Strange English Phrases We Actually Use! English Idioms and Sayings!

So I have my scissors and I think I'll go for a run.

Hey! What?

Don't run with scissors! Ah right.

We have this phrase in English don't run with scissors,

which simply means you shouldn't run when you have scissors

because it's a little bit dangerous.

But we have a bunch of other phrases

that when you first read them at first glance,

you might not know what they mean.

When you translate them literally,

they might not make sense.

So in this English lesson,

we'll look at a few of those phrases.

I'll try to act out the funny literal meaning

and then I will explain to you what the actual meaning is

of each of those phrases in English

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Oscar, fetch!

We have a saying in English

you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

And it doesn't mean

that you can't teach a dog like Oscar new tricks.

What it actually means is you can't teach people

who are old, how to do new things.

It's hard to teach someone who real likes

doing something a certain way to do it a new way.

So we use the English phrase

you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

But this dog, this might be a little easier.

Here, bud.

This is Walter.

This is a new dog.

And we think we might be able to teach this new dog

some new tricks.

By the way, we thought Oscar needed a friend,

so we got another dog.

No one can sit on this side of the couch

because of this couch potato.

This potato is just always sitting on the couch,

doing nothing.

It's a real couch potato.

But that's not actually what the term couch potato means

in English.

In English, when we say that a person is a couch potato,

what we mean is that the person sits on the couch all day.

They don't really do anything.

Maybe they just sit and endlessly watch

one television show after another.

Maybe they're a little bit lazy.

We would call that person a couch potato.

I'm definitely not a couch potato,

but when I'm old and retired,

I think I might be more of a couch potato.

I might sit around a lot more

and I might watch a lot more television.

So earlier, I was doing some thinking

inside this box and it wasn't going very well,

so I thought I should stop and think outside the box.

So now I'm outside the box

and I'll do a little bit more thinking.

But the English phrase to think outside the box

has nothing to do with the box.

We don't sit in boxes when we think.

We don't sit outside boxes.

What it means when you say to someone

you need to think outside the box

is it means you want them to think differently

about something.

Let's use school for an example.

Right now, students learn in classrooms

and they sit in rows.

But if we think outside the box,

students could also learn by watching YouTube videos,

or maybe by going outside or going on field trips.

So when you think outside the box,

if at work, your boss says,

"You need to think outside the box a little bit more,"

what they mean by that

is they want you to have unique and different ideas.

They want you to think about things differently

and come up with something that's just really cool

and really awesome.

So I'm just trying to hold my horses right now.

I don't want my horses to get away.

So I'm trying to hold my horses.

But this isn't what the English phrase

hold your horses actually means.

If someone says to you, "Hold your horses,"

they just want you to wait.

Sometimes when we're going somewhere,

my kids all run out to the car really fast

and I say, "Whoa, hold your horses!

We're not leaving for another 10 minutes."

So it doesn't mean to hold an actual horse.

It simply is something you say to someone

when you want them to wait,

when you want them to slow down a little bit.

Whoa, hold your horses.

There.

I have all my ducks in a row.

I like to have all my ducks in a nice straight row.

But this isn't actually what the phrase

to have your ducks in a row means.

When we say in English

that you should have your ducks in a row,

it means that you should be prepared or ready for something.

Let's say it's the first day of school.

You should have your ducks in a row.

You should have your backpack and your books

and a few pens and things to write with.

You should be ready.

You should be prepared for the first day of school.

You should definitely have all your ducks in a row.

Sometimes when you're in a room full of people,

it's hard to talk about certain things

because of the elephant in the room.

The English term elephant in the room

doesn't refer to an actual elephant.

But when we say it's hard to talk about certain things

because of the elephant in the room,

what we mean is that there's something

that you just don't wanna talk about.

Maybe your brother and his wife got divorced

and that's a sensitive topic.

It's something that people don't like to talk about

when they're all in the same room together.

We would refer to that situation

as the elephant in the room.

You would say something like this.

It was hard to have a fun conversation

because of the elephant in the room.

In that case, the elephant in the room is the fact

that your brother and his wife are no longer together.

So in English, there's no actual elephant in the room

when you use the phrase the elephant in the room.

You're simply talking about an uncomfortable situation

that no one wants to talk about

and it kind of prevents normal fun conversation

from happening.

One, two,

three, four.

Hey, we have an English phrase don't count your chickens

before they hatch, but I'm just ignoring it for now.

Because I think if I count the number of eggs here,

I'll know how many chickens hatch in a few weeks.

But the phrase don't count your chickens before they hatch

has nothing to do with eggs or chickens.

When we say to someone don't count your chickens

before they hatch, what we're saying is

don't think something is going to happen

until it actually happens.

Let's use this example.

Let's say someone says to you

my boss is going to give me a raise next week.

Right now, I make $17 an hour

and my boss is going to give me a raise next week.

You might say to that person,

"Hey, don't count your chickens before they hatch."

What you mean by that is

don't think that that's going to happen

until your boss actually tells you next week

that you're getting a raise.

So don't count your chickens before they hatch

has nothing to do with eggs.

It simply means don't get too excited about something

until it actually happens.

So I had a job once where one of my coworkers

was stealing money from work and then he got caught

and the boss just gave him a slap on the wrist.

So a slap on the wrist is not actually a slap on the wrist.

When you do something bad

and you are disciplined or punished for it,

if the punishment is very, very light,

we call it a slap on the wrist.

In the case of my coworker,

the boss simply told him to stop stealing.

He didn't lose his job.

Nothing else happened.

The boss just gave him a bit of a slap on the wrist,

a very light punishment.

He got simply a talking to.

That is definitely just a slap on the wrist.

So this is kind of strange.

I have butterflies in my stomach.

If you look here, you can see

that I have butterflies in my stomach, for some reason.

But this isn't what the phrase

to have butterflies in your stomach actually means.

If I was to say I have butterflies in my stomach,

it means that I'm nervous about something.

If I knew that later today,

I had to talk in front of a thousand people,

I would probably say, "Ooh, I'm a bit nervous.

I have butterflies in my stomach."

So whenever you need to do something,

when you are planning to do something

that makes you nervous, you might describe it

by saying I have butterflies in my stomach.

So the other day, my friend said he caught a fish

that was this big.

But I took what he said with a grain of salt.

In English, when you say that you take something

with a grain of salt, there's no actual salt involved.

It simply means

that you're not going to believe it right away.

My friend tends to exaggerate

when he tells his fishing stories.

I'm sure the fish he caught was really only this big,

but he said it was this big,

and so I just took it with a grain of salt.

That means I'm not gonna believe what he says

maybe until I actually see the fish.

So I just simply took it with a grain of salt.

No salt actually involved.

That just means I didn't believe him right away.

If I stand up really tall, my head is in the clouds.

But if I just stand normal,

my head is no longer in the clouds.

The English phrase, though, to have your head in the clouds

means something a little bit different.

We use this to describe someone

who is a little bit absentminded.

Someone who is not very practical.

You might use a sentence like this.

I'm not sure my brother-in-law will be successful

in business because he always has his head in the clouds.

Someone who has their head in the clouds

is often thinking about other things.

They're not thinking

about what they're supposed to be doing.

Maybe they're daydreaming a bit, or they're just thinking

about things that aren't very practical.

I usually don't have my head in the clouds,

unless I go like this.

Hmm

Sorry, I'm having a little trouble talking right now

because I bit off more than I can chew.

Now, the English phrase to bite off more than you can chew

doesn't actually refer to eating.

We don't say that

when we've taken a really big bite of something

and we're having trouble talking.

We use this phrase when we've started a job

or we've started a project

and it's too hard for us to do by ourselves,

or it's just gonna be very difficult

and take a really long time.

You might say to someone,

"I bought an old car and I'm gonna fix it up,

but I think I bit off more than I can chew."

When you say that,

basically what you're saying is the job is too hard.

The job is too difficult.

It's gonna take forever.

I definitely bit off more than I can chew.

So last night, one of my kids came home really late

and I was worried sick.

In English, when we use the phrase to be worried sick,

it just means that you are extremely worried.

It doesn't necessarily mean that you were so worried

that you started to feel sick.

Although this is one of the phrases

where you can actually take it literally as well.

So there's two ways to use this phrase then.

You can say I was worried sick,

meaning that you were so worried about something

that you actually had a stomachache,

or you weren't feeling well,

but we also use it sometimes just to exaggerate.

My kid came home really late and I was worried sick.

Well, thank you so much for watching this English lesson.

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