Understand Movies and Series in ENGLISH — How Natives Use the B-Word

So, before we get into today's lesson, I wanted  to take a quick moment just to let you know that  

if you are sensitive to more vulgar topics like  we were talking about today, then this might not  

be the episode for you. We do not condone really  using language like this. However, the reason that  

we're doing a topic on this word is because it  is one that you'll find natives use all the time  

in different media, in your favorite TV series,  movies, songs, and so on. So, we do believe that  

it's important that you're able to understand,  able to comprehend when you come across different  

uses of this word. So we'll be jumping all  into that, and we hope that you find it useful.

I'm joined here in the global studio by the one,  the only Axl Pose, aka Thiago. How's it going? 

Hey, Ethan, I'm doing well. I couldn't help but notice  

that you are sporting a very appropriate  garb there. Or we could say a nice t-shirt 

Ooh, garb. (Garb) Is that T-shirt? Garb. It's a piece of clothing. Yeah. 

Oh, nice. And forpeople who maybe aren't familiar with that,  

I think like you'd have to be living in a cave to  not be familiar with that image, but just in case  

someone is listening to us from the comfort of  a cave, what is that, that image on your shirt? 

Oh yeah. I have here Walter White - Heisenberg  from Breaking Bed and his famous line:  

"I'm the one who knocks." I am the one who knocks. 

Yes. And the reason why that's a very appropriate  piece of garb, piece of clothing is because today  

we're talking all about the word Bitch.  So get used to listening to that word,  

because we're going to be saying a lot  throughout today's lesson. Uh, again,  

it's not a word that we condone using  a lot. There's obviously like a lot of,  

um, political implications. It's not  a word that's so nice, uh, in the,  

in the way that it's been used in the past to  refer to, especially to women, for example.  

However, it's been evolving and stuff with the,  the language. There's many ways to use it that  

don't actually refer to women and so on. And we'll  be exploring some of those different uses of the  

word today, so that if you do encounter it when  you're, you know, listening to a TV series or  

watching a series like Breaking Bad, which is, I  completely went on a tangent there. The reason we  

brought up Breaking Bad is because the king of the  word bitch, perhaps Aaron Paul, who plays Jesse  

Pinkman on the show Breaking Bad, was just so  famous for his iconic different uses of the word  

bitch. So that's, that's why. So later in today's  episode, we will be taking a look at some of Jesse  

Pinkman's uses of this word, because you know  who better to learn from than the king himself.  

And, uh, you know, we're going to be exploring all  of these diverse uses, these diverse ways that we,  

natives and native-like speakers might use this  word. So that said, if you are new here every  

single week, we make lessons like this that help  you to go beyond the classroom, learn different  

things that help you to better understand and use  your English in real life, so that you can go from  

being a frustrated, insecure English learner and  become a confident natural English speaker. So if  

that sounds like something that you want for your  English, be sure to hit that subscribe button and  

the button and below, and that way you won't  miss a single new podcast lesson like this one.  

All right. So this very powerful word can be  used as a noun, as a verb, as an adjective in  

different expressions. And one of the problems  with it is that oftentimes it's misunderstood  

by non-natives. Uh, in fact, one of the things  that I tend to see a lot of learners' mistakes,  

especially Spanish speakers, Portuguese speakers,  right, is that they, they tend to translate it  

literally from their language, which is equivalent  word might be puta, but I think a more appropriate  

translation of that word is prostitute. Or we  might use like a word like whore, or something  

like that to refer to, um, obviously a sex worker,  a female sex worker. And bitch - it can mean that,  

but it's very rare. It's like in 95% of cases  it actually means something else, right? 

Yeah, that's true. And it's really interesting  that you pointed that out because it's true.  

As a Brazilian, uh, we do tend to, to think of  this word as that meaning that you just gave,  

yeah? It's referred to a, a prostitute.  But actually it's not quite that,  

as you said in English. And there are so many  other applications for this word that it can even  

be positive. There's even a positive way to use  this word. We're gonna be covering that today. So. 

Most definitely. So, uh, first we should recognize  the literal meaning of this word. So people tend  

to think of it as an insult, like first and  foremost, but actually it comes from the word,  

the technical word for a female dog, which even I  as a native speaker, it took me like a long time  

to learn this. And the reason I learned it was  because, uh, we are, family dog was pregnant,  

actually, my, my dad wanted to have puppies for  a really long time, and so he decided to breed  

our family dog. And I was about maybe 12, 13 or  so. And I remember I was just like cracking up to  

myself. I was laughing a lot and I was reading  some different articles about what you have to  

do when the, the puppy, uh, sorry, when the,  the dog is having the puppies and everything,  

and different things that you can encounter,  different things you should be prepared for,  

but it didn't say, you know, the dog, the dog,  the dog. What it was saying over and over again  

was the bitch, which is actually the correct  term to use when you're referring to a female  

dog. And you can find this actually commonly  used in the, uh, in the theme of dog breeding. 

Ethan, you used a nice word there,  you said breed, right? I mean,  

what does it mean in that context to breed a dog? Yeah. So it means to reproduce, and if you're  

breeding, it's usually used with animals. Uh,  it would sound kind of vulgar if you used it  

with humans, and it's with animals that usually  you'll be combining, you know, two animals to  

have puppies or to have, uh, other sorts of baby  animals. So in most cases, you're not actually  

going to hear this word being used to refer to  female dogs unless you actually are in something  

like breeding. But there's all sorts of colloquial  terms and so on. And something that's kind of fun  

is that we'll even play with this word. Like  you might hear people say "beach", which is,  

if you wanted to use this word, but use it in a  softer way, the same way that we have words like,  

um, damn, we might say, dang, instead of saying  that, or instead of saying fuck, you could say  

like, freaking or frick or something like that,  which is a softer, not vulgar alternative. 

I, I think I even heard in a movie instead of  son of a bitch, the character says, son of a gun. 

Son of a gun. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, a really great  common alternative. A lot of learners might say,  

for example, that learning grammar is a bitch.  So what do you think about that, Thiago? 

Honestly, I don't understand why people think  that learning grammar is a bitch. I mean,  

I love it so much. You know, it's so much  fun for me. Yeah. As a matter of fact,  

we have recently done an episode where I actually  share my feelings and my thoughts towards grammar,  

and I explain better why I love grammar and, and  why studying grammar was beneficial to me. So  

you guys can check it out. We're gonna leave the  link to that episode in the description. But guys,  

come on. Learning grammar is not a bitch, but  you gotta make grammar your bitch. All right. 

So there's a couple expressions there, but we  should first explain what does it mean if you  

say that something is a bitch? Like here, learning  grammar is a bitch. If someone has those feelings. 

Something is complicated. It's not easy.  Uh, it's difficult, you know, it's just,  

yeah, it's hard. It's even annoying. Like, yeah,  you can use that to express frustration. Like,  

oh, learning grammar is a bitch. I'm like, oh,  it's so hard. It's so, you know, boring. Yeah. 

You could even hear, uh, hear it's  used to show sympathy, right? If  

say you were on your way to record the podcast  and your car broke down, you could say, oh, man,  

that's a bitch. Like, it's something really  difficult. I, I'm sympathizing with that  

difficult situation that you went through  having your car break down, right? So. 

I've heard life's a bitch also. Yeah.  With that (Life's a bitch) idea. 

That's a common, a common phrase to say if  something bad happened, right? So that you  

just say, oh man, life's a bitch. So changing  here to a different expression, you said you  

gotta make grammar your bitch. What does it mean  if you make something or someone, your bitch? 

Yeah. I'm gonna talk about something first.  So, when you make something your bitch,  

like in this case, you make grammar your bitch,  you own it, you master it, you, you don't,  

you are not controlled by it. You control it.  So making grammar your bitch in this context  

means you own it, you master it. Uh, grammar is  not this thing that you fear so much, you know. 

I think using bitch in that way, it's not so  vulgar, right? If you say make someone your bitch,  

that is quite vulgar, it's quite insulting. If you  say that you're going to make someone your bitch,  

or you say someone is your bitch, it's, it's quite  insulting. And it means that you are, if, if you  

are making someone your bitch, you're making that  person subservient to you. Which in other words  

could be, you're making that person, they're in  your control, they have to listen to what you say,  

they're like your slave or your servant or  something like that. So as you can, you can see  

it's, it's not something nice to say to someone. Again, the memory from series. Right. I remember  

a clip just now from Friends. I dunno if  you remember that clip. I mean, uh, uh,  

the girls, Rachel and Monica, they're fighting.  And then, uh, Phoebe, you know, stops the fight,  

you know, by, I, I, I guess, you know, I don't  know, uh, pinching them or something. And then  

they (I think grabbing their ears) stop  and then... Grabbing their ears. Exactly.  

And then Phoebe says, oh, if, if we were in  prison, you guys would be like my bitches. 

There we go. You know what? If we were in  prison, you guys would be like my bitches. 

It's in prison is something that happens,  right, is there's like a hierarchical power  

system. Sometimes that can happen. So that's  a, uh, an ambit, uh, it's a, an area where  

you could hear this word used. So obviously you  have to be careful with the word bitch though,  

right? Because oftentimes, like with make  someone your bitch, it can be insulting. 

And we actually have a nice clip here that  you brought up, uh, this week, right, Ethan,  

to illustrate how offensive it can be. Right? Exactly. Yeah. One that is very memorable for  

me in the sense of it being something strong.  And there can be rare occasions where, you know,  

it can be, uh, tasteful use of the word or, or,  uh, correct use of the word in the sense that,  

the example that I was gonna give that came  to mind for me is actually from Harry Potter  

of all places, which I remember very clearly in  the, the last book of, and the last movie, uh,  

of the series that, uh, believe her name is Molly  Weasley, so Ron's mother. Uh, Bellatrix Lestrange,  

who's one of the, the bad guys in this movie  is trying to attack her daughter. And so she  

very appropriately says, "Not my daughter,  you bitch", and in all the other movies,  

you know, is you see it as this sweet motherly  woman and everything. So it's just shocking moment  

where she's using this word and it's someone's  trying to kill her daughter, so it's like perfect,  

perfect moment to, to use that word. Not my daughter, you bitch. 

And we can also use it in the, like, if we use  it in the continuous, right? If we say like,  

someone's being a bitch, it's slightly less  offensive either way, it's very offensive. So be  

careful if you do use this. But if someone's being  a bitch, instead of saying that, that person,  

we actually haven't even defined if we use  it in the first way, like in Harry Potter,  

you're obviously saying that person is a, is a bad  person, or they're evil or something, something  

along those lines. But if you say someone's  being a bitch, usually it's more because they're,  

they're in that moment, they're being annoying.  You're not saying they're always a bad person,  

it's just in that moment, they're doing  something that's, that's, that's annoying. 

I love these little nuances, you know, like there  is a clear difference. Yeah. Like between saying  

you are a bitch versus you are being a bitch.  It's so interesting, uh, these nuances, right? 

It's, yeah, those subtleties of the language  that can, it's something so small, but it can  

really change how the perceived comprehension is,  right? So people tend to generally think of this  

for a woman, like a, a bitch as a woman, and you  shouldn't, you should not call a woman a bitch.  

We do not condone that. It's not a good thing.  Sometimes though, you could even hear this used  

to refer to a man, I remember a really great  clip from The Simpsons where they're watching,  

I think it's like an award ceremony or something,  and there's a man who's in the, who they're  

interviewing and he's talking badly about, you  know, uh, another famous person, an actress,  

and Bart that's watching, he says, he's such a  bitch, like, you know, saying that because he's  

gossiping, he's talking badly about this other  person, to everyone who's, who's watching that  

award ceremony and everything. And so it's,  it's a, a very tactful use of the word there. 

He's such a bitch. Did you say tactful? 

Tactful means if you do something with tact,  you're doing it, uh, with taste. You're doing  

it in a way that's, you know, spot on.  However, if you're referring to a man,  

it's more common than using bitch. You might  use the word bastard, or you might hear that  

use more commonly to refer to a man. Something  really important to be aware of with this is that  

if you are using any sort of  cursing in a foreign language,  

you know, we grew up in our mother tongue in  general hearing our mothers hearing, our fathers  

tell us, you shouldn't say this word. That's a bad  word. So we have all this emotional and all these  

memories attached to those words that for most of  us, will act as a sort of filter of when it's okay  

to use this word and when it's not okay. And for  the most part, it's not okay to use these words.  

Of course, it depends your background, it depends  on your education, it depends on even what part  

of a country you live in. People might use these  words more or less. Uh, just, I was telling Thiago  

earlier that there's like a dog mom, like, you  know, I take Phoebe my dog out in the mornings,  

and sometimes there's a woman who also takes her  dog out at the same time, and she's from the south  

of the UK and I guess they must curse more in  the south of the UK because she sometimes calls  

her dog bitch. And I don't think she's using it in  the sense of like, the technical term for a female  

dog. I think it's more like when her dog is doing  something kind of, uh, you know, kind of naughty  

or something like that, something she shouldn't  be doing. And so she uses to insult her dog. 

There's another good word that naughty. What does  (Naughty) it mean when a person is being naughty? 

We'll often use this for children, for example, if  a child is doing something that they know they're  

not supposed to do, but they're doing it because  maybe they want to, you know, grabbing, like,  

I know my nephew, for example, he'll, he'll grab  like the, they, they have a pantry where they, and  

they keep all the things they don't want the kids  to have, like candies and chocolates and stuff  

up on a high shelf. And so he'll grab like the  little step stool, a little ladder and take it,  

carry it into there when no one's looking and grab  like, the candies that he wants off at the top  

shelf. So that's a great example of being naughty,  doing something he knows he's not supposed to do.  

And you were talking earlier about, uh, an  example you had like this about a student,  

right? Who doesn't have so much of an emotional  attachment with a cursing in, in English. 

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, I remember  the student of mine many years ago,  

he spoke amazing English. His  English was awesome, you know. And  

he loved American standup comedians, so he will  watch a lot of, um, standup comedians, American,  

but there is a problem there, there was a problem  because, you know, these comedians, they usually  

curse a lot or they swear a lot on stage. So  because this student of mine was a big fan of  

these guys, I mean, he would speak cursing a lot  himself. Like, you know, for every sentence he  

would say, or he would speak, there was at least  one curse word there. Yeah. And I don't know,  

maybe he didn't realize this, that he was cursing  too much, or maybe he thought that he was being  

cool and funny, like those American comedians that  he loved watching, but maybe he didn't realize  

that if a native speaker heard him speak, maybe  that person will find him maybe, maybe offensive  

because, you know, he just cursed too much. You could say he had a sailor's mouth  

or a potty mouth. What does that mean? 

Apparently sailors must curse a lot because  we have this expression. If someone curses  

all the time, like your student, we can say they  have a sailor's mouth and potty mouth, I mean,  

potty refers to the toilet. So when we say potty  mouth, we'll usually use it more with children.  

And like, maybe your mom might threaten you -  I'm going to wash, I'm going to wash your mouth  

out with soap. You know, if you keep up with  that potty mouth. So you have to be careful,  

right? Who is your influences in a language  that you're learning. Because maybe too,  

if your main source of English is coming from  Breaking Bad, then you might think, oh, these  

natives they use bitch all the time. So I can  just use it. I can call my friends bitch, I can  

call these people that I'm mad at son of a bitch  and stuff. And you, you need to, as we, I brought  

up the word before - tact, you need to have a  tactful use of cursing. If you choose to curse,  

then you know, you don't really need to. I don't  curse very often. Do you, is this like something  

that you would ever use in your English, Thiago? Not quite, you know, I was never a big fan of  

cursing myself. Youknow, while I understand  those words, when I watch something where  

somebody uses them personally, I don't, I'm not  a fan of using them. Um, I think it's okay to,  

to curse in certain situations, you know, only  in extreme situations like, uh, I don't know.  

Somebody's trying to hurt my family. Okay. I  see that as a justification to curse or some,  

I don't know. I wake up in the middle of the  night and then I stub my pinky toe. You know,  

the, I see myself cursing at that time.  I could go son of a bitch. Ow, you know. 

What does it mean if you stub your pinky toe? You know, like, it's like when you kick, uh, you  

know, your pinky toe is the smallest toe that you  have on your foot, okay? When you stub it, you,  

uh, kind of kick a wall or a piece of furniture  with it accidentally, and it really hurts,  

you know, when that happens in the middle of  the night. So, you know, if that happens to you,  

I think it's okay to curse. So you are expressing  that anger or frustration in the moment. Because,  

you know, I do believe that sometimes it is  actually healthy for us to express maybe,  

or to vent, you know, uh, some anger or  frustration that we are feeling. Yeah,  

we are humans after all, but these are situations  that don't happen often. They tend to be rare. So  

in those moments, okay, I, I, I think that it's  okay to curse, But you know, what I don't like  

is, uh, people who curse all the time just for  the sake of cursing. I don't know. Just because  

they're trying to be cool or funny. You don't  have to curse a lot all the time to be cool. 

And when you do that all the time,  those words really lose their,  

their power in a sense. Because (Exactly.) if  you only do it when you really hurt yourself,  

or someone does something to your daughter  while you're at the playground, or you know,  

something like that, that is really deserving of  some strong language, then if you're just using  

it all the time, you have a sailor's mouth and  you're, you're using it in every other sentence,  

then when you actually want to use it in a strong  way, people won't really take it that way. So,  

and you know, people might not wanna spend so  much time around you if you're cursing all the  

time anyway, depending on what crowds you, what  crowds you roll with. You, you, me, you mentioned  

son of a bitch, which I imagine most people have  heard that at some point I thought that this was  

a really important one to point out because of  the connected speech, because we won't, natives  

will almost never say son of a bitch - we'll say  son of a bitch. So we have a couple schwas there,  

and the of, and the A turns to an uh, and we sort  of link it all together, right? Son of a bitch,  

son of a bitch. And you can find it even more  connected into dropping oftentime OF, right?  

We just turn into schwa together, like uh, so it  can become Son uh uh bitch, son of a bitch - with  

a double schwa sound there in the middle. Oh my, lemme try that. Son uh uh, son uh uh  

bitch. Son uh uh bitch. Exactly. Yeah. 

I even heard it in the plural in some movies, you  know, in some movies. I think I remember listening  

in the plural form, like Sons of bitches, you (Oh,  that'sgreat.) sons of bitches like that, you know. 

You could even say son, sons of bitches, sons  of bitches. If you wanted to reduce it even more 

Sons uh, right? Mm-hmm. So sometimes you'll even,  

like I mentioned, the woman who's from the south  of England uses this word a lot more than I would,  

for example. And you might find some people  that even use this term to refer to friends.  

I think nowadays maybe it's not so common. We  could actually share, uh, I remember a clip  

from Predator where Arnold Schwartzenegger, you  know, calls the guy, he hasn't seen his friend  

in a long time. He says, oh, you son of a bitch.  And it's used an endearing way, right? A a caring  

way. So there's some people who might use it  this way, but that movie is from the 80s. So  

maybe nowadays it's become a, a less common - got  tongue tied over there - a less common practice. 

Dylan, you son of a bitch. Another interesting use of the  

word bitch is that maybe you stub your toe, or  it could be even something lighter that happens,  

right? It's like maybe you, you miss your bus  and you, you start bitching about it, that you  

had to wait, it's another 10 minutes to catch the  next bus, for example. What does it mean if you,  

so it's a verb, obviously. What does  it mean if you bitch about something? 

Yeah. Now as a verb, when you bitch about  something, you complain about it. That  

actually reminds me of a, a song from Elton John  called, uh, Bitch is Back, or The Bitch is Back.  

And uh, I think in that song, if I remember  correctly, uh, the chorus goes something like,  

I Can Bitch Better Than You. Something like  that, you know? So, you know, he's using the  

word bitch there as a verb. I can bitch, I can bitch,  

'cause I'm better than you. He uses it, I think, several different ways in  

that song even. I think he calls himself a bitch,  which I'm not sure exactly what his intentions  

are there, but, but I think it's used in a, in an  empowering way, which even nowadays, you can find  

women that have sort of repurposed this word  for an empowering sense. Like you can say that  

she's a, she's a badass bitch. Like she's a really  empowered, strong, powerful woman. I remember too,  

uh, from The Simpsons, there's a really great  scene that stuck with me since I was a teenager,  

that the grandfather, uh, Homer Simpson's  father does something, like he loses the  

kids or something and Homer's complaining about  it and stuff. And he just says, oh, bitch, bitch,  

bitch. Like, you know, stop your complaining. We leave you the kids for three hours and the  

county takes 'em away. Oh bitch, bitch, bitch. I think this is also if you use it, uh,  

as a verb or you use it to say that  someone's complaining in that way, uh,  

that it's not quite as, you know, it's obviously  not as strong as if you call someone a bitch in  

an insulting way. So we recently did an all about  values, and Thiago said that one of his biggest  

values is resilience, which you might also say  is to not be bitching about something, right? 

Yeah, yeah. That's true. Yeah. So if you are  resilient, you tend not to complain so much. You  

just, you know, you take responsibility for your  life and the problems and obstacles you face and  

you just roll with it. By the way, if you guys  wanna listen to that full episode, we're gonna  

link it in the description below, and it's a very  nice conversation that Ethan and I have about our  

values. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, um, not bitching.  Yeah. I mean, uh, this is important to me. I try  

not to do it. Yeah, of course. Sometimes I do  it a little bit because, you know, I'm human.  

Yeah. Uh, but you know, overall I try not to do  it. And if I catch myself bitching about something  

too much, I immediately stop it. Hey Thiago,  stop the whining, stop whining, stop bitching,  

you know, come on man. Get a grip, right? Might say like, uh, even if you wanna be  

more emphatic, stop your bitching and moaning. So  we'll saythese two together, bitching and moaning. 

Bitching and moaning. Nice. Like a moan is like a, like a, Ahh, like, you  

know, you're making those kind of drawn out sounds  that show your dissatisfaction with something  

that's happened, right? You could, even, if you're  not comfortable with using bitching and stuff, you  

might want to use a non vulgar alternative, like  whining. I think you, you already mentioned that,  

right? Stop your whining. Or maybe if you're  learning British English, you could say stop  

your winging. So we've talked about, uh, bitch  as a noun. We've talked about it as a verb. We've  

talked about as a, as an expression like son of  a bitch. But we also mentioned that you could use  

it as an adjective. So one way we might do this is  if someone is complaining a lot, um, or someone is  

saying bad things, right? About like a comment or  a behavior or something like that, then you could  

say that that person's being bitchy. Right. Being bitchy. Nice. 

Very similar to the example before from The  Simpsons with the, the guy talking about the,  

the celebrity and stuff. You could also  say, not just that he was being a bitch,  

you could say he's, he's being bitchy. He's  not being very nice. He's saying bad things. 

That sounds very similar to bitching.  So bitchy (Yeah) and bitching, right? 

But we shouldn't confuse the two because bitching  actually has almost the opposite meaning it's,  

uh, it's, it's positive, right? So what does  it mean if you say something's bitching? 

It's cool. Like, oh, this is such a bitching  movie. Like, it's cool, it's awesome. 

Bitching ride man. Yeah, there's a great example  

from Friends again, as far as we're mentioning  series where I think it's the first time,  

right, where Ross plays the keyboards. It's  like something he did when he was young and  

then he wants to come back to making music and  stuff. And so he plays for the other friends  

and it's, maybe we can just like show a short  part of that, but it's really bad. It's really  

bad. So none, they don't want to be mean to him  or anything, and they don't, they're just aghast,  

right? They don't know what to say. They're,  they're left without words. And so I think  

Chandler, right, his response is just "Bitching." Really bitching. 

And something important to notice here, uh,  you might have heard that both Thiago and I  

said bitchin', not bitching. Cuz if we say with  the -G at the end, it's only if we're saying like  

bitching and moaning, like complaining,  right? But if we say it as an adjective,  

we always drop that -G, we always say bitchin'. That also reminds me of another clip from Two and  

a Half Men where the kid walks in Charlie's  house and he goes, bitchin' house, man,  

you should rent it to MTV. You know,  oh yeah, that's a cool house you have. 

A bitchin' house man. You should rent it to MTV. You know, what else is bitchin'? 

What else is bitchin'? The RealLife app, of course is probably the  

most bitchin' place to practice your English,  because it's the only place where anytime,  

anywhere you are, as long as you have an internet  connection, of course you can certainly press a  

button and connect to another English speaker,  another part of the world for an illuminating,  

interesting conversation. Don't curse too much.  You know, you don't wanna be the, the person with  

a sailor's mouth that's going around talking to  different people. We don't condone that. But,  

you know, maybe bitching could be a good one  to teach someone else. You know, if something's  

really awesome, you can say, oh, that's bitchin',  you know, sound like the, the cool kid on the  

block. So we wanted to share a shout out, say some  special words to a very special app user, right?  

All right, and finally, as we mentioned, we  could not do this episode without talking about  

the bitch king himself - Jesse Pinkman from  Breaking Bad. So let's roll a clip from that. 

And for those of you who are listening  to the audio version of the podcast,  

let me give you some context. This is a very short  clip with many random phrases that Jasse says  

during the series Breaking Bad. He's famous for  speaking or saying the word bitch a lot throughout  

the series. So there is this funny compilation  here of random phrases where he uses this word. 

Whatever little bitch. Have at it, bitches cuz  I love hot dogs. Cue ball son of a bitch laughed  

in my face. I'm not your bitch to order around.  Bitches are bleeding us enough already. Yeah,  

this is gonna help big time with that bitch. That's hilarious. 

So one, one thing I think that we  could start by talking about is, is  

the way that he says this word is so  emphatic because how he puts so much  

emphasis, he puts so much energy into the  B part of it, like the bitch, like really  

strong, B at the beginning, right? It's very peculiar. Yeah. I mean,  

he has a very special way of saying  this word. It's hard to emulate.

What does it mean to emulate something? To imitate, to do it like he's doing in this case. 

Exactly. It's so natural for him. I think it's  actually they've done interviews with the actor  

and this is actually something that comes out  of maybe his, his own lingo, his own language  

that he uses when he speaks. So it's probably  just came out so, so natural for him, right? 

Yeah. Probably yes, right? So there's some interesting different  

expressions he uses it uses here. So he says "have  at it, bitches", which I think there's actually  

some nice connected speech there: have at it. Have  at it, with the American T there in the middle. 

Have at it, bitches. Have at it bitches.  

What does it mean, like, have at it? So like, you know, keep doing whatever  

it is you're doing. Yeah. Uh, in this  context here, he's talking about hot dogs,  

how hot dogs are disgusting, like the  way they are made. But he loves hot dogs,  

so he says, have at it, bitches, because I  love hotdogs, so keep making hotdogs, you  

know, uh, this way because you know, they're good. Yeah. I think you could also use this if you're,  

for example, there's a lot of food on the table  you could say have at it, like, eat whatever  

you want. And then he says, and there's another  one, he is on a payphone actually, and he said,  

"Cue ball, son of a bitch, laughed in my face." Cue ball, son of a bitch, laughed in my face. 

So what does it mean if...cue  ball, what does that mean? 

Uh, that's a, you can call a bald person  that, someone who doesn't have hair. Cue ball. 

Right. And this actually comes from, uh, I believe  it's in, you know, in billiards or in pool,  

like a pool table. Uh, we call, I believe it's  the white ball. The one that you use to shoot  

the other balls is called the cue ball. So maybe  becausethe, you know, someone whose bald has like  

a shiny head - this is obviously not a compliment,  it's insulting to call someone a cue ball. 

It's not a compliment. Yeah. And he might be referring to  

Heisenberg, right? Who is bald (Yeah.) or,  or Hank - another character who's bald. Uh,  

and son of a bitch, as we talked about, the,  the connected speech laughed in my face. What  

does it mean if you laugh in someone's face? I think it's the literal sense here. Yeah. Like,  

uh, you make fun of that person. You maybe even  humiliate that person in public by laughing at  

that person. You're not laughing with the  person, you're laughing at that person.  

The person is the subject of mockery. So what's the difference there between  

laughing at someone and laughing with someone? I guess. Here on the podcast, we always laugh  

with each other, right? I mean, when (right)  we have fun together, uh, somebody makes a  

funny comment and then we laugh, we laugh  together. Yeah? This is us laughing with  

each other. But if you laugh at someone,  you are making fun of that person. You are  

publicly or deliberately putting that person down. So he used another, another use of bitch here,  

right? That we saw before, which is like the  one if you're wanting to make someone your  

inferior, for example, you're wanting to make them  subservient to you, like you're servant or you're,  

you're their master or something in that sense.  He says, I'm not your bitch to order around. 

I'm not your bitch to order around. So what does it mean to order someone around? 

Imagine a person who is very bossy and likes to  always tell people what to do all the time. This  

person is very controlling. We can say  that this person likes to order around. 

And you used the nice word there. You said bossy.  Bossy is someone who does this, right? They order  

people around and we can also use the phrasal  verb to boss around, which is it means the  

same thing. (Nice) And then maybe just take one  more of the examples from here. So, uh, he says,  

this is going to help big time with that bitch. Yeah, this is gonna help big time with that bitch. 

So howis he using bitch here? As an insult. Yeah? And I think he's  

even talking to his mother, you (Is he? ) know, in  that clip, if I remember correctly. Yeah. Because,  

you know, uh, yeah. Uh, his mother is kind  of kicking him out of the house because,  

you know, he has a drug problem. So, (Right)  uh, he's actually insulting his mom there. Yeah. 

It's gonna help big time with his addiction or  something like that being kicked out of his house. 

Exactly. Yeah. I imagine. Yeah. Don't call your mother a bitch.  

It's not. That's (No) not good. And what does  it mean big time? It's going to help big time. 

Like it's gonna help a lot. Yeah.  So it's a informal way, cool way  

to say a lot. It's an intensifier. Yeah. Yeah. And he's so interesting because he,  

he'll even use bitch as like a, as an endearing  term. We talked earlier that you can use son of  

a bitch for this and, you know, Jesse Pinkman  even will use this to refer to people in a,  

in a way that's supposed to be, not, not as  an insult, but you know, as a way to refer to  

friends or colleagues or so on. I think he calls his friends  

in the show bitches. Yo, bitches. Yeah. And the tone's so important too,  

right? If you say like, yo bitches, like,  it's a friendly way of saying, but if you're  

calling someone like bitch, then it's a downward  tone, right? It's, it's insulting the person. So  

let's jump in today's big challenge.  

Alright. So we shared a lot of clips and memories  that Thiago and I have with different places.  

We've heard the word used in different ways.  So we're really curious, dear learner about,  

you know, where you've heard this word used,  if you have any memories attached to series or  

movies or songs, or maybe when you heard that  you're not quite sure even how it was used,  

what did it mean in that context? So, you  know, if you want to comment that down below,  

we might even be able to help you out to better  understand. And we'd love to, love to hear your  

memories, your, your bitchy memories, or if you  are just listening to the audio, of course you  

can email us at [email protected].  Alright, so before we wrap up, was there  

any final words you wanted to say, Thiago? About this topic, just be careful, guys, you know,  

I think, uh, you know, it is nice for you to  know these different uses of this word bitch,  

but you know, it doesn't necessarily mean we are  not telling you to go out there and start using  

this word freely. Yeah. Uh, but you know, it is  important from an educational standpoint for us  

to teach you this stuff so that you know, uh, what  they mean, yeah, in those different situations. 

Even if you're against using this word, other  people are not, they are going to use it. So,  

you know, it is important that you  can understand them if they do.  

But I think before we wrap up, we wanted to give  a final thanks to some of our recent commenters,  

some of the recent participants  in another big challenge, right? 

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we've recently  done an episode about accent, and it was  

a great conversation Ethan and I had, and, and  at the end of that episode, we asked you guys,  

is it important for you to sound like a native?  Has your mind changed after listening to this  

episode? And some of you have responded. Joyce,  for example, said, "I don't wanna sound like a  

native. I just wanna speak clearly. I wanna  be understood". Thai says, "I always improve  

my accent every day because I wanna speak like a  native speaker. Improving accent helps me a lot  

in my life". Antonio said, I think you don't need  to speak like a native. The most important thing  

is that you speak and the people understand what  you said. Hello, from Brazil!" Hello Antonio. And  

Pablo says, "I wanna sound like a native to be  more confident when I'm talking to someone and  

to allow the other person to feel more confident  talking to me." Okay. And finally, Drago says,  

"Hi, after this video, I'm not interested in  sounding like a native speaker anymore because  

you have changed my mind. I wanna, I want other  people around me to be able to understand me."  

Nice comments, guys. Thank you. That was fantastic. So again, we look  

forward to seeing your guys' comments down below  and maybe we'll feature it on a future episode.  

That said, thanks so much for joining us  today, and we hope that this has been an  

enlightening real-life experience and  we look forward to seeing you hearing  

from you on the next episode of The RealLife  English Podcast. 1, 2, 3. Aww (Aww yeah.) yeah!