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hi everybody welcome back to ask Alicia

the weekly series where you ask me

questions and I answer them

maybe first question this week comes

from Silas hi Silas Silas says hi Alicia

how’s it going I’d like to know the

meaning of the expression weird flex but

okay and how do I use it in a sentence

okay this is a bit of recent slang weird

flex but okay focuses in on the meaning

of the word flex so if you are

interested in like health or like muscle

training or anything like that you might

know the verb to flex so to flex is what

we do when we want to show off a muscle

we have been training so when we flex a

muscle we put energy into the muscle to

make the muscle like stand out we want

it to look bigger like we want to show

off that muscle so when we flex a muscle

we’re trying to show it off we’re like

excited about that thing or we’re proud

about it or something like that so flex

here in this expression weird flex does

not refer to muscle it doesn’t refer to

the body but actually something else

that the speaker or the writer is trying

to show off so it’s something that seems

strange so in the example of muscles and

muscle training like the person who

wants to show off wants to show their

muscles but when we use the expression

weird flex someone is trying to show off

something that seems strange and then we

add but okay at the end to me I don’t

really understand but all right so to

give an example of this if I on Twitter

right like I spent $3,000 on socks this

month whoo and I talked about how

excited I am

I’m like shocked that I spent $3,000 on

socks someone might respond to me weird

flex but okay so that means like it’s

strange that you want to show off that

you spent $3,000 on sock

like that’s a really strange thing to be

excited about but okay so to give

another example your friend might tell

you something like I have the biggest

collection of rocks in my whole

neighborhood and you might say weird

flex but okay so again it’s like that’s

a strange thing that you want to show

off but okay whatever it is like it’s

not hurting anybody it’s just a little

bit weird that you want to show that off

or you want to brag or boast about that

thing so that’s what weird fluke but

okay means you see this one a lot online

I hope that that helps you thanks very

much for this interesting question okay

let’s move on to your next question next

question comes from Riggins Riggins hi

Riggins Regan says hi Alicia I’m Riggins

from Haiti I’m good at English but due

to a lack of practice I’ve kind of lost

my touch because I’m sick and tired of

the learning process so I’d like to know

how to keep my English up please okay

first I’m sure that you’re not the only

person like I lose motivation all the

time I would say that if you are having

trouble keeping your motivation up you

should try looking for a different way

to practice or a different way to use

English so for example if there’s a

hobby that you have in your native

language you could try doing that in

English or maybe there’s a book or a

movie that you are really interested in

or that seems cool and you want to

understand that in English I would

suggest trying to find something that’s

not like a traditional textbook or it’s

not a traditional way of learning like

going to a class and doing worksheets

and that kind of thing I would suggest

actually trying to use English in your

everyday life to like do your work or to

study something or to accomplish a hobby

maybe you make a new friend who can

speak only English so I would suggest

finding something outside of a

traditional learning setting to do I

think that that might help you a little

bit with your motivation that has helped

me a lot in the past actually making

friends with people who cannot speak my

language has been hugely motivating for

me and I tried to study the vocabulary

words that they often talk about and I

try to learn from their speech patterns

too so I would suggest trying to find

something to do with other people as

much as possible that uses English so I

hope that this helps you and helps other

people with their motivation issues it

happens to all of us at some point in

time but I hope that these tips can help

thanks very much for this question okay

let’s move on to your next question next

question comes from Ahmet Faruk hello

Ahmet Ahmed says what is the difference

between May and can

okay historically May is used to ask for

permission can is used to express

ability to do something or lack of

ability to do something so that’s the

historical use of May and can

in today’s English however lots of

people use can to ask for permission to

do something we do not however use May

to talk about ability so let’s take a

look at some examples can I go to the

restroom may I go to the restroom can I

leave early today may I leave early

today

so in today’s English these all refer to

the same thing they’re all requests to

use the restroom or to leave early in

today’s American English I would say

that using May tends to sound a little

bit more formal than using can if you

ever want to be sure to sound polite and

to make sure you’re communicating

clearly you can use May but in most

day-to-day conversations we use can so I

hope that this helps you thanks very

much for the question okay let’s move on

to your next question next question

comes from

Yovani hi Avani Yovani says hi Alicia my

name is Giovanni I’m from Venezuela I’ve

always wanted to know the meaning of

this sentence don’t get twisted even

though it’s not used very often Thanks

yeah you’re right this isn’t such a

common expression I found only a few

references to this expression and they

were typically from music actually so

this expression could mean like don’t

get

angry or don’t get upset or don’t get

nervous so it prefers to being in like a

negative condition so twist it if you

imagine like a towel do we do yeah for

this explanation let’s imagine like a

towel so a regular just plain towel when

we hold the towel looks like this but if

we twist the towel like this it’s under

tension like it’s under pressure so if

we imagine ourselves as like the towel

like we’re under pressure we’re really

tight we’re really tense we could be

angry we could be nervous we could be

upset about something so if someone says

to you don’t get twisted

it’s like chill out like don’t be upset

don’t be angry relax in other words so I

would guess that this is what this word

means or what this expression means

rather but as you said this is not such

a common expression we don’t say don’t

get twisted really in American English

you might hear people say something like

just chill out as I’ve said are maybe

like don’t worry or there are a couple

of other slightly more rude expressions

that we use too so I hope that this

helps you thanks very much for the

question ok let’s move on to your next

question next question comes from Malik

hi Malik Malik says is this sentence

correct the color of shirts of players

could you explain more about two

possessive nouns in a row thanks in

advance yeah great question this is kind

of tricky so in this situation we would

say the color of the players shirts so a

key here is that we’re using players and

we’re using an apostrophe after the S in

players that apostrophe is acting as a

possessive apostrophe so we have two

ways of creating the possessive in

English we can use of as in the color of

the players shirts and we can use the

apostrophe s form so for example

Alicia’s would be Alicia apostrophe s

the apostrophe s shows something is

belonging to me that’s my thing Alicia’s

phone so in

this situation we have players players

here we’re talking about shirts that

belong to players so it’s not just one

person when a noun ends with an S we

make the plural possessive form by

adding an apostrophe to the end of the

word and we do not add another s so in

the singular form when I said Alicia’s

phone for example

Alicia is one person so I write Alicia

apostrophe s in this example however

because we’re talking about a group of

people players we don’t use an

apostrophe s because the word already

ends in s and it sounds kind of strange

just try to say like players is

something like that so to avoid this we

simply write players with s and add an

apostrophe at the end so this shows the

plural form that means plural possessive

apostrophe there it’s very natural to

use that apostrophe form of the

possessive when we’re talking about

something that belongs to a person so

again in my example when I said Alicia’s

phone it sounds quite natural to use

that apostrophe s to show possession as

a person in the plural form two players

shirts it’s a shirt or shirts that

belong to a player so when we’re not

using a person when we’re using like an

object it might be a little bit more

common to see an of pattern used there

in this case it’s color of the shirts so

color is like a characteristic that

belongs to the shirt or in this case

shirts so here it sounds natural to use

the of pattern because there’s not a

person here we’re talking about the

characteristics of an object color of

the shirts so of can be used to talk

about like characteristics of things and

the apostrophe s form can be used to

talk about like things that belong to

people let’s look at one more example

though that uses no people so for

example the color of the seats in the

cars or the color of the cars seats so

we could use either of these patterns I

personally would probably use the color

of the seats in the cars because we can

clearly see like

the levels of belonging first we have

color and the color belongs to the seats

and the seats are in the cars so I think

that sounds much nicer you might see

that color of the cars seats sentence

though as we talked about it’s a little

bit less natural maybe to use the

possessive apostrophe there with car

because it’s not actually a person I

think you might use that though I don’t

think it’s incorrect to use that but I

personally would prefer to use something

that kind of clearly shows the the

hierarchy the level of belonging or the

levels of belonging as in the first

example the color of the seats in the

car I hope that this helps you thank you

very much for this interesting question

all right so that is everything that I

have for this week thank you as always

for sending your great questions

remember you can send them to me at

English class 101.com slash ask - Alicia

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