English Vocabulary & Phrasal Verbs for strange things we do

Hello.

I'm going to...

I'm going to cook something.

My name's Ronnie, but I need my tongs, and oh, got to make sure they work.

Why do we do that?

When...

When you grab the tongs out of the drawer, which is the thing that you store them in,

why don't we just test them?

What's that?

Like, oh, I think they broke in the drawer overnight, but these are tongs, and...

This lesson is about doing some really crazy, strange things as humans.

I think that you're a human.

Are you a robot?

Hmm?

No?

Okay.

I'm a human, and I do some really weird things.

So, for example, I wear mascara, and every time I put on mascara, I do this.

What?

What?

Okay.

Let me demonstrate.

I'm going to put on mascara, and I always have to open my mouth.

I could do it like this, but I have to do this.

Why do we do that?

Are we eating something?

Are we expecting food to fly in our mouth, or "Ah, ah, ah, I got a biscuit, ah, great"?

No.

No, we're just really kind of strange humans, aren't we?

So ask yourself, why do I do these things?

Why do you open your mouth to put on mascara?

Now, if you actually look at this sentence, "put on" is a phrasal verb.

Oh, you're going to learn some phrasal verbs.

So, a phrasal verb means that there's a verb and a preposition.

So, we put on some kind of makeup.

Put on mascara, put on blush, eyeshadow.

I don't know what you ladies apply, but whatever you're putting on, it looks great.

So "put on" means apply.

Do you drive a car, or have you been in a car?

Yes, we have.

Why?

You're driving along, got the tunes cranked, which means up really high.

You have to find an address.

Even Google Maps says, "You have arrived at your destination, but you got to turn down

the music."

You will never be able to find the address unless you turn the music down.

No.

No.

Your eyes are like, "No, I'm just - I can't see anything until you turn the music down."

It has to work with our delicious brains, and it's about distraction.

I'm telling you the answer why, okay?

If we have too many sounds or too much confusion in our heads, we can't focus on one thing

enough.

So, that's the answer.

That's why we turn down the radio, to find an address.

Why we open our mouth when we put on mascara, kind of opens our eyes more.

Yeah, we're just really strange humans, aren't we?

Let's go to the next one.

"Turn down" is a phrasal verb, so "turn down" something means you decrease, so we turn down

the radio.

We're actually turning down the volume of the radio, but we just say the radio.

It's like, "Take the radio, turn it down" - no, it's not working, so turn down the volume.

I do this.

So, "Turn off the lights when we leave the room."

Now, this is a good habit, okay?

So I'm proud that I do this.

Ronnie's saving energy.

But sometimes there's other people in the room, so I leave the room - total darkness

to the other people.

Oh my god.

"Ronnie, why did you turn off the lights?"

Because I left the room.

Doesn't work like that.

So, be careful.

It's a good habit to get into when you leave the room, turn off the lights.

Just make sure there's no other people enjoying something.

What are you enjoying?

This happens to me every day because I live in a place that has an elevator, and elevators

are quite fascinating, actually.

There's lots of stuff you can do in them, Breno, keep it up.

But you're waiting for the elevator, and the elevator finally comes.

You stand right in front of the elevator door.

The door opens.

Oh my god, and there's people.

What?

There's other people in the elevator already?

And they scare you, like, "How are there people in the elevator?"

The door opens, you look up, people.

Sometimes other people scream, kind of like doing this.

I have a dog, and sometimes a dog comes out first and scares the people, and he's just

a small guy, but people are weird.

So, we never fathom, which means think, that there is another person already in the elevator.

We think the elevator's always empty.

It's always for us.

I called it.

Ding.

Oh, there's another person in the elevator.

Get them out of there.

Here's another phrasal verb, to throw something out, or throw out something.

This means you put it in the garbage.

So, a lot of the times you're making a packet of something, maybe you're making craft dinner

because you're in Canada, or you're cooking something that has instructions.

So, you rip open the box, or the bag, or the package, put the crap in your pot, throw out

the box.

"Oh my god, I have no idea how to cook this, what am I going to do?

How long do I cook it for?

What's the next step?"

You have just thrown out all of the magical answers to the world, right in the garbage.

But why do they put the instructions on the box?

Why not put it inside?

That would help us.

So, throwing out cooking instructions, it's a kind of a stupid thing that we do.

I do this, I really honestly do this to you, pack extra gitch.

Now, let's just find out what these words mean.

Pack, so this means I'm going to go someplace on vacation, or a night trip, or to someplace,

and I need a change of clothes.

Pack means you put the things into your bag, okay?

Extra means more than you need, and gitch apparently is a slang term for underwear.

I've said it my whole life, and it's kind of a cool thing to say now.

Nice gitch.

So, we always, I always pack extra gitch, and I think to myself, I'm going to put these

in just in case I shit myself, because I'm prepared to do that, because it's going to

be a crazy time when I go on a road trip.

But we always do this, we're like, "We need extra underwear."

It's like we think or we prepare yourself for the worst.

Oh, I'm going to get diarrhea if I go to McDonald's, and I'm definitely going to need that extra

underwear for this job interview, so let's put that in my job interview bag.

And then, if you do actually have diarrhea, you're going to have to go to a public washroom.

And most of them have locks, which is fantastic to have a lock on a public bathroom.

And you can say bathroom or washroom, doesn't matter.

Restroom's always weird.

Why are you taking a rest in there?

What are you doing?

Oh, I know what you're doing, okay.

So, in the public washrooms, you knock on the door, and what do you say when you're

in there?

"Hello?

I'll be a second."

So usually you just go, or make a noise or flush the toilet or something.

But then the people check the door, and they check it again and again.

It's like, maybe it's locked, maybe it's not locked, maybe it's just broken, maybe...

No, there's somebody in here.

And it's always uncomfortable when you're going to the bathroom, like, "I have to go

faster because somebody's waiting."

Yeah, it's just weird.

Just...

We should have, like, an alarm or something, "Someone is in the bathroom.

Please step away from the door until I am ready to come out."

I don't know how we're going to get around this one, but knocking, "Hello?

Occupied.

Somebody's in here."

I don't know what's going to go there.

Do you have problems understanding people when they talk to you?

I do, and I'm a native English speaker, and sometimes people speak to me in my native

language and I just don't understand them.

And I do this, "Yeah, yeah."

I have no idea what they're saying to me.

I'm sure that happens to you if you're learning English.

But we just kind of nod and say "yes" and smile.

And they could be telling us anything, really.

"Oh, my ten children just died in an avalanche."

"Yeah."

And then what if they ask you questions?

And so, what do you think about that?

"Yeah."

If you don't understand the person, just say to them, "Ah, sorry, I didn't get that" or

"I don't understand that".

Don't just nod.

You can get yourself into a lot of trouble.

"Yeah, be careful."

If you don't understand something, ask the person, "Did you just say ten kids?

Oh, no.

Okay, good."

This is fun.

So, maybe you're waiting at an elevator or at the stoplight, and there's a big button

that you get to press, okay?

You know if you press a button one time, it's going to do its job, it's going to do its

function.

So, press the elevator button once, the elevator's like "ding", I'm coming to get you, but be

careful, there's other people in here.

Or you're at the stoplight and people press the button many, many, many times.

So yeah, do you know what?

If you press a button, it does actually make the light change faster, and it does make

the elevator come faster.

So please press it as many times as you want, and the faster you press it and the more times

you press it, it's going to work faster.

I promise, try it.

Oh, it's here.

Oh, there's people in there, wow, what happened there?

Surprise.

Sometimes I do this, you get into the elevator, there's another person.

How awkward.

Now, in our crazy world of coronavirus, we're only allowed to have one other person in the

elevator with us, yes.

So it's not as awkward, but you're still like "What do I say, where do I look, where do

I put my eyes?

Oh, damn, I can look at the little lights as they light up."

Now, my building's quite modern, and we don't have the little lights across the top, we

have a number plate, digital, two, three, four, it doesn't talk, but we always look

at this.

We just stare at that, we could look at our shoes, that would be better, but we always

stare at the numbers.

You could look at the person, well, don't look at the people, they'll think that you're

weird, especially with your mask, then you try and talk to them, they're like "Oh, just

shut up", and stare at the numbers.

It'll work great.

And then, oh, the other person's off the elevator, then we can look anywhere we want, we can

"Ah, yeah, how's my hair, huh, where's my shoes?", we can do that.

One time, I was doing something, and I had no idea where my glasses were, okay?

And I was...

I know I had my sunglasses, I know that I put them someplace, and I looked in my car,

I got out, looked around, see, ah, they're on my head.

So, I know, I put lots of things on my head, it's my new storage compartment, but why do

you always forget this?

You know they're there, you look in the mirror, like "Nope, not there."

This one is a terrible habit that we have, okay?

When we click on ads, so this means with your mouse, which is weird, it's a mouse, not a

dog, or a rat, or a cat, it's a mouse, and we're looking at something, and we don't want

this ad there, but they do this on purpose.

There's a little tiny X, you can't see the X, but it's tiny, "Bollocks, I just clicked

on the ad", and that adds an extra, like, three seconds before you actually get to watch

my next YouTube video, and you have to wait that three seconds, or one minute even, "Oh,

after the ads, don't click on the ads", you go, "Oh, I clicked on the ads again", it's

human habit.

So, here's another phrasal verb.

I can click on something.

Now, this means that I press my mouse button, if you have a mouse.

I can click on something means I press it.

Do we have any other phrasal verbs we can find?

What about "look for", okay?

If I look for something, it means I search.

"Oh, oh, I just have no idea where my glasses are", so search is too formal.

We're not going to say, "I am searching for my sunglasses", we search in a more public

thing for missing children, or things that are missing, but in a public realm, we can

search for those.

We can stare at something, yep, that was long enough, you stare at something.

Press the button many times, that's not a phrasal verb.

Say yes or no, pack rest in your throat, oh, that's it.

Those are all the phrasal verbs for today, ladies and gentlemen.

So, the next time you take an elevator, press the button many, many, many, many, many, many

times, you'll get to your destination faster.

If you're at the stoplights, press that button.

If you do it 100 times, it changes right away, I promise, try it.

And enjoy the crazy things that we do being humans.

Till next time, I'm going to go wrangle up some cowboys.