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hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia
the weekly series where you ask me
questions and i answer them maybe first
question this week comes from silas hi
silas silas says hi alicia how's it
going i'd like to know the meaning of
the expression weird flex but okay and
how do i use it in a sentence okay this
is a bit of recent slang weird flex but
okay focuses in on the meaning of the
word flex so if you are interested in
like health or like muscle training or
anything like that you might know the
verb to flex so to flex is what we do
when we want to show off a muscle we
have been training so when we flex a
muscle we put energy into the muscle to
make the muscle like stand out we want
it to look bigger like we want to show
off that muscle so when we flex a muscle
we're trying to show it off we're like
excited about that thing or we're proud
about it or something like that so
flex
here in this expression weird flex does
not refer to muscle it doesn't refer to
the body but actually something else
that the speaker or the writer is trying
to show off so it's something that seems
strange so in the example of muscles and
muscle training like the person who
wants to show off wants to show their
muscles but when we use the expression
weird flex someone is trying to show off
something that seems strange and then we
add but okay at the end to mean i don't
really understand but all right so to
give an example of this if i on twitter
write like i spent three thousand
dollars on socks this month
and i talk about how excited i am i'm
like showing off that i spent three
thousand dollars on socks someone might
respond to me weird flex but okay
so that means like it's strange that you
want to show off that you spent three
thousand dollars on socks like that's a
really strange thing to be excited about
but
okay
so to give another example uh your
friend might tell you something like i
have the biggest collection of rocks in
my whole neighborhood and you might say
weird flex but okay so again it's like
that's a strange thing that you want to
show off but
okay whatever it is like it's not
hurting anybody it's just a little bit
weird that you want to show that off or
you want to brag or boast about that
thing so that's what weird flex but okay
means you see this one a lot online i
hope that that helps you thanks very
much for this interesting question okay
let's move on to your next question next
question comes from rigwins riggins hi
riggins reagan says hi alicia i'm
riggins from haiti i'm good at english
but due to a lack of practice i've kind
of lost my touch because i'm sick and
tired of the learning process so i'd
like to know how to keep my english up
please okay
first i'm sure that you're not the only
person like i lose motivation all the
time i would say that if you are having
trouble keeping your motivation up you
should try looking for a different way
to practice or a different way to use
english so for example if there's a
hobby that you have in your native
language you could try doing that in
english or maybe there's a book or a
movie that you are really interested in
or that seems cool and you want to
understand that in english i would
suggest trying to find something that's
not like a traditional textbook or it's
not a traditional way of learning like
going to a class and doing worksheets
and that kind of thing i would suggest
actually trying to use english in your
everyday life to like do your work or to
study something or to accomplish a hobby
maybe you make a new friend who can
speak only english so i would suggest
finding something outside of a
traditional learning setting to do i
think that that might help you a little
bit with your motivation that has helped
me a lot in the past actually making
friends with people who cannot speak my
language has been hugely motivating for
me and i try to study the vocabulary
words that they often talk about and i
try to learn from their speech patterns
too so i would suggest trying to find
something to do with other people as
much as possible that uses english so i
hope that this helps you and helps other
people with their motivation issues it
happens to all of us at some point in
time but i hope that these tips can help
thanks very much for this question okay
let's move on to your next question next
question comes from ahmet farooq hello
amit ahmed says what is the difference
between may and can okay
historically may is used to ask for
permission can is used to express
ability to do something or lack of
ability to do something so that's the
historical use of may and can in today's
english however lots of people use can
to ask for permission to do something we
do not however use may to talk about
ability so let's take a look at some
examples
can i go to the restroom
may i go to the restroom
can i leave early today
may i leave early today
so in today's english these all refer to
the same thing they're all requests to
use the restroom or to leave early
in today's american english i would say
that using mei tends to sound a little
bit more formal than using can if you
ever want to be sure to sound polite and
to make sure you're communicating
clearly you can use mei but in most
day-to-day conversations we use can so i
hope that this helps you thanks very
much for the question okay let's move on
to your next question next question
comes from yovany hi ovani yovany says
hi alicia my name is jovani i'm from
venezuela i've always wanted to know the
meaning of this sentence don't get
twisted even though it's not used very
often thanks yeah you're right this
isn't such a common expression i found
only a few references to this expression
and they were typically from music
actually
so this expression could mean like don't
get angry or don't get upset or don't
get nervous so it refers to being in
like a negative condition so twisted if
you imagine like a towel do we have some
oh we do yeah for this explanation let's
imagine like a towel so a regular just
plain towel when we hold the towel looks
like this but if we twist the towel like
this it's under tension like it's under
pressure so if we imagine ourselves as
like the towel like we're under pressure
we're really tight we're really tense we
could be angry we could be nervous we
could be upset about something so if
someone says to you don't get twisted
it's like
chill out like don't be upset don't be
angry relax in other words so i would
guess that this is what this word means
or what this expression means rather but
as you said
this is not such a common expression we
don't say don't get twisted really in
american english you might hear people
say something like just chill out as
i've said are maybe like don't worry or
there are a couple of other slightly
more rude expressions that we use too so
i hope that this helps you thanks very
much for the question okay let's move on
to your next question next question
comes from
uh malek hi malek malik says is this
sentence correct the color of shirts of
players could you explain more about two
possessive nouns in a row thanks in
advance yeah great question this is kind
of tricky so in this situation we would
say the color of the player's shirts so
a key here is that we're using players
and we're using an apostrophe after the
s in players that apostrophe is acting
as a possessive apostrophe so we have
two ways of creating the possessive in
english we can use of as in the color of
the player's shirts and we can use the
apostrophe s form so for example
alicia's would be alicia apostrophe s
the apostrophe s shows something is
belonging to me that's my thing alicia's
phone so in this situation we have
players players here we're talking about
shirts that belong to players so it's
not just one person when a noun ends
with an s we make the plural possessive
form by adding an apostrophe to the end
of the word and we do not add another s
so in the singular form when i said
alicia's phone for example alicia is one
person so i write alicia apostrophe s in
this example however because we're
talking about a group of people players
we don't use an apostrophe s because the
word already ends in s and it sounds
kind of strange just try to say like
players is or something like that so to
avoid this we simply write players with
s and add an apostrophe at the end so
this shows the plural form that means
plural possessive apostrophe there it's
very natural to use that apostrophe form
of the possessive when we're talking
about something that belongs to a person
so again in my example when i said
alicia's phone it sounds quite natural
to use that apostrophe s to show
possession as a person in the plural
form too players shirts it's a shirt or
shirts that belong to a player so when
we're not using a person when we're
using like an object it might be a
little bit more common to see an of
pattern used there in this case it's
color of the shirts so color is like a
characteristic that belongs to the shirt
or in this case shirts so here it sounds
natural to use the of pattern because
there's not a person here we're talking
about the characteristics of an object
color of the shirts so of can be used to
talk about like characteristics of
things and the apostrophe s form can be
used to talk about like things that
belong to people
let's look at one more example though
that uses no people so for example the
color of the seats in the cars or the
color of the car's seats so we could use
either of these patterns i personally
would probably use the color of the
seats in the cars because we can clearly
see like the levels of belonging first
we have color and the color belongs to
the seats and the seats are in the cars
so i think that sounds much nicer you
might see that color of the car's seats
sentence though as we talked about it's
a little bit less natural maybe to use
the possessive apostrophe there with car
because it's not actually a person i
think you might use that though i don't
think it's incorrect to use that but i
personally would prefer to use something
that kind of clearly shows the hierarchy
the level of belonging or the levels of
belonging as in the first example the
color of the seats in the car i hope
that this helps you thank you very much
for this interesting question all right
so that is everything that i have for
this week thank you as always for
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week bye bye
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