hey Michelle how's everything going everything is going fine over here how's Kiefer
keeper is fantastic he's my my oh I love my dog so much yeah do you fuss over him a lot
a ton are you kidding me so in the winter sometimes he gets the salt the street salt
in his paws and we have to carry him home from the park and he's like a 50 pound dog and so he's
such a little he loves it he loves being carried you carry him on our shoulder yeah oh that's so
cute yeah I know you really you I know you really love him and I understand I understand that I had
a dog growing up and we we fussed over him I mean we said he was a he is a real member of the family
he was you know I said he was my other brother so like I said I had two brothers yeah it's it's
something that you know you can understand when you have a pet right a lot of our listeners have
pets it's a very special connection and the love between a dog and an owner is very simple which
I think is refreshing sometimes love between humans can be a little complicated right right
that's true with a dog they're just happy day to get a belly rub and uh exactly I'm gonna eat and
then walk and they're so loyal right there's a loyal to you it's not like oh you said this
to this person and so I'm not going to talk to you right right by your side there's no drama
um so Lindsay we're we use this uh phrasal verb fuss over
um I asked you about that and we have a great listener question today about this
um this was actually on YouTube um could you read the question for us all right so this is from
abduraman valijanov and they say hello Aubry and Lindsay each episode of aller's English is really
informative and useful for upgrading my listening and speaking skills well that's good to hear
Michelle I love that I have a question recently I found out about one phrasal verb fuss over
somebody honestly I couldn't grasp its usage very well could you explain this with some examples is
there another simple way of saying this expression I found it very confusing to use that's a great
question and Michelle if our listeners want to watch this episode where can they go by the way
guys we're on YouTube see our faces we're see our Expressions uh so we are on YouTube
yeah go over hit subscribe on our YouTube channel and if you're just a podcast
listener which to be honest I'm more of a podcast listener less of a YouTube Watcher
um and so hit follow on your Apple podcast your Spotify your cast box your Amazon music
wherever you're listening go for it hit that follow button guys yes yes so this is a really
good question I love these really specific ones right I love just fuss over let's talk about it
let's let's get into it so this is going to be fun today um so Lindsay what does it mean
well it means to be super excited over something right so to give something tons of energy or to be
really into something right right right exactly and guys we do a lot of episodes about phrasal
verbs so we're just gonna direct you to another one um to work on 1861 is three English phrasal
verbs with come so that is another one to listen to but we've got you know search phrasal verbs we
got a ton of stuff yeah we got some good stuff go over and check out that episode so Michelle
what do you fuss over in your life what would you say uh well I definitely fuss over my kids
okay yeah yeah I would say I would say the main that's the main thing uh what about you what
about besides Kefir is there something oh there's not much maybe my diet I kind of fuss over I have
very specific I want to eat very healthy um and I have very specific things that I want to have
and I get annoyed if I can't have those so can you give us one example like oh yeah go ahead
yeah oatmeal for breakfast right and I want to have like almonds with it because it's good for
your brain and I wanna like very specific things so if for whatever reason I wake up
and I only have like box cereal yeah I'm gonna be in a bad mood that's what I fuss over yeah
um I eat a ton of almonds so I I love I love almonds as well all nuts yeah they're good
um and so um well let's I mean do you think when you hear fuss over do you feel like that
comes with more of a positive or negative connotation or you think it could be either
I would say hmm crossover negative I think a little more negative a little more of an annoying
connotation like you're going you're doing too much do you agree or is that just my opinion
well let's look at some examples and then we can see okay okay so so here's something that I wrote
so here we go they were fussing over the baby and didn't even have time to pay attention to my story
now that sounds pretty negative doesn't it right someone getting like I mean I've been there before
I became a parent I would like sometimes be like with my brother when when he had kids or
or my sister-in-law and her kids and they would be like you know you're trying to tell a story you're
trying to get tell a story and it's always like oh sorry hold on a second sorry hold on Oh Billy
what are you doing you know like and and they're fussing over the kids and it can be frustrating
and now I'm like now I am that parent um uh yeah sure but yeah so in that sense I would say it kind
of sounds negative but could you read the next one okay I'm gonna fuss over that new cat it is
so cute so maybe this means you're just adopting this cat right I'm gonna fuss over this cat
um yeah I guess you could say that right when you you're really gonna care about it a lot make sure
it has all the cat houses that it needs all the scratching posts of all the things right so I mean
on this one I don't think it's so negative I think it's more just like you're gonna be so obsessed
with it in a way but so so I I The Free Dictionary used the word um inordinate so they said to fuss
over this was from The Free Dictionary to give someone or something an inordinate
amount of attention affection or praise so what is inordinate here like this isn't really in my
vocabulary to be honest this is good I'm learning something here with you today Michelle okay
um maybe it means I'm guessing from Context right which our listeners can do too I'm guessing it
means more than is merited yeah would you say that like a little unreasonable amount that's that's
how I would Define it it's like a little a little too much so I thought that that was interesting um
so it that that I think it's like giving something more than it's necessarily worth so yeah it's not
necessarily positive or negative but it's like a little much it's a little much that's what fuss is
a little much that's a good way to put it Michelle I like that all right so do you think that people
tend to fuss over things too much in general would you say um broadly speaking about Society
yeah I mean I I think that uh yes I think that the answer is yes the answer is yes I think in general
um people tend to fuss over things a lot I mean also from the Cambridge uh dictionary the word
fuss you know that it like so it's it's mostly I wait what what did I write here did you wrote an
example yeah it's like the show of anger worry or excitement that is unnecessary or greater than the
situation deserves that's why I wrote that fussing yeah yes stop fussing over this it's not worth it
don't worry about it so like that's an example um right so more than I thought that idea I pointed
it out because more more than something deserves so more than something but yeah I do think that
people fuss over a lot of things nowadays and everything kind of like I mean even things like
social media like everything seems more extreme we're fussing over everything what do you think
yeah I kind of think that in the world of like Merchant of people purchasing things like maybe
Hotel guests for example would be more fussy now than they were before I think as you give
more options to a market people are going to get more fussy right like it was not just one hotel
option there's like a thousand in one city one kind of cereal in the grocery store there's ten
um maybe that's a theory I don't know I don't know I'm just throwing out ideas here Michelle yeah I
don't know yeah there's a lot of competition a lot of things for people to choose from so
um just a couple of other of other um examples here we go well one other one will do the kids
were fussing over the toy so I took it away so that's again you know creating this excitement
and here it almost means that they're like arguing about it it could be that they're arguing about
it maybe fighting over it right so it's just too much giving the toy too much attention it doesn't
deserve that attention stop fussing over it do you think that this term is an interesting question do
you think this term also kind of is a way like if I say to you Michelle stop fussing that it's kind
of insulting because it's sort of something kids do does it have that a little bit of a juvenile
kind of term like stop fussing over this a little bit would you say I I wouldn't
like it if someone said stop fussing over this like yeah don't worry I'm not really saying it
um no um yeah I do think it does sound a little bit juvenile like I think it sounds like you know
um I mean but if I said like oh I'm I I'm I make if I said in a way about myself maybe
right like oh I'm like yeah sorry I'm making such a fuss about you know like my kitchen
being clean it's just that yeah that's not that's done I try to stay organized you
know so I think it's a good thing you could maybe say something about yourself as well
for sure no that makes sense that makes sense so in some ways it does have a juvenile connotation
just because kids fuss a lot right but it doesn't have to especially when you're talking
about yourself and I think it also shows maybe that something is important to you
um yes true true so it could be used to highlight in that way um that yes is important to you like
yeah I mean the things that we focus on and put a lot of energy into maybe ruminate on are the
things that matter to us right exactly so maybe it doesn't maybe it doesn't matter so much to
somebody else right but it matters to you yeah that can be kind of hard in connection and human
connection when you really care about something so maybe you are being very detail-oriented but
someone else just kind of blows it off or doesn't see the details that you see and it
can be frustrating when there's notice that when there's a mismatch right and there's a
mismatch yeah for sure yeah yeah so what are some other things that you could say um one is
pretty much the same thing but just a different way to say it Lindsay yeah so make a fuss right
to make a fuss we're just we're taking instead of saying fussing over something we're saying make a
fuss about something so he was making such a fuss about his new car meaning what like what do you
think he was doing there he was making such a big deal like he wouldn't stop talking about it like
he didn't want us to get it dirty don't like lean on it you know like something like that yeah yeah
that's true that's true yeah I get that okay and then the next one is a good word yeah come emotion
um so like a lot of attention paid to something so like maybe a whole lot so there was such a
commotion about the celebrity appearance but I didn't see the big deal right but I didn't
see the big deal good I like that I like that a commotion that's a nice word for our listeners
today yes that will probably be in the iOS or Android app right Michelle I love it so I do want
to remind our listeners guys we have an app if you don't know we haven't talked about this in a while
on the show but if you go to othersenglish.com app you know we have Android and we have IOS and
when you listen to the podcast through the app you can actually upgrade to the Premium plan and
you'll be able to see the transcripts right there inside your podcast player so it's something you
can't get on other podcast players and you can go deeper by tapping words that we select for
you and saving them to your list so that you can study them later it's really cool Michelle yeah I
love it I think it's so much fun um a great way to learn so yes you will see these inside the
Lindsay let's do a role play all right here we go so we are friends and we're talking about
our other friend uh oh okay that's never good all right I don't understand why she was fussing over
that new table I didn't think it was that nice yeah I agree she really made a fuss didn't she
yeah quite the commotion so maybe maybe the scenario is here we were all buying going and
she was buying the table or something and she was like asking details about it or maybe the
table was at her house and someone like made a chip in it and she was freaking out right
okay so she could have been making a fuss over yeah that's right so let's go through it so you
said I don't know why she was fussing over that new table yeah and I said yeah I agree you said
yeah I agree she really made a fuss didn't she yep and then you said yeah quite the commotion
I was a takeaway for our listeners I'm really glad that our listener asked this question because it's
I mean it's a fantastic natural native way to talk about getting really worried about
something and upset about something right yes yes exactly well I think the takeaway is that
fussing over something can be good or bad but it's more about something getting a lot
of attention if you use it about yourself it could be maybe a self-deprecating maybe
you're just talking about oh I'm always fussing over my dog you know like that kind of a thing
um and I I think it's a good it could sound juvenile too so there's this is very Dynamic
and layered and nuanced you know phrasal verb and uh but I think we really we went into it very in a
very deep way today and we hope that you can use it and let us know what do you make a fuss over
yeah there's nothing wrong with fussing over important things like your kids your kids
matter of course you pause over your kids because they're the most important thing
in your life right so when we can tell people what we've been fussing over we can actually
show them what really matters to us which is an interesting next layer of connection where we
can get to know people better so that's the key right there yeah definitely Lindsay okay well
this was a great question thank you so much for asking it and glad we got to talk about it today
all right Michelle I'll talk to you very soon take care bye bye foreign [Music]