Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Interjections 25. The interjection today is bah humbug. You
know, it's perfect just for the Christmas season. If somebody wants a screenshot, do it right now.
All right. Let's get into it. If someone says bah humbug, it expresses that one disapproves
of something with a feeling of cynicism, like being cynical , distrustfulness and it is used
especially to show a dislike for Christmas. Bah humbug could mean nonsense. You know,
so whatever somebody's saying to you, you think it's just nonsense , rubbish. Well the British
often say rubbish or or BS remember even in American English BS well it stands for the word
bull the b stands for bull and the s stands for s-h-i-t. So you might know that. That also means
nonsense sometimes. All right. Let's continue. This interjection comes from Charles Dickens
"Christmas Carol ' , especially at the beginning of the story. Yeah. Because
later on in the story he ends up meeting the three ghosts that really scare the hell out of him
and he sees what his life is like. After he dies and that nobody loved him or appreciated him or
you know, everybody said terrible things about him and this is what makes him change his ways later.
But at the beginning , he doesn't think this way. So in any time he was saying bah humbug, bah humbug.
You know, many many times. Let's continue. The main character Scrooge says that a number
of times whenever someone asks him to donate money. You know, donate money, spend money for
holiday cheer or or even let his employee have a day off. You know, even just for Christmas.
His, his character popularized this phrase more than anyone else. All right. Let's continue. Even
today the word humbug by itself can mean... can be used to describe someone's speech or behavior as
dishonest or sincere. In this story, Scrooge originally thought that those making requests for
donations or allowing his employee to have time off you know , with, with , with pay you know,
he actually has to pay him. You know. like I think in the end there at the beginning he said. Okay.
You could, you could have the day off. But I'm not paying you. You know , so he thought he thought
that he was being cheated. He thought people were trying to con him or take advantage of him. So
was he thought it was just a way to dishonestly cheat him. He thought that people use like
Christmas as an excuse as a way to get money from him. Okay. Anyway, but again at the end
of the story after you know, after the ghosts visit him and he sees you know , the ghost of Christmas
past, present, and the future. Well he he becomes another person . Completely the opposite.
All right. Anyway though. Here we have three examples of the way we use this. All right.
Here's the first one. When we ask them to donate money, so we can buy some toys for the orphans...
remember orphans they're children that they lost their parents or don't have parents now. They more
or less said bah humbug. Basically. Meaning they didn't want to donate any money to this. Number
two Only a modern-day scrooge would say bah humbug to help out the poor victims of this
natural disaster. You know, again maybe they're trying to go around and get donations. Maybe
some terrible earthquake or typhoon or tsunami hit a place. They're trying to get donations,
but they're saying only a modern day scrooge would say bah humbug to not help these people.
All right. Number three here. Bah humbug. I don't trust a word you say . You come up with all these
sob stories. Yeah. I think I did a ... I did a video on sob stories a long time ago I think a
noun phrase on it. When somebody always tells you all these sad stories or something happened. You
know they want you to probably give them money or do some big favor for them. So sob stories
just to try to get money out of us. Okay. Anyway, this is just the way we'd hear it.
I hope you got it. I hope it was clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.