well hello there I'm Drew Badger and
hopefully you are here seeking knowledge
about how to express yourself in a more
intelligent and beautiful way anyway
in this video we're going to cover seven
words that people commonly misused and
hopefully get you to use them correctly
let's begin the first word is Peru and
this is something I've often used
incorrectly myself when you're thinking
about perusing a book the idea of people
typically have is that you're looking
through something very quickly on going
to peruse this book in two minutes and
take a look at it and then look at
something else but the meaning of Peru's
is actually is the opposite
so you want to prove something it means
to carefully looking through carefully
look through something you really want
to look through what you want to linger
through the book to peruse that
particular things i'm perusing an
article on perusing a book i'm looking
through it and giving it my sole
attention to peruse peruse now this next
one is just something i thought i would
throw into the lesson because it's a
common thing that native speakers
misused but it's also just a fun
interesting fact and this is the word
peacock peacock now peacock is actually
the word for the male of a species of P
foul and soapy foul is the name of the
kind of bird that peacock is just the
mail if you're looking at a female you
would say oh that's a beautiful p him a
peahen just like a chicken
we've got a hen and a rooster we've also
got a peacock and AP hand but the two
are in the species of bird called a
peafowl peafowl next door to it is 42 it
is
listen carefully to how this plans 42 it
is 42 with it so it's 42 we kiss you can
pronounce it like that people say it
quickly and blend it in a conversation
for to it is fortuitous now it sounds
like fortune so people often think that
it may be describing something that's
very lucky
so I was a very fortuitous thing that my
friend came in and gave me like some
lucky singer gave me a whole bunch of
money or something like that
now it might mean something that's lucky
but fortuitous just means something that
happens by accident so it was like a
very fortuitous thing that I was outside
and maybe I had an umbrella
it started to rain so in that sense it
happens to be a lucky thing like it's
fortunate for me but we're only
describing fortuitous or only using the
word fortuitous to describe maybe do
something that's like a coincidence that
happened that time for to it is 42 it is
next we have a word that's really abused
and overused and used incorrectly
especially by younger native English
speakers so as a learner be careful that
you don't make these mistakes as well so
this is literally now listen carefully
to the pronunciation of this litter
relief the pronunciation really we could
say literally literally but the
pronunciation becomes literally
literally literally listen carefully
i'll say it really slowly literally
literally literally literally literally
now what people use it for their saying
that you're kind of using it for
emphasis young kids will say like wow
it's like it was literally 200 degrees
outside
it was literally 200 degrees outside
when maybe the temperature was 80
degrees or something like that so this
is an incorrect use of the word
literally now people are often using it
again they're using it for emphasis and
trying to plow is literally freezing
cold outside maybe with 60 degrees or
something that someone sells a little
bit cold but they're describing it
they're trying to emphasize the
situation by saying literally now the
actual meaning the actual the real
meaning of literally is that it's
something that's real so if you say oh
it's literally 200 degrees outside then
it better be 200 degrees outside
so when you're talking about something
if you want to use literally and use it
correctly you're having to describe
something like he was literally eight
feet tall means like the person was
actually a tweet all when you saw not
like seven foot to or whatever so again
you're talking about literally and you
can use it that way your kind of
emphasizing something but you have to be
describing something that's actually
true literally literally next another
commonly misused word in Normandy
enormity and again we've got that tea in
the word enormity it becomes more of a
decent it almost disappears enormity in
Normandy
in Normandy now in Normandy sounds like
enormous so people think about really
must be a huge thing like it the
enormity of Godzilla or something but
we're not talking about something like
that the correct meaning of it is
actually something that I like very
serious so we're talking about the
enormity of the situation like many
people were killed in some violent
attack the enormity of the situation was
really surprising to people so it was a
very serious very important or big thing
and that's why we would use in normandy
in this way but we're not talking about
the physical size of something being big
if you're talking about that you can
actually just use the word enormous
enormous next we've got two words and
these are really working together in
conversations a lot
the first one is sarcasm and the second
one is irony irony
now people often whether your native
speaker and non-native speaker but
typically non-native speakers as well
because especially if they come from
cultures where maybe sarcasm isn't may
be such like an important their common
thing in everyday situations the idea of
sarcasm really is just where you're
saying one thing but kind of having the
opposite meaning of that as an example i
look at my friend and say well that's a
great outfit but I really think it looks
ugly so I'm saying one thing but by the
tone of my voice you can hear me being
sarcastic often some people that use
sarcastic sarcastic remarks are they use
sarcasm a lot in conversations they have
trouble maybe expressing themselves
correctly because they will say a
sarcastic thing but in a straight way
like oh that's an ugly suit or maybe
that's a beautiful suit but I actually
mean the opposite of that I'm saying one
thing like wow that's a really beautiful
suit
it sounds like I'm being sincere I'm not
being sarcastic but i am actually
expressing something if you say oh
really do you really like the soon as
they know it looks awful
now that's a really mean thing to say to
somebody but again I'm using sarcasm and
this is just typically you would use it
with people in a friendly way people
that you know quite well that sarcasm
now ironies is a related thing with this
is usually the opposite of the the thing
you were expecting
i'll give you just a quick story about
irony from my own life back when i was
in college i was at a in a dorm room
that was above a cafeteria and I was up
there just like with some friends of
mine and we all walk down for dinner and
we're waiting in line and I see the sign
on the door that says like you have to
have a shirt and shoes in order to come
into the dining hall and I started
looking at that I and i pointed out the
side I told everybody I was like
everybody look at this sign over here
what idiot would come down here without
like shoes on like what idiot would go
in there could you often see these signs
in front of restaurants to like if you
go into mcdonalds it will say no shirt
no shoes no service so you have to
actually be wearing clothing and shoes
but this makes sense because most people
would not walk into McDonald's with know
what maybe some people would I don't
know but but in the case of the
cafeterias on pointing out this time
saying what idiot would do that and then
I look down I remember I had no shoes on
so I was the idiot so that's irony right
there where something kind of the
opposite is up is affecting me or the
opposite of whatever whatever the
expectation is so that's irony and our
last one is notoriously notorious for
you often hear it kind of set is
notoriously negatory asst like the
notorious killer notorious now it
doesn't necessarily mean just like
famous like what he's like a notorious
actor the idea of notorious means that
something evil or bad or may be
dangerous so in victorious gangster
means like famous for doing something
you know stupid or doing something bad
so you wouldn't talk about like a famous
actor unless they did something bad you
wouldn't call them a notorious person
but you would call them like notorious
if they're famous for doing something
bad you got both of these they're like
the famous plus having done something or
being known for some kind of negative
reason
well that's it for this lesson if you
have enjoyed it do click that like
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YouTube channel and try using these
incorrect sentences of the correct way
in the comments section below if you
don't practice you won't improve and
we'll just have always been our time
here so go down below try at least one
of these and try using it correctly in a
sentence like i was perusing the book
for 25 minutes or something like that
don't type that one but you know just
try to use something interesting just to
show that you remain
what you're learning here and finally if
you'd like to learn more about how you
can improve not only to use grammar
correctly but for all of the other
habits you need to develop in order to
become a continent successful English
speaker click on the link in this video
to take our free english fluency quiz it
will tell you exactly what you need to
focus on for your particular situation
and i look forward to helping you with
that absolutely free at English anyone
dot-com have a fantastic day and I will
see you in the next video bye bye