next another

commonly misused word in Normandy

enormity and again we've got that tea in

the word enormity it becomes more of a

decent it almost disappears enormity in

Normandy

in Normandy now in Normandy sounds like

enormous so people think about really

must be a huge thing like it the

enormity of Godzilla or something but

we're not talking about something like

that the correct meaning of it is

actually something that I like very

serious so we're talking about the

enormity of the situation like many

people were killed in some violent

attack the enormity of the situation was

really surprising to people so it was a

very serious very important or big thing

and that's why we would use in normandy

in this way but we're not talking about

the physical size of something being big

if you're talking about that you can

actually just use the word enormous

enormous next we've got two words and

these are really working together in

conversations a lot

the first one is sarcasm and the second

one is irony irony

now people often whether your native

speaker and non-native speaker but

typically non-native speakers as well

because especially if they come from

cultures where maybe sarcasm isn't may

be such like an important their common

thing in everyday situations the idea of

sarcasm really is just where you're

saying one thing but kind of having the

opposite meaning of that as an example i

look at my friend and say well that's a

great outfit but I really think it looks

ugly so I'm saying one thing but by the

tone of my voice you can hear me being

sarcastic often some people that use

sarcastic sarcastic remarks are they use

sarcasm a lot in conversations they have

trouble maybe expressing themselves

correctly because they will say a

sarcastic thing but in a straight way

like oh that's an ugly suit or maybe

that's a beautiful suit but I actually

mean the opposite of that I'm saying one

thing like wow that's a really beautiful

suit

it sounds like I'm being sincere I'm not

being sarcastic but i am actually

expressing something if you say oh

really do you really like the soon as

they know it looks awful

now that's a really mean thing to say to

somebody but again I'm using sarcasm and

this is just typically you would use it

with people in a friendly way people

that you know quite well that sarcasm

now ironies is a related thing with this

is usually the opposite of the the thing

you were expecting

i'll give you just a quick story about

irony from my own life back when i was

in college i was at a in a dorm room

that was above a cafeteria and I was up

there just like with some friends of

mine and we all walk down for dinner and

we're waiting in line and I see the sign

on the door that says like you have to

have a shirt and shoes in order to come

into the dining hall and I started

looking at that I and i pointed out the

side I told everybody I was like

everybody look at this sign over here

what idiot would come down here without

like shoes on like what idiot would go

in there could you often see these signs

in front of restaurants to like if you

go into mcdonalds it will say no shirt

no shoes no service so you have to

actually be wearing clothing and shoes

but this makes sense because most people

would not walk into McDonald's with know

what maybe some people would I don't

know but but in the case of the

cafeterias on pointing out this time

saying what idiot would do that and then

I look down I remember I had no shoes on

so I was the idiot so that's irony right

there where something kind of the

opposite is up is affecting me or the

opposite of whatever whatever the

expectation is so that's irony and our

last one is notoriously notorious for

you often hear it kind of set is

notoriously negatory asst like the

notorious killer notorious now it

doesn't necessarily mean just like

famous like what he's like a notorious

actor the idea of notorious means that

something evil or bad or may be

dangerous so in victorious gangster

means like famous for doing something

you know stupid or doing something bad

so you wouldn't talk about like a famous

actor unless they did something bad you

wouldn't call them a notorious person

but you would call them like notorious

if they're famous for doing something

bad you got both of these they're like

the famous plus having done something or

being known for some kind of negative

reason

well that's it for this lesson if you

have enjoyed it do click that like

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YouTube channel and try using these

incorrect sentences of the correct way

in the comments section below if you

don't practice you won't improve and

we'll just have always been our time

here so go down below try at least one

of these and try using it correctly in a

sentence like i was perusing the book

for 25 minutes or something like that

don't type that one but you know just

try to use something interesting just to

show that you remain

what you're learning here and finally if

you'd like to learn more about how you

can improve not only to use grammar

correctly but for all of the other

habits you need to develop in order to

become a continent successful English

speaker click on the link in this video

to take our free english fluency quiz it

will tell you exactly what you need to

focus on for your particular situation

and i look forward to helping you with

that absolutely free at English anyone

dot-com have a fantastic day and I will

see you in the next video bye bye