"Hyperbole". What is a "hyperbole"? Wow, it's hot in there. My name's Ronnie. And
this is a funny story — as they all are — is when I first started doing things,
I saw this word as a "hyperbole". And I thought: "Wow, 'hyperbole' — that's a
weird word." But it's actually "hyperbole". Huh? And it's the first
time ever that I've looked at this English word and gone: "Wow, we've
actually pronounced the... the 'l' and the 'e' together." So, this is a
"hyperbole". It's not. This is a "hyperbole". What is a "hyperbole"? A
"hyperbole" is basically acting like a drama queen, as I was doing in the
video. If you want to exaggerate something; exaggerated statements —
these are not literal statements; they're exaggerating. They're for all
the drama queens out there. If you want to improve your vocabulary — mm-hmm —
then hyperboles are a great way to do this. And the only problem is they're
not formal language; it's very slang, very street, very today. So, you have to
understand that it's not literal. So, I wouldn't write these in scientific
essays, or experiments, or PhD dissertations. So, let's go.
They can be describing many things. For example, time. "Oh, man, this is taking
forever!" But it's not, though; because "forever" is just like eternity. So,
it's... if you want to say something's taking me a long time, we exaggerate it.
We say: "This is taking forever". Oh, god. "Ages": "It's taking ages for me to
get the document from the government." You're just saying: "It's taking me a
long time." And, like most things, if it's important, it can take a
"lifetime". Again, not literal. A "lifetime" means a long time. Quality.
This one's not really slang, but we use it a lot, like: "Oh my god, my mom is
the best mom ever." And we use words, like: "the best" or "the worst". And to
make them even stronger, we say: "ever". "This is the worst food ever. I'm never
eating again." But you are going to, cause if you didn't eat again, you would
die. So, be careful. "Massive". Size. We talk about the size of things. Classic,
classic. People go fishing and they catch a fish this big, but that's kind
of boring. So, you might hear some people talk about how things that they
have are "massive". People might say: "I have a massive snake. Would you like to
see it?" Or things can be "huge"; "huge" and "massive" are the same — they mean
very big. The opposite of this is "tiny". Somebody might say: "Oh, I have
a massive snake!" And then when you look at the snake, it's actually tiny. And
you say: "Yeah, yeah, your snake is super tiny there, buddy". Tiny snake.
My Mom always said this: -"Ronnie, I told you 100 times: Don't pick your
nose." -"I counted. It was 42. And that was 43, Mom, so you're still not at
100." So, we use this to exaggerate how many times we tell someone. We nag at
them: "I told you 100 times not to do that!" No, that was seven now. This is a
classic. Classic. So, you go out drinking, and you wake up the next day
with a terrible hangover. And a "hangover" is something that you get the
next day after drinking too much; you're dehydrated. And you promise, you say:
"I'm never going to drink again." Or: "I'm never gonna drink again." Hey,
guess what? That's a "hyperbole". Of course you're going to drink again;
you're going to have water. I know in like next weekend, you're still going to
have a beer or a delicious glass of wine. So, you're lying. You're just
lying. "My leg is killing me." Did you know that my leg was a killer? My leg
can come off and actually go: "Ah!" and kill me. But it can't. We just say: "Oh,
you know, my leg's killing me." Or: "Oh, my head's... I have a headache. It's
killing me." Just feeling a lot of pain, aren't you? It' not actually dying from
it. And this is kind of creepy, too, this last one. "My arm hurts so much" —
okay? This... this arm hurt — "so I just want to cut it off". Well, do you know
what? I don't think that's a good solution because if you actually
"amputate" — which means cut off your arm — you're not gonna have an arm. And
I think that actually cutting your arm off, would have more pain than whatever
your ailment is now. So, for all you drama queens out there, this lesson's
for you. Improve your vocabulary with hyperboles or hyperboles, if you'd like.
I'm out of here for now. Gonna go chop off my own tongue.