- Hello, lovely students,
and welcome back to "English with Lucy."
Today, we're going to be covering the topic of slang
but more importantly, rhyming slang.
I'm going to teach you how
and why we use phrases like holy moly,
nitty-gritty, fuddy-duddy, higgledy-piggledy.
It's the ultimate vocabulary, grammar,
and slang and pronunciation lesson.
Today I'm going to teach you about something
that most native speakers won't even realise they do
and they certainly wouldn't be able to explain why.
We're going to talk about rhyming reduplication.
Before we get started, two important points.
Number one, we have a free PDF
that goes with today's lesson.
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Okay, I have written a little poem for you
and there's a reason behind it.
I've not just gone into poetry.
There was once a teacher from Britain
who gave classes to Alfonso the kitten.
But he didn't like reading.
He just wanted feeding.
So he munched up what Lucy had written. (laughs)
Alfonso is the name of my cat.
Now there is something inherently satisfying
about rhyming words, isn't there?
Apparently, it makes our brains really happy
when they hear the sound patterns that occur in rhymes.
Now, we do this a lot in English,
especially to say something in a lighthearted way.
For example, holy moly there are a lot of examples!
Holy moly is an interjection showing surprise.
Now, don't worry. I'm going to show you the nitty-gritty.
The nitty-gritty is the important detail.
We're going to go from the itsy-bitsy,
itsy-bitsy means very, very small,
to the higgledy-piggledy.
Higgledy-piggledy means confused or jumbled.
Trust me, these expressions are the bee's knees.
The bee's knees is an idiom that means excellent.
Okey-dokey, let's go.
Okey-dokey means okay.
See, there are a lot of them.
Okay so these rhyming expressions
are called rhyming reduplication,
and in rhyming reduplication,
we alter the beginning of the word,
and generally this is a consonant or a consonant cluster.
For example, ee's-ees, bee's knees.
Bee's knees is a copy apart from the consonant sounds
at the start of the words.
Two-part expressions like this sound extremely informal
and bring the register right down to a fun level
so that you won't sound hoity-toity.
Another one, hoity-toity is behaving
like you are better than everyone else.
I hate all this hoity-toity.
Here are a few more.
Boogie-woogie, oh, I love that one, boogie-woogie.
Boogie means dance and so does boogie-woogie.
Let's go out next weekend and boogie-woogie.
That one does sound a little old fashioned.
This one does too but not in the same way.
Fuddy-duddy, fuddy-duddy,
this noun or sometimes adjective describes someone
who is old fashioned or something that is old fashioned.
I find it adorable though.
Don't be such a fuddy-duddy. Come out tonight.
Or his outfit was a bit fuddy-duddy.
We also have quite a childish one, silly billy.
Silly billy, and this is what we say
to children who aren't behaving in a sensible way.
We also use it a lot with our pets
because we treat our pets as our children in the UK.
The tone of voice is important with this one,
as otherwise it could sound pretty insulting.
Oh, you are a silly billy.
Take that bucket off your head.
Fun fact, I actually got a bucket stuck
on my head as a child.
I put it on like this and put the strap
under my chin to look like a soldier.
I was definitely a silly billy.
It had to be cut off, and it was my favourite bucket.
In fact, I don't think I've recovered.
Another, hocus-pocus.
This is silliness or magical activity
often used to trick someone.
Just be honest, stop all this hocus-pocus.
Often wizards will say it before casting a spell.
Hocus-pocus, she's disappeared!
We also have lovey-dovey.
This is a romantic adjective for people who show PDAs.
Ah, PDAs, these are public displays of affection.
Mum and dad are far too lovey-dovey.
They're always holding hands.
Another you might come across,
not so common, helter-skelter.
This is either a type of slide
that goes all the way around like that,
you'll find it in a playground,
or an adjective to describe hurrying and confusion.
We had a helter-skelter journey to the show.
We also have one that I love to say, namby-pamby.
Namby-pamby, this is an adjective meaning weak,
feeble, maybe excessively emotional,
and it's a bit cruel to be honest.
What a namby-pamby idea. It's really insulting.
Willy-nilly is one that I use all the time,
and this is an adverb to describe doing something
in an irregular way.
The new agency just sends its proposals willy-nilly.
Yeah, if you do something willy-nilly,
it's without planning or organisation.
It's in a random, chaotic way.
Don't just do it willy-nilly.
Think about it first.
We also have jeepers creepers.
Jeepers creepers, and this
is an exclamation showing surprise or shock.
And I'm pretty sure that it comes
from avoiding saying something blasphemous,
avoiding saying Jesus Christ
'cause we have Jesus Christ, jeepers creepers.
Some people want to avoid that.
It's quite a nice one to use.
Jeepers creepers, knock on the door
before you just come in next time.
Now, let's move on to the topic of nicknames.
British people quite like assigning nicknames to each other
and we love them even more if they rhyme.
So you could have a Steady Eddie, Handy Andy,
Merry Geri, Bonny Johnny, Smiley Kylie.
I'm often called Juicy Lucy.
It really works well with two syllable names.
Here's a challenge for you,
can you think of a rhyming reduplication
for your own name or a British name that you can think of?
Preferably your own name,
but some of them might be quite difficult.
I'm thinking Muhammad doesn't really rhyme with much.
Maybe you could go with Mo.
Now, anyone can make rhyming reduplications about anything,
and there's a really common format.
It often happens by replacing the first consonant
with wa in the reduplication.
It's very childlike as you can hear.
My friend Jenny-wenny wrote a booky-wooky
about a doggy-woggy.
There's another challenge for you in the comment section.
See if you can write
a childish sentence using this w consonant sound.
It's your homework-womework. (laughs)
Okay, one more thing I want to cover, rhyming shmyming.
Rhyming shmyming, why do we say things like that?
This is called shm, shm-reduplication.
I repeated the word rhyming
but I replaced the first consonant
with shm, rhyming shmyming.
I used it here as an intensifier
to make the concept more memorable.
Here we have some more.
Money shmoney, this kinda means money's not important
or money's no object.
Homework shmomework, if I heard this,
I would think that the speaker was implying
that there are better things to do.
We also have bored shmored.
This is sort of confrontational.
It's like saying, "I don't believe you, you aren't bored,
or you don't have to be bored."
Shm-reduplication originated in Yiddish,
and it's generally used to indicate irony,
sarcasm, scepticism, to be dismissive or as an interjection.
It really depends on the context and the intonation,
and it's very informal.
Do not use this in a job interview.
I thought it would be valuable to mention it
because you do hear it in a lot of movies,
especially ones based in New York.
You might hear people saying, "I feel fancy schmancy today."
A bit of emphasis there, fancy schmancy.
Okay, that's it for today.
I really enjoyed this lesson. It was fascinating.
It is such a fascinating topic to me.
I like helping you to understand why we say
and use certain things.
Don't forget to check out LanguaTalk.
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The link is down there as well.
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I will see you soon for another lesson. (kisses)
(upbeat music)