you
Hi, my name is Emma and today. We are going to talk about expressions with the word hell
You'll notice. I don't know if you know what the word hell means, but you'll notice some flames
To help you understand the meaning of hell
So first what we're going to do is we're going to talk about
the phrase what the hell and then once we finish that we're going to look at some common idioms and
Phrases that contain the word hell, so let's get started
Before we begin with what the hell I just want to talk about
Pronunciation and also what the word hell means
so hell
Is a noun
It's a place
In certain religions if you're very very bad you go to hell for people who are very good. They go to heaven
Hell is supposed to be a very hot place with a lot of flames with fire
a
Lot of evil people are supposed to go to hell
so that's
Just a bit of a background on the word hell
Hell now here is a word that people might confuse with the word hell
hill
Does anyone know what this means well?
It's a contraction you see this apostrophe. It means he
will
So these two words have completely different meanings, so don't mix them up
In terms of pronunciation you don't want to mix these two words up so remember hell
Rhymes with Bell and
Hill is pronounced the same way as
Like a hill
Hill
Okay, good
So let's look at the first expression. I have had a lot of ESL students ask me about this expression
What the hell?
What the hell and you'll notice an exclamation mark?
So what does this expression mean? I'm sure if you watch American movies
TV shows friends
Sitcoms you are going to see this a lot. You're going to hear it a lot
Well, what the hell is?
What's known as an interjection?
So we use this to show we are surprised
We're angry
We're frustrated, but you but usually with the surprise and anger
so for example
Maybe I'm walking
down the street and
All of a sudden in the sky. I see something fly past me
Maybe it looks like an alien spaceship. I'm going to be shocked. I'm going to be surprised
So right away. I'm going to say something like what the hell? It's it's surprising. What the hell?
So we use this a lot with surprise
So now let's look at
using
Hell as what's known as an intensifier?
So in this case, it's used as an interjection
Other interjections are
interjections are
whoa or
These are interjections
now we are going to look at hell as
what's known as an
Intensifier
Because hell is intense
So what do I mean by this well?
Look at the following sentence. Well. It's a question. What happened?
What happened?
now
Say if I want to add emotion to this sentence
I want people to know that I feel something when I'm saying this
Maybe it's surprise. Maybe it's shock anger frustration
Usually those four emotions we use hell with instead of just saying what happened I can say
What?
the hell happened
What the hell happened last night?
I don't know if any of you guys have seen the movie The Hangover
but in that movie three men wake up hungover with no memory of the night before and
So they have this type of moment
What the hell happened last night? They don't remember they're shocked
By what they see around them
another example is I
Had a friend in high school who had a big big party
her parents were away for the weekend or so she thought so she invited a whole bunch of people to her house and
It was a Saturday night her parents were supposed to come home Sunday
They came home Saturday
so when her father walked in to
Their house. He said what the hell is going on here. He wasn't happy
so
Again, we use this for anger surprise frustration
Now let's look at another question. Who is that?
Who is that?
well
What if I add the word?
The hell who the hell is that?
It really changes the meaning of this question
before the question was
more polite
When I add who the hell is that it's a bit rude
So you don't want to use this with your boss. It is rude
But I'm showing either. I'm angry or surprised so what might I use this well
Maybe I see my best friend's husband at a bar with another woman
Well if I'm shocked I might ask him who the hell is that
When
When did you get married?
Maybe I find out my friend just got married. Oh, when did you get married?
Well, what if I'm really really surprised or I'm angry because she didn't invite me to the wedding. I might say when
the hell
Did you get married?
Again, it's not the nicest thing to say you say it with your friends a lot actually
But it can be taken rudely depending on your tone of voice
Where are my keys? Every morning I wake up and
Before work, I cannot find my keys. I searched the whole house for my keys. I can never find them
Well, maybe one morning. I'm very very stressed out. I'm late for work. I need to get there by a certain time I
Might instead of just saying oh, where are my keys? I might say where the hell?
Are my keys? How do I fix this? Maybe I broke something if I add the hell
Shows maybe I'm frustrated. I don't know how to fix this. How the hell do I fix this?
So again, we have all of the question
Who what when where why oh, we don't have why up here. You can also use it for why why the hell did you do this?
You can use it with any of these question words and what it does again is it shows you're either surprised
shocked frustrated or angry
Now two other things we can intensify our common words like no
Yes, and yeah
Now if somebody asked me a question
say for instance if
They asked me a question
Say for instance if they asked me do I think George W. Bush?
Did a great job as president of the United States now for some of you. They'll say yeah. Yeah, I think he did a good job
For others, maybe you don't really care you say ah no. I don't think he did that good of a job
Well if you're very opinionated like me you might say hell no
Hell no
Which is a very strong way of saying no?
similar to that
If you feel very strongly about something and you want to say yes, you can say hell yeah, or hell yes
Do you want cake with that with dinner? Hell yeah?
Do you want to go to the movies tonight? Hell yeah?
Do you want to do your homework?
Hell no
So you can use these to intensify
Yes, and no answers
All right, so we've covered some question words
We've seen what the hell as an interjection
We've looked at
Adding the hell as an intensifier
Well, there's another
common
Meaning to what the hell
so it can also mean I
Don't know if you can see this I
Don't
care
Which is pretty opposite to what we were just talking about we were just saying
When we add the hell it really makes a sentence strong it makes a question very strong it shows you're angry or surprised
well
Depending on our tone of voice it can also mean. I don't care
So say for instance somebody wants to borrow my car
If I don't really care, I might say yeah, what the hell go ahead. Here's my keys
Another example is if somebody you know I have a test on on Monday, and I should be studying and
Somebody says do you want to go to the bar tonight?
Yeah, what the hell okay? I should be studying, but I don't really care so what the hell
All right, I hope none of you do that by the way
All right, so next we are going to look at some common idioms and phrases
Expressions with the word hell in them
Alright, so here are six expressions
Some of them are more common than others, but you will hear all of these that have to do with the word hell
Now the first one I really like to give someone hell
When you give someone hell so again, here's the verb to give give someone how it's it's all together
It means to reproach to reprimand to yell at someone
Severely so for example
To really understand this concept
I have a dog if my dog ate some of my jewelry
I have a dog if my dog ate some of my jewelry. I would be very very angry
So I might give my dog hell meaning I might yell at my dog and say why did you do that? You know bad dog?
parents I
Told you earlier that my friend had a party one weekend when her parents were out for the weekend and her dad
Came home early
her dad
Gave her hell
Meaning her dad was very very angry with her yelled at her screamed at her
Really really disciplined her
When you give someone hell, it's a bit negative. You're not happy when you give someone hell it means
You you really?
Put them in their place so for example
Bosses if a boss is very very upset with something you've done
Maybe an employee stole something from their company the boss will give that person hell
So again it means reproach reprimand to yell at someone to scream at someone
Give someone hell
Okay, expression number two
Now this expression go to hell is not polite at all
It's very very very rude, so try not to use it
But you will hear it a lot especially in on movies and TV
Go to hell, so I've drawn a very angry face
If you tell someone to go to hell
You're probably going to be very angry when you say it, and you're pretty much saying
I don't want to deal with you right now get away leave me alone, but it's a very very very
Mean and angry way to say it
Because again hell is not a nice place
It's a place where bad people go so if you're saying go to hell to someone
It's a very strong thing to say
number three
Number three is to hell with it or the hell with it
So you have a choice you can say to hell with it, or you can say the hell with it
Now this expression is often used when you give up on something you decide you don't want to do something anymore
so for example, maybe I've been studying all day, and then I decide I want to go out and party I
might say
To hell with studying so the it is what you change so to hell with studying
I'm going to go party, so you give up on studying to help with studying. You don't care about studying. You're going to go party or
To hell with you can also use a person
Will replace it with her to hell with her
I might say that if I give up on someone. I'm kind of tired of them. I tried to call my friend all weekend
She didn't pick up her phone
To hell with her meaning. I don't care anymore
I'm giving up. I'm not calling her anymore
Number four
For the hell with it
I really like this expression actually for the hell of it. What does it mean? Have you ever done something for no reason?
When somebody asks you why did you do that? You don't really have an answer an
Answer is for the hell of it meaning you did it
for either no reason
Or you did it for no reason
For the hell of it meaning you did it for either no reason
Or just for fun
So for example
Maybe
I'm not working tomorrow. I don't have anything to do and I decide to drive
To Montreal I live in Toronto Montreal is five hours away, so maybe one day
I just think I'm going to drive to Montreal today
Somebody might ask me. Why did you do that? You know what were you doing in Montreal?
Well, I drove there for the hell of it meaning. I didn't really have a reason
Maybe I just did it for fun
Number five like hell
When we use like hell, we're talking about doing we're describing
Something usually it has to do with driving running
Studying so it has to do with a verb it describes the verb
So how did you do it?
How did you drive? I drove?
like hell
How did you run? I ran like hell so like hell describes the verb
And it means you did it either with great speed so very fast or
Recklessly meaning you weren't careful
So when would we use something like like hell for example?
well
Maybe
You have a wife. She's pregnant
She's about to give birth and you're very very stressed out. You're a bit in a panic
How would you drive your car to the hospital?
Do you think you drive at 40 40 kilometers an hour?
No, you're probably going to drive as fast as you can to to get there on time before she gives birth
You drive like hell
Maybe some of you have been late for class before
This this has happened to me before
And if you have a very strict teacher
You don't want to be late. So what do you do?
Well you run
And how do you run you run like hell?
Meaning you run as fast as you can you just sprint you you run hard
So you run like hell
You could use this with studying
How do you study?
I study like hell means I'm a good student
How do you study? I study like hell meaning I study with great speed. I
Maybe you didn't study
For weeks and your test is tomorrow. How are you going to study for your test? I'm going to study like hell
Number six when hell freezes over
now this is a
fun expression
because
Hell like I said before is a very hot place notice the flames
Well freezing is what happens in the winter
It's when ice
Comes so when hell freezes over mean means hell is going to be covered in ice
Now this is another way of saying never because hell will never freeze over
So this is a fun way to say never
So let's think of some examples
Well, maybe I have a friend
And a guy wants to go on a date with her
I ask her
Will you go on a date with Bob? We'll call it Bob
Will you go on a date with Bob?
Maybe if she really doesn't like Bob she will say I'll go on a date with Bob when hell freezes over
Hell freezes over which means she will never go on a date with Bob
Will you go see
You know, what's a good movie?
Maybe you hate lord of the rings
I I don't know why I love lord of the rings, but maybe some of you out there thought it was a very boring movie
very long
so maybe
Somebody will ask you
Will you see the hobbit?
The new lord of the rings movie coming out
You might say I'll see the hobbit
When hell freezes over meaning you will never see that movie
It's a very strong way to say that
Okay
So today we have looked at expressions like what the hell?
We've looked at
Interjections what the hell again?
Hell no hell yes
We've also looked at some common expressions with hell
So I hope you come visit our website and take our quiz on these expressions at
www.engvid.com
And I hope that if I ask you are you going to continue watching our videos your answer will be hell yes
Take care