912. Bits & Bobs 3 📚 Questions of English (Part 3) More Listener Comments
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You're listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teacherluke.co.uk.

Hello listeners, welcome back to Luke's English Podcast. How are you doing today? I hope you're doing fine. So, this is a new episode of my podcast for learners of English around the world. And, yes, so there's a PDF for this one again, and you can just get the PDF by checking the show notes for this episode, wherever you are listening to it or watching it. Just have a look in the show notes or episode description or whatever you want to call it, you know, the text section.

that accompanies this episode. That's where you'll always find some links. And when there's a PDF, you can find the link to it there and a couple of other links, including a link to the episode page on my website where you can find other stuff associated with the episode often and a comment section. And that's my website where you can also find my episode archive with all episodes of the podcast that I've ever done.

So check the show notes slash episode description for links, including the link for the PDF, which I'm going to start working from in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Here we go. So hello. Let me say that again. Hello and welcome back to the Bits and Bobs series. This is part three. If you have...

heard if you've heard shall i say that again why did i pause i don't know if you've heard parts one and two you will know what this is all about have you heard parts one and two yet

They're episodes 904 and 907, respectively. Check them out if you haven't already done so, and you'll understand what the Bits and Bobs series is all about. But, I mean, let me tell you again anyway, in this series I'm talking about various bits and bobs, meaning little bits and pieces.

ranging from mini grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation lessons to interesting talking points and bits of motivation for your learning of English. It's all based on various questions and comments from listeners over the years. OK, so more comments and questions from listeners. I'm going to continue to respond to comments from my listeners in response to various episodes in my episode archive.

The episode archive can be found at teacherluke.co.uk slash episodes. Now, I've received a lot of comments and messages from listeners over the years. I used to collect interesting ones and put them in a folder so I could use them in episodes at a later date. And I received a lot of those messages at moments when I wasn't at my computer and couldn't respond to them.

like when I was standing in the queue at the supermarket or something like that. So what I would do was I would quickly save them in a folder in my Google Drive. So I would kind of copy-paste the text and stick that into a document in my Google Drive, or I would screenshot the comment or message and save that in my Google Drive. So I would stuff my... I had this folder and I would stick all of these comments and messages and things in,

into that folder. It was called Stuff for Podcast. And I did that a lot when things arrived and I was just quickly, I was able to just shove them in that folder and I'll deal with them later is what I thought. So I did that a lot and then promptly forgot all about the messages. In fact, at some point I forgot about the folder itself and I only rediscovered it recently.

and have been working from it. So now, about five to ten years later, I'm finally dealing with these bits and bobs in this episode. A lot of these comments from listeners relate to various older episodes of this podcast.

And you can find all these episodes that I'll be referring to. You can find all these episodes in the episode archive on my website, which I just mentioned, teacherluke.co.uk slash episodes. Or if you subscribe to the audio version of Luke's English Podcast using a podcast app on your phone, you'll get the full episode list there too. Not all the episodes are on YouTube, by the way, only some of them. Okay, so let's continue going through some listener comments. Taking a little trip down memory lane.

but also giving some tips about various aspects of learning English, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and more. And we start with a comment that was left in response to episode number 519, which was called Idioms Game and Chat with Andy Johnson plus 25 idioms explained. So this comment really is about the benefits of listening twice or listening more than once.

So, this episode, in this episode number 519, I had a rambling conversation with my friend Andy Johnson and we used lots of idioms while we were talking. The episode was full of anecdotes and a couple of little jokes. So let me first actually play you a clip, a small clip from the episode so you can get a sense of what it was like. Or maybe just, this might jog your memory if you actually listen to the original episode.

So just a bit of information. Andy, who was my guest in this one, he does look quite a lot like Moby. Do you know Moby? He's a DJ, kind of music producer guy. So Andy looks quite a lot like Moby, and people quite often tell him this. They feel compelled to tell him, you look like Moby, or something like that. Or they even completely mistake him for Moby.

Including one time when Andy was in an airport and an American guy came up to him and the guy said to him, I just wanted to say, man, I just love your music. It's been a really big part of my life. Just thank you, Moby. And Andy said, sorry, I'm not Moby. And the guy was like, oh, come on, man, you're Moby. You know, you wouldn't believe him. This sort of thing happens to Andy all the time.

So I just needed to remind you of that. Now, if you listen to episode 519, you can follow the conversation, spot the idioms, and then listen to me summarize and explain them all at the end of the conversation. And after explaining all the idioms and some other vocabulary, I encouraged listeners to listen to the conversation again, because if you do that, you will definitely understand the conversation much better, and you'll notice and remember the vocabulary more easily.

So anyway, let me just play a sample of the episode where Andy talks about a drunk guy, a guy who was drunk...

at the Notting Hill Carnival. This is a carnival, a very famous carnival that happens in London every year in August. Big carnival where people party in the street and there's probably quite a lot of drinking that goes on. So Andy talks about a drunk guy at the Notting Hill Carnival who stopped Andy in the street to tell him, yep, that he looked like Moby. So listen to this clip.

And follow the story that Andy tells. And also, you can just consider which bits of vocabulary I might point out. Okay? So, let's find the episode. The clip is 21 minutes to 24 minutes long.

Okay, here we go. Let's just find that episode. Okay, so I've got it ready. Let's listen now to my chat with Andy. Which idioms do you think, or bits of vocabulary do you think I might point out for you? Here we go. It was annoying because in France the weather was actually quite nice, so it was really weird. The sun was shining, but obviously two hours away in Birmingham it was all snowy. Have you used any of the idioms yet?

No. Neither have I. No, neither have I. No. I'm wondering if how this is going to... I'm looking at my list of idioms thinking, how am I going to use these? They've got nothing to do with snow and... Or have I? Maybe I have used an idiom. Maybe I have. I haven't. I haven't. Okay. So that was the beast from the east. Yeah, that's... What else? Well, what about you? Have you been mistaken for Moby recently? You know what? I think since we last spoke on this podcast...

I have actually. And it was a weird one because it was back in the summer. And I think it was the weekend of the Notting Hill Carnival, so the end of August. And for those of you that don't know the Notting Hill Carnival, it's kind of a big event that actually goes ahead just on the doorstep actually of where Luke and I used to work together, where I still work at the Lund School.

And it's over the long summer weekend, long August bank holiday weekend. And I think as a result, a lot of people just drink too much. And it's a bit of a weird time to be in London because you kind of –

It's like, have you ever seen The Walking Dead? Yes, absolutely. It's a bit like that with people just kind of aimlessly shuffling around because they've drunk so much or they've taken something else perhaps. Yes. And we were walking back from the park, Natasha, my wife and I and the two kids, and I was up ahead with my eldest because he was on his bike. And there was this couple walking towards us and they clearly...

been drinking all day and this guy kind of stops me like physically grabs me and he says you know who you look like you look like fat boy slim

and i just was i looked at him and i was like okay all right thanks because i you know i he was a bit he was a bit weird and i carried on walking with with um my son because he'd just gone off ahead and he was like this guy was like yeah fat boy slim i thought well that's a new one no one has ever said i look like him before because i don't look anything like him and then my wife who was walking maybe 20 meters behind me because she was she was carrying um

our little son, he stopped her and he said, don't you think he looks like Fatboy Slim? And my wife said, no, but people think he looks like Moby. And the guy's like, oh yeah, that's what I meant. He looks like Moby. And then he turns around and he shouts up the street to me, you look like Moby. I meant Moby. LAUGHTER

And I was like, oh God. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so it does still happen. You're a bit of a dead ringer for Moby, it has to be said. It's the cross I bear. Sorry? It's the cross I bear. It's the cross you bear, is it? Yeah, don't write that one down. Okay, so there you go. That was a little clip from episode 519.

with Andy. So let me just explain quickly what the story was. So Andy was talking about the Notting Hill Carnival, which takes place in Notting Hill, which is close to where Andy and I used to work together at a school, the London School. And he said that at the Notting Hill Carnival, people drink a bit too much.

And it's a bit like The Walking Dead, meaning you find, especially near the end of the carnival, people sort of like walking around aimlessly or staggering around a bit like they're zombies because they've probably drunk too much or maybe taken something else. And so you find these sort of people wandering around in various different states. And Andy was walking nearby with his wife and two children.

And Andy was up ahead with his oldest child and a drunk guy stopped Andy and told him that he looked like Fatboy Slim. Not Moby, but Fatboy Slim. Fatboy Slim is another kind of DJ music producer guy from the 90s.

And so the guy was like, you know who you look like? Fatboy Slim. And Andy kind of was like, okay, fine, and carried on. And apparently this guy then stopped Andy's wife, who was a little bit further behind...

And he stopped her and said to her, you know what? You know what he looks like? He looks like he looks like Fatboy Slim. And she corrected him and said, well, don't you mean Moby? Because normally people say he looks like Moby. And the guy said, oh, yeah, that's right. That's right. It's Moby. And then he shouted up the street, Moby. I meant Moby. So just a little glimpse into the life of Andy Johnson.

from episode 519. So which bits of vocab do you think I will point out? So here's some vocab from that clip anyway. And by the way, this is just like a sample of the sort of thing you can get from episode 519 where I went through the whole thing afterwards and broke down a lot of the vocab. But anyway, since...

We're into the subject. Let me just do some vocab for you. So people were aimlessly shuffling around because they've drunk. People aimlessly shuffling around because they've drunk so much. Aimlessly. If you do something aimlessly, for example, if you walk around aimlessly or if you are aimlessly walking around, you walk around without a particular aim.

So your aim is like your objective or your goal or your purpose, you know, the thing you want to achieve. So if you're walking around aimlessly, you're just sort of walking around. You don't have anywhere specific to go. And if you've drunk a bit too much,

It's the kind of thing that might happen to you. Normally, if you're sober, right, and you haven't been drinking, you think, right, I'm now going to walk to the train station and you walk to the train station. That's your aim. But if you if you're a bit worse for wear for drink, you and you might not really be thinking very clearly. You might end up walking around kind of aimlessly. Right.

So aimlessly walking around. In this case, it was aimlessly shuffling around. So shuffling refers to a way of walking that would be kind of slow and slightly unsteady, taking small steps in a fairly unsteady way, exactly the way that zombies walk. So zombies sort of shuffle around. Right.

This is the way that zombies walk. They shuffle around the place aimlessly, which is why it was like The Walking Dead, that zombie TV series. And he said, we were up ahead, meaning they were further up the road ahead of his wife. So they were up ahead. Where were they? They were up ahead. So further up the road ahead of his wife and second child. Right.

So they were up ahead. And at the end, I said, you're a bit of a dead ringer for Moby. I think that might have been one of my idioms that I was trying to use in the episode. A dead ringer is someone who looks exactly like someone else. So if Andy is a dead ringer for Moby, it means he looks exactly like Moby.

Right. So I don't know, like you're a dead ringer. Normally people might say normally people say I look like Luka Modric, the the football player, the Croatian footballer. So you could say I'm a dead ringer for Luka Modric. I don't know. So it depends on the day. Some days I seem to look a bit more like him than other days. Or he looks like me because I think I was here first. I think I'm older than him.

Anyway, to be a dead ringer for someone. And Andy said, yep, it's the cross I bear. The cross I bear, meaning this is the burden that I carry in my life. This is the cross I bear. This is the kind of the thing that I must carry with me. It refers to a sort of a serious burden, a serious kind of bad thing that you have to carry with you. Like the way that Jesus had to carry the cross, right? Right.

So it's the cross I bear, said Andy, slightly ironically. So there you go. Now, after listening to the whole episode, including all my vocabulary explanations, a listener called Vivian Zhao wrote this comment and she wrote this. Remember, I recommended that listeners, after listening to my vocab review, listen to the episode again because there are lots of benefits for doing that.

I recommended that and Vivian did exactly that. And she wrote this,

What did the ancient Chinese say? Read a script a thousand times and the meaning of it will appear automatically. So thanks, Luke, for all your efforts and good advice. The barcode joke. Oh, God, that's hilarious. By the way, Andy told a joke about a joke involving barcodes. The barcode joke. Oh, God, that's hilarious. I'll tell you the joke in a moment.

Vivian continued, to be honest, I didn't catch it when I heard it both times, but checking it on your website definitely made my day. Okay, so let me explain the barcode joke, which I actually have told on this podcast fairly recently, I think in the latest episode I did about jokes. But here it is again. So why do Swedish warships have barcodes on the sides so that when they return to port, they can Scandinavian?

They can Scandinavian. They can scan the Navy in. So if you look at the PDF, you'll see a picture of a Swedish warship coming into the port with a big barcode on the side. Barcodes are those things, those little...

things that you find on every single product in the supermarket. And when you go to the checkout to pay for your items, beep, everything, beep, gets scanned, beep, like that. So you use that little sort of infrared scanner to scan the barcodes, beep, beep, beep, like that. And when you scan a barcode, the price gets added to your bill and so on, right? So

Why do Swedish warships have barcodes on the side so that when they come into port, they can Scandinavian?

Scan the Navy in, but also it sounds like Scandinavian because obviously Sweden is a Scandinavian country. Anyway, thank you, Vivian, for that message. So, yeah, the point is listen to episodes several times. It's a simple technique, but it can really help you notice language and remember it. Now, I know it doesn't seem natural to listen to an episode twice. Our monkey brains always want something new, don't they? Right?

The monkey brain inside all of us. The monkey brain that is inside all of our brains. Anyway, our monkey brains always want something new. We always want new stimulation. So it doesn't seem natural to listen to an episode twice, but it can really help. So consider listening to an episode several times to see what you missed the first time. The first time you listen, it's all new and you might miss things because you're just getting accustomed to it all.

Or because of your circumstances, you might be listening while doing something else, right? And you might not be completely focused. Or there might be noise around you, which makes it harder to hear everything. So I promise you, the second time you listen, you'll spot a lot more, okay? So, you know, it can be hard to follow everything the first time just because of the challenge of listening in English, right?

This is especially true for the conversation episodes, which actually contain a lot of fast jokes, stories and comments, which you could really enjoy if you give yourself a good chance. So, you know, listening twice can help you do that. Consider recent episodes with Amber and Paul or maybe number 896, a rambling chat with Martin Aaron. Both of those contained a lot of funny moments, which I hope you were able to enjoy listening

Listening again can really help you to get a more complete understanding of what you're hearing and can definitely help you pick up more English from it just because you can not just listen to understand the conversation, but you can listen out for how things were said.

You can notice the specific English being used and hearing it several times reinforces it in your memory. Also, when you've heard me explain something that was used, you'll definitely notice it again. And this really reinforces the process of vocabulary acquisition. So kind of...

Thinking outside the box a little bit or being willing to do something that doesn't at first seem to be natural, like listening to an episode twice, can actually be a very useful thing to do. Also, a lot of episodes of NEP Premium in the archive deal with conversations I've had with guests over the years. And I had a definite process in mind when I was making those premium episodes, namely this.

to let you listen to a conversation in a free episode, then break it down in a premium series, explaining lots of the vocab, and then let you listen to the conversation again to end the process. So, let's move on to the next point. This is the next bit, then. So, this is a nice joke about double negatives and sarcasm in English. So, this was sent in by a listener called Rahul.

Probably in response to one of the many episodes I've done about jokes. Maybe these ones, which you'll find in the archive, number 266, 265 and 264 were called Telling Jokes in English. And that series was basically understanding...

the social dynamics of jokes, looking at typical joke structures, and then listening to loads of jokes and explaining them, dissecting the frog. So that was the first series about explaining jokes that I ever did. And there are others as well, like for example, randomly I chose episode 547, which was called Best Jokes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

In that one, I went through some jokes told by stand-up comedians at the Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Festival and then dissected them for vocabulary. So this comment from Rahul could have been in response to one of those joke episodes. Here it is. So here's his joke, actually. So Rahul sent in a joke. Here it is. Can you follow it? Can you understand it? Okay. So the joke goes like this.

An MIT linguistics professor was lecturing his class the other day. In English, he said, a double negative forms a positive. However, in some languages, such as Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian, a double negative remains a negative. But there isn't a single language, not one, in which a double positive can express a negative. And then a voice from the back of the room said, yeah, right.

Okay. And Rahul added this. He said, I didn't know yeah right was a sarcastic disagreement until I came across this joke on Reddit. Okay. So let me just repeat the joke. An MIT linguistics professor was lecturing his class the other day. So a professor was lecturing his class, a linguistics professor. He said, in English, a double negative forms a positive. Right. A double negative forms a positive. So if you say, I, uh, I, uh,

I don't know nothing. I don't know nothing about it. That actually means I know something about it. So don't and nothing, that's a double negative. I don't know nothing about it. This actually means I know something about it. I'll explain more about this in a moment.

So in English, double negatives become positive. But in some other languages, a double negative remains a negative. So you could say, I don't know nothing, and it still remains negative. But there isn't a single language in which a double positive can express a negative. And then this voice from the back of the room, one of the students said, yeah, right.

Okay, so saying yeah right with a certain intonation pattern is a sarcastic way of saying that you don't believe someone. I've just realised that I forgot to add, of course...

The bit about, yeah, right. I don't know if you need me to point this out and clarify this bit, but of course, yeah, right. That's a double positive, isn't it? Kind of. Yeah. And right. That's actually a double positive, isn't it? Because yeah, obviously means yes. And right, of course, is positive. So that's technically a double positive, which when said with sarcastic intonation,

can be used to express something negative. So the point is that the person at the back of the room finds a very clever way to disprove what this professor is saying by using sarcasm. So it's not really a grammatical double positive, if there is such a thing.

But he's found a clever way of making two positive things mean something negative by using, yeah, right, a sarcastic phrase which is used to express disbelief or possibly disagreement. So that's the joke.

Okay, so saying yeah, right with a certain intonation pattern is a sarcastic way of saying that you don't believe someone. It's like saying I don't believe that or I don't think that's true. So here are a few examples of yeah, right. Yeah, right with context. So the first one is sarcastic.

The context of the first one is that it's a bragging co-worker, someone that you work with, a colleague who's bragging, sort of talking about how great they are. So Alex, the co-worker, says, I was this close to getting scouted for the Premier League, but I decided to focus on my desk job instead. I was this close to getting scouted for the Premier League, meaning I was really close to being...

chosen to play football in a premier league football club i was that close to being picked by a scout but i decided to focus on my desk job instead and sam his colleague goes yeah right and i almost became an astronaut so obviously alex is talking nonsense saying yeah yeah i'm actually a you know pretty good footballer actually um

Yeah, I could have been signed for Manchester United, but, you know, I decided to focus on my job instead, you know. And Sam goes, yeah, right. Meaning I don't believe you. Another context, an unbelievable excuse. So the teacher says to a student, Lily, where's your homework? And Lily goes, oh, oh, I'm really sorry, but my dog ate it. And Simon, another student, goes, yeah, right.

Meaning I don't believe that. Another one, another context, obvious flattery. Flattery is when you tell someone they're fantastic. You say very positive, very complimentary things about someone, probably because you want something from them or maybe you want to impress them or you like them a lot and you want them to feel good. So it's like saying really, really positive, complimentary things about someone. Like, for example, if you fancy someone and you want them to like you.

So Emma is talking to Jake and Emma says, Jake has just been singing for some reason. And Emma says, oh my God, you are literally the best singer I've ever heard. You could totally win The Voice. The Voice is a TV show.

Game show a talent show for singers. Oh my god. You're literally the best singer I've ever heard You could totally win the voice and Jake goes. Yeah, right My shower walls don't even agree with you. So clearly Jake sings in the shower and Even his shower walls don't agree with him And you know, normally you sound a lot better in the shower. So basically Jake's going. Yeah, right. Come on. That's not true another context

False modesty. This is where someone is being modest, but they don't really mean it. It's like a humble brag, you know? So maybe Ben and Mia have been playing a game of...

Ben, Mia and their friends have been playing a game of Scrabble or something. And Ben always wins because he's some sort of genius. But he's trying to be modest. So Ben says, oh, you know, I'm not really that great at this game. I just got lucky and beat everyone again. And Mia goes, yeah, right. You've been practicing for weeks.

Okay, so actually Ben is trying to brush it off like he's not taking it really seriously. Yeah, yeah, I just got lucky. No big deal. But in fact, he's been taking it really seriously and practicing and practicing. I'm not really that good at this game. I just got lucky. Yeah, right.

And I mean, it goes on. There's loads of examples. Another one is a tall tale. This is the last example. A tall tale. This is a story which is obviously not true. So this is Chris. You can imagine Chris maybe in the pub or something. Everyone's standing at the bar and Chris goes, I swear I saw a UFO last night. Yeah, it hovered right above my backyard, my back garden.

I think it tried to abduct me, but I resisted and it wasn't strong enough to lift me into the air. And then it just flew away. And Pat, another person in the pub, goes, yeah, right. Give it a rest, Chris. Meaning stop talking nonsense.

Okay, so let's have a look at double negatives in English. I'm skipping forward to the bit where it says, let's have a look at double negatives in English. So as the joke says, double negatives are considered incorrect and non-standard forms in English. Does the joke say that? Anyway, this is true. Double negatives are considered incorrect and non-standard forms in English, but they do happen.

Sometimes you might hear double negatives in English, but they're almost always considered to be a sign of colloquial English that most teachers in schools would say is grammatically incorrect. So double negatives are possible. People say them, but they're generally considered to be sort of incorrect, nonstandard forms of

Here are some examples. Now, all the following examples contain double negatives that would be described as bad grammar in English, probably, but which you still might hear people saying. So, you've got this one. I don't know nothing about it. I don't know nothing about it, which means I don't know anything about it. And she didn't see nobody.

Means she didn't see anybody and he can't do no work today. Sorry, he can't do no work today. Means he can't do any work today and there ain't no way to fix it. Sorry, mate, there ain't no way to fix it. Means there isn't any way to fix it and they don't have nothing to say.

which is they don't have anything to say. And I ain't never done nothing, I swear. So I'm speaking in more and more of a sort of London accent as I do these, which feels appropriate. I ain't never done nothing. Or they don't have nothing to say. They don't have nothing to say. They don't have anything to say, right? I ain't never done nothing, I swear.

which actually is a triple negative. I ain't never done nothing. That's a triple negative, which actually, if you think about it, is still negative. But it's all a bit confusing to think about. So actually, it should be I never did anything, I swear. And we don't need no education, which you might remember from the lyrics,

from the song The Wall by Pink Floyd, right? We don't need no education, right? Which actually should be we don't need any education. Now you might have noticed the word ain't in there, like I ain't never done nothing or there ain't no way to fix it. Did you notice that? Have you noticed that before?

By the way, ain't is a colloquial sort of non-standard form in English which can mean isn't, aren't, hasn't or haven't. For example, it just ain't right means it just isn't right. So ain't here means isn't. They ain't even from here. They ain't even from here. Ain't here means aren't, are not. So that's they aren't even from here. They ain't even from here. And he ain't paid yet.

Or I ain't paid yet. So he ain't paid yet, that's he hasn't paid yet. And I ain't seen it means I haven't seen it. So ain't could be isn't, aren't, hasn't or haven't. Okay. Now you hear this in songs as well.

as well as colloquial speech in British and American English. For example, Elvis, you ain't nothing but a hound dog, right? You ain't nothing but a hound dog. You are just a hound dog. Doesn't sound quite right when you translate it into that sort of plain English. Ain't no mountain high enough, Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell. Ain't no sunshine when she's gone, Bill Withers.

Ain't no sunshine. There isn't any sunshine when she's gone. Plus loads more, including songs written these days as well, not just like 60s and 70s stuff.

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Here are some more examples of double negatives. So here's a funny dialogue to demonstrate the point about double negatives, both the grammar of it and the way that people might react to this kind of language. So the situation is that we've got a teacher in England and this teacher is teaching a class of difficult and slightly naughty students.

children. Okay? So the teacher comes into the class after the break and discovers a whoopee cushion on her chair. A whoopee cushion is a kind of a little joke, a little practical joke. It's like a little rubber bag and you fill it with air. You inflate it. And then when someone sits on it, it goes, it makes the sound of a fart.

This is a whoopee cushion, right? You know those things? They're made normally of like a red-coloured rubber and fill them with air. And when someone sits on them, the air is pushed out of the whoopee cushion and it goes...

Makes a farting sound. Hilarious. So the teacher comes in and discovers a whoopee cushion on her chair, which was put there as a prank by one of the kids to embarrass her. And she decides to question the class to find out what was happening. She decides to question the class to find out what has happened and who did it. And nobody is willing to give her any information whatsoever.

On the PDF, you can see a picture of a whoopee cushion, which in this case is green. In my experience, they were always made of like a red rubber, but I suppose they come in different colours. Anyway, there's a whoopee cushion on a chair. So the teacher says this. Right. Now, listen up, everyone. During the break, someone placed a whoopee cushion on my chair.

and I'm going to find out who did it. Now, let's start with you, Billy. Do you know anything about this? And Billy says, why is it always me? I don't know nothing about no whoopee cushion, miss. And the teacher goes, Billy, you mean I don't know anything about a whoopee cushion, miss. That's what I said, miss. I don't know nothing. This is the teacher. Right, moving on. Sally, did you see anyone acting suspiciously around my desk during the break?

Sally says, I didn't see nobody doing nothing, Miss. That would be, I didn't see anybody doing anything. Sally, if you didn't see nobody, that means you did see somebody. So did you see somebody or not? Well, I don't know, Miss. I ain't seen nobody, but maybe I weren't looking good enough. Oh dear. Danny, what about you? You sit near my desk. Now I know you were staring at your phone all break time, like always, but did you hear anything strange?

No, miss, I didn't hear no one making no noise or nothing. I didn't hear anyone making any noise or anything. Danny. So, you heard no one making noise? Uh, yeah, miss, that's what I said. I didn't hear no one. I ain't seen no one either. God, why did I choose this career? Lucy then says, Miss, I swear I didn't do nothing and I don't know nothing about no yippy cushion. Lucy sighs.

I don't need you to know nothing, okay? I need you to know something. If you didn't do anything and don't know anything, then who does? Lucy shrugs. Couldn't tell you, miss. Ain't nobody going to own up to it, that's for sure. Probably best just to move on and teach us some, like, maths or something. Oh, God, isn't anybody... There isn't anybody who's going to own up to it, Lucy. Not nobody. Okay, miss. Are you okay, miss? Yes, Lucy, yes, I'm fine.

You don't look fine. Look, I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Right. Last chance, everyone. Does anyone have any information about the whoopee cushion on my chair? And then all of the kids, Billy, Sally, Danny, Lucy and the rest of the class, all in unison. They all go, we don't know nothing, miss. And the teacher throws her hands in the air and goes, oh, I give up. Not one of you knows anything. So there you go. Right. Let's move on.

Let's move on to the next one, the next bit. So this is why you need to take extra care while listening to Luke's English podcast. And this was a response to episode 469, which was called British Comedy, John Bishop, in which I looked at the comedy of John Bishop, a popular stand-up comedian in the UK who is from the Merseyside area and speaks with a sort of Liverpool accent. It was a chance to...

listen to his comedy a little bit and understand it, and also to explore some aspects of his accent as well. So, Ryoji O. Yoshimura wrote this in response to the episode. He said, Hi Luke, I'm Ryoji from Japan, and I've been an LEP ninja for about two years, and I've never really visited your website for some reason, but I thought that I had to tell you what happened to me recently.

It was a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon. I went shopping to buy some stuff I needed all day driving with your podcast on. Let me start that again. It was a lovely Sunday afternoon. I went shopping to buy some stuff I needed all day driving with your podcast on. And after getting all of the stuff, I was about to go to an onsen. That's one of those public hot baths that we had in one of the recent episodes.

Right? Hopefully Ryoji behaved appropriately in the onsen anyway. So, after getting all the stuff, I was about to go to an onsen to finish my productive day. He says, I bet you guys know what that is. Lovely place where you can relax in the hot water. Well, I don't exactly remember what that episode was, but I was laughing so much at your joke...

The joke you said dying, not really paying attention to my driving. And I crashed into a fancy, seemingly expensive car parked near the onsen. Oh, dear. Luckily, no one was hurt and I was OK, too. But that's the moment when I realized I will never, ever listen to your podcast while driving. No offense. It's all right. None taken.

What I want to tell you is your podcast is so funny, just great enough to cause people to get in trouble. I really love what you're doing. I think this would be my first and last comment because I'm a true ninja from Japan. Thanks, Luke. Love you always. I'm going to listen to this episode. Bye for now.

Okay. So, yes, listeners, please do take care while driving and listening to the podcast. I've said before that it might not be suitable to consume episodes of this podcast while in control of a vehicle or while operating heavy machinery. So do pay attention and take care at all times, please. Now, I wonder which episode Ryoji was listening to.

I don't think it was the John Bishop one, actually, because he said he would listen to that next. So I suppose it was probably the previous episode. Is it the previous or the previous previous episode, which was called A Boiling Hot Evening Ramble Comments and Questions? That was a rambling episode where I sat on the roof of my apartment, my former, former apartment, which had a lovely rooftop terrace. I remember sitting up there one hot summer evening rambling,

and sort of making up stupid jokes and things as I was going. Episode 4, 6, 7. He was probably listening to that one, I suppose. Yes, I was talking about lots of stuff, including some words of encouragement for Laurentiu in Romania, who was unwilling to learn English because of a lack of confidence. I don't know if you remember that. I was trying to encourage Laurentiu to try to practice English more regularly

I don't know if you remember that. But anyway, Sergio Gonzalez wrote a response to that episode. And he said this. He said, Hi, Luke, I started listening to your podcast this week. I really enjoy your good mood. And I started with this podcast. And I would like to say I feel like Laurentiu sometimes. I have no trust in myself.

But as you mentioned, don't be shy. Give it a try. Yes, this is the thing. This is the catchphrase. Don't be shy. Give it a try. So those moments when you feel like you have opportunities to use your English or, you know, those times when you need to maybe think outside the box a little bit or maybe do things that you wouldn't normally do to go outside your comfort zone. You're in a situation where perhaps you could be speaking English, but you choose not to because you're feeling a bit shy.

shy, right? Or any other situation where you just need to do something different, change your behavior slightly, do something out of the ordinary, something that makes you feel a little bit uncomfortable. Don't be shy. Give it a try. Okay? Now,

Back to Sergio's comment. He said, now I'm leaving my comfort zone and that's why I'm writing these few lines. This morning I started my day with a loud, don't be shy, give it a try. This is how Sergio started his day. He loudly said this, don't be shy, give it a try. And my mum said, what are you saying? With this what the fuck face, with this WTF face. And I answered, don't worry, I'm just practising.

which is definitely what you should say if you speak to yourself in English and someone, like maybe someone in your family goes, what are you doing? Are you okay? You can say, don't worry, I'm practicing English. Luke told me to do it. And they say, who's Luke? You know, Luke, podcast Luke. Oh yeah, that guy you listen to, right. Don't be shy, give it a try. I'm just practicing. And Sergio says, your work encouraging people is amazing. Please keep doing it. Best regards. Save teacher Luke Thompson.

Thanks for that. P.S. I would like to know if you have listeners from Paraguay. Okay.

So checking my podcast statistics, I do have listeners in Paraguay and the country is currently in 117th position in my list in terms of audience locations. Okay, Paraguay, you are currently at number 117 in the league of locations for Luke's English podcast audiences. So that's 117 out of 247, right?

which is odd because there are only about 195 countries in the world. But that's because my podcast statistics don't actually show countries. They show locations. I'm not sure how this is defined, how locations are defined, but a location and a country are not the same.

Apparently, in terms of podcast listening data, the world is divided into 247 different locations. Those aren't necessarily considered to be sovereign nations or countries in their own right. But anyway, 247 locations and Paraguay is 117th in that list of locations. So hello, Paraguay. Hello, everyone in Paraguay. Get your country higher up the list.

OK, we need to try and get Paraguay higher up in the list. So Paraguay, let's see who your immediate competitors are in terms of podcast listens. Of course, nothing else. Not in terms of sales of whatever it is you sell. So just so here Paraguay's immediate competition. So just below Paraguay in my list is.

These are the countries that are currently just below Paraguay. So we've got countries. I said countries. I should say locations. Anyway, we've got Seychelles, Senegal, Zambia, Maldives, Cuba, Ivory Coast, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Cameroon. Hello to anyone in those countries. I don't often give shout outs to those places. But hi, everyone. You are actually under Paraguay at the moment.

So you need to, you know, sadly, you are not beating Paraguay in this competition. Please try harder. And just above Paraguay are these countries. So we have Bolivia, Albania, Laos, Afghanistan, Panama, Iceland, Uganda, Tanzania and Angola. Hello to everyone in those places. And congratulations for being above Paraguay in this World League of Luke's English podcast. Now, Paraguay,

Let me talk to you for a moment, Paraguay. If you want to beat those places, you have to organise. Okay? So I want a solid, organised effort by the entire nation to get every single man, woman and child, although technically the podcast is not really for children, because sometimes you get some slightly...

Adult content. Anyway, get every single human of the appropriate age to listen to Luke's English podcast. So, Paraguayan listeners, assemble! Since we're talking about Paraguay, everyone, here are some fun and interesting facts about the country, which is located more or less in the middle of South America, as you know, right? So, Paraguay. Fun fact about Paraguay.

Just to encourage the Paraguayan listeners to assemble themselves and listen to this podcast in greater numbers. So Paraguay is a bilingual nation. Paraguay is one of the few countries in the world where most of the population is completely bilingual. The two official languages are Spanish and Guarani, which I hope I'm pronouncing properly. Guarani, an indigenous language. Around 90% of Paraguayans speak both.

Another fun fact, Paraguay is landlocked, but river-rich. It's a landlocked country, which means that it is bordered by countries on all sides. It has no coastline. So it's landlocked, but river-rich. Paraguay is a landlocked country, but it has access to the ocean through its rivers, including the Paraguay River and the Parana River, which are key for transport and trade.

Here's a quiz question for you. Paraguay is landlocked by which three other South American nations? Do you know the answer? Paraguay is landlocked by which three other South American nations? I'll give you the answer to you in a moment, but there's just one for you to think about.

Fun fact number three about Paraguay, it has the longest national anthem. Paraguay has one of the longest national anthems in the world. I'm not sure if it's the longest in the world, actually, but one of the longest. The full anthem is almost 12 verses long.

But usually only a portion is sung on official occasions. Yeah, I mean, it would be a little bit too much, wouldn't it, if they sang the entire thing at the beginning of a football match. And now the national anthem of Paraguay. This might be a good moment to take a toilet break. No disrespect, of course. No offence. 12 verses long. That is really long. I mean, that's like longer than...

Stairway to Heaven, you know, that's very long. It's like longer than a Bob Dylan song from the 70s. Anyway, fun fact number four about Paraguay, no doorbell traditions. A doorbell is what you ring when you visit someone's house. Ding dong, right, you press the button and ding dong, you get a doorbell or a ringing sound. I can't do a ringing noise. Ring, ding.

Anyway, doorbells. Yes, in Paraguay, it's common for people to clap their hands. Open the door. You will open the door up once. Anyway, apparently, I don't know if they do it like that. In Paraguay, it's common for people to clap their hands instead of ringing a doorbell when visiting someone's home in rural areas. This has become a unique local custom. Now, I haven't seen this myself. I haven't seen that firsthand.

because I've never been to Paraguay. So Paraguayan listeners, you can confirm or deny whether that is actually true. Is that a common thing that you just clap your hands? How many times? Do you do it just once? Do you do it like that, as if you're asking someone to bring you a cup of tea or something, like asking a servant to bring you a cup of tea? More tea! Or do you just like...

Give a little round of applause outside a slow clap. Well done. Really great work. Fantastic front door. I don't know. You can tell me. Anyway, that's pretty cool. So the answer to the quiz question, Paraguay is landlocked by Argentina to the south, Bolivia to the northwest and Brazil to the northeast.

But yeah, apparently it has access to the ocean via its numerous rivers. So I expect that you can probably sail into Paraguay from the ocean down rivers. Yeah. So there you go. I'm going to stop soon. I think this will be my last. This is going to be my last bit for this part for part three.

So let's do this. So this one is about quarantine and Quentin Tarantino. A Quentin Tarantino egg corn. If you remember, an egg corn is like a misheard phrase, something that you miss here. Like in part one of this series, we had knowledge is power, Francis Bacon, which is actually said by the philosopher Francis Bacon himself.

That it's not France is bacon. France is made of bacon. Knowledge is power and France is bacon. Right. What? Knowledge is power, France is bacon. Yeah, France is bacon. Yeah.

Oh, oh, Francis Bacon. That's the person's name. Right. So that's an egg corn. Francis Bacon and France is bacon. So that's one. So anyway, this comment is actually quite recent and is a response to Bits and Bobs part one in which I shared some funny misunderstandings in English with

like egg corns, also known as mondegreens, such as Knowledge is Power, France is Bacon, and Walking Freezer. Because remember, when I was a kid, I went to McDonald's for a school party, like a kid's party.

And they actually gave us a tour of the kitchen. Like, some of you, here is where you might be working one day if you don't do your homework. But they showed us the kitchen and there was this big freezer. And the woman said, this is a walk-in freezer.

meaning a freezer you can walk in, walk in freezer. I thought she said walking freezer, like a freezer that walks. I was thinking, wow, this freezer just walks around like a robot from Star Wars or something, just moves around and it's like, where are its legs? I don't know, but I'm going with it. There's a walking freezer, fantastic. I told my parents, oh, yeah, McDonald's is amazing. They've got a walking freezer. And, you know, eventually the penny dropped and they're like, no, it's a walk-in freezer.

Anyway, so that's an example. So I was talking about these things, Francis Bacon, walking freezer and so on. And I encouraged you as well in the episode to write a poem, if you remember. So here's a quite a nice comment thread from that episode. This is a comment from Manna. Is this the same Manna who won an LEP mug during the Euros of 2021? Did you win a mug from me? Is this Manna from Japan?

who won a mug in the competition I ran during the Euros with Martin Johnston and Zdenek Lucas. I don't know. Maybe it is. Anyway, here's the comment. I remember that I mixed up the words quarantine...

You know what quarantine is, right? This is where you, I mean, we remember it probably from the COVID times, which when the word was used a lot, we were talking about quarantining. For example, if you were COVID positive, you had to quarantine, meaning you had to stay in a room separate from other people to prevent the virus from spreading.

Also, you know, when animals, when you move animals to another country, sometimes the animals have to stay in quarantine for a while, separate from other animals so that you don't end up with the spreading of diseases between animals. So this is quarantine. So, Manor said, I remember that I mixed up the words quarantine and Quentin Tarantino, which is kind of understandable. Quarantine, Quentin Tarantino, it's kind of similar.

I mixed up these things when I was listening to an English text about the strict quarantine of Australia. So Manor was doing some listening exercise, listening to a text about the strict quarantine of Australia and Manor confused quarantine and Quentin Tarantino. I'd never heard of the word quarantine.

That's pretty good. Because, you know, when your listening skills aren't tip-top...

Sometimes there's a lot of stuff you don't understand. You just struggle to kind of like understand the little bits here and there and you assemble it all together and create a rough version of what you think the audio is about. And if you get little bits like quarantine, is that Quentin Tarantino? What's that? Australia visiting Australia limitations like he couldn't get in. Why wasn't he allowed in? Was it because his films are too violent? What's going on?

I replied and said this. I said, imagine if the text had been about Quentin Tarantino in quarantine having a quarrel with a teenager. Quentin Tarantino, I was trying to be funny, obviously, right? Quentin Tarantino in quarantine having a quarrel. A quarrel is an argument, a quarrel, an argument with a teen or a teenager. Quentin Tarantino in quarantine having a quarrel with a teen. That would have been even more confusing, right? The newspaper headline said,

for that could be quarantined Quentin in quarrel with teen. And then Luke from Poland, again, this is another listener, wrote this. He said, hi, in your podcast, you encouraged us to write a poem. So this is one created for fun. And it's about Quentin Tarantino in quarantine with a teen.

Quentin Tarantino, during quarantine, had an online quarrel with some cheeky teen who was very, very keen to persuade, with such argument, glamorous Quentin. Too much violence in your movies is your common theme. I would like to watch your movie without bloody scene. But my famous movies are so widely seen, cos there is graphic violence poured on your screen. It was more or less the argument of glamorous Quentin.

Have a nice day. So I wrote back saying, nice one, guys. There you go. I like that very much. And then now let's get back to these older comments from my archive. But this is where we're going to end part three of the Bits and Bobs series. Okay. So we had quarantine and Quentin Tarantino, egg corn. We had what else?

We had the whole stuff about Paraguay. We had Sergio from Paraguay saying, don't be shy, give it a try. What else did we deal with? Ryoji from Japan crashing into a fancy looking car while listening to this podcast because he was laughing and enjoying himself too much. All that stuff about double negatives and the phrase, yeah, right.

And then the benefits of listening to the podcast several times, especially when I've explained vocab that came up during the episode. That's the end of this episode now. OK, and I've got a lot more of these bits and bobs, which I will go through at a later date, probably in the new year, because I'm recording this in December of 2024.

And for the rest of the month, I've got ideas of things I want to do for December. I've got a short story episode coming next, I hope.

December is crazy because, as you probably know, it's probably the same for you. Everything gets a bit crazy in December as Christmas approaches and you realise that you're running out of time. You haven't done your Christmas shopping. You haven't booked this, that and the other. Suddenly everything happens all at the same time and it becomes very busy and quite stressful and time seems to just disappear. Time runs out very quickly. So as long as I have enough time,

The next episode should be a short story episode. And then hopefully I'll do a rambling episode before Christmas. And then we will see. I'm not quite sure. Hopefully there'll be a world quiz episode like the last couple of years with Stephen from Send7Podcast.com.

We'll do a world quiz. That will probably go up before the end of December. And then there might be a little break in the new year when I take maybe a week or two off. It depends how productive I'm able to be. And then the podcast will return in January. And I'll be able to continue the Bits and Bobs series at some point.

and some other stuff as well okay also lep premium uh premium series 65 is in the pipeline in fact you might already you might already have part one of that available to you now if you're a premium subscriber check your episode list in your podcast app assuming you've added lep premium to a podcast app on your phone which you definitely should do because it's just such a great idea um

Sign into your account at teacherluke.co.uk slash account in order to follow the steps and do that. So you might have P65 part one, which is another episode where I randomly choose some books from my bookshelf. I've called it From the Bookshelf or At the Bookshelf. It's called From the Bookshelf. So there's a From the Bookshelf episode of LEP Premium, which is...

Might already be available to you. I might have published it by the time you listen to this. And then there's going to be part two and part three of that premium series arriving as well. So it should be plenty of stuff to keep you busy during December, as long as I'm actually able to find the time to do that work and that some act of God doesn't come in. Like, for example, I don't know,

Like, you know, I get sick and I have to stay in bed. Yes, have a lovely afternoon, evening, morning or night. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Have a lovely day. Don't forget to tell your friends about Luke's English Podcast if you want your country or location to rise up in that list. And by the way, in...

Subsequent parts, probably in part four of the Bits and Bobs series, I will go into a few more details about my list of locations, including the top ten countries at the moment. Countries, locations?

and some other stuff. But that's another episode for another time. All right, leave your comments in the comment section. I hope that you have some things to say, as usual, and I will speak to you next time. But for now, it's just time to say goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teachaluke.co.uk.

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