Now, if someone asks you for a thingamabob or if they suggest there's a bit of a kerfuffle going on
outside perhaps you need to skedaddle or if you're feeling rather flummoxed then what on earth am i
going on about yes these really are english words yes we really do still use them in day-to-day
english but no it's unlikely that you've ever come across them in an english course book it might be
if you've had a great teacher she's taught you a few of these words but by far most of these words
the vocabulary that i'm going to teach you today you have never heard of i'm taking a big risk
saying that but i have literally searched high and low for 15 of the strangest english words
the weirdest and most wonderful words we have in english but words that i hope will actually
come in handy not much point me teaching you vocabulary if you can't even use it
so today's lesson 15 words nouns adjectives and verbs to help you sound
well definitely a little bit more native but also to really impress your teacher
welcome back to the channel and don't forget before we get started do click subscribe and
of course that notifications bell so that you are notified when we upload new lessons
and of course if you want to learn a little bit more about sabre and me you can always check out
our website www.loveenglish.co.uk or our social media instagram and facebook why not connect
with us there to learn more about english and us right if you're not feeling too lactodasical
it's time to get on with the lesson now number one thingamabob thingamabob now sometimes
i would actually say thing of me bob but i don't think that's actually correct it's just the way
i sometimes say the word you choose it's the same people will understand well native english people
will understand what you're talking about thingamabob is a word we particularly use
in spoken english you wouldn't find it written anywhere as frequently but essentially when we
don't know the name for something perhaps a tool or an item or the word has just fallen out of our
head for some reason thingamabob is what we say when we don't remember what it's called
so it's technically a noun i guess but it's a word that i think could be very very practical
particularly if you don't remember the word in english but remember it is for a noun for an
item for a thing as in thingamabob i need one of those red thingamabobs to finish the job
do you know what i mean what i'm talking about oh you know the one the little tiny thingamabob
the accountant was accused of some financial shenanigans shenanigans number two a fantastic
word again another noun and it essentially is referring to dishonest actions secret or
dishonest actions or maneuverings now we could also use this when we're talking to children
it can be referring to being secretive and getting up to mischief when perhaps in a more fun
light-hearted way it's rather quiet up there what shenanigans are the children up to again so it can
be mischief in a humorous way when used in the context of often children number three kerfuffle
kerfuffle what is all the kerfuffle about outside when there's a fuss or bother going on perhaps
even a small argument or disagreement and basically there's a lot of noise going on
and you don't know why you can refer to it being a kerfuffle there was a right kerfuffle in the
cafe when someone tried to skip the line there were so many people complaining so we'd often
use that expression a right kerfuffle meaning it was a real kerfuffle a real a real kind of
uh disruption kerfuffle number four now this is one that you probably wouldn't use unless
you're a little bit older older than me that is a whipper snapper if you refer to somebody being
a whipper snapper you're telling them that they're very young inexperienced perhaps and
someone that often shows maybe a little bit too much confidence it may even be that they're not
showing a lot of respect to their elders meaning people older than them you young whippersnappers
no respect for the elderly these days i'm not going to have some young whippersnapper tell
me what to do i really do feel i need an older person to use this expression i don't think i'm
quite old enough to use the word whippersnapper and again i would say it's very old english it's
not a word that i would come across very often but you might in fact hear it in perhaps a television
series or a film so good to know right number five and i actually came across this word yesterday i'd
never heard of it before i think the reason being that it is used more in america so in american
english you let me know if any of you are familiar with american english or spent time in the us
then comment and share have you heard this expression used and how lollygag lollygag
now when i heard this i thought lolly and to gag is when you nearly want to be sick so it's like
sorry that wasn't very pleasant but that's essentially what gagging is you kind of it's
a reflex so lollygag actually has nothing to do with a lolly or gagging it simply means to be idle
or lazy idle or lazy idle is a nice formal word for lazy now i've heard it used as like a verb so
in the continuous form as well stop lollygagging it's time to get going it's nearly time for school
stop lollygagging i suppose as with most english words you can adapt it and change it to how you
might want to use it it might even be possible to say someone is a lollygagger i don't know let
me know have you heard this expression before can it be used as a noun to describe somebody
it's definitely used as a verb to lollygag to be lazy idle stop lollygagging it is time for school
number six a little bit like kerfuffle perhaps a little louder in fact a hullabaloo a hullabaloo i
love the sound of some of these words hullabaloo so when there is a hullabaloo noun there is a big
commotion something's going on a disruption of some sort the demonstrators were making a real
hullabaloo outside parliament now hullabaloo can in fact refer to people in this case as being
quite annoyed or angry about something so it could be used in more serious circumstances that's why
it's actually stronger than kerfuffle a hullabaloo you could also use it to refer to when people make
a lot of angry comments in public so for example at the moment we've seen a lot of protests
globally whether that's for president trump or even for the covid vaccine and anti-masters
making what we could say is perhaps a hullabaloo outside protesting number seven i think this
is my favorite sounding word of the fifteen cacophony cacophony there's a
cacophony ca cophony now i've actually heard this used by david attenborough in one of his
documentaries highly recommend david attenborough documentaries great for your english too
and he spoke of a cacophony of sounds from the rainforest think about the birds chirping the
monkeys what do monkeys do they i don't know make funny sounds but you get the idea lots of
different sounds coming together to be quite noisy you could use the expression what a cacophony
so lots of different sounds coming together to be quite noisy but it's a beautiful word in fact i
really do like it comment below when have you come across a cacophony of sounds could also be perhaps
somewhere like a concert before the music starts there's the cacophony
of people talking laughing singing that kind of thing number eight a very useful verb to skedaddle
scared daddle again a nice scared adult now if you need to skedaddle you need to go somewhere
quickly and very fast i'm really sorry i've got to skedaddle i'm going to be late for a
meeting if not or you might use it to talk about children when they're making a bit of a kerfuffle
oh go on kids skidaddle get out of here number nine gobbledygook bubbledygook yes it's a word
i promise you all of these are real words you can even google them and check or look in a dictionary
gobbledygook now the official definition of this noun is a language that sounds official and
important but in fact doesn't make a lot of sense now in general i would use this when someone's
talking or someone has said something and i found it very difficult to follow what they were saying
they kind of sounded like they were talking a load of gobbledygook so you wouldn't necessarily
say it to somebody's face like what what are you talking about this is all gobbledygook
don't do that because you're saying they're not making any sense it could be quite rude
but you might come out of the meeting and say well that was a load of gobbledygook
what did we actually talk about now i personally find that a lot of computer manuals really are a
lot of gobbledygook i find them very hard to follow and understand now on a similar line
gibberish gibberish again another noun you could say that someone is talking gibberish
so perhaps if someone gets very very drunk and they kind of told you like this
love you do i love you okay they're talking gibberish it doesn't make much sense it is
talking about spoken word and making no sense can't be understood equally so you could use it
in a perhaps more light-hearted way to say i'm so nervous on my blind date i just started talking
gibberish i don't even know what i was saying it was just it was gibberish so it could be literal
gibberish doesn't have a lovely described english okay or it could be like you felt like you were
talking gibberish or someone was talking gibberish because they were hard to follow now number 11
poppycock poppycock is actually referring to something being nonsense or even not true
someone could be lying i would say that this is a word we'd often associate with some of the upper
classes very old english i'd suggest we don't actually use it very much anymore in fact but
again you might hear it in a film or television series he dismissed the allegations as absolute
poppycock so he said in a kind of formal polite way that this wasn't true and it was completely
nonsense number 12. i know this word but i never use it discombobulate this can bobulate you might
enjoy the sound discombobulate as many of these words do sound quite lovely to say and weird of
course strange but to be discombobulated or to discombobulate could you use it as a verb
yes um basically means to be confused it's confusing it could also be to make someone feel
uncomfortable her attitude in the classroom completely discombobulated the teacher she
didn't know whether she was interested or sleeping bizarre behavior now unlike discombobulate number
13 flummox to flummox somebody a verb or to be flummoxed an adjective you wouldn't say something
is flummoxing no i wouldn't use it in that way but i would definitely use it to describe how i felt
i was rather flummoxed by her behavior to be confused students can often be flummoxed by
the grammar it's often in a way that you confuse someone and they don't know how to react or to
respond i was so flummoxed by her lesson that i really didn't know how to do the homework so if
you're feeling very discombobulated or being discombobulated then you'd also be flummoxed
they're very similar but i would definitely say that flummox is a word we'd use more often number
fourteen lactodasical lack the days are cool adjective meaning lazy can't be bothered and
generally with no enthusiasm the food in the restaurant was amazing but the service rather
lackadaisical if you ask me the waiters really didn't seem to care about what they were doing
and finally number 15 quite a new word and a good example of how english is always evolving
a franken food or franken food it could be countable or uncountable essentially it's a
noun referring to food that has been genetically modified so it comes if some of you have ever
read the novel frankenstein from the idea of something being unnatural created by science
so if you describe a franken food you're describing a product that definitely is
not organic and has been genetically modified oh i really wouldn't eat there they serve all
that frankin food don't they i prefer to go organic myself so there we have it 15 weird
wonderful and i think rather lovely sounding words that are quite fun to get your tongue around
and will certainly impress any english teacher or native speaker so if you do want to try using
practicing some of those words definitely do it when you're speaking but of course
you can also comment in the comments section below and put it with some examples remember my top tip
is always to personalize the language and why not share a weird and wonderful word from your
language doesn't matter what language it is i want to hear it a word that you think no one would have
heard of even if they are perhaps a more advanced speaker of your language maybe not a native though
thank you so much for watching and i look forward to seeing you very soon with actually
a lot of grammar lessons that hopefully won't leave you feeling rather flummoxed