Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 482. The title of today's lesson is the difference
between dirty look, glare, glower and scowl. Yeah. Now this is a request video. So I'm going to try
to distinguish as much as I can for a student that asked me. If somebody wants a screenshot
do it right now. Let's get into it. All right. If someone gives a person a dirty look it is a
facial expression of disapproval, disgust, or anger. All right. Now these other three,
I think are more to do with anger. A dirty look often is angry, but it could be
a little bit just disapproval or kind of disgust like you could just be disgusted with somebody
or something like. ( disgusted sounds) it could be kind of like that too. All right. Let's continue.
A dirty look is the most common phrase for an angry or unpleasant face in the US. This,
this is by far the most common one. We sometimes may also you know, we sometimes mix it up we
sometimes might say nasty look or a mean look too. You hear those sometimes, but really dirty look is
by far number one and there's different degrees. Some are more serious some are less serious.
It depends on why they're given the dirty look. Let's continue. To glare is a much more serious
dirty look. So I think of glare as a dirty look, but it's a very angry one and it's a more serious
one that is usually a stare. Yeah. See now dirty look might be where somebody looks at you but they
might turn away kind of fast too. They may not hold it. A glare will hold it. They will continue
to look at you. All right. So it's usually a stare directed at someone. This is often done
with fierce or piercing eyes. Yeah. Like you know, they might be like really serious like,
almost kind of challenging the person. A glare has a more of a possibility to be threatening or lead
to a confrontation. You know, where dirty look you know, you just might give it and like and then
kind of turn away and forget it and uh be a little annoyed but you know it depends. Let's continue.
All right. Now glower, glower is a tough one for me because I don't hear it much. So let me
let me make this note here. I don't commonly hear glower in American English. From doing research I
have seen a few other Americans make this comment online as well. Some say a glare is to stare at
someone angrily and glower is to stare with anger. So you may not be directly looking at someone
but you know, I looked at other dictionaries and some of them say it could be you know. looking at
you too. So it's a little tough. This one I wouldn't mind some help from though. If
anybody's out there ... if you're American let me know, do you hear glower a lot ? If you're British
you know, let me know what you think as well ? All right. Let's continue. Some dictionaries say one
may wrinkle his or her forehead when they glower. Well we do that with a lot of dirty looks, but
like you know, kind of kind of... like you know ( Trying to imitate wrinkling one's forehead )
Like I said there's a lot of different dirty looks. Let's continue.
Now, scowl. I have heard scowl, but scowl tends to be more literary. Well,
from an American point of view. I think it's more literary and is an angry look also
described as wrinkling the brow which is like the forehead again too and frowning at the same time,
especially when your your mouth kind of goes down a little bit. That's kind of like frowning.
Okay. So anyway I just gave some examples to try to help distinguish between these. All right.
Here's the first one. Jane gave that man a dirty look when he cut in front of her in a line.
Yeah. You know, people give dirty looks for a lot of different reasons. This is a typical
one . Although it's not the end of the world. You're probably not ... you probably don't want
to start a fight with somebody, but give them a dirty look. Yeah. You probably would. Number
two. She gave him a nasty look for not wearing a surgical mask in a store. Yeah. Well you know, now
this is still during the coronavirus pandemic. So maybe some people might do this. Again, so
we say dirty look a lot. Nasty look, mean look in this sort of sense. All right. Number three here.
I guess I also used the name Jane. Jane glared at me when I was laughing with her boyfriend.
She must have thought I was flirting with him. So this is like another girl looking at
you know, a girl looks like she's flirting with her boyfriend so she might give a very serious.
She might use the piercing eyes. Like what are you doing ? what are you ding with my boyfriend ?
A glare would be more serious in that way. All right. Let's go on. All right. Number
four here. . My boyfriend glared at that scooter driver who gave him a middle finger. So again this
could be kind of a challenging or threatening one , if he's glaring back at the scooter driver. He's
probably look you know looking at him like uh uh how dare you/'m not afraid of you. You know,
kind of kind of like that. Okay. All right. Let's continue here. All right, They glowered at us
for making too much noise in church. It could be. Number six here. A little girl glowered because
we would not let her watch cartoons. Yeah. Again from some of them saying . They didn't
always say that it's a stare. You know, it could she could just be kind of having a
sort of a brooding kind of angry look about her. You know that she's in a bad mood because you
know, you're not giving her what she wants. All right number. Seven here. The boy scowled at her
for playing with her toys for paying with his toys and number eight here. He scowled at the sight of
the traffic. You know , look at this traffic and you know kind of like that. Well anyway,
I hope this helps. I hope this helps to be able to distinguish between these
some of these terms when you may be more likely to use one rather than the other and again if you're
out there if you're American let me know if you do hear you know glower very much or even scowl
as much too ? Because I don't hear scowl a lot but I but I have heard it. Where
I think it's more in writing more than anything else. Okay. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.