Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Noun Phrase 114. The noun phrase today is cold
feet. Okay. Let's look at the note. If someone gets has or is given cold feet...
So yeah it could be used with a number of verbs. We often say somebody has cold
feet. Somebody can get cold feet. Somebody
could be given cold feet. And there might even be more. So etc. cold feet, he or she has
an overwhelming feeling of nervousness, anxiety and cowardice. Yeah. They get
scared and run away etc. Right before the time one was supposed to do something
important or something of significance. So right before that, they just ... we also
sometimes say chicken out. Basically they get cold feet. Okay. Let's continue.
The exact origin cannot be pinpointed, but some people believe it was a
military phrase. Some soldiers that were too scared to enter battle would
claim or at least maybe they tried to claim his or her feet were frozen in an
attempt to avoid going into battle. I don't know if that really worked or not,
but at least some people believe that that's what they think. Okay. Let's
continue. All right. We got three examples here. Let's look at the first one. Her.
fiance got cold feet and left her standing at the altar. Yeah. We've seen
this one a number of times. We often say somebody gets cold feet. Even if they
don't go that far I mean if you leave them standing at the altar that means
you waited until the wedding day and you let them you know, the bride or the
groom you know go to the church and wait for you. And you don't show up you got
cold feet. You ran away. I remember that they had that movie several years ago
with Julia Roberts that was called "Runaway Bride "
supposedly in the movie she did that a couple of times. But this has happened
before a few times. You might have seen in some movie but in real life it has
happened. All right. Number two. Jack paid for
skydiving lessons and went up in plane when he got cold feet at the last minute.
So he's up there . I'm not jumping. Yeah. And refused to jump out of the plane. So
he got cold feet at the last minute and said he didn't want to do it. All right and
number three here. Just before she was supposed to go on stage. Well you know,
because maybe she was acting or maybe she's giving a speech or whatever she
got cold feet and ran away and she got too nervous and couldn't face it.
She ran away. Okay. Anyway I hope you got it. I hope it was clear. Thank you for your time.
Bye-bye.