Do you know these EVERYDAY ITEMS? + bonus idioms!

Vanessa: Do you know  

what these items are in everyday English? Well,  today you are in luck. I'm going to be helping  

you learn 15 common everyday household items in  English. Plus, each item has an expression or  

idiom that goes along with it that you might or  might not know. So maybe you know what this is,  

but do you know the idiom that goes with  this? Well, you are about to learn today. 

Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com,  and like always, I have created a wonderful PDF  

worksheet for you here today, where you can  download all of today's useful everyday items,  

plus the idioms that go along with these  items, so that you can use them easily in  

daily conversation. You can click on the  link below this video to download that  

free PDF worksheet today. It is my gift to you. Let's get started with item number one and idiom  

number one. Do you know what this item is? This  is a hammer. And what do you do with a hammer?  

You hammer in a nail. So I  want to help you with a great  

expression that we use to talk about hammers. The other day, someone asked me, "Vanessa,  

what's the point in learning a foreign language?"  Well, as you can imagine, this is something I feel  

very passionately about. So I started talking for  like 10 minutes about the benefits of learning  

a foreign language. You might say, "I hammered,  boom, boom, boom, my point home," and this is the  

expression, to hammer your point home. And here  point just means your ideas, your perspective.  

I really wanted that other person to see my  perspective because I was so passionate about  

it. I told them all the benefits, all the great  things that can happen, all of the excitement  

about learning a foreign language. So I wanted to  hammer my point home. I didn't want to just say  

something simple. Instead, I wanted to make sure  they understood. I wanted to hammer my point home. 

Do you know what this item is? It's quite  useful. It's a broom. My broom has some  

problems. It's really bent. I guess we were  sweeping ferociously at some point. But  

there are two wonderful expressions that I'd  like to teach you related to sweeping. Now,  

notice that the verb is not to broom. You  don't broom the floor, you sweep the floor  

with a broom. But what happens if you sweep  something under the rug? Well, what happens  

to that item that you sweep under the rug? Is it  visible for everyone to see? Nope. It is hidden. 

So if there's something in your life that  you don't want to think about, usually this  

is something kind of serious. So let's imagine  that your aunt and uncle have announced that they  

are getting a divorce. And when you see your  aunt the next time, you want to talk to her,  

you want to see if she's okay. You want to  talk about this, but she's silent. Oh, well,  

you might say, "My aunt is deciding to sweep  her divorce under the rug." That means she  

wants it to stay hidden and unspoken. Maybe she's  dealing with a hard time, probably is. Maybe she  

just doesn't want to discuss it yet, or maybe she  feels really uncomfortable discussing it. So she  

is sweeping it under the rug to keep it hidden. Now, that expression is quite negative. We're  

sweeping something serious under the rug. But  what happens if you get swept off your feet?  

Well, when you're sweeping the floor, usually  you don't fall down, right? But this expression,  

to be swept off my feet, has to do with love. That  you might say, "The first time that I saw him, I  

was swept off my feet." Maybe he didn't literally  pick you up and carry you away. But this idea that  

I could hardly walk, I was just floating. He  swept me off my feet when he brought me roses  

and chocolate and said so many nice things. This  means you are in love. He swept me off my feet. 

Here is my sink, and oh, it's looking beautiful  right now. My husband Dan just did the dishes. So  

it is nicely cleaned. But do you know what this  is down here? This is the drain, and everything  

goes down the drain if it gets into that little  hole. So here water is going down the drain. Now,  

what goes down the drain? Usually it's something  that you don't want to keep, hopefully, hopefully  

not your rings or something important. Usually  it's just waste. So here water is going down  

the drain, but we can use this expression down  the drain for other things that might be wasted. 

So you could say buying expensive clothes for  your children is just money down the drain because  

your kids are going to get them messy. They're  going to rip them. It is not a good investment  

to buy expensive clothes for your children.  Buying expensive clothes for your children  

is just money down the drain. It's wasted. Do you know what this is called? This is a window.  

And what happens if I decide to throw something  out the window? First of all, you might ask why,  

Vanessa, would you throw something out  the window? That's a good question. Well,  

this is the wonderful expression out  the window, not necessarily with throw,  

but take a look at this sentence. Our plans for a beautiful picnic went  

out the window when a thunderstorm rolled  in. Okay, so our plans are out the window.  

Does this mean that I have a piece of paper that  I'm balling up and really just throwing out the  

window? No, this just means that our plans  had to change in kind of an unfortunate way,  

some way that I didn't want to have happen. So our  plans went out the window when the storm rolled  

in. We had to come up with plan B because no one  wants to have a picnic in the pouring down rain. 

What do you call this item? I actually don't have  this item, but there's a great expression I want  

to teach you with it. This is an iron. Notice the  pronunciation. Iron. Iron. Iron. This is an iron.  

And with an iron, you help to get wrinkles out of  your clothes. This is making something smoother  

and nicer. So let's imagine an idiom that we can  use with iron. Let's imagine that you and your  

friends would like to go on vacation to Venice.  What a wonderful idea. But you've never gone on  

vacation with those friends before and it's quite  a big trip for you. So you might say, we need to  

iron out the details before we book our trip. You want to make sure that all of the wrinkles  

are smoothed out. Where are you going to stay?  What kind of trip would you like to have? Is  

this going to be a nightclub trip or is this  going to be a sit in a coffee shop and look  

at the views type of trip? You want to iron out  the details before you actually book the trip. 

Do you know what these are in English? These  are light bulbs. And what happens if you have  

a light bulb moment? Well, if you've ever  watched any cartoons or anything animated,  

whenever someone gets a good  idea, or maybe just an idea,  

they often have a light bulb appear above their  heads. Aha, I have a great idea. And that is  

referring to this wonderful expression,  which is to have a light bulb moment. 

So for you in your English journey, perhaps you  have been learning English for a long time in the  

classroom, studying some textbooks, maybe going  to some local classes, and then one day you had a  

light bulb moment and you realized this method  is not working for me. I have been doing this  

for years and years. Why aren't I more fluent in  English? So you decided to go online and find some  

wonderful classes, maybe with Vanessa. So here you  had a moment of inspiration, a light bulb moment,  

and now you're here learning English. Thank you. Do you know what these are? This is a nut,  

the circular part, and this is a bolt. Now, we  usually use these together. The nut fits onto  

the bolt and it screws onto the bolt. You can  build pretty much anything if you have a nut  

and a bolt. So what does it mean to get down  to the nuts and bolts of something? Well, when  

you look at a chair or a table, you don't really  see the nuts and bolts. But are they important?  

Absolutely. And whoever built that chair or table  needed to know exactly where the nuts and bolts  

went in order to build sturdy furniture.  So here we're talking about the details. 

Sometimes these details aren't fun to plan  out. Some people love planning the details of a  

project, but maybe you're someone who doesn't like  to get down to the nuts and bolts of a project.  

So we might say, "She has a lot of  ideas, but she doesn't like to get down  

to the nuts and bolts of what will make the  project actually work." So it's fun to come  

up with ideas, but to actually do the project in  detail isn't always so exciting. There's always  

going to be parts that will be difficult or less  fun. So maybe you're someone who likes to get  

down to the nuts and bolts of a project, or maybe  you're someone who likes to just have fun ideas. 

Do you know what this is? This machine here, this  is a coffee maker. Well, there's a specific sound  

or verb that we sometimes use to talk about  coffee, and it is percolate. Percolate. Well,  

if you have ever made coffee with a coffee  maker, you hear that kind of bubbling,  

gurgling sound as the steam rises and the  water is heating and making the coffee.  

Well, it hasn't finished making coffee yet, but  it's in the process. There's also a lot of hot  

steam and hot water involved  in percolating coffee. 

So what does it mean when something else  percolates? Take a look at this. You might say,  

"When the boss sent the email to the entire  company, he let it percolate before sending  

a follow-up email." So he's kind of letting it  steam and boil throughout the company before he  

gives any kind of follow-up. We get the idea that  this email might include some kind of surprising  

information, something maybe shocking,  and he's letting it grow and steam before  

he follows up with that message. So he's letting  his email percolate throughout the office before  

sending a follow-up and explaining some more. What is this? This is a cookie jar. Right now,  

there are no cookies in this because actually  we use this to put coffee beans in and there  

are no more coffee beans. What a tragedy.  But a great expression that you can use  

about a cookie jar is this, to be caught  with your hand in the cookie jar. Okay,  

well, this goes back to the idea that as a  child, you are probably not allowed to eat  

an endless amount of cookies. So if your mom  catches you with your hand in the cookie jar,  

you're probably going to be in trouble. And  that's the idea of this expression. We could  

say the politician got caught with his hand in  the cookie jar when it was found out that he was  

stealing money from a company. Okay, well,  it's not a good idea. It's not a good thing  

when someone gets their hand caught in the cookie  jar because they've been doing something wrong. 

Do you know what this is? Where am I sitting  very comfortably? This is an armchair. There's  

a lot of different expressions for what to call  this chair. But for the sake of this lesson,  

this is an armchair. Usually it has arms that  you can rest your arms on and rest your belly,  

a very pregnant belly. But there's a wonderful  expression that we can also use to talk about  

an armchair. What does it mean if someone  says he is an armchair critic? Does it mean  

that he criticizes armchairs? Oh, that's not a  good armchair. That's not a good armchair. No. 

Instead, we can imagine someone who doesn't  have professional knowledge, but they are  

still a critic nonetheless. So we can imagine  your Uncle John sitting in his armchair saying,  

"Oh no, that policy by the government wasn't  good," blah, blah, blah. "Oh no, I think that  

the neighborhood should do this." Well, does he  really know? Is he really a professional in those  

areas? Nope. But he still has a lot of opinions. So someone who is an armchair critic is someone  

who doesn't have professional experience.  They still have an opinion and maybe their  

opinion isn't the best opinion, but that's okay.  Everyone is an armchair critic about something,  

right? But you can also use this to talk about  yourself if you want to let someone know that  

you're not a professional. So you might say, "When  it comes to investments, I'm an armchair critic.  

I've read a lot of articles and studied a little  bit about it, but I have really not a great idea  

about how to really be a good investor." So here I'm talking about myself. I'm  

acknowledging that I don't have a whole lot of  experience with this, so don't take my opinion  

too seriously. I'm an armchair critic when  it comes to investments, and I still want  

to talk about it, but I'm not a professional.  So this is a great way to use armchair critic. 

Do you know what this is called? This is  a table. It's one of the first words that  

you probably learned in English, a table. But  what happens when something is on the table?  

Are we talking about a physical item being on the  table? Nope. Here, look at the sample sentence.  

I told my boss that if the offer for a promotion  is still on the table, I would like to accept it. 

So here we can substitute the expression,  I told my boss that if the offer for the  

promotion is still available, well, I would  like to accept it. So here we're talking about  

something that is available, and usually  it means something that's available to be  

discussed. There's a little nuance here that's  talking about discussion. It's on the table. 

Now, the opposite of this is something that  is off the table. That means we do not discuss  

this. It is something that is completely off the  table. We are finished, it's done. For example,  

if your family is talking about planning a  vacation and one family member says, "Hey, why  

don't we take a huge trip and go to Indonesia?"  Well, your family members might say, "I'm sorry,  

but that idea is off the table. It will take  too much money, and we don't have enough time  

to be able to go that far away." So here we're  talking about the availability for discussion  

is pushed away. That idea is off the table. But I'd like to give you another expression  

talking about table, a little bonus. What does  it mean when something is under the table? When  

something's under the table, is it visible? Nope.  Instead, it's something that's hidden. So usually  

we use this expression, under the table, to  talk about paying someone or getting paid,  

doing some kind of transaction, not necessarily  legally. It doesn't have to be extremely illegal. 

For example, when I was in high school, I was a  babysitter for a couple neighborhood families.  

So we could say I got paid under the table. That  doesn't mean that they really gave me money under  

the table. It just means that I wasn't signed  up by the government to have a business as a  

babysitter. No, they just gave me some cash and  said, "Thanks for watching our kids," and I didn't  

really report that money. Shh, government, don't  listen to me. But this is pretty typical. If you  

walk someone's dog and they give you some money,  okay, that might be under the table. They're just  

doing the transaction hidden. Usually it's  socially acceptable. But this is the idea,  

that it's not in the books. It's not your legal  job. It's just something that's under the table. 

But of course, in some ways, this expression  can be negative because if there is a legitimate  

business and they are doing something under the  table, well, it really gives that business a bad  

reputation. So for example, my father-in-law does  a lot of international travel for his job, and he  

told me that in some countries it's quite normal  to bribe another company under the table in order  

to do a business deal with them. So this is not  something that's written out officially. They're  

just saying, "Hey, we'll give you some extra money  if you choose our company to do business with."  

Not very legal. At least in the US,  this is considered unacceptable. But  

in other cultures and other countries,  this is something that's quite normal,  

to do a deal under the table. So depending on  where you're from, this might be okay or not okay. 

What's this? What's this? This is a tea  kettle, and this is a pot. For the sake  

of this fun expression that I'm about to teach  you, let's imagine that this pot is black. It's  

actually silver, but the wonderful expression  is the pot calling the kettle black. Well,  

if both of these are the same color, it would  be a little bit strange for the pot to say,  

Hey, kettle, you're black. And the kettle would  say, yeah, pot, but you're black too. So this  

idea here is when we're talking about someone  pointing out a negative quality that really  

they also have, so this is also called hypocrisy. Let me give you an example. Let's imagine that I  

went to my friend Sarah's birthday party and I  arrived 30 minutes late. She might say to me,  

"Vanessa, why are you always so late?" I might  think in my head, "Hey, this is the pot calling  

the kettle black. Sarah's the one who's always  late." So I'm wondering, why is she upset at me  

for being late? Because really she's the one who's  chronically late. She's calling me the same color  

as her, the same problem that she really has,  and kind of the nuance here is that she doesn't  

realize it. She doesn't realize the irony or the  hypocrisy of her statement. Hey, that's the pot  

calling the kettle black. I was late one time.  You are the one who's late all the time. Now,  

it wouldn't be very nice for me to say that to her  at her birthday party, but that's the essence of  

the expression, the pot calling the kettle black. What are these items? These are tools. Here's a  

screwdriver and a wrench, and what is this?  It's a knife. But the expression that we use  

includes both of these. They can be  interchanged in a way. You might say,  

he's not the sharpest tool in the shed, or  he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. 

What does this mean? Is this nice? Absolutely  not. This means someone's not very smart.  

That's basically the nuts and bolts of it,  is that it means you're not the sharpest tool  

in the shed. Ugh. There are a lot of people  in the figurative shed who are smarter than  

you. You're not the sharpest knife in the  drawer. Well, there are other people in the  

figurative drawer who are sharper than you. So  my recommendation is do not tell someone this.  

Do not say, "Oh, you're not the sharpest knife  in the drawer." Not nice, but it is still a  

useful expression to know. You might hear this  in a movie or TV show, and maybe, just maybe,  

when that person is not around, you might  want to use that expression. So now you know. 

Well, congratulations on learning these 15  household items plus useful idioms that go  

along with them. I hope you had a light  bulb moment during this lesson. Don't  

forget to download the free PDF worksheet that's  available for this lesson. It includes all the  

household items, all of the definitions  for the idioms, sample sentences, ideas,  

and you can answer Vanessa's challenge question,  using these wonderful daily life items. You can  

click on the link in the description to  download the free PDF worksheet today. 

Well, thank you so much for learning English  with me, and I'll see you again next Friday  

for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. But wait, do you want more? I recommend watching  

this video next, where you will learn technology  vocabulary, including what do you call someone  

who is really good at using technology? If you  have any questions, you always ask them. What  

would you call that person? Well, watch that  video to find out, and I'll see you there.