hey Lindsay how are you excellent I'm psyched to be in the microphone with you Aubrey and
it's the best part of the week so no complaints no complaints no complaints I have a question for you
that's related to a listener question we got do you have any pet peeves Lindsay oh my gosh oh I
wish I had taken a second to think about this before we hit record I do I know I do and I'm
driving this happened just yesterday I'm going to share one of mine and it's probably one of
yours but you haven't thought about it before when you're on hold and there's like music but
then there'll be a voice that says thank you for continuing to hold and every time I think it's the
real person answering the call so that I'm like ready to talk and then no nope and then it goes
back to hold music like why can't it just behold music so that as soon as I hear a voice I know the
Call's been answered so then I don't have to pay such close attention you're almost talking to a
robot but you're like hi oh yeah oh it's just a machine and I get fooled so often and he's
frustrated areas well on that same note of making calls into customer service a pet people of mine
is when I do make that call and let's say I you know someone respond someone answers at the top
level the the most General level and they ask they take my information my name my phone number and
then they transfer me and then that information hasn't been passed through their system so I have
to say it again and then maybe again I'm like why can't you guys sync up on that information right
right or even worse if it's not even just your information but you're kind of sharing the whole
problem the whole story and then they say okay let me transfer you to someone who can help you like
um that's the thing that I need to start pivoting around right because I'll go right into my whole
story like we just had uh we just got contacted by an insurance company in California for my aunt's
house that they're trying to discontinue her insurance California is going to have a major
issue with insurance in the next few years by the way and so I told my story to like three
levels of customer service right I went into the whole thing three times until I got to the
person who actually needed to hear the story so which is funny I'm just thinking I bet that
customer service person is like my pet peeve is When someone tells me their whole story without
bothering to find out if I'm the person that can help them I know because sometimes I feel very
like uh socially unaware right when they're like let me transfer you I should have asked
if you're the person that can help me my bad we need to Pivot around these things oh my gosh we
love this this is going to be such a fun episode that's why you guys should hit follow right now
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button so let's get into what pet peeve actually means first of all just lay out the groundwork
here all right so this is just something that you find a little bit irritating you can have
pet peeves about yourself right something that you find you do here you're like oh it's my pet peeve
when I am late all the time maybe or it can be something irritating about some someone else yeah
I wonder where it comes from though pet peeves why pet like there's really nothing about my dog
that bothers me I think he's perfect so why that's a good point why does it have to do with pets no
one's bothered by their pets maybe if their dogs like really like barking all the time at people
or something maybe it came from that originally yeah the word peeve is we sometimes use it as a
verb to say that peeved me meaning that irritated me I feel like it's getting a little less common
the verb by itself but we definitely use pet peeve all the time yes yeah that verb might be going out
of style a little bit right I don't hear it but I do sometimes hear it so that's interesting so why
do we add pet we don't know but we do guys so write it down yes right and that's just such a
good way to connect write down this whole question just to say what's one of your pet peeves I feel
like it's a great first date question it's a great get to know you question right yeah and it doesn't
have to be like okay let me tell you 20 minutes how many things I find annoying right you keep
it light just share like a fun one like we did at the beginning of the episode it's kind of a
similar question to like what's your sign you know what I mean it is it's a good first date
question just getting to know someone and it's one of those questions we've been talking about
this a lot on dollars English there are certain questions you can ask or topics which will allow
someone to share a lot about themselves right a lot more than just their answer it's true you'll
get yeah a lot of insight into like you're saying their values what matters to them are they close
to their family all they have to share is a few sentences about their pet peeve and you're gonna
have learned a lot about them a lot so really cool connection skill today guys now Aubry what
about on IELTS you and Jessica Host an amazing podcast over there yes and I wanted to share an
episode that we did not too long ago episode 803 it was called don't get irked by IELTS this verb
to get irked is so high level and interesting we shared quite a bit of vocabulary for different
levels of anger right and phrases that go along with them so pet peeve is more of the irritation
level then there's like annoyance rage and so we shared vocabulary for each of those so definitely
go check that out if you're not following IELTS energy we have two episodes every week it's a
really great podcast whether you're studying for IELTS or not for just great vocabulary yeah good
stuff so guys going over there and check out the Isles energy podcast okay Aubry let's get into the
second like word expression that we want to share for our listeners what is it yeah there's lots of
other ways to talk about pet peeves this type this idea and the first one is just a complaint
the noun complaint so this is you know anything that is something you would complain about and
it's always negative right you're never going to have a complaint about something
positive something you like that's true that's true yeah this is a very straightforward noun
um so some examples right do you have any complaints about the service right yeah you
might hear that at a restaurant right if they're asking you to fill out a comment card or at
a retail shop if maybe there's been a problem the manager might ask you this do you have any
complaints about the service it's a little more formal a little more procedural and I I love the
second example because it's so natural it's what I used at the top of the show you said you know how
are you and I said ah no complaints all good right right we use this all the time as just a response
to how are you doing it's so much more fun than just I'm fine it's such a native natural way to
respond to say no complaints yes I love that guy so write that one down especially today right make
sure that you kind of remember that and try that out in a conversation to connect to answer how are
you instead of I'm fine let's get away from I'm fine right and it doesn't have to be literally
true right you may actually have complaints about something but just like I'm fine we say just to
mean like yes everything's fine I'm not going to give you all the details of everything going it
doesn't have to be exactly true that you don't have any complaints it just means like I'm great
I'm great how are you yeah I mean we've talked about in the past how you know how are you it's
not really a question or it's more of a greeting it's more of an opener that and so we need to
respond know how to respond properly there could be some cultural things we want to think about
here maybe be in your language it's actually a question right that depends on your culture
so it's very interesting yeah so this you you can know that nobody's going to expect that your your
life is perfect and nothing's going wrong in your life if you say no complaints it just means like
I'm fine yeah good stuff all right so number three Aubry is grievance this is a noun it has
two meanings yeah so the first one is a feeling of resentment over something that is wrong or unfair
or it's believed to be unfair right and we often collocate with this this with the verb to nurse
which means to almost like encourage for yourself like an example is she's nursing a grievance about
how she was treated by the staff so this sort of means you're dwelling on it right you have this
complaint you have this grievance and you're not just letting it go really quickly maybe you're
telling everyone you know about it you're really upset we say you're nursing a grievance and the
idea is here is to express it it's too much right our bridge is like ah you should come
move on or take action and then move on right yeah that's definitely implied here right we might say
this about someone else if we feel like they they do it's too too much complaining like they kind of
need to forgive and forget and move on yeah then we might say that they're nursing agreements yep
and the second way we would use it would be in an official statement of a complaint over something
believed to be wrong or unfair I'm thinking about maybe like an HOA or something grievance
to a neighbor do you have an HOA a homeowners association do you have an HOA and I definitely
have a list of grievances that I have with my HOA because they're very they're kind of busy bodies
a couple of the people on the board will like come to your back door and like look over your
yard to see if you have any infractions like mind your business oh that's so annoying okay it is our
neighbors have a chicken coop which is actually against the HOAs regulations and one of the
board members is always is like looking to see if they've gotten rid of their chickens because they
keep finding them for having chickens oh my gosh they mean business they're pretty strict way here
so you should submit a list of grievances to the HOA I recommend it I think I should I agree yeah
this is a little more again procedural right you you might submit a list of grievances to a boss
or to maybe in court you might have a list of grievances if you're suing someone or or making
more of a formal complaint about something yes for sure so this does become goes through some
kind of an institution usually yeah is kind of an institution I suppose that would qualify as
an institution yeah yeah absolutely though I do think that we use I use this to exaggerate
um in sort of a playful way right if someone does something I don't like my children for
example if they haven't done the laundry for a couple days I might say like all right I've
got a list of grievances kids like to get on them about doing their chores right and yeah
course not official like that we sort of use it to be playful and exaggerate oh yeah I mean guys it's
all about being playful right connecting many of the more serious words that we teach you on this
show can be turn around and used in a fun way to actually connect and be and play right we're
playing through language yes someone might say this to you just like oh like I have a grievance
of whatever it is something you've done and maybe you're playing a game and you know you win or you
break a rule or something they might say this shake their fist in the air and say all right I
have a grievance here I'd just like to make a joke I love it so good so let's show our listeners how
we do it in a role play Perfect in this role play you and I work at a government agency and we're
looking through a list of complaints all right here we go so we need to divide these into serious
Grievances and complaints that are kind of petty oh It's tricky because it's kind of subjective
yeah we need a basis to judge by perhaps anything with legal repercussions will consider more
serious great idea awesome so we are right there in the beginning serious grievances we're talking
about something that maybe would have a legal repercussion so often if someone's working at
a government agency or for an HOA they're going to be receiving lots of complaints and Grievances
and some of them might be very important and have to be taken seriously and others might be like we
say in the role play here Petty that's a good bonus word that's a great bonus word for today
I'm sure that will be in the app the iOS Android app is a keyword they are listeners guys if you
do use the app you could tap on that and add it to your power list but what does it mean Petty yeah I
mean it's unimportant or insignificant and often in almost a spiteful way like maybe a complaint
that is intentionally trying to get someone in trouble or have a consequence them for them that
is unjustified or unfair right yeah for sure for sure and you we get this feeling when you get into
an exchange with someone and they're acting Petty right it's not a good feeling you just
it's not good exactly right it is very there's a very negative connotation here you would never
want to call someone Petty if you're not wanting to um either hurt their feelings offend them or
really get them to change their behavior because this is a very negative way to act it's very much
frowned upon where you're acting where you're taking things less seriously than they should be
or maybe you're being unkind or mean or spiteful over something that is not important that is not
a big deal right or maybe you're holding a grudge that would be an example something that's kind of
petty in the new maybe someone's done something to you and then a petty thing to do would be to
hold a grudge and then take it out the next time somehow right yeah it often comes down
to that you know forgive and forget any sort of small infractions small offenses if we can just
forgive move on move past it then we're going to avoid that petty behavior that might come up if
we're holding those grudges oh my gosh and that really pulls you down right too if you remember
those things and you oh gosh awful way to live yeah I'm gonna move on absolutely yes all right
what's the takeaway for today Aubrey yeah I think you know though we often seek to be positive and
and always just sharing positive things sometimes a great way to build connection is to talk about
something a little more night more negative like the pet peeves that you might have something that
has come up as far as adversity in someone's life if someone has a grievance or a complaint often
they'll need to vent about that and that is also a great way to connect oh yeah and again sharing
a pet peeve you know we've shown you guys how to keep it light the beginning of the episode and
then we got a little deeper towards the end of the episode so you can see how this concept can
go across many different types of conversations right but absolutely just asking someone about
their pet peeves is a really nice way to kind of start when you know someone getting to know them
it's fun to know those things right so prepare your answer if you you get into that kind of
situation conversation yeah be ready with a fun or a funny pet peeve to share and definitely use
this phrase no complaints next time somebody asks how are you doing this is a great way to respond
definitely that would be a way to level up and move to that 99 fluency level all right Aubry
you have a good day and I'll see you next time on the show awesome see you next time alright bye bye