#36 - To put someone on the spot - with Ahmad from Senegal

10/03/20 • 4 min

Transcript:
Thank you Wayne. And thank you again for your service. Let's turn to the audience now. Uh, Oh, a lot of hands going up, mr. President, what? I'm pixeling.
Oh, well, uh, you know, you put, you kind of put me on the spot here that, that, uh, the guy in the glasses right back at me in the back end. Why not?
Okay here. We have to put someone on the spot to put someone on the spot, which means the embarrass someone by asking them a difficult question. I love this one because it is easy to remember for me.
This was Ahmad from Senegal. You might have listened to an episode in which he appeared, actually it was episode number 32 in which we covered the expression "to come to terms with".
And right at the beginning, you could listen to Obama the ex president of the USA. So someone tries to put him on the spot. And well, now we are wondering which question was meant to put him on the spot.
My question is, would you please raise my taxes?
Oh. And by the way, the man was unemployed by choice because he has gathered a lot of money and Obama rambled on. So he's not giving a short answer. His answer was about six minutes or so. So I didn't cover it.
Examples: My brightest student asked me a difficult question today. He always puts me on the spot.
My brightest student asked me a difficult question today. He always puts me on the spot.
Another example, my friend's wife puts him on the spot when she asked him what he had been up to the previous night in front of people.
My friend's wife put him on the spot. When she asked him what he had been up to the previous night in front of people.
So the expression is informal and according to the Oxford languages definitions, it means to force someone into a situation in which they must make a difficult decision or answer a difficult question.
What's your question? Are you going to make a film together ??????well, you put me on the spot there?
I think I need to treat my body with more respect...
To put someone on the spot. That was an episode again with Ahmad I want to thank you for your help. My name is Daniel Goodson. I am the vocab man. Thanks for tuning in. And I hope I'll... I hope you're back for the next episode I would be very glad about that. Bye.
Obama: Oh, well, uh, you kind of put me on the spot here.
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Previous Episode

#35 - Batshit crazy

Full transcript:
The following program contains explicit language.
What do you really mean? These people are good honest, smart, not batshit crazy people. So why the fuck are they saying batshit crazy stuff to me. Welcome to the vocab man, thanks for tuning in. And today's focus is going batshit crazy.
Yeah, exactly. Batshit crazy.This is kind of a very bizarre expression. In my opinion, it is very informal.
I met with someone the other day who said that they would help me with a campaign that's not for me, but just kind of think of how batshit crazy the whole thing is.
I'd say it is vulgar and you should take care of when you use these expression.
I'm like, it keeps me up reading about it at night. It's, you know, I drive my friends, totally batshit crazy. Cause it's the only thing I talk about and so on and so forth.
According to the urban dictionary the top definition of batshit crazy is "a person who is batshit crazy is certifiably nuts."
The phrase has its origins in the old fashioned term bats in the belfry. All churches had a structure at the top called a belfry, which housed the bells and bats are extremely sensitive to sound and would never inhabit a Belfry of an active church where the bell was rung frequently.
So occasionally when a church was abandoned and many years passed without the bells being rung, bats could eventually come and inhabit the belfry. So when somebody said that an individual had bats in the belfry, it meant there was nothing going on upstairs. As in the person's brain you could say to the batshit crazy is to take this even a step further... person who is badshit crazy is so nuts that not only is their belfry full of bats, but so many bats have been there for so long that the belfry is coated in bat shit. Hence the craziest of crazy people are batshit crazy.
On the side of socially acceptable religion, you have a wide range of batshit crazy suspicions that you find you relinquished your tentative grasp on sanity and punished headfirst into the realms of the complete batshit crazy with that said, I'm not going to comment any further on mr...
That's almost it for today, guys. I want to thank you very much for tuning in. I am Daniel Goodson, the host of this show. I absolutely recommend to you that you read along while you're listening to this podcast. That way you can read the rather difficult audio clips, and that's why you will even learn more vocabulary.
Oh, and I just wanted to mention, if you don't subscribe to the vocab man then you are batshit crazy, right?
That is our chief energy officer, uncle Lenny, who is Jack Russell terrier. Totally batshit dog ...is my dog crazy.
....that drives me crazy fucking batshit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qP-NglUeZU
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=batshit%20crazy
www.myfluentpodcast.com

Next Episode

#37 - A stitch in time saves nine - Proverb

Share your favorite expression with us by clicking the link below:
https://www.videoask.com/fwegskglw
(But of course you might also send in an expression you don't know the meaning and/or want us to cover in a future Vocab Man episode)
Transcript:
A Stitch in time saves 9 - podcast
A stitch in time saves nine. We must do everything we can to avoid going down that road again. But if people don't follow the rules, we've set out, then we must just reserve the right to go further. Okay. We must take action now because a stitch in time saves nine. And this way we can keep people in work.
We can keep our shops and our schools open and we can keep our country moving forward while we work together to suppress the virus.
We must take action now. Because the stitch in time saves nine.
Hello dear English learners. This is Daniel Goodson. I am the host of this show called the Vocab man. So I try to learn relevant expressions or idioms, which I can use in daily life. So I try to become a more fluent speaker. And at the same time, I want to teach these expressions to you guys.
Because learning together makes more fun, I guess. Thank you very much for tuning in.
A stitch in time, saves nine for the individual. Give them another job before they lose their job. It's a lot easier to make that happen. But in short, Australia has another industry before the old one closes down like mining.
So according to the Merriam-Webster website, A stitch in time saves nine is an Idiom used to say that it is better to fix a problem when it is small than to wait and let it become a bigger problem.
The model of that is a proverb. Cervantes said Proverbs are short sentences, drawn from long experience. For example, a stitch in time saves nine. A leopard cannot change its spots. All that glitters is not gold. And once you find the core, then you need to communicate that core. And again, when you communicate it, you're giving a little information and then a little more and then a little more, and it's kind of like flirting, just getting the information out bit by bit, just as much as they need to know.
And it has often been surmised that the same comes from the practice of stitching clothing that needs mending sooner rather than later. This may indeed be the case but it is worth noting that our earliest evidence of use from 1710 appears to not have a direct and litterer literal connection to tailoring.
And it has often been surmised that the same comes from the practice of stitching clothing that needs mending sooner rather than later. This may indeed be the case but it is worth noting that our earliest evidence of use from 1710 appears to not have a direct and litterer literal connection to tailoring.
Is something that I would do for other people and vice versa. Another one is that a stitch in time saves nine, that I'm trying to find the fastest, most efficient way to solve a problem for people. And you see that as soon as you start to describe those truths, the tendency is then to explain what does that lead you to do?
Let me give you some synonyms. The one I like the most is. Procrastination is the thief of time because I am someone who's procrastinating a lot, unfortunately. And another one is prevention is better than cure or better safe than sorry. There are some expressions which are even easier. For example, you could say, don't leave it until it's too late or do it before it's too late. So you're listening to the Vocab man. And this was a stitch in time saves nine, and don't forget to subscribe to the vocab man. Bye.
Links:
Bloomberg Politics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHE4Bqvt4Ls
boris johnson
Synonyms:
https://www.powerthesaurus.org/stitch_in_time_saves_nine/synonyms
Music:
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes/Inspiring__Upbeat_Music/Scott_Holmes_-_Clear_Progress
Clear Progress by Scott Holmes is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/news-trend-watch/bojo-a-stitch-in-time-saves-nine-20200922
More informatoin about a stich in time saves 9:
https://www.quora.com/What-does-%E2%80%9Ca-stitch-in-time-saves-nine%E2%80%9D-mean
www.myfluentpodcast.com