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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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