Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Proverbs 75. The name of the proverb
today is ' The straw that broke the camel's back. " Okay this is actually
pretty common one. All right. Let's take a look at the note here. This proverb
refers to the last thing in a series of negative things that causes a breakdown
in a system or someone to lose one's patience or simply to be a breaking
causes, a breaking point that causes something to fail. So it's not
usually just one thing it was usually a number of things that we're building up
over time. Just like the idea of you know, if you pack too much stuff on the
camel's back is obviously it's not the first thing or the second thing or the
third thing you put on it, but there comes a point that if you just continue
and continue and continue, eventually the camel's back will break or he will
collapse. The whole thing will fall apart. So let's continue here. They say this
proverb does come from an Arab proverb about overloading a camel's back
beyond its capacity. So that's what they the original idea did come from. All
right. Again. Let's continue the form of this proverb close to our modern-day use
can be first found in a Charles Dickens novel "Dombey and Son. " Remember Charles
Dickens 'A Christmas Carol' , he's famous for many, many famous novels. The original
wording in the Dickens novel was 'as the last straw breaks the laden camel's
back. 'Yeah. Laden always means that you know, you have a lot of stuff that's weighing
down. That's really heavy , you know by putting a lot of things on top of
something. We always say something is laden with it. It's filled with it and
it's weighing down. The Laden camel's back. It's also formed into another
phrase in which someone can say something is the last straw. And that one's
pretty common too. So well that's the last straw I'm quitting or something
like that. It means the last thing there's been a lot of things been building up to
this point and that's it. That's the end. All right. So
let's continue and let's give one good example here. Jack was already on
the bad side of the boss due to his poor performance and laziness for many months.
Yes. It was probably quite a number of things that was building up that the
boss was annoying the boss about, about Jack you know. So was it again that just
wasn't one thing. It was like 10 things or 15 things. Today when he arrived at an
important meeting 30 minutes late the boss said that was the last straw.
That's it. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. He fired him on the
spot. Yeah. Now normally you know if somebody's just late once for a meeting
they probably won't be fired just for that. So that's why very often the thing
that breaks the camel's back or the thing that's the last straw is not
always the worst thing or the most serious thing but it's usually been
building for a long time and somebody again somebody just lost their patience
or that was the thing that finally made something foul or collapse. Then we say
that thing is the thing that broke the camel's back or that thing is the last
straw. Okay anyway, I hope you got it. I hope it's clear. Thank you for your time . Bye-
bye.