Hi guys, this is me or you obviously it's you oh it's me you think I'm stupid? Well
Einstein said that there are only two things that are infinite. The first is
the universe and the second is human stupidity. I'm not sure about the
universe but I'm very sure that human stupidity is very, very infinite. So in
this lesson we are going to learn different words and idioms to describe
this infinite human stupidity which you find almost everywhere. All kinds of
people they'll definitely be 10 stupid. Okay, so let's look at the words that we
have with us first. We also have a set of idioms but we'll come to that later
first we look at the words. So the first word that we have is 'slow'. Okay, now this is
a very indirect way of saying that someone is stupid. who do you think might
use this word? Okay, a teacher might use this word to describe her student, who is
not able to understand things very well. Okay, so if her student understand things
very well she could tell that students mother, "um, Mark is a bit slow" or "Mark is
rather slow" This means, he doesn't understand too well. Okay now whenever we
use slow please never forget to add bit or rather. If you say that he's slow it
means that he's slow in general, okay? Which means that he's slow and about
doing everything but if you say that he's a bit slow or rather slow this
means that his understanding is slow and he's not able to understand things too
well and this is a polite way of saying that someone is stupid okay, yeah. So bit
slow or rather slow.
Okay now if this is what the teacher has to say about your son you would sure not
like it and you'll definitely defend him. In response you'll say, "No, he just
struggles with math." Which means that he only does not understand math or maybe
maths is too difficult for him. So if someone struggles with something it's
very difficult for them to do something. Struggle means very difficult to do
something. Now here also although you're trying to say that someone is not stupid
but if they're actually struggling with something. Their understanding is a bit
slow and weak so this can be a good way to defend politely that someone is not
stupid. Okay the next one we have is 'dim'. So dim is often used like slow okay but
it's not only used for students you could use it for anyone you could say,
"her husband is a bit dim." Which means that he doesn't understand things very
quickly so if someone cracks a joke it takes a while for her husband to
understand that it was a joke and everyone was supposed to laugh. So dim
means slow to understand. So possibly the last person to laugh over a joke would
be the most dim person around you. Okay the next one we have is 'vacuous'
Now we are getting to a slightly more advanced level of stupidity and also of
vocabulary so this is a slightly hard word it's pronounced as vacuous. it's got
three syllables but you don't say vacuous you say vacuous. Okay so now
vacuous is a person, actually vacuous is an expression. You cannot use it to say
that okay this person is vacuous you wouldn't say that you might want to say
that his expression was vacuous. Vacuous means you know when your face shows that
you're not intelligent and that you're not understanding anything. So if you're
sitting in a, in an exam hall and you don't know anything.
You know you read the question paper and you know nothing at all then you have a
vacuous expression on your face, which means you don't understand anything and
there's zero sign of intelligence on your face. Okay so that blank expression
of stupidity is called as a vacuous expression. Blank expression of stupidity.
So my friend Rachel whenever she drinks she has this vacuous expression on her
face after that. She just understands nothing. If you come and poke her she
won't even know. She'll just look at you in a very strange way with a very flat
and blank face like she didn't understand anything. So that's when you
act really stupid and blank without any expressions. Okay the next one we have is
'inane' so this word is used for stupid comments. So if someone makes a stupid
comment at you, a comment that has no meaning very often we hear such comments
that people just say comments that have no meaning. So let's say you were talking
to your friend about a particular topic and a person who is overhearing you
definitely not a stranger but someone you know just makes a useless comment
that has no meaning so that's an inane comment or inane remark. So inane comment
or remark. It means a silly comment, okay? A comment that has no meaning. I think
the best person to ignore inane comments is a teacher. So when she's in the class
I mean as for me also when I'm in the class I have so many
students making inane comments but I have to ignore because those comments
really don't have a meaning. Okay so now we look at the next one that we have
someone who is not that right okay now this is also very polite way of saying
that someone is a bit stupid alright. Now we in English
you know we often use positive words like bright is a positive word it's used
for a person who is very intelligent okay so she's very bright which means
she's very intelligent. Now when we say he's 'not that bright' this means that
he's not very intelligent. He's stupid and this is again a very polite way to
say the same thing so you could say he is not that bright or he's not the
sharpest sharpest also means someone very intelligent you could say that
they're the less intelligent lot in the class now here also you're using a
positive word to express something negative. Okay stay with me now we are
coming to the more interesting part and that is some humorous and funny part to
talk about someone who is stupid. So these are the things that you could
often use in general you know with people who are close to you or not even
close to you so but the one that we are coming to now this is a caution note you
do not use it with people who are not very close to you okay because this
might be a bit offensive so the first one we have is Ines 'no Einstein'. So
Einstein obviously is the great intelligent scientist and if somebody is
no scientist this refers to a person who acts like he's very intelligent but
everyone feels that he is very very dumb so when he says something while he's
thinking that he's making a very intelligent remark and you feel okay
that was pretty stupid you say that hey you're no Einstein and you could say
that to a friend. To someone who thinks he is very intelligent.
Okay this is very long someone who thinks they're intelligent but
apparently they are not. Okay the next one we have is someone who
doesn't have much between the ears okay so what do you have between your ears
you have your brain but someone who does not have brains is pretty, pretty stupid
and this is an idiomatic expression idiomatic expression sorry to refer to a
person who is very stupid alright. So if you think that someone is acting really
stupid you could say that he doesn't have much between the ears and you could
say that okay I think he's pretty good-looking but I'm sorry to say he
hasn't got much between the ears which means he's not very intelligent, not very
smart. Okay now the next idiom we have is my favorite it's called a couple of
sandwiches short of a picnic okay so if you need a picnic you need a lot of
sandwiches but there's this person who is a few sandwiches short of a picnic
which means he's not very smart he's quite stupid okay so I have a
friend and his name is Mark all right okay mark is listening but it's okay
even if he's listening so recently he told me he's starting a business where
he's going to sell bees you know bees as pets so who would want to keep bees as
pets you can't even contain them and I was like dude you must be a few sad
which is short of a picnic. So this is someone who's quite stupid. There's
another variation to it which says that few bricks short of a load okay now we
look at the next one so this is also a very funny way of
telling someone that they are very, very stupid like completely stupid. You might
say that you have the IQ which is intelligence quotient in other words
you're as intelligent as something in this case if you say you have the IQ of
a wet teabag. So what do you think is the intelligence
of a wet teabag. Do you think it's smart enough to walk? Or do anything? No right?
It's got just no intelligence the same way if you tell a person you have the IQ
of a wet teabag it means that they're very stupid you can put anything there
but it's got to be something very funny you could say that you've got the IQ of
a jellyfish or a wet teabag or a tomato soup for that matter. Okay so this is
someone again very stupid now we look at the last one and this is someone 'as
thick as two short planks' now first looking at the grammar this is a simile
because we have two eyes here okay so it's a simile we are comparing two
things and what are the two things that we are comparing. Okay so thick is used
to talk about someone's brain okay so we are comparing someone's brains, brain's
thickness to two planks of wood. So this means that person is as stupid as the
thickness of two planks of wood. So someone who is exceedingly stupid
no wonder exceedingly stupid so thick is used as an expression to talk about
someone who's stupid you could just say oh come on you're very thick or you're
thick which means that they're stupid now we come to an end of the lesson
where we have learned different ways to say how stupid somebody is if you want
to say it more politely and indirectly and if you want to be very direct and
humorous then you have these ways to say that they're very stupid. I hope you're
not feeling stupid after watching this lesson and you've understood everything
this is Michelle saying bye-bye.