Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Noun Phrase 218. The noun phrase today is easy pickings.
Okay. Let's take a look at the board here. If somebody wants a screenshot. All right. Let's get
right to it. All right easy pickings is always a plural noun. So you can't just say like somebody
is an easy picking. It always has to be easy pickings or something is easy pickings. If we
say that something is easy pickings, it means that something is easy to obtain or get and is
often used with something that is easy to steal. Okay. If we say that a person is easy pickings. It
means he or she is easy to persuade or influence to do something and by extension probably take
advantage of or steal from. Okay. Let's go on. The origin of this term goes back to the 1500's
and is directly related to pickpockets and thieves. Okay. Remember a pickpocket picks
somebody's pocket. So this is where the idea of pick comes from. Some people might also think
of pick as in the sense of like low-lying fruit that's easy to get. That you know, because we also
say that we pick fruit too. But really the origin came from the idea of pickpockets and thieves.
Let's go on. If someone is considered an easy target he or she is considered to be easy
to steal from. Thus we get the term easy pickings. Okay. And let's just look we have several examples
here. Here's the first one. If you wear a fanny pack, you will be easy pickings for a pickpocket.
Yeah. A fanny pack remember that's like a money belt. Like a big money belt,
but you didn't wear it in the front you wore it in the back. And I remember like in the early 2000's.
That was very fashionable in Asia. And I always used to think that sometimes I'd warn students,
if you go to the west or really any country that's famous for pickpockets, you know , it's so easy
for a pickpocket to rob you if your money belt is from behind. You know, they didn't even lock it up
or anything. So if you do that , if you wore a fanny pack, remember, it was called a fanny pack
because fanny at least in American English , that's the name for... t's another slang name for
like your butt too. I think I covered fanny too because remember there's a different meaning for
fanny in American English and British English. If you, if you want , you can check out that video.
But anyway let me, let me continue here. In the movie, Wedding Crashers, the two main characters
used to crash weddings because they thought the single women attending would be easy pickings. All
right. Let's cover a couple of things here. Well first usually we use crash with a party. If you
crash a party , it means that you went to a party that you were not invited to. You just showed up
there you nobody asked you to come to that party. Now normally we don't say wedding crashers,
but maybe maybe after this movie maybe it happens more often. I don't know but if you did crash a
wedding ... Again it would mean the same idea. A wedding is really a type of a party. So it means
that you attended this wedding or the wedding reception. The party after the wedding and you
weren't one of the invited guests. You just went there. So that's a wedding crasher. All right. So
of course these were two guys and their thinking were ... their their logic was that you know,
at weddings you know, especially a lot of the single women they think oh when am I going to get
married. I'm still single and you know they all these feelings come out in them. And they think
that they are easy to take advantage of. Easy to pick up and you know ... you know maybe have
some sexual relations with them or something like that in that sense. They thought they were easy
pickings. Okay. Good and we often hear it used this way too. All right. Number three here. Many
credit card companies would often target college students. They considered them to be easy pickings
because they could get them to sign up by offering a very cheap free gift. Yeah. Something that's
only worth like a dollar or a few dollars and they get them to sign up and you know , many
college students also often have not learned how to control their spending. So they may use
that credit card a lot and credit card companies know that if students get into financial trouble
most parents will bail them out because well first of all they probably have enough money
to send them to college and then you know, they don't want their children to start off of being in
debt. In the credit card debt. So they will probably help to pay it off. So they sometimes
target them. They think they are easy pickings to take advantage of by by doing this. Okay. Anyway,
I hope you got it. I hope you got a better feel for this phrase. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.