English New Informal Expressions Explained
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hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia
the weekly series where you ask me
questions and i answer them maybe okay
let’s get to your first question for
this week first question this week comes
from
lamier lamy i hope i said that right hi
lamie lamia says hi alicia hope you’re
doing well i’d like to know the
difference between give in and give up
thank you so much sure give in versus
give up let’s start by talking about
give in
so give in means to agree to something
after you’ve been asked many many times
so a good example of this might be a
child asking for something from their
parent so they might say i want this
candy i want this candy will you buy it
for me mom and she says no no no
and the kid says i’ll do my chores or
i’ll do this or i’ll do that she goes no
i don’t believe you and he keeps asking
keeps asking finally she agrees the
mother in the situation agrees we could
say she gave in so in past tense she
gave in to her son’s requests so
eventually she agreed give in is used in
other situations but it always has this
feeling of multiple requests someone has
asked for something many many times and
initially at the beginning we thought no
not a good idea or no i don’t want to do
that but after a long time we finally
say yes so this is what give in refers
to
another situation in which you might
hear this expression is in a work
situation where someone is trying to
pass responsibility on to you your
co-worker might say don’t give in to him
it’s his responsibility so that means
don’t allow yourself to be persuaded by
that person make sure they take care of
their own responsibilities so this is
give in
now let’s talk about give up so to give
up means to quit something yes but give
up sounds like we tried and tried and
tried and we failed maybe many times or
we struggled a lot and eventually over
time we decided to quit this is the
difference between quit and give up
let’s say for example you’re training
for a marathon or another big sporting
event and you’ve been working for a long
time but you get an injury and then you
get another injury and another injury
you might say
i have to give up for now which means i
have to quit for now. so that’s that
feeling of trying something many many
times and eventually you have to give up
you have to quit so that’s the
difference here the key difference is
that you tried for a while and then
decided to quit so i hope this helps you
understand the differences between give
up and give in thanks for the question
okay let’s go to your next question next
question comes from ying galao hi ying
ying says can you say i’ll be at the
office until 7 pm and i’ll be at the
office by 7 pm what is the difference
good question so the key point here is
the difference between until and by
let’s look at i’ll be at the office
until 7 pm first this means starting
from some point before 7 pm and
continuing until the deadline point we
can imagine 7 pm as our deadline point
the speaker will be at the office so at
7 pm something will change we can
imagine the speaker is going to leave
the office at 7 pm
in contrast on the other hand by 7 pm
i’ll be at the office by 7 pm also mark
7 pm as the deadline point however it
sounds like the speaker is not at the
office they’re saying
at some point before but not later than
7 pm i will come to the office so this
is the difference here i’ll be at the
office until 7 pm marks the point at
which the speaker will leave i’ll be at
the office by 7 pm marks the deadline
point for when the speaker is going to
come to the office so key difference
here very important to understand the
differences check out the video on the
english class 101 youtube channel that
covers the differences between until and
by to learn more about this point i hope
that that helps you thanks very much for
the question okay let’s move on to your
next question next question is from avi
art hi avi avi says hello alicia my
question is what does okay boomer mean
okay
great question okay boomer is something
you see on the internet a lot and you
might hear it in everyday life too okay
of course means yes or i understand or
right
but the key here is boomer so boomer
refers to a person of a certain
generation in the united states so a
person who is a boomer is a person who
was born during the baby boom of the
united states this means during a period
in like about the 1950s and maybe
depending on who you ask a little bit
later when lots and lots of babies were
being born we refer to this period as
the baby boom or as a baby boom so a
person who is now older was born in that
time period and is now older is referred
to by some people as a boomer so that’s
the generation that they come from the
baby boom generation
some people consider boomers people from
this generation to have very different
opinions or to have very contradicting
opinions to young people from today so
one way that some people like to kind of
dismiss
other people’s opinions from the boomer
generation is with this expression okay
boomer it has that kind of very
condescending feel like you’re looking
down on that person so if you hear
somebody say okay boomer it means they
heard that person that older person’s
opinion and they disagree with it and
they’re just kind of putting that person
off to the side let’s say for example
you’re in a conversation with a boomer a
person from this generation and a
younger person from maybe the millennial
generation or younger and the millennial
person the younger person is very
accustomed to changing jobs or maybe
working freelance or they have a certain
work style they’re accustomed to and
they’re talking about how difficult it
is to work and earn money in today’s
economic climate the boomer however
being from a different generation might
make a comment about securing a job like
a full-time position in a big company
for example which was perhaps the normal
thing to do many years ago so they might
say something like why don’t you just
get a full-time job a stable job at a
regular company something like that
in some cases the younger person might
feel offended by this kind of comment
and say okay boomer which really means
you don’t understand my situation at all
or this is an outdated idea that you’re
expressing to me right now so okay
boomer is used in this kind of
impolite way to dismiss the opinions of
older people and it’s often used
actually not just with boomers but with
people who are older than the speaker
too so i hope this gives you a good
introduction to what this expression
means it relates to different
generations and a dismissal of older
people’s opinions by younger generations
so thanks very much for an interesting
question okay let’s move on to the next
question next question comes from erica
hi erica erica says what’s the
difference between sorted and ready
great question sorted is used in british
english ready is used in american
english when we say that’s sorted in
british english it means like that’s
finished or that’s taken care of when we
say ready in american english we don’t
say that’s ready we usually say i’m
ready so we don’t use sorted in the same
way as it’s used in british english
british english uses it to mean like
something is taken care of like
preparations are done in this way we can
use sorted but we do not use sorted in
this way in american english something
that is sorted is something that has
been organized like according to color
or size perhaps we don’t use it as an
adjective in american english we use
ready to talk about being prepared for
something or to talk about something
that is complete like oh dinner’s ready
we would not say dinner’s sorted in
american english you might hear
something like that in british english
though so i hope that this helps you
understand the differences thanks for
this question okay on to our next
question next question comes from carla
d hi carla carla says hi alicia what
does fangirling mean great question
fangirling or you might also sometimes
hear fanboying refers to being super
super excited super enthusiastic about
your favorite celebrity this can be any
kind of celebrity a musician actor
actress an artist whatever it is you are
so excited about that person or that
group that you scream maybe you have
posters of them you buy all their
merchandise you wear their t-shirts you
talk about them you have pictures of
them on your social media whatever it
means to go super super crazy for your
favorite celebrity or your favorite
artist or whatever that is so you might
say something like oh my gosh sorry i
missed your message i was fangirling
about this person so it’s kind of like
an expression of really really excited
like passion for some kind of celebrity
usually so you might also hear people
say fanboying i feel like fangirling is
used a little bit more uh but you can
say he’s a fanboy of such and such
artist you can say that as well you can
use it as a noun like a fanboy or a fan
girl that means that someone is a super
fan of a certain celebrity so this is
what it means to fangirl or to fanboy
means to be super super enthusiastic and
excited about an artist of some kind
really interesting question thanks very
much alright that is everything for this
week thank you as always for sending
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alicia and i will see you again next
time bye
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