This is New York in Slow English.
Americans exaggerate all the time.
See what I mean?
I just exaggerated.
We put words in our stories that just aren't true.
Sometimes we make things bigger, or we make things much worse, or we magnify in some other
way.
And the reason we do it, is NOT because we expect you to believe us.
But we do it to add emphasis to some part of our story.
When I started listening closely this week, I discovered a lot of examples to show you.
This first group of examples emphasizes temperature.
So, people are either trying to say that they're really hot or that they're really cold.
I'm so glad to finally be warm.
It's very toasty in here.
Toasty?
Are you kidding me?
It's boiling.
It's boiling hot.
I'm burning up!
It's a little overwhelming how boiling it is.
Man, it got really cold again, didn't it?
Yeah. I'm freezing.
Another way that we do emphasis through exaggeration is by inflating numbers.
So, we might emphasize a little bit by talking about a thousand of something.
Or we might emphasize a lot by talking about a million of something.
We might say that something takes hours to do, or we might say that it's endless and
that we'll never be done, or that it will take forever.
Just this past month there's been a thousand things I've needed to get done.
And it's been pretty crazy.
Like, we've sent the designs over to get checked, and the designs are coming back now and we're
having to update them based on comments and stuff like that.
So, it's been pretty crazy.
You told your sons that you needed those documents, like a million times.
He called me a million times.
But then I texted him a million times, which really annoyed him.
And then he shut me down.
How long have guys been waiting for this flight?
Hours.
We're bored to tears.
Now, what have you been doing?
Just been on our phones.
Of course.
What are you doing?
We have this endless assignment to do.
It's taking forever.
So we do a lot of exaggerating with the word "every".
So, everywhere or everything.
And then the opposite -- nowhere, or nothing.
When my wife puts something in the refrigerator, she puts a cloak of invisibility over it.
It's the yogurt.
I ask her, "can I find the yogurt?"
"It's in the refrigerator."
I go open the door.
I look everywhere.
It's not in there.
She goes, and finds it, and hands it to me.
And I go, "Where was this?!"
I can't seem to make this thing work.
I've tried everything.
It just doesn't work.
And it keeps saying that it's on.
But it doesn't work.
And I've tried everything.
And nothing works.
We have another group of exaggerations that revolve around the idea of death.
So, if something is bothering us a little bit, we might say it's killing us.
And we are feeling maybe a little bit uncomfortable, we might say that we're dying.
My day was great.
But, guess what?
What.
My feet are killing me.
Oh my gosh, how come?
Too much work.
I work, work, work all day.
I didn't get a chance to sit down.
How was your workout class?
Oh my God, it was great.
But I'm dying of thirst.
Sometimes we exaggerate about how much something weighs.
We often say that something weighs a ton, or a ton of bricks.
And the opposite would be that something is really, really light - like light as a feather.
Do you need help with your bag?
Yes, please.
It weighs a ton.
It does.
Is that stroller hard to push?
No, it's as light as a feather.
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And I'll see you next time on New York in Slow English.