Urban Slang - muppet

In the late 1950's puppet master Jim Henson created some puppet characters and called them the Muppets.
Since the 1950's the Muppets have been entertaining children and adults alike with their silly antics.

However in Brittan, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, the word muppet has become a mild term of abuse.

When using muppet as a mild term of abuse the first thing to notice is the difference in spelling, the puppets created by Jim Henson and now owed by the Disney Corporation are spelt with a capital "M", as in The Muppets, and when we call someone a muppet we spell it with a lowercase "m".

When you call someone a muppet (lower case) you are suggesting that they stupid or silly.

For example: "John its six o'clock, you were supposed to be here an hour ago, you muppet!"

Calling someone a muppet should not cause them offensive, and has even been used in street advertising, however as a learner of English, remember if you are going to call someone a muppet, be sure that they have a good sense of humour.

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If you pay peanuts.

In this blog I would like to explain the phrase

"If you pay peanuts you get monkeys."

The phrase is attributed to the Anglo French businessman James Goldsmith, and it is used to describe the quality of service offered by people in business.

It is a negative phrase and is used to describe the situation where the speaker feels that if an employer pays low wages then the staff working for them will be bad.

For example:

Speaker A: "Every time I call that company I can't get the service I want"

Speaker B: "Well if you pay peanuts you get monkeys"

In this example the first speaker is describing a situation where they feel that the service they are getting from the company is very bad, the second speakers is expressing their feeling that because the company pays their staff so little money, this is the reason for the bad service.

The phrase can also used to describe the situation where a person who pays too little for a service should not expect the quality of the service
to be any good.

For Example:

Speaker A: "Juan is trying to learn English online and pays only $1 for an hour's one to one lesson, but I have to say his English is getting worse"

Speaker B: ""Well maybe someone should teach Juan the expression, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys"


In this example the first speaker is saying that they are shocked at how bad Juan's English is.

The second speaker, suggests that because Juan pays so little money for his lessons, his teacher is not a professional.

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To call time

The other day I was teaching a class and while reading an article we came across the following phrase:

"To call time"

It was a phrase that no student had hear of before, so I felt it would be a good idea to explain it to you here in this blog.

The phrase "to call time" has its history in English and Irish bars/pub.
By law English and Irish bars/pubs must close by a certain time in the evening. When the closing time comes the bar person must shout "TIME" so that everyone in the bar knows it is time to close the bar.
The act of shouting "TIME" to tell everyone that it is now time to close the bar is know as, "to call time".

However the phrase, to call time, is now used in English to describe the moment when someone decides that something has come to an end.

For example:

"John Smith, the footballer, has called time on his career"

This means that John Smith has decided to finish playing football.

Or

"Ladies and gentlemen, I must call time on this meeting"

This means that the speaker, perhaps the chairman of the meeting, has decided that it is time to finish the meeting.

To call time = to end or to finish.

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Using Will to express a future decision

In this mini English blog, I want to discuss one of the uses of Will to express the future.

As we previously discussed in other blogs there are a number of different ways of expressing the future.

Using Will is one ways to express the future and Will has a number of different uses, however in this blog I want to focus only on Will as used to express decisions.

When we are speaking about an action in the future, and we make decision about this future action while we are speaking we must use will.

For example:

"I don't know if I should go to the cinema or not...hhmm...OK I will go with you."

In this sentence the speaker is unsure about a future trip to the cinema, however while they are speaking they make up their mind to go to the cinema, so they must use Will to express this decision, because will is used to express a decision made at the moment of speaking.

Will is used to express a decision made at the moment of speaking.

There you have it another use of will for expressing the future!

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English Lesson - Bailout or Bail Out

In this mini English lesson I want to look at the phrase bailout, which when used as a noun is one word and when used as an intransitive verb is two words.

Bailout - noun

and

Bail Out - intransitive verb

If you have been following the business news in English over the last few months you will have heard the phrase bailout used as a noun.

Bailout - used as a noun

For example:

" The bank happily took the bailout given to them by the government, but they still are paying themselves big bonuses."

In business English we use the phrase bailout to describe the act of giving money to a bank or company who is danger of financial failure.

When we spit bail out into two different words we are using it as an intransitive verb.

Bail Out - when used as an intransitive verb, has three distinct:

1) To describe the act of parachuting from an aircraft

"I bailed out of the plane with my parachute at 20,000 feet and it took me 4 minutes to land"

2) To describe the act of leaving a harmful or difficult situation

"We bailed out of the bar when the two men started fighting"

In American English when we use bail out to describe the act of leaving a harmful or difficult situation bail out can be shortened to balled.

"I bailed on maths class because I didn't have me homework done."

And 3) to describe the act of removing water from a boat

"It was a nice day so we rented a row boat to go out on the lake, unfortunately the boat was leaking and we had to use our shoes to bail out the water"

So there you have it Bailout or Bail Out, now you know!

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Birrr Cold Feet

As you know in English we love to use idioms, and one strange idiom that is used very often is "cold feet".

Obviously there are two meanings to the expression "cold feet", one meaning, is the literal meaning, which is to describe the fact that a person actually has cold feet.
"I have been standing in the snow in my sandals, I have really cold feet"

However this is not the idiomatic meaning, idiomatically when someone says they have "cold feet" they are using it to describe fear or strong doubt.

"I wanted to ride the roller coaster, but when I got to the line I got cold feet so I didn't ride it"

This means that speaker wanted to go on a roller coaster, but became afraid and didn't ride it.

Remember, don't get cold feet when speaking English, just ask your online English teacher to help you.


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