so i asked my super patreon anna
what type of video she wanted me to do
and she asked for dark
morbid idioms i know
so today that's what we're doing so anna
you awesome human with a dark sense of
humor
this one's for you
[Music]
right there are and have been millions
of idioms in the english language
and there are millions of books about
500 idioms that you need to know
i have good news for you though we don't
use
90 of them ish lots of them are
old-fashioned and that's why we
don't use them some were never popular
to begin with
some maybe people using one little town
in one tiny part of england but sure
if you can find 500 of them to sell your
shitty
book why not confuse people when i teach
idioms i make sure
that you will actually hear them and
actually want to use them in your
day-to-day life
so here we go you guys are slotted for
the 2 a.m to 5 a.m slot
what that's the graveyard shift
in your job do you have different times
that you can work
like sometimes do you work in the
morning
sometimes in the afternoon sometimes at
night
those sets of hours are called shifts
so you work the morning shift the
afternoon shift
the night shift the night shift can have
a different name
the night shift the late shift or
the graveyard shift now why is it called
the graveyard shift
do you have to work in a graveyard no of
course not
it's called the graveyard shift because
a long time ago
when lots of people were accidentally
buried alive because you know medicine
was bad or something
they often made mistakes hey so
we've been burying people alive like all
the time recently
we need a plan okay kevin like what do
you want me to do
i'm just saying i think we need a plan
to stop this a plan like what we're
gonna bury them in the ground
put a string to their wrist attach the
string to a bell
so if they wake up and realize they've
been buried alive by mistake
they can ring the bell and someone can
dig them oh that's a great idea
i know it's right no the actual
reason for that expression
comes from sailors on a night watch
they called it the graveyard shift
because from the hours of midnight
until 4 am that was the time when the
most
disasters happened the graveyard shift
that's it
time you love him bite the bullet
let's imagine that you have a
relationship
and actually you don't love
that person anymore they love you lots
sure but you know that you have to end
this relationship yeah it's going to
hurt this person a lot
but you need to do it so
what should i do it's been months now
and i still haven't said anything if you
ask your friend
what to do hopefully your friend will
say this
i know it's hard but just bite the
bullet
do it yes it will be painful but it's
better to do it now
and not wait anymore bite the bullet
and do it bite the bullet is an
expression which comes from again a long
time ago when medicine was rubbish
and there was no anesthetic so if you
had
surgery there was nothing for your pain
so what did they give people a bullet
to bite
why would that help with pain i've never
understood this
you can practice this right now in the
comments
have you ever needed to say this to
someone has someone ever said this to
you what was the situation
what did you need to bite the bullet and
do
let me know i've always taken you with a
grain of salt
when you accept something but you're
still like
i don't know you take it with a pinch of
salt
now another way to look at this is to
assume
this is an exaggeration and probably the
truth is less than that
right for example if someone insults you
and says
you are the stupidest person ever
someone might tell you whatever he says
take it with a grain of salt he's very
angry
in other words he's exaggerating it's
not
that bad this expression comes from
again a really long time ago the romans
some
roman guy he made an antidote to a
poison
and he was like you've been poised you
have been poisoned okay cool
this will cure that um take this
with a little bit of salt the romans
believed that adding that grain of salt
would protect them against poisoning
i'm not sure if i believed that i don't
know i think she set the fire and then
just walked into it
yeah i've i've heard of cutting off your
nose despite your face but that's
cutting off your whole face
you know you're cutting off your nose
despite your face
i'm going when i was in high school our
science teacher was so annoying
and okay our class was really bad
but one day she got so angry she was
like this
i am so annoyed with all of you that's
it all of you
one hour after school with me have you
ever had a teacher that has done that
did you notice that it's also a
punishment for them because they also
have to stay after school with you so
when someone is so angry with another
person
that they do something to damage that
person
but they also damage themselves
usually more we say this
they are cutting off their nose to spite
their
face um miss aren't you cutting off your
nose despite your face
i mean sure you're punishing us but
you're punished too by staying with us
for an hour after school to cut
off your nose to spite your face
what why where did this come from so the
middle ages
think 12th century a common punishment
for
crime was to cut off people's nose
so criminals thought i'm going to cut
off
my own nose yeah that way
what are they going to do to punish me
pretty smart
how do i look don't open that can of
worms you are what you
can open worms everywhere
to open a can of worms this
expression is very similar to the phrase
opening pandora's box maybe you have
something similar in your language
but to understand it let's look at this
situation
friends are hanging out everyone's happy
but then
someone says something that they should
not say
this statement causes chaos it causes
huge drama and when that happens
he opened a can of worms by talking
about politics
and now everyone's fighting it's chaos
has this ever happened to you let me
know
in the comments what did you say what
was the situation
how did you open a can of worms how did
you
open pandora's box let me know
this one is super fun to use when you go
in a car
and you want to sit next to the driver
you just have to say this shotgun or
i call shotgun and it's like a magic
spell
everyone else has to let you sit in that
seat
i don't know why that's just the rule
where did this expression come from well
a long time ago in north america
in the old west the people who rode
these vehicles with the horses and
everything
the person who sat next to the driver
literally had to
carry a shotgun because if someone
wanted to rob them
[Music]
mate that's your job you're in the
shotgun seat
they bribe the guards the guards turn a
blind eye
a huge percentage of the planet's
revenue is derived from tsunkatsu
nobody wants to do anything that might
interfere with the game so they turned a
blind eye to the recruitment tactics
for years the government turned a blind
eye to the recruitment of immigrants by
the meatpacking industry
in this case i have just robbed a
casino i took lots of cash
from the room with the cash
but then the security guard catches me
what what do i do what do i do i know i
know
i offer the security guard money this is
smart
and very illegal don't do it i'm not
advising you to do this this is terrible
so i tell him hey
look if i give you half of this
you turn a blind eye to turn
a blind eye what does that mean well i
did a bad thing
he saw this he knows that he should say
something
but he chooses to be blind
to what happened he chooses to pretend
not to see it what do you think do you
think he is going to turn a blind eye
to what i did so to clarify
if he says
yeah i didn't see anything then he
turned a blind eye where does this
phrase come from
it comes from an old war where this guy
told nelson to stop firing at
ships my signals are telling you stop
firing at the
enemy ships but nelson he's only got
one good eye the other one is blind so
he's like this
what may i don't know what you're saying
yeah let me have a look hang on
let me get my telescope
nah can't see anything mate no signals
keep firing keep firing
so yeah basically nelson should have
listened to the orders but he chose
to be blind we got six minutes the
deadline jonah we need page one
when you have some work um an assignment
a report
homework whatever and you need to give
that work
to your boss your teacher your
lecturer whoever before a certain time
that time is your deadline
and you might say something like this i
have to get
this in before the deadline here's a
nice
phrasal verb as well to get it in
we could also say to hand something in
to get something in it just means
to submit your work when you're finished
and you need to finish before the
deadline and this expression
a deadline comes from the civil war in
the usa
they had prisoner of war camps and
to stop people escaping they drew a line
if you cross that line people will shoot
you
making you dead it's the deadline and
you can't go
past it do you have any deadlines coming
up
what do you have to hand in what do you
have to get in before the deadline
so thank you to my super patreon anna
for requesting this lesson
it was super fun to make and if you
want to request the next lesson you can
do that by joining my patreon
the link is in the description or you
can just click
here you'll also get an ebook full of
worksheets for my favorite lessons
and i'll see you in the next class
[Music]
you