Hi everyone, my name is Hridhaan and I welcome you with a very big heart on Let's Talk. Very
important question, “Do you like interacting with people?” Well if you do then let me
tell you today's lesson is for you because in today's lesson we're going to be talking
about everyday English phrases that you can use as you interact with people day in and
day out, so what are we waiting for let's get started…
The first phrase in the list
that we have is, “age before beauty”. Well everybody knows what is age and what
is beauty, but if we put them together with ‘before’, what does it mean? It means
to give preference to an older person. That means if there are two people, one person
is beautiful and the other person is a little old but with brains and more experience of
life, and if somebody has to choose amongst these two, people the person would go for
an old one who has got experience of life that is the situation wherein we use this
phrase, ‘age before beauty’. Let's see how we can use it in the form of an example
here, “She handed over the piece of cake to him saying age before beauty.” So there
was a cake and it was a, let's say a birthday party or let's say the celebration of a new
organization and the cake cutting ceremony happened, and the person actually offered
the cake to not the one who was beautiful but to the one who had more experience and
so the person said, ‘age before beauty’, that means I give preference to one's knowledge
and experience of life rather than the beauty. Let us move on to the next phrase, the next
one is “Acid test”. You must have heard about acid rain and what is an acid, it is
a chemical of a sort, but what is ‘an acid test’? It means a critical experiment, “What
is a critical experiment?” Critical is important that tells us the reality of something, for
example if you're interacting with somebody, you can say, it was a critical experiment,
“it was an acid test” it was an acid test. For example, “The acid test of an artist
is whether he remains calm or not when he or she receives criticism.” that means,
the real test of an artist is, an important test of an artist's personality is when somebody
criticizes that person and that person in that situation has to show how calm he or
she is and that is when you actually prove the acid test of being a real artist. You
can use the situation not just for artists, this phrase but for any kind of situation
for any kind of person whenever it is a critical important test of one's reality. Let's see
the next one, “I don't buy it”. What is I don't buy it? I don't buy doesn't mean I
don't want to purchase it, it means, to disagree. So if you disagree with somebody on something
you can just simply say, “I don't buy it, I'm afraid.” I don't buy it. For example,
“my father says that his latest schemes will make millions, but I don't buy it. So
probably let's say, the father is a multimillionaire or maybe a politician and the son says I disagree
with him, I don't buy him because I see some flaws and it might as well. So whenever you
have to disagree with somebody on something, you can say, ‘I don't buy it’. The next
one is “appeal to”. Appeal is more like a legal term but a lot of people use it in
our daily lives when they interact with each other and it basically means to make a request,
to make a polite, a formal request and if you're a bit of a drama queen, you can say,
“I appeal to you, I appeal to you please do that…” It basically has an example
here which will tell us the clarity of it, “the government appealed to the crowd to
make a silent protest” that means the government, there was something bad that was going on
and the people were protesting and the government came out in response to that and ‘appealed
to’, it is a bit of a formal example, let's say, let's take a casual example, “the students
appealed to the teacher to give them an extra break for the day.” The students appealed
to the teacher to give them an extra break for the day. ‘Appeal to’ is to make a
request polite, formal request. Have you ever appealed to somebody or appeal to somebody
recently if you have done, so please do let me know in the comment section below by writing
an example and using the phrase ‘appeal to’. Let us now move to the next phrase,
the next one is “come across”. How can we use come across in the form of… in an
interaction basically with people, it basically means that someone or something that comes
to you by chance. So that happened… that wasn't planned, that just happened to you
on a snap and what is it, how can we use that in an example? “She came across one of her
childhood toys.” That means she accidentally found, by chance one of her childhood toys
while cleaning the storeroom. Such a beautiful situation, I'm sure it must have happened
to a lot of you as well. So when something happens to you by chance, that's when you
use the phrase in the form of interactions ‘came across’. For example you went to
Starbucks for a coffee and you actually ran into your friend you can say, “I came across
my friend from my school.” Let's say from my A levels, I came across at my friend today
at Starbucks, that's how you can use ‘came across’. Let us now move to the next phrase
use for interactions, “don't joke with me”. Now if you see here, I have put an exclamation.
How can we use that and what does it mean? It basically means to ask someone to realize
the seriousness of the matter. So somebody is being really casual and it's not being
really serious about an important matter and you're saying to that person with an exclamation
and a strong voice, ‘don't joke with me’, that means to please focus on what we are
talking about. For example, “don't joke with me please, I need his address right away!”
One important thing that I'd like to address here is the pronunciation of ‘address’
do we put the stress on the first part or the second part? Is it address or is it address?
Now for example I am addressing this example to you which has somebody's address in it
that means when it is a verb the stress is on the second part, when it is a noun that
means somebody's homes name, number, etc. the stresses on the first part, at the moment
I'm addressing this example and what is your address… coming back to the same, don't
joke with me as an exclamation to be used when somebody is not serious about something.
I hope you've understood this let us now move to the next phrase used for interactions,
“fact to the matter”. Fact of the matter means the truth of something. Truth something
that is not a lie, something that is the fact. Let's see in an example, “the fact of the
matter is that you were wrong when you were arguing with your parents”. So what does
that mean? The truth is everybody uses this this very common collocation, ‘the truth’
very common vocabulary but today you have been given a weapon of another word for the
same, another collocation phrase for the same, ‘fact of the matter’. So if you want to
say “‘the truth is’, I didn't want to join you for coffee.” You can say “the
fact of the matter is that I didn't want to join you for coffee.” So ‘truth is’
equivalent to ‘the fact of the matter’. This was about fact of the matter. Let's move
to the next one, “for the time being”. Now it has ‘time’ and it has ‘being’
with it, with these two words as well, it means for a limited time, only for a limited
period, only for a limited time. Something that you do or something that somebody has
done to you or any duration that is for a limited time is referred to as ‘for the
time being’ and there are so many things that we do for a limited time or something
that is there for a limited duration and in such a situation you can use this phrase ‘for
the time being’, one more time, ‘for the time being’. Example time, “For the time
being you can have my laptop.” I'm not giving you my laptop forever but for the time being,
that means but for that limited duration you can use my laptop. This was about for the
time being. Time for the next phrase on the list, the next one is, “allow for”. Now
don't misunderstand it, it has nothing to do with ‘permission’. When ‘allow’
as a word is used in conjunction with the preposition ‘for’ here, it has a different
meaning altogether and it means, to give a careful thought about something, ‘careful
thought’, ‘allow for’ means a careful thought. Allow means permission, ‘allow
for’ means give a careful thought about something. For example, “allowing for her
old age…” that means considering, considering her old age, “…she was given a seat by
a young woman.” Let's say this old woman was traveling on a metro and she was really
tired, there was another young woman who was seated and she saw that this woman is standing,
and she offered her seat to her considering, ‘allowing for’, considering, giving a
careful thought about her age that she needs it more than the young lady does. So in such
a situation you can use ‘allow for’. So I have given you a very interesting weapon
today to talk about considering something, a careful thought, so don't say I'm considering
about etc. etc. say, “I'm allowing for the fact that…” whatever the situation is.
Let's now move to the next one, “grist for the mill”. What is grist for the mill? It
means, using something to get some profit from it so there's something that you're using
and it can be anything and why you're using that? So that you get some profit out of it,
what do you get? Some profit out of it. For example, “You can't throw your notebooks
like this, every page is very important, it can be a crisp for the mill.” That means
it can be used to get some profit, probably the person wants to, let's say, resell the
book to anybody who wants it. So in such a situation it can be a ‘grist for the mill’.
So do not throw the book so casually like that. This was for ‘grist for the mill’,
let's move to the next phrase in the list “it serves you right”. It serves you right
can be used as part of a sentence or can as also be used as an exclamation. ‘Serves
you right’, ‘serve’ means you go to a restaurant and somebody serves, the waiter
serves food to you and in this situation actually God serves food to us not food directly, it
basically means the result of the actions that we do. Good actions are served with good
results, bad actions are served with bad results. It means “justice happened because the person
got what they deserved.” So whatever the person did the result, that is the justice
will be in accordance to that, will be accordingly, will be in accordance to the actions that
the person did. For example, “He ranked first in the country for the entrance exam,
it serves him right for the hard work he had done for it.” A very positive example I
must say, because the person did a lot of hard work for the job, for getting a seat
on the entrance test, all India let's say entrance test, the person actually was served
right, was justified with the result for a situation like that. That means the person
was given the seat and was justified with the acts that he’s done for. So today we
looked at some very interesting phrases to talk about interactions. Basically when you're
interacting with people how you can use the normal phrases that we use in a more interesting,
fluent and profound manner. Thank you very much for being with me on this video, if you
liked the video please press the like button and do subscribe to the channel. Thank you
very much and have a great day ahead.