Let's Learn English: Topic: Too Many Words! 🧳⌚🚛 (Lesson Only)

Well, hello and welcome to this English

lesson, which I've titled Too Many Words.

Sometimes in English, we have a name for something,

and it's more than one word or it's a

really long word and it's not the actual word

we use in regular, everyday English conversation.

I'll give you a few examples in

a bit, but one would be wristwatch.

We don't call it a wristwatch

when we're talking to people.

We just call it a watch.

So I found about 30 words like this.

I've been keeping a nice list, vocabulary terms that are

more than one word or really long words, and then

I'll teach you what the shorter version is.

Some will be obvious, some you will already know,

and some will be interesting to you, I think. So.

Kind of a fun lesson.

A lesson just for fun.

Uh, welcome to this English lesson,

which I've called Too Many Words.

I think a better description would be using

the shorter version of the name for something

instead of the long, cumbersome version.

That might be a new word for you. Cumbersome.

You might want to look it up.

So, once again, welcome to this

English lesson about too many words.

A ballpoint pen.

So, interestingly enough, a long time ago, I'm sure

there were many different styles of pen, but the

ballpoint pen is the most popular right now.

A ballpoint pen at the very end, this is. I.

I chose a bad picture, has a little

round steel ball that turns, and it's called

ball bearing, I guess you could say.

But as you write, the ink comes out.

But we don't call it a ballpoint

pen, we just call it a pen.

Because almost every pen in the

world now is a ballpoint pen.

We usually just call this a pen.

Uh, and shout out to my viewers from

France, thank you for making Bic pens.

They're really good.

I have a Bic pen at work.

It's very reliable.

It's a great ballpoint pen, but

again, just call it a pen.

We also have wristwatch, which I

talked about in the introduction.

This is actually a Fitbit, but I

could call it my watch as well.

Uh, we don't say wristwatch anymore.

Uh, I think a long time ago, people might

have a pocket watch or a wristwatch, and you

might have wanted to distinguish between the two.

But now, pretty much, if you say watch, we

mean this, the thing you wear on your wrist.

So what time is it?

I'll check my watch.

I don't think I've ever said, I'll check my wristwatch.

Um, and then just to Highlight as well.

If you notice, the term is two colors.

It's black and gray.

The gray is the common or informal

way of using that thing's vocabulary name

at this point, the English language.

So wristwatch becomes watch.

Light bulb.

So we sometimes still say light bulb, but

it's far more common to just say bulb.

I might say to Jen, oh, there's a bulb out

in the upstairs bathroom, or I need to change the

bulb in the kitchen because it's not working anymore.

You can still say light bulb.

And as with all of these vocabulary words

or terms, you can still use the big

version that there's no problem there.

But of course, a light bulb is something that you

screw in when the bulb needs to be replaced.

You unscrew it and you screw in a new bulb.

Mobile phone.

So, interestingly enough, when I was younger, you sometimes

had a phone at home that was plugged into

the wall, and then you also might, if you

were lucky, have a mobile phone.

I know in some places they've

gone with the word mobile.

Talk about their phone.

They might just call this a handy or a mobile.

But here, if someone says phone,

they mean this kind of phone.

They don't mean the kind of phone

necessarily that plugs into a wall, because

most people don't have one anymore.

In fact, when I was a kid, if you said phone,

it meant like the old phone, the phone that hung on

the wall or that went into its little holder.

Uh, and then if someone had a cellular phone

or mobile phone, we would use that term.

Now, people use the word phone for this.

And if you still have an old

phone, we call it a landline.

So common term.

Hey, no phones allowed in class.

Leave your phone in your locker.

That's our rule at school.

No phones allowed in class.

So we don't say cell phone or mobile phone.

There's no reason to.

We in Canada just say phone.

And I should specify that this lesson is very much.

Some of the terms are very Canadian, So you'll have

to kind of get a sense of what they are

if you are learning a different version of English.

A Magic marker.

I'm not sure if you know what a Magic marker is,

but when I was a kid, I had Magic markers.

Basically, a Magic Marker is something where it's.

It's not like a pen.

They come in different colors, and ink does come

out, but it usually has a soft tip.

It's not like a ballpoint pen.

It has a soft tip.

And then as you use it, you can color.

You can write in different colors.

And When I was a kid especially, we called

them magic markers because they were magical, I guess.

But now we would just call them markers.

Like, one of my kids for school brings markers to

school because in one of their classes, they make posters.

They need markers in order to

draw and color the poster.

So magic marker.

We just say marker.

Steering wheel.

So this one, I would say we still

use both terms, although wheel is common once

you know you're talking about the steering wheel.

So a car has four wheels, so don't get too confused.

But it also has a steering wheel.

Often you'll hear things like this.

Did you hear that there was an accident?

Oh, who was behind the wheel?

Or I had to turn the wheel

in order to avoid hitting someone.

So this one works in context.

You kind of have to know already in the

conversation that you're talking about the steering wheel.

So it's not a direct replacement, but you will

often hear those phrases like, oh, who was behind

the wheel when that car went in the ditch?

Or, um, yeah, a good one would

be an animal was crossing the road. So I. I turned the.

I turned the wheel to avoid them.

And we're talking about the steering wheel photocopier.

So, yes, English speakers are a little bit lazy,

and we don't like to say more words or

use more letters than we need to.

So this is an example of something where

we just call it the copier at work. Work.

We will sometimes say photocopier.

It hasn't disappeared.

But more often we will just say, oh, I

have to go and do make some copies.

I'm going to use the copier. Um, are there.

Is anyone standing at the copier right now?

I need to use it.

So hopefully no one else is using it right now.

So again, with this one, you can say photocopier

or copier and people will understand what you're saying.

And then I think you're really familiar with this one.

This one we added a letter to the shorter version.

But a refrigerator, we often just call the fridge.

So when I get home from the grocery store,

I have some things that I put in the

cupboard and other things I put in the fridge.

I rarely say refrigerator. That.

There's just no reason to say that whole word.

It's too many letters.

I should have made the lesson titled

too many letters, too many words.

So when you have something that needs to stay

cold, you will put it in the fridge.

Cordless drill.

So many years ago, um, you would call a

cordless drill a cordless drill, because you probably also

had a drill that plugged into the wall.

And you might still have a drill like that.

But because cordless drills or rechargeable

drills have become so common, word

drill often just refers to that.

If I go help my brother

with something, I'll bring my drill.

He might say, hey, can you bring your drill?

Um, I might specify, like, do you want the big

old drill that plugs into the wall, or you want

me to just bring my dewalt cordless drill.

But often drill now just simply

refers to that type of drill.

Similar to mobile phone.

And now we just use phone.

When you talk about a cordless

drill, you often just say drill.

Oh, I need to charge my drill.

Did you bring your drill? Often?

We know the person is talking about this type

of drill, by the way, one of the handiest

tools in the world, in my opinion.

If I was to give you a list of the

5 tools you need to have, hammer, measuring tape, and

then cordless drill, I think would be number three.

What else would I put on there?

Hand saw, Maybe a level.

I'm not sure this isn't a lesson on tools,

although I should do one on tools again soon.

So eyeglasses.

I don't know if I've heard anyone say

eyeglasses other than the eye doctor, but this

is the official term for these.

I mean, these are called eyeglasses,

but we just call them glasses.

Now, again, you have to be careful because you can

have glasses in the kitchen and you can put water

in those glasses, but you can also have eyeglasses. So.

But I think, again, this comes from context.

Context.

If someone says, ah, I'm having trouble seeing,

I don't have my glasses, you know that

they're talking about eyeglasses and not water glasses.

This is more of a jar, by the way.

And then I again, eyeglass was.

Is probably from the word spectacles.

Long ago I did a lesson.

A while ago, I in the

chat Hafiz, talking about spectacles.

Uh, I did a lesson long ago about.

I did a lesson.

Sorry, Jen, sneaking in to grab her coat.

Um, I did a lesson a while ago about words

we don't use anymore, and spectacles was one of those.

So glasses or the longer

version, eyeglasses phone charger.

So this is an interesting one.

Um, it used to be that the charger you used for

your phone didn't work for your computer, and the charger you

use for your computer didn't work for your phone.

But in some cases with newer phones and newer

computers, the word charger means the same thing.

Most of My students can use the same charger

for their computer as they can for their phone.

And again, this isn't always true, but

we often just use the word charger.

If Jen says to me, have you seen my charger?

Know she's talking about her phone charger.

If I say to her, have you seen my charger?

She knows I'm talking about my phone charger.

So you can have a laptop charger, a

computer charger, um, and chargers for other things.

But I would say most of the

time, if someone uses the word charger,

they're probably looking for a phone charger.

Web browser.

So this is what we called Internet Explorer

or Chrome or Firefox or Safari, the program

you use to use the Internet.

Some of you who are at a

computer right now have a browser open.

We don't say web browser very often anymore.

Um, so you have a browser open.

You went to YouTube.com you found my channel, and

you're watching a video in your web browser.

But yeah, we just say browser.

Like, if I'm talking to a student in class,

I might say, oh, open up a browser and

search for lithium ion batteries or iron batteries.

Um, so browser has become the de facto.

I don't even know if my students know the term

web browser anymore or whether that's just faded from use.

But yes, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Firefox,

I think those are the main ones.

If you're on an Apple machine,

you're probably using Safari laptop computer.

So notice the gray word has moved to the other end.

Um, we don't often add the word computer anymore.

We might say desktop computer.

But if you're talking to someone about

computers, you might say laptop or desktop.

Or I might say to students, don't

forget to bring your laptop tomorrow.

We're going to need it in class.

So I don't use the term computer very often.

Um, we used to use notebook as well, or

portable computer, but I think laptop is now the

term that we've decided to use for this device.

So again, I might say to my students,

make sure you charge your laptop tonight.

When you come to class tomorrow, bring your

laptop, because we're going to be using it.

Shopping mall.

Oh, it's me.

This is from last February or March from the

video, the English lesson I did at the mall.

Uh, if you want to watch it, you can search for it.

Just search, Bob.

The Canadian mall.

Uh, we just call this the mall.

You will hear the term shopping mall, but probably

90% of the time, people will say, oh, I'm

going to Go to the mall Friday night.

I went to the mall yesterday.

I need to go to the

mall and do some Christmas shopping.

I could say those all using shopping mall, like I went

to the shopping mall last week, or I'm going to go

to the shopping mall, but it's too many words.

So I would most often probably

say, I'm going to the mall.

Jen and I need to go to the mall.

Jen and I need to start Christmas shopping.

It's coming.

It's coming quickly.

If you travel, you are allowed to

take one small suitcase on the plane.

And we call it a carry on bag.

But more commonly now we simply say carry on.

So the gray carry on that has become the common term.

Uh, when I fly, I take a carry on.

Uh, I have a suitcase, I have a carry on, and I

usually have a small personal bag which fits under the seat.

The carry on goes in the compartment above.

On most airplanes, you put the carry on in the little.

I wonder if we even call it the carry on compartment.

But yes, you can say carry on bag,

but often people will just say carry on.

Do you have a carry on?

Yep, I have it right here.

Is it the right size?

No, it's a little too big.

Do you know that there are two carry on sizes?

There's a smaller size now, the last five or 10 years,

and then there are older ones that are too big.

So we had.

We have a carry on that's too big,

so we can't take it if we fly.

And then we have two smaller ones that we can

take if we fly because they are the right size.

If you haven't flown for more than five or 10 years,

check the carry on sizes before you decide to fly.

Uh, windshield wipers.

So when you are driving in the rain, sometimes

you need to turn on your windshield wipers.

Sometimes you need to be able to see, so you

turn them on, but we just call them wipers.

Um, so sometimes your wipers don't work right,

so you need a new wiper blade.

But on my vehicles, all of my vehicles,

I think my wipers are all relatively new.

Um, winter is really bad for wipers.

By the way, when your wipers freeze to the window

and then you don't have time to let the car

warm up and you have to chip them.

Sometimes you break the wipers.

So, but technically they are called windshield wipers.

They go like this.

I'll do the action.

And you use them in the rain or in snow

or sleet or hail in order to clear the window

so that you can See, when you drive.

So again, look at the gray word here.

This type of vehicle is called a pickup truck, but

we more commonly just refer to this as a pickup.

There are some students who have their license

and they drive a pickup to school.

What did you drive to school the other day?

Did you drive a car or did you drive a pickup?

In North America, pickups are pretty common.

Um, and I do know that there are usually some

young people who are hoping to own a pickup someday.

Again, you can say pickup truck,

there's nothing wrong with that.

But often if you are talking about, you know, I

went to look at used cars, they had some hatchbacks,

some four door cars, um, and they had a few

pickups and I, I might buy one of the pickups.

That's just an example.

I'm not, I'm not planning to buy a pickup,

although I did have one many, many years ago.

Uh, this is probably a Canadian term,

so you're gonna have to check.

I know in Britain they might use lorry,

in the States they might use 18 Wheeler.

But for me, if I see a truck like

this, we sometimes call this a tractor trailer because

there are two parts to the truck.

But I would call this a transport.

There are a lot of transports that

go by my house every day. I don't know why.

I think my road is a popular

road for trucks to go down.

So you will see sometimes a transport

go by or more than one.

Um, when I was a kid, there were a

lot of transports that went by because they were

fixing a highway to the south of me.

And I think a lot of transports used

my road, um, for about two years there

were transports almost, almost every 10 minutes.

So as a 10 year old boy, that was fun because

you would see all these big transports going by padlock.

So this is an interesting one because I did hear

someone use the word padlock the other day and it

sounded strange to me because we just say lock. Okay?

This is a lock.

You can go and buy a lock from the hardware store.

You usually get two keys with the lock.

And then you can put the lock on

a door or fence or gate or somewhere

where you don't want people to go through. Okay?

So if you have one of these somewhere in

your house, we would call that a lock.

And you would use it to secure an

area to stop people from getting in.

So again, pay attention to the gray.

This is what we call a remote.

Uh, that couch has two remotes on it.

Even last night I heard someone say the word remote.

A small child wanted to Know where is the remote?

The technical term is remote control.

You use the remote to turn the TV on.

You use the remote control to turn the TV on.

But we have just decided to call it the remote.

So I have a remote for my tv, actually

have a remote for this light right here.

I've done this before where it gets dark

and then I can turn, then I'm really

bright and then my camera will slowly adjust.

But I used this remote to turn off my light.

There we go, going back to normal.

I use the remote to turn off my

light and to turn it back on again.

So again you can say remote control.

Nothing wrong with that.

But it is more common, I think, just to say remote.

Got to be careful.

Careful with these.

These are nail clippers, these are hair clippers.

And once you know what you're talking

about, you probably will just say clippers.

If I said to Jen, do you know where the clippers are?

She doesn't know if I'm talking about

these hair clippers or nail clippers.

But once I've mentioned the word nail, once I've

said nail clippers, I can then just say clippers.

And I probably would, I'd probably say,

have you seen the nail clippers?

Um, Jen might say, oh, the, the clippers were

just on the counter in the bathroom yesterday.

I'm not sure where they went.

Maybe one of the kids is using the

clippers in another part of the house.

So once you establish that you're talking about

nail clippers, you would probably just say clippers.

And then once you, earlier in the conversation say

hair clippers, you would probably just continue by saying

clippers instead of using the whole word.

This is a microwave oven.

We usually just call it a microwave.

I think this is one of the simpler ones.

I think many of you already know this.

If you have something that you want to heat

up, you put it in the microwave, you punch

in one minute and you hit start.

And then it uses magic to heat up your food.

I don't exactly know how it works.

It shoots very tiny energy filled waves at your food.

And I think the anything with moisture

starts to warm up inside of it.

But we usually just say microwave at school.

We have a microwave in the staff room at school.

There, there is a bank of

microwaves in the student cafeteria.

So students who bring a lunch that they want to

heat up, they can just put it in the microwave.

But yes, the official term would be microwave oven.

So microwave, it's a lot easier, isn't it?

Christmas tree.

So this is another one Similar

to nail clippers and hair clippers.

Once you use the word Christmas tree,

you don't have to say Christmas anymore.

And it's also related to context.

If I was to say, at this time of

the year, do you have your tree up yet?

I'm talking about a Christmas tree.

If a coworker says, oh, we put the tree up

this past weekend, they're talking about a Christmas tree.

Or if I was to say, what room

do you normally put your tree in?

They'll know because it's November, or especially if it's

December, that I am talking about a Christmas tree.

So do you have your tree yet?

If I was to ask a colleague, do you have your tree yet?

They would know I'm talking about a Christmas tree.

Train tracks.

So when you drive on the road, every

once in a while you cross some tracks.

They are train tracks because trains go on them.

Nothing else goes on them.

So we usually just end up calling them tracks.

In Toronto, there's tracks along

the street for the streetcars.

Uh, maybe in your town, when you drive down the

road, you have to cross one or two tracks.

Um, sometimes there's two tracks.

Um, this isn't four, by the way.

This is two tracks.

But the official word would be train tracks.

These are train tracks.

They are put in place so that trains

can travel from one location to another.

And we simply call them tracks.

In fact, there's a phrase from

the wrong side of the tracks.

I think in some towns there might be

tracks that split the town in two.

And then there might be a side where all the

happy, rich, cool people live, if you're watching a movie.

And then there's the other side where the.

There's the people who don't have as much money and are

not as happy live the wrong side of the tracks.

That's something you would see more in

a movie or something like that. Blue jeans.

So people do sometimes say blue jeans,

but often we just say jeans.

I'm actually wearing jeans right now.

Um, it's a Friday, so there are certain Fridays

where I'm allowed to wear jeans to work.

I almost fell over backwards on my chair.

Um, but normally we don't say

blue jeans, we just say jeans.

Now there are other color jeans now.

I think a long time ago, jeans were always blue.

They were blue jeans.

But I actually have a pair of jeans that's

black and I have a pair of jeans that's.

I guess it is still blue. It's.

It's more like olive colored, maybe.

But anyways, we usually Just call these jeans.

At our school, students are allowed to wear

jeans today because it's a special day where

you are allowed to wear them.

Normally, students aren't allowed to wear jeans.

This is probably very Canadian.

You might call these rubber bands.

In Canada, we also call them elastic bands.

Or we might just call them elastics.

This is a pile of elastics.

I need an elastic.

So again, a rubber band or the Canadian term,

I think it's Canadian, of elastic band means, like

the stretchy thing that you can use.

Like if you have a bunch of carrots,

you can put an elastic around them.

Jen and I make bouquets of flowers and

then we put an elastic on the bottom.

So again, just a warning, this

is probably a Canadian term.

I think most of the world says rubber bands.

Uh, bicycle obviously becomes bike.

I think that's been pretty clear for most of you.

Um, we don't often say bicycle.

We say bike all the time.

So we have taken the word and kind

of created a shorter version of it that's

easier to remember and easier to say.

Airplane has become plane.

Um, like if you have a carry on,

you take it with you on the plane.

If you have a larger suitcase, you have to check

it and it goes in the bottom of the plane.

So we don't often say airplane.

We don't say automobile. We say car.

We don't say airplane.

We usually say plane.

Again, though, you can say airplane.

Sorry, don't say automobile.

People will think that's strange.

You can say airplane as much as you want.

Plain they are.

They are equal.

This is a baseball cap.

We sometimes just call it a ball cap, though.

Um, it probably has different names in

different parts of the English speaking world.

But here in North America, this style of

hat we would call a ball cap.

I'm probably going to wear a ball cap later today.

Mine's back there on the couch.

Uh, because I am going to be outside later today.

And sometimes it's nice to wear a ball cap.

You can just say cap.

Although that is a more general term.

If you say ball cap, it means that kind of hat.

Um, if you really like basketball, you can buy

a ball cap with your team's logo on it.

So it gets kind of confusing because

other sports have ball caps as well.

Uh, this is very Canadian as well.

I should have put a little Canadian flag.

This is a winter hat.

I call it a toque.

So a toque is a nice knitted hat made

out of wool or cotton or other fabric that

keeps your head warm in the winter.

Um, most people in North America would probably

call it a winter hat, but most people,

some people in Canada call it a toque.

I think we're using the word less and

less, but I would call it a toque.

I would say, have you seen my toque?

Oh, it's cold outside.

I should wear a toque today.

And then this is the last slide.

I want to clarify.

If you go to a school, they might have

a gymnasium, and you will call it a gym. Okay?

So a place where you can play basketball,

a place where you can play volleyball, a

place where you can play team sports.

We call it a gymnasium, but more

often we call it a gym.

But when someone says they're going to the gym, work

out, I don't think we ever call that a gymnasium.

Okay, so I.

Here's the difference again.

A gymnasium, which we normally call a gym,

is a place where you can play basketball,

volleyball, badminton, those types of sports.

So gym or gymnasium, but if you go

to workout, like to lift weights and to

use different machines, we call that a gym.

I don't think we ever call that place a gymnasium.

So hopefully that distinction made some sense to.