Learn English: 6 Idioms about People

Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid. In many ways, English is a sexist language because it reflects

the society around it. And so, we have a number of expressions and idioms in English which

are actually quite sexist and refer to men, and we're going to look at six of them today.

What you should be aware of, though, is that today, we do use a lot of these idioms to

refer to women also when we can, but most of the time, you'll probably hear these idioms

being used to refer to men still. Okay? So, let's have a look at what they are.

All right, the first one: "The Buddhist monk was a man of few words." So what do you think

it means when I say: "a man of few words"? It means someone who is quiet, someone who

doesn't say very much. This is one of those that you could change to also use for women.

Okay?

All right, the next one we cannot use for women. Let's see what it is. "James Bond is

a ladies' man." What do you think that means? So the idiom: "a ladies' man", refers to a

man who is popular with women, who likes to go out with women. He likes women and women

like him. All right? That's a ladies' man.

Next one: "My father is a man of his word." So, what do you think: "a man of his word"

means? Here, we could say: "a woman of her word", we can change it. But the original

idiom was: "a man of his word". So: "a man of his word" means someone who keeps his promise,

someone who does what they say they're going to do. Okay?

Next one: "Our new Prime Minster is a man of the people." Do you have any idea what

that might mean? Okay? So: "a man of the people" means someone who understands and expresses

the ideas, and opinions, and views of the ordinary people in a country. All right?

Next: "My cousin is a confirmed bachelor." This is a slightly oldish expression, slightly

British expression as well, but it's still used sometimes. "A confirmed bachelor" is

someone who is single and he wants to stay that way; he doesn't want to get married at

all. So we refer to that kind of a person as a confirmed bachelor. All right?

And the last one is: "The winner of the race was the man of the hour." Any idea what you

think that might mean? Okay? So, somebody's just won a race, he's done something that

has attracted attention. He has some kind of achievement, and so he has a lot of attention.

So: "the man of the hour" is someone that people are paying a lot of attention to and

who people may admire because he has done something worthy of attention-okay?-and admiration.

He's getting a lot of attention.

So, again, aside from: "a confirmed bachelor" and "a ladies' man", you could adapt the other

ones to use them to refer to women, but be aware that they're usually used... Seen the

other way. Okay?

Let's review a little bit and see if you've understood these. So, if I want to refer to

someone who keeps their promises, which idiom could I use? Which one? This is:

"a man of his word", or: "a woman of her word."

Okay. If I want to refer to someone who is quiet, doesn't talk very much, what's that?

Which one? This is: "a man of few words". Good.

What about someone who is very popular because he's recently had a very important achievement?

What do we say for that? This is: "the man of the hour".

Now, please note that all of the other ones start with "a". "A man", "a ladies' man",

"a man of his word", "a man of the people", "a confirmed bachelor". But this one starts

with "the", "the man of the hour" because it's a specific... You're drawing attention

to that specific person. Okay?

And what about someone who is very popular with women and he likes women? That's "a ladies'

man".

And the person who doesn't want to get married ever, this is? "A confirmed bachelor".

Okay, so you've learned some expressions that we have, some idioms that have to do with

men and use... Feel free to use some of them with women too, so we can change the language,

which we should do.

So, if you'd like to practice this, please go to our website: www.engvid.com and you

can do a quiz on this and many other topics in English. All right? Bye for now, and good

luck with your English.