The 7 Meanings of “DROP” in English

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think...

Yeah, probably. Okay. Yeah. Hello? Hello?

What just happened? Hello? Oh, god. Don't

you hate when that happens? All of a sudden,

the person I was talking to just... They're not there anymore. In English, we say that

the call dropped. So, this literally doesn't

mean that I dropped something, although I

did. This word "drop" in slang has a few meanings.

Let's go through them. Let's learn some slang.

You probably know to drop something means you hold it, just like I did with my phone.

I hope it's okay. And if you drop something,

so you let go, and something falls. And this

is usually a mistake. We don't want to drop the things, just like I dropped my phone.

There's a difference between making something,

something falling, and something dropping.

So, if something falls, it's like... But if

something drops, it's a mistake. But in slang,

we've got some crazy new meanings for you.

Maybe you've heard something like, "Oh, hey,

Ronnie's new video on YouTube is going to drop tomorrow." And you're like, "Oh, hold

on. Why is Ronnie dropping things? Is YouTube

okay? Why are things dropping?" But it doesn't

mean that I'm letting them go when they fall.

This means something is being released. If

you listen to the radio, which is a good idea

to help with your English listening skills,

you'll hear the DJ say, "Oh, the new album

by Spongebob Trot is going to drop tomorrow."

And you think, "Oh, don't drop it. It's going

to break." They're just going to release it.

So we can drop things like new products. Maybe

you have a favourite brand or designer, and

they're going to drop or release a new shoe

or a new line of clothing. "Oh, this perfume

company's going to drop a new scent for the

fall." Okay, cool. It doesn't mean that they're,

you know... Oops. It means they're releasing it, so I have a new marker.

Number five, if you release a new album or

single-which means just one song-or a product,

people would say, "Ronnie will drop her new

video on YouTube." Notice that I'm using the

simple future. We can use simple future, or we can also talk about the past when we

use this, because slang, it's what you want

it to be. It can be past, it can be present,

it can be future. It's up to you. So, "Ronnie

will drop her new video on YouTube" means

I'm going to release it.

Let's go on with some more examples of dropping.

If you're fighting, bam, you knock someone

over, we would say, "He dropped Kevin with

one hit." So this means she or he's fighting

against Kevin, one hit, and Kevin, bonk, he drops. He kind of just passes out and falls

to the ground. "Kevin, need to do some more

exercises. Get up there. Get up again, Kevin.

Let's go." This is really popular. I hear this

all the time in movies when I'm eavesdropping

on people's conversation. "Eavesdropping" means

I'm listening in to other people's conversations.

I like to do this. If I go someplace and there's

other people around, I will sit silently,

observe or watch, and listen to what other people

are talking about. This is called eavesdropping.

So, I'll hear people say, "Yeah, you know

what? I'm going to drop a grand on this shirt."

So, if you drop money on someone... On a shirt,

it means you're going to spend a lot of money.

Now, here's another little slang tip, here. "A grand" actually means, and I don't know

why, 1,000 smackeroonies, $1,000. So, if someone says, "I'm going to drop a grand on

this shirt", it means I'm going to spend $1,000

on a shirt. This happens. If you want to drop

a grand or two, you can drop it on www.engvid.com.

Give it to me. I'm not going to buy your shirt.

Okay? And do you see this? This is weird, right?

"I'm gonna", what is this? This is slang, too.

When we talk about the future, we have the simple future will, we also have the verb

"to be" with "going to", but we don't say,

"I'm going to drop a grand on this new shirt."

We say, "I'm gonna", and this, in the long form, is "I am going to", and we squeeze it

all together and speak really quickly and say

"gonna". "I'm gonna drop a grand." Whoops,

better pick it up. No, no, give it to me,

give it to me. So, I'm going to drop a grand

on this new shirt. Spend a lot of money.

Okay, next one. Uh-oh. Oh, no, take drugs. Wow, bad people out there. If you're going

to take drugs, example, acid, which is LSD,

or ecstasy, I don't know what drugs you people

are doing. Whatever drugs you're doing, instead

of saying "take", you can now be super cool

and say "drop". So, for example, I could call

my friend and go, "Hey, let's drop acid tomorrow

at work", and your friend's like, "Great idea,

Ronnie. You know I've got a presentation,

but let's do it on acid. Let's drop some E tomorrow before we go to the club." I don't

know if people still do E, but whatever. Don't...

Don't do chemicals. Okay? Yeah, I'm your mom.

Give me advice. Oh, this is a bad one. If

somebody says "yeah", okay. Uh-oh. "The label

dropped them." Again, it doesn't mean that

they fell. It means that the label ended the

relationship or the contract with them. You

can also use it for friends, right? So, whoa,

ow. I'm dying. Someone call 911. I just stepped

on something. Everything's fine. To end a

like I didn't exist. It just means he... He ended the friendship. Just like, "Bye-bye,

Ronnie. Oh, see ya. Bye-bye." We already went

through this. Release a new album, single

or product. "Nike's going to drop the latest

shoe tomorrow", on your head. And as I said

at the beginning of the lesson when I was talking to my imaginary friend, if you lose

a phone connection, so, "Oh, I don't know what happened. The call just dropped." Just

"Hello? Hello? Not there." So, slang can be

crazy in English. There's already... There's

always new slang being creative. It's hard to

learn everything, but hopefully these little...

Six little phrases will help you, and I hope

that you've got lots of money to drop on English

classes with me. You can hit me up at englishwithronnie.com,

drop a grand, learn some English with me.

Till then, I'll talk to you later. Don't drop anything. Ow.