Hi. James here. Excuse me a second. Hey Ezekiel, pull my finger. No. Hi. I want to work on
idioms today and today's idiom is going to be with pull. Later on I'll tell you what
pull my finger is about but right now let's go to the board. Okay. So pull. What does pull
mean in English? Well pull means to bring something towards you. So you pull it. Okay.
So we're gonna use a bit of force and pull it. Now because of that it gives the idea of difficulty
or bringing someone to your way of thinking. Pulling them. All right. So we've got pull
and we know it means to bring with you. Okay. Or you can also talk about difficulty.
And the other one we're going to put in here is that difficulty bring towards you or bring
to your way of thinking.
Okay. So these are the three ideas we usually get when we do pull. Take a look. One, two,
and three. All right. Now that we've got that down and you saw Ezekiel said no,
we'll try and figure out some idioms. All right. So what's the first one we're going to do? Well
when I was talking to Ezekiel I was actually pulling his leg.
Okay. Now you'll notice the pulling is here.
And in English pulling someone's leg means
joking.
If you can try and visualize it would look like this. If you pull my leg, all right,
you're going to take me with you. You're going to try and trick me into playing with you or playing
with me. Okay. So if you pull my leg, you're going to make me go with you. Right. So pulling my leg
and that's what we mean for joking because you have control of the person but it's not real
control. You know, they're off balance a little bit. They're not too sure it's the truth.
So what's another one? We got pulling leg. Oh, how about this one? When I asked him to pull my finger
I was pulling a fast one. What's that you say? Pulling a fast one makes no sense? Well once
again the first one pulling my leg is tricking someone. You're joking with them. Pulling a fast
one is actually tricking them. So it's like saying I have money in my hand and I'm going to give it
to you but really what I have is nothing. So you might give me something and you go, hey, there's
nothing here. You go, I pulled a fast one. So you don't get what you want. It's a trick. So when
someone pulls a fast one, they trick you. Now this is a funny one because it can either be one of two
things. Number one, it could actually be a joke. Someone pulls a fast one, you go to sit on a chair,
boom, they pull the chair, you fall. They pull the fast one. But then also it can be like a criminal
act. They try to pull a fast one. They try and take your money or steal your money in some way.
Yeah, you're trying to pull a fast one. No, no, no, no. I'm too smart for that. Yes, you are.
That's why you're here. Anyway, so we got pull a fast one. Now let's just say
I did trick Ezekiel. He didn't say no. He said, okay, James, I pulled your finger.
Okay. Remember, I'm going to tell you what that means. Then what I would have done is
I would have pulled the wool over his eyes.
So what do you mean pull the wool over my eyes? Well, pulling the wool over my eyes, see?
Okay. What it means is like you have a hat. Do I have a hat? I do. Hold on a second. I'm coming
back. See, you're still here. Okay. Now, if I pull the wool over my eyes, I can't see anything.
Once again, you get tricked. Okay. Pull the wool over your eyes, tricked. So had he pulled my
finger, I would have tricked him. But the truth of the matter is usually when we say pull the
wool over my eyes, we said, are you trying to? Are you attempting to? So usually this comes up first.
Are you trying to? And as you know, this is, this is an infinitive. So it should be,
this would become trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Trying to pull the wool over my eyes.
Okay. So if you use this part, you have to say pull. If they successfully do it, you say they
pulled. They tricked me. Cool. All right. Well, that's not enough. Of course not. We don't do
one minute videos here. It's not McDonald's. It's like a gourmet restaurant. Only the best.
Okay. So what's the next one we're going to do? Well, sometimes getting Ezekiel to do things for
me is difficult. Remember I said difficult? Well, here I'll give you a difficult one. He doesn't
have any teeth. I know. It's a worm. It doesn't have teeth. But if he did, I would say it's like
pulling teeth. And I would say it's as in it is like. All right. It's like pulling teeth.
Sorry. It is, right? So it's like pulling teeth means very difficult.
Okay. You saw him. He said no before I said anything. So we know it's very difficult.
It's like pulling teeth. Oh, did I do one of my favorite ones? I haven't. I'm going to give it to
you. At home, I'm sure you have a table. And underneath your table, you probably have this
thing, a piece of carpet. We call this rug. It's a rug. Now, gentlemen or ladies, let's say you
have a boyfriend or a girlfriend and everything's going well. They invite you for dinner one night.
You go out for dinner. You're eating your dinner. And then your boyfriend or your girlfriend looks
at you and they say, "Hey, I'm dumping you for a supermodel." Well, what do they do? They pull
the rug out from underneath you. When people do that, it makes you fall. All right. So if you pull
the rug, the table will be turned upside down. See? Pull the rug. So that particular idiom means
you weren't expecting something and it happened. It surprised you. And because of that, it turned
your world upside down. Surprise. So to have the rug pulled out from under you, it's long. I know.
Means to be surprised by something. Completely surprised.
Pull
out.
Surprise.
Okay. So we've got that one then. So to have the rug pulled out from under someone is to be
surprised.
And shock. Oh, surprise, shock. The same. Surprise. And have
your world change.
People use this one for losing a job or a special person, you know, boyfriend or girlfriend or
whatnot. Anyway, did I tell you about pull my finger? I haven't. Well, if you want to know
what it is, I'll show you where you go and you'll find out what that means. It's quite funny.
Wait. Well, maybe it's not. Hold on a second. Go to www.eng as in English, vid as in video.com
and you can find out other idioms and phrasal verbs, grammar points that you might want,
TOEFL hints, and you can find out pull my finger. Okay? I'll see you there.
I lied. I'm glad you stayed around. Pull my finger. If someone pulls your finger,
out your bum. Yeah. Don't do it. Bad. Canadians like that all the time. They'll say,
"Are you from a foreign country? Pull my finger. Pull my finger now." See you later.
Go to www.engvid.com