Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Adjective Phrase 32. The adjective phrase today is
high and dry. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here.
If someone is in a high-and-dry position or left high and dry....Yeah. Left is to
leave someone high drives probably the most common verb we use with it. If we
kind of turn it into almost like an idiom to leave someone high dry. But high
and dry is an adjective phrase by itself. that can be used with other verbs too. Okay.
So left high and dry. He or she is stranded or unsupported or left in a situation which
has little or no chance of improving from something. Then we could say you
know somebody was left high and dry or somebody is in sort of a high and dry
situation. Okay. Good. Let's continue. The origin of the phrase
goes back to the late 1700s early 1800s around that time. To refer to a ship that
ran aground. Yeah. You know when a ship goes too far in and it gets stuck in the
water, gets stuck in a sand bank or something like that. And it can't get out
or maybe it got damaged along some rocks that are near the coast that
ran aground and it ends up stranded or stuck there . Oh ran aground or was in a
dry dock , which of course implies that it is stuck or stranded. So this is the idea.
This is the origin of where the phrase came from. All right. Let's look we got
three examples here. Example number one. He walked out the door one day and left
his wife completely high and dry to take care of six children without an income.
Yeah. So in this case he probably even didn't give her a warning. He just disappeared
one day. Just left, just up and abandoned. So really leaving her high and dry. Okay.
Let's look at number two here. She just kicked me out of her car and left me
high and dry along the side of the highway in the middle of the night. And yeah,
maybe in the middle hardly any cars are going by. You're just walking
on the side of the highway. You don't know exactly where you are. You got to get
off an exit or something like that. Then we can say to leave somebody high and
dry or somebody's in a high-dry position. Yeah. And number three here. In
the movie "Castaway"... it's a little bit of an old movie now. Tom Hanks' character was
stuck high and dry. So he could be stuck high and dry somewhere, on a deserted
island. So an island where there was no people. Remember the plane crashed and he
came down. He was in some sort of an inflatable light boat lifeboat and
somehow it got to this island where nobody was living. Even in our modern
times, he was stuck there for three or four years. You know, according to the
story in the movie anyway, he was just ... he was really just deserted there or left
there high and dry. He was you know, he was stuck there high and dry. Anyway, I
hope you got it. I hope it was clear. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.