Learn Australian English in this Aussie English Video Breakdown episode where I breakdown the vocab used by Wildman as he’s talking about being crocwise.
AE 276.2 – AEVB: Wildman Episode Vocab Breakdown
G’day guys. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English Video breakdowns.
Today I’m going to be breaking down a video by a guy named Wildman.
So, he’s from Queensland, and he does a lot of stuff out and about in nature, checking out the animals, the wildlife.
He uploads a great deal of different videos and different information about Australian wildlife online.
So, definitely make sure you go to his Facebook page and give him the like.
Say g’day from Pete and Aussie English. It’s Wildman Adventures, and it’ll be attached below in a link.
So, today I want to break down this video, and he says a lot of really interesting stuff.
He has a very broad Australian accent. So it’s going to be good practice for you guys.
Let’s get into it.
Yeah, g’day folks Wildman here.
Down at the boat ramp on the edge of the Daintree River, and I’ve come across something that annoys me quite a lot.
We’ve got down here a heap of fish scraps, alright?
Some fishermen’s come along and decided he’d dump his baitfish here.
We’ve also got, and I’m not going to go too close to the water, there’s a heap of fish scraps all dumped in the water.
About 30 or 40 fish in there. And what happens now is crocodile comes along.
They come up onto the boat ramp to eat these fish.
Someone reports it, poor crocodile gets removed, and quite often killed.
This sort of behaviour that needs to be taken responsibility for.
If you’re going to have people leaving their fish scraps they need to be fined and punished for it so it sends a message out that this behaviour is not to happen.
Crocodiles are getting persecuted for people’s stupid behaviour, and this is not a prime example of it.
This is what we’re talking about people. You do silly things in croc country bad things can happen.
If you be smart and they crocwise you have no dramas.
If you’re a fisherman don’t leave your bloody fish scraps on the boat ramp.
You’re a dickhead.
We’ll just go in and break it down sentence by sentence.
“Yeah, g’day folks. Wildman here.”
“Yeah, g’day a Folks Wildman here.” So, he’s just saying, “G’day guys. G’day people.”.
“Folks” is another way an Australian English, and English everywhere, that you can refer to people.
“G’day folks”. “How’s it going folks?”. “What are these folks doing?”. “Folks.
“Wild man here”, just means, “It is Wildman here. This is who I am. I’m Wildman, and I am here.
“(I’m) down at the boat ramp on the edge of the Daintree River.”
“I’m down at the boat ramp on the edge of the Daintree River.”
So, “a boat ramp” is a ramp that we used to put boats into the water.
And the Daintree River is a very large river that’s found in the Daintree Rainforest at the top of Queensland.
So this is right up in the north of Australia.
“And I’ve come across something that annoys me quite a lot.”
So, he’s come across something that annoys him quite a lot.
“To come across” means to find, to stumble upon, to discover.
And “to annoy” obviously means to irritate.
“We’ve got down here a head of fish scraps. All right?”
“We’ve got down here a heap of fish scraps. All right?”.
This means he’s found down here, as in on the ground, down below.
He’s found a lot of fish scraps.
“Scraps” is a way of saying leftovers, pieces, bits of fish.
And so, this is obviously what fishermen have left on the ground.
And he says “all right” as a way of saying to you, “Do you see this? Do you agree? All right? Do you get it?”
“Some fishermen’s come along, and decided he’d dump his bait fish here.”
“Some fisherman’s come along and decided he’ll dump his fish scraps here.”
So, “to come along” means to arrive, to come to a place. Someone’s come along.
They’ve arrived here. And “to dump” means to deposit or dispose of.
So, they’ve just thrown their fish scraps away and left them on the ground.
“We’ve also got, and I’m not going to go too close to the water,…”
“We’ve also got, and I’m not going to go too close to the water,…”.
“We’ve also got”, we also have.
He doesn’t want to go too close to the water, because there’re crocodiles in this area, saltwater crocs, man-eating crocs, crocodiles that can kill you.
And so, it’s always wise, especially in the north of Australia, to stay away from the water’s edge.
“There’s a heap of fish scraps all dumped near the water. About 30 or 40 fish in there.“
“There’s a heap of fish scraps all dumped in the water. About 30 or 40 fish scraps dumped in there.”
So, he’s just pointing at the water and they’re floating around in the water.
Someone’s also dumped them right at the water’s edge.
“And what happens now is crocodile comes along.”
“And what happens now is a crocodile comes along.”
And what happens now, because someone’s left these fish scraps in the water, a crocodile will come and eat them.
They’ll arrive. They’ll come to this place. They’ll come along.
“They come up onto the boat ramp to eat these fish.”
“They come up on to the boat ramp to eat these fish.”
So, they’ll come up onto the boat ramp, and they’ll try and eat these fish scraps that someone’s dumped on the ramp.
“Someone reports it, poor crocodile gets removed, and quite often killed.
“Someone reports it, the poor crocodile gets removed, and quite often killed.”.
So, if someone “reports it”, it means they’ll see it and they’ll tell the authorities, they’ll report it to the authorities so that the authorities will come in and get rid of this crocodile.
We have a lot of crocodile issues in Australia where they get too close to people, too close to humans, and quite often it’s because humans do something dumb and it’s not the crocodiles fault.
So, if they get removed, it means they will be captured and taken away. They’ll be released somewhere further from humans.
But unfortunately too they’ll often also be killed or euthanised, put down, by the authorities.
“This is the sort of behaviour that needs to be… taken responsibility for.”
“This is the sort of behaviour that needs to be taken responsibility for.”
This is the sort of behaviour that people need to take responsibility for.
They need to avoid doing this in the future. It’s not okay. It’s not correct.
“If you’re going to have people leaving their fish scraps they need to be fined and punished for it.”
“If you’re going to have people leaving their fish scraps they need to be fined and punished for it.”
So, “to be fined” is to be charged a certain amount of money as a result of something you’ve done wrong.
So, forced to pay something, a certain amount of money to an authority.
And “punished” is obviously to have some kind of penalty inflicted upon you.
“So, it sends a message out that this behaviour is not to happen.”
[00:06:30] “So, it sends a message out that this behaviour is not to happen.”It sends a message out in that it gets a message across, it sends a message to people everywhere else, so, it goes out to other people, that this behaviour is not to happen.
That it is not okay for people to do this. That it shouldn’t happen. That you shouldn’t do it.
“Crocodiles are getting persecuted for people’s stupid behaviour.”
“Crocodiles are getting persecuted for people’s stupid behaviour.”
“To be persecuted” is to be treated poorly because of something that you are.
“And this is another prime example of it.”
“And this is another prime example of it.”
That’s just another way of saying this is a perfect example, a great example.
This is a prime example.
“This is what we’re talking about people.”
“This is what we’re talking about people. So, this is the kind of thing we need to discuss, that we’re talking about.
“(If) You do silly things in croc country bad things can happen.”
“If you do silly things in croc country bad things can happen.” “Croc country” is just anywhere in the world, but in Australia here, where you will find crocodiles.
So it’s the part of the country where there are crocodiles, croc country.
“If you be smart and be crocwise, you have no dramas.”
“If you be smart and you be crokwise you have no dramas.”
If you’re “crocwise” it means that you are intelligent, you are wise around crocodiles and thus don’t dump fish scraps near the edge of the water.
You don’t go near the edge of the water.
You give respect to the crocodiles, and you’re smart around them so as to not get in danger yourself.
“To have no dramas” is a really Australian way of saying, “You’ll have no problems”, “you’ll have no issues”.
“You going to have no dramas mate. You’ll have no worries at all.
“If you’re a fisherman don’t leave your bloody fish scraps on the boat ramp. You’re a dickhead.”
“If you’re a fisherman don’t leave your bloody fish scraps on the boat ramp. You’re a dickhead.”
So, “bloody”, here, is just a way of emphasising it. It’s slightly rude, but not really.
It’s just adding emphasis. It’s not near the F word. If I was to say fucking, which is incredibly rude.
It’s used in exactly the same way, but it’s a lot more polite, and you can do this on TV, on podcasts, etc. without people complaining too much. “Bloody”.
If you call someone a “dickhead”…
This used to be a lot ruder than I feel it is today, but today it just means an idiot. An idiot.
“You’re a dickhead mate”. “You’re an idiot”.
Yeah, g’day folks Wildman here.
Down at the boat ramp on the edge of the Daintree River, and I’ve come across something that annoys me quite a lot.
We’ve got down here a heap of fish scraps, alright?
Some fishermen’s come along and decided he’d dump his baitfish here.
We’ve also got, and I’m not going to go too close to the water, there’s a heap of fish scraps all dumped in the water.
About 30 or 40 fish in there. And what happens now is crocodile comes along.
They come up onto the boat ramp to eat these fish. Someone reports it, poor crocodile gets removed, and quite often killed.
This sort of behaviour that needs to be taken responsibility for.
If you’re going to have people leaving their fish scraps they need to be fined and punished for it so it sends a message out that this behaviour is not to happen.
Crocodiles are getting persecuted for people’s stupid behaviour, and this is not a prime example of it.
This is what we’re talking about people. You do silly things in croc country bad things can happen.
If you be smart and they crocwise you have no dramas.
If you’re a fisherman don’t leave your bloody fish scraps on the boat ramp.
You’re a dickhead.
Check out Wildman’s Facebook page here! Give him a like and say g’day from Pete!
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AE 310 – Aussie Culture: What’s Australia’s Deadliest Animal?
Learn Australian English in today’s Aussie Culture episode where I chat about what the deadliest animals in Australia are! What do you think it will be?
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AE 480 – Expression: A Taste of Your Own Medicine
Learn Australian English in this expression episode of the Aussie English Podcast where I teach you to use the expression A TASTE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE.
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AE 480 – Expression: A Taste of Your Own Medicine
G’day, guys! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. This is the Aussie English Podcast, the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English, or just English in general, as I always say.
So, guys, how have you been going? What’s been going on? No intro scene today. I was going to record this episode this morning, but my housemates… one of them goes out really early in the morning and has to work. He works as a swimming instructor. And so, he buggered off really early in the morning at like six thirty or something, (at the) crack of dawn, but he gets breaks during the day. So, he came back it would have been like nine o’clock, and I was just writing this episode, putting it together, and then he went to sleep, he wanted to sleep for a bit before he went back to work.
So, I decided, you know, what I’m not going to record the episode this morning, instead I’ll invert my day, I’ll reverse the order of my day and how I’d planned it, and I went out to Mulligan’s Flat, yet again, the reserve nearby where I live in Canberra here with loads of animals, and I was out there shooting with the new lens that I’ve got.
So, I recently got a lens. Hopefully, you guys have heard about this or seen the video that I was talking about this in on YouTube, and I made a Walking With Pete episode recently discussing photography and how much fun I’m kind of having with it. So, you’ll have to keep an eye out for that one. That’ll be out soon when I get around to making it, although, it ended up being a bit of a long one. It was about 27 minutes, I think 27 minutes, almost half an hour.
But yeah, today was amazing. I went out there at about 10 and got back at about 2 in the afternoon. (I) saw loads of wallabies, loads of kangaroos, heaps of birds, lots of little small passerine birds. These are things like honeyeaters and… What are the other ones? Robins. Really small ones, and now with this new lens I can finally get them.
So, it was an amazing day. I’m really happy. I’m really starting to enjoy a little more being a podcaster and someone who works from home, because I’ve sort of structured my day around what I want to do, and I talk about this in the Walking With Pete episode coming up, making your day the kind of day that you want to enjoy. Anyway, guys.
I thought I would chat to you for a little bit before we got into today’s episode. Remember, if you would like access to the transcripts and the MP3s for today’s episode and all the other podcast episodes, go to TheAussieEnglishPodcast.com and click ‘Sign Up’, and it’s just a small fee of $4.99 a month. That’s it. And then, you get access to all the transcripts and the MP3s, so you can download them, unlimited access, and study wherever, whenever.
If you’re serious about your English and you would like to study these expression episodes and get a lot more content that goes through the vocab in these episodes, the pronunciation in the exercises in these expression episodes, and then also detailed videos of things like the other expressions that I use in these episodes go to TheAussieEnglishClassroom and sign up. Guys, get over there! You get one month, 30 days, for $1 so you’ve got plenty of time to get in there and absorb as much of that English learning material as possible, guys. And I’ve had a lot of really, really good results. All the students in there tend to get over to the Facebook group, which is private just for the members from the Aussie English Classroom and they post videos, and guys, some of these students who’ve been in there, especially the ones for three to six months, have taken their English up to the next level, they’ve been getting ahead leaps and bounds of where they were when they started.
A special shout out to Aykhan, to Emma, and to Lima. These guys have been working their butts off as well as everyone else in there. But yeah, get over there. TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com. It’s just $1 for your first month. Anyway.
Big intro, guys. Let’s dive into the episode.
Today’s Aussie joke, today’s Aussie joke, is about an optometrist. So, this… I found this one, I thought of this one, when… obviously the expression for today is ‘a taste of your own medicine’. I typed in ‘medicine jokes’, ’cause I know that there’s a lot of doctor jokes, but I found this one about optometrists. And ‘optometrists’ are the ones who make your glasses for your eyes. Okay? So, here’s an optometrist joke.
Did you hear about the optometrist that fell into his lens grinding machine?
I wonder if you guys know where this is going to go.
Did you hear about the optometrist that fell into his lens grinding machine? The machine that used to grind lenses so they can be used for glasses.
The answer: He made a spectacle of himself.
He made a spectacle of himself. Do you get it?
‘A spectacle’ can be used for someone who makes a scene, right, something to be looked at, something to be watched. So, if you were to do something embarrassing in front of a lot of people, you’re making a spectacle, right? If you were to take your clothes off at a football game and do what is called ‘streaking’, which some guys tend to do in Australia at footy matches, if you were to streak at a game like that, you would be making a spectacle.
But ‘a spectacle’ or ‘a pair of spectacles’ is also another way of saying ‘glasses’, ‘eye glasses’, that you look through, that allow people who have poorer vision than average, than 20/20, ‘a spectacle’ or ‘a set of spectacles’ allows them to see. A set of glasses.
So, did you hear about the optometrist that fell into his lens grinding machine? He made a spectacle of himself. Wow. Anyway, guys.
As I said, today’s expression is ‘a taste of your own medicine’, ‘a taste of your own medicine’. I wonder if you guys have heard this before.
Now Yu was the one who suggested this. Congratulations Yu. This was the first one she’s won. She is in the Aussie English Classroom private Facebook group and suggested this expression along with all the other members, we voted on them, and Yu won. Well done, Yu!
So, let’s go through and define the different words in the expression ‘a taste of your own medicine’, ‘a taste of your own medicine’. Okay.
‘A taste’, ‘a taste’. ‘A taste’ is the sensation of flavour perceived in the mouth and throat on contact with a substance. So, you put food in your mouth, you’re having a taste of that food, right? You’re tasting the food, you’re having a taste of the food. A taste of something. Have a taste! I’ve baked a cake. Have a taste of it. Have a try. Put it in your mouth and taste it. ‘A taste’.
‘Your own’, ‘your own’, ‘your own something’, ‘your own’. ‘Your own’… when we use ‘own’ that way with possessive words beforehand, we are emphasising that someone or something belongs or is related to the person mentioned, right? So, if it is ‘your own phone’ it’s an emphasis showing that that phone belongs to you. If it’s ‘your own work’, you’ve written an essay, this is my very own work, my own essay. It is your essay. It’s a way of emphasising that, right?
‘Medicine’, ‘medicine’. ‘Medicine’ is a drug or other preparation for the treatment or prevention of a disease. So, I’m sure when you guys got sick when you were younger, your mother or your father would have given you medicine, you know, Panadol or Paracetamol, whatever drug it was, to help you feel better. They would have given you medicine.
So, let’s go through and define the expression, guys, and before we do that, I want you to know that this expression you might hear in a range of different ways with a few different verbs before ‘a taste of your own medicine’.
So. you might hear it as ‘to give someone a taste of their own medicine’, ‘to give someone a taste of their own medicine’. And you might also hear, ‘to get a taste of your own medicine’ or ‘to have a taste of your own medicine’. It can be quite often heard with those three verbs. ‘To give someone a taste of their own medicine’, ‘to get a taste of your own medicine’, or ‘to have a taste of your own medicine’.
So, I wonder if you guys know this expression of what it means. If you get, if you have, if you give someone, a taste of one’s own medicine, it is that that person is experiencing the same harmful or unpleasant thing or things that they were doing to someone else. So, if they were inflicting some kind of harmful thing or unpleasant thing on another person, and then suddenly, they were to receive that exact same harmful unpleasant thing, that treatment, back to themselves, that is a taste of their own medicine. So, an attack in the same manner in which someone has attacked someone else, right? If I punch you and then you punch me, that’s me receiving a taste of my own medicine.
So, I looked into the origin of this one and, apparently, the origin of the phrase ‘a taste of your own medicine’ comes from Aesop’s famous story about a swindler, someone who tricks people and sells things in order to make money and… trick people, a swindler who sells fake medicine claiming that it can cure anything. And then, this swindler becomes sick himself, he becomes ill, he falls ill, and people give him his own medicine, which he knows won’t work. So, literally, he got a taste of his own medicine, and figuratively, he got a taste of his own medicine.
Alright, so let’s go through three different real-life examples of how I would use this expression.
Example number one. Imagine that you have a friend or a young relative who is always pulling pranks on you. So, maybe he puts whoopie cushions on your chairs before you sit down. And whoopie cushions are these sort of rubber cushions that when you fill them with air and someone sits on them they go, *plthhh*, and it sounds like you farted, even though you didn’t really fart. So, maybe his putting would be cushions on a chair before you sit down as a prank. Maybe he put red food dye in your red wine before you drank it, and then after drinking it, your mouth was completely red. Or maybe he prank calls you. He calls you up and says, it’s the cops, you know, it’s the police. You need to come down to the police station. So, he’s pranking you a lot, right? If you get sick of him doing this and you thought, mmm, I’m going to have to get my revenge and do to him what he’s done to me. Then you’re going to give him a taste of his own medicine. Maybe you get him a chair to sit on and there’s a wonky leg, you know, a leg that’s kind of about to break, about to fall off the chair, it’s a bit wonky, and then, when he sits down, Bob’s your uncle, the chair breaks and he falls over, falls on his arse, and embarrasses himself. He got a taste of his own medicine. He had a taste of his own medicine and you gave him a taste of his own medicine. Right? So, he received the unpleasantness that he had been giving you.
Example number two. Alright, imagine that you’re a restaurant manager with a temper, and this is a true story. This is something, you know, that happened when I was working in hospitality and one of our managers was an awful person who would always lose her temper. So, you’re a restaurant manager, you’ve got a temper, you always get angry at customers, at other staff members, workers, at waiters, at chefs, at dishwashers, and you’re always taking out your frustration, your stress, and your anger on other people. One day, they all decide enough is enough and they gang up on you. So, when you suddenly decide to lose your temper and rage up at them, instead, when they see that you’re about to crack, they all start raging at you all at once yelling at you. So, this time, everyone else has given you the same treatment you usually give them. So, they gave you a taste of your own medicine, you got a taste of your own medicine, and you had a taste of your own medicine when it comes to the workers yelling at you instead of the other way round. You received a kind of unpleasantness that you usually dole out to others.
Example Number three. You’re a little kid at school and you’re known for always bagging out other children. So, you’re a boy, right, you’re nasty to other kids, you teased them, you pick on them, you pay them out, you bag them, and it makes you feel superior, you know? Bullies like to do it because it makes them feel better. So, your abuse usually packs quite a punch and causes kids to cry or to run away and dob you in to the teacher, that’s to go to the teacher and tell on you, ‘to dob you in’. And one day a new kid comes to school and is bigger than you, and he’s stronger than you, and he’s a worse bully than you. And in order to sort of assert his dominance, instead of teasing the other kids, he comes straight for you. He comes after you, he bags you, he teases you, he pays you out, like crazy, enough for you to cry, run away, and go and dob on him to the teacher. And what’s the teacher going to say when you do that? They’re going to say, this kid just gave you a taste of your own medicine. You’ve just had a taste of your own medicine from this kid. You got a taste of your own medicine from this kid. Okay? So, the teacher might show absolutely no sympathy towards you. You received the unpleasantness that you usually give other people.
So, I hope you understand the expression, guys, ‘a taste of your own medicine’. Remember, it can be used with verbs like ‘to give someone a taste of their own medicine’, ‘to have a taste of one’s own medicine’, and ‘to get a taste of one’s own medicine’. And it is when an experience of the same harmful or unpleasant thing that someone does to other people is received by that person. So, it kind of boomerangs back on them, right? And I just use the word ‘boomerang’ as a verb.
(A) ‘boomerang’ is that… the curved stick that Aboriginals used to hunt animals in Australia, and there is a stereotype that it comes back. So, it boomerangs, right? You’ve probably seen that on Instagram. Boomerang. Anyway, I diverge.
Let’s get on to the listening and repeating exercise, or listen and repeat exercise, okay. So, this is your chance to practice your pronunciation, guys, before we finish up. So, listen and repeat after me and practice your English accent. Let’s go.
To
To give
To give you
To give you a
To give you a taste
To give you a taste of
To give you a taste of your
To give you a taste of your own
To give you a taste of your own medicine x 5That was a long one today, guys. I hope you did alright. So, now I’m going to use it in the future perfect tense. Okay? I will have got… You will have got… Okay? So, ‘will have’ + the past participle. And I want you to pay attention to how I’m pronouncing ‘will have’, okay? You’re going to notice that it gets contracted. Let’s go.
I’ll have got a taste of my own medicine
You’ll have got a taste of your own medicine
He’ll have got a taste of his own medicine
She’ll have got a taste of her own medicine
We’ll have got a taste of our own medicine
They’ll have got a taste of their own medicine
It’ll have got a taste of its own medicineGood job, guys. Remember, if you would like to go through the detailed video that will break down this exercise and talk about all the different aspects of connected speech, of pronunciation, intonation, go to theAussieEnglishClassroom.com and enroll and you will get access to all of this episode’s content as well as all of the past expression episodes content and a bunch of other things too. TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com. Give it a go.
So, today’s Aussie fact. I decided to look up medical inventions from Australia. So, I thought, I know that there’s a few medical inventions that were created in Australia. So, I thought I would do a search, I’d list them, I’d mention them, and I would discuss each of them for you, guys. So, I’ve got six here. Okay.
And if you want to read a more in-depth article about these inventions and a couple of other ones that were also listed go to ScienceAlert.com. Okay. It’ll be in the transcript if you want the link to read this article. Okay. Let’s go.
So, number one: Medical application of penicillin. So, the Australian researcher Howard Florey worked with a team in the UK to purify penicillin from a special strain of mould. This is how it was originally done. And he later showed it could fight bacterial infection in humans. The antibiotic changed modern medicine forever, although obviously, we’re going to probably have problems in the near future because antibiotics are less and less effective these days.
Number Two: disease-diagnosing nano-patches. Disease-diagnosing nano-patches. This is still a relatively new invention, but these nano-patches have the potential to change the way we diagnose disease in the future. They were developed by researchers at the University of Queensland, and the patches are covered in tiny microscopic needles that can quickly and painlessly detect disease carrying proteins in the blood. How crazy’s that? And it means that you don’t need a blood test. So, because these patches have access to the human bloodstream, obviously, with those little needles, you don’t have to get blood tests. So, as someone who really hates blood tests, I’m looking forward to these becoming more predominantly used.
Number three: the bionic ear. I know! I didn’t realise this until I read this too. The bionic ear. One of our best-known exports is the cochlear implant. Both my grandparents have one of these. And the cochlear implant was created by Graeme Clark a researcher at the University of Melbourne. The device has helped more than 250,000 people with profound hearing loss to hear again. So, how crazy is that? The cochlear implant.
Number four: spray-on-skin. Now, I remember this one being in the news. Spray-on-skin has saved the lives of tens of thousands of burn victims around the world and was invented by a woman named Fiona Wood from the University of Western Australia. The invention works by taking a small patch of a patient’s skin, then growing it in the lab so that it can be sprayed back on to the person’s skin, where they’ve been burnt, over their wounds and create a protective barrier. Really cool!
So, number five: the ultrasound scanner. I didn’t realise this one was ours too. Every expectant mum around the world when they go to the hospital would be more than familiar with the ultrasound scanner, but what people might not know is that the initial discovery that ultrasounds could bounce off soft tissue was made by the CSIRO, and in 1976 it was commercialised by an Australian company called Ausonics.
Number six, the very last one, guys: electronic pacemakers. Another one that blew my mind. The first pacemaker was made impulsively back in 1926, at Sydney’s Crown Street Women’s Hospital to help save a newborn patient suffering from heart problems. The device was used to stimulate the baby’s heartbeat with electric pulses and was created by medical doctor Mark Lidwill, but he was so concerned about the ethical implications of his invention that he refused recognition and patents despite his inventions saving hundreds of thousands of lives around the world.
So, there you go, guys. I hope you enjoy this episode today. Thanks so much for spending the last 20 minutes listening to me. I do really, really appreciate you guys and I hope you have an amazing weekend. I’ll chat to you guys soon. Peace out!
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AE 432 – Expression: Open a Can of Worms
Learn Australian English in this expression episode of Aussie English where I teach you to use the common English Expression OPEN A CAN OF WORMS like a native English speaker.
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AE 432 – Expression: Open a Can of Worms
This small valley in southern Australia is home to one of the rarest and the most extraordinary of all earthworms, and I know they’re around, because I can hear them. Those gurgling noises, believe it or not, are being made by giant earthworms as they squelch along their water-filled burrows. The vibrations of my footsteps are enough to stir them into activity. They never come to the surface, but in places where there’s been a small landslip, you can sometimes find burrows.
G’day, you mob! How’s it going? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. So, it has been a busy week, guys. I had my birthday. I have been working my butt off on vlogs and different videos on YouTube. I hope you’ve noticed and I hope you’ve been enjoying the new content on YouTube. So, I’m really trying to, I guess, show you everyday life and real English that native speakers actually use and how we interact with other people in these vlogs. So, that’s the whole purpose there. If you haven’t checked them out, make sure that you go over to YouTube, the Aussie English YouTube page, and have a look at the little vlog series that I’ve started putting together. Each of them tend to be about 10 minutes or less long. So, there’s a lot on there and I’m trying to do one a week, and I also just finished an accent video for you guys on the three different accents in Australian English. Now, I had done this previously, but I had made a few mistakes. So, this video was there to set the record straight and I reference Wikipedia. So, go and check that out.
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Anyway, today’s expression, guys. Today’s expression is “open a can of worms”. This is a really good one and I chose this one, because it’s common in every English-speaking country. So, no matter whether you’re in the U.S. or you’re in England, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, you are very likely to hear “to open a can of worms”.
Intro Scene:
And that intro scene at the start there is related to Australia’s largest worm the giant Gippsland worm, which we’ll get onto in the Aussie English fact.
Anyway, time for the joke. Time for the joke, guys. So, the joke today is also related to worms, and I wonder if you get the pun. Okay. So, listen out for a play on words. Okay, so here’s the joke.
Aussie Joke:
What do you call it when worms take over the world? What do you call it when worms take over the world? Global ‘worming’… Do you get it? Global ‘worming’. So, the joke here is a play on words, it’s a pun, with the phrase ‘global warming’, and instead of saying ‘global warming’, you know, like the globe, the world, getting warmer and warmer, because of fossil fuels, we’re saying ‘Global worming’, because the worms have taken over the world. They’ve taken over the globe. Okay. So, another good pun joke there for you guys. I hope you enjoy it.
Expression:
So, today’s expression is “to open a can of worms”. I wonder if you’ve heard this one before. So, we’ll go through the definition of the words in this expression, then we’ll cover the definition of the expression itself as well as its origin. We’ll go through some examples. We’ll go through a little exercise for you guys where you can practice your pronunciation, and then we’ll go through the fact today about Australia’s biggest worms.
Alright, so there’re few bits of vocab in this expression and they can mean various things.
Definitions:
So, “to open” something, “to open”, the verb “to open”. This can mean a few things can mean to, you know, open a store for business, make business available in a store when you launch that store. A bird can open its wings, so expand its wings, to start flying. And you can open a door or a window in order to, say, look outside or let air in. But in this case, “to open something” means to remove the lid or the cover of something so as to allow access to the contents. So, for example, you might open a jar so that you can have the jam inside the jar or maybe Vegemite. You might open a bottle of soft drink by removing the lid so that you can drink the soft drink. That is “to open”.
“A can”. “A can”. Okay, so “can” can mean to be able to. So, it can be a modal verb, but in this case, it’s a noun. Okay? “A can”, and “a can” is a cylindrical metal container. So, you could have a can of soft drink. You could have a can of tomato soup. That’s “a can”. It has to be metal.
“A worm”. Alright, so in this case, “a worm” is any number of creeping or burrowing invertebrate animals with a long, slender, soft bodies and no limbs. I’m sure you guys have seen a worm before, especially after it’s rained or if you were digging in the garden, you know, maybe you’re playing around with compost and the worms will be in the soil or they’ll be in your compost eating all your old veggies. So, that is what “a worm” is. They tend to be slimy, long, thin, little creatures.
Expression Definition & Origin:
Alright, so let’s go through the definition and origin of this expression. So, “to open a can of worms”, metaphorically speaking “to open a can of worms” is to examine or attempt to solve a problem, but then end up inadvertently complicating that problem or that situation and making it a lot worse. Okay. Literally speaking, though, “opening a can of worms”, as most fishermen can attest, can also mean more trouble than you bargained for. Right? Because if you open a can of live worms, the worms are alive, and they’re being used for bait when you go fishing, you might take one out and put it on your hook, and try and catch some fish, which is good, but the rest of the worms, now with the lid open, might go walkabout. So, they might start trying to escape. They might try fleeing. They might try crawling away. So, once you’ve open a can of worms, you’ve actually opened a can of worms, metaphorically, and now have a bigger problem on your hands.
So, the exact origin isn’t known. It’s not really clear where it was first used, but various dictionaries and historians believe that this phrase was from the US in the 1950s or maybe earlier, and it specifically references Oligochaetes. Okay? And they are the worms that you find in the soil. So, for the science nerds listening Oligochaetes or Oligochaetes, depending on how you pronounce the Latin word there, is the subclass of organisms that includes earthworms, worms that are found in the ground, and back in the day, before plastic and Styrofoam containers were ubiquitous, they were used everywhere, bait shops, shops that sold bait for fishermen, often sold earthworms and other live bait to fishermen, and these would come in metal cans with handles and lids.
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Examples:
Alright, so some examples of how I would use the expression “to open a can of worms”. I’ll give you three of these guys. We’ll go through them step by step, and this should help you understand how to use this expression in context.
1.
So, example one. Imagine that you’ve gone to a family dinner, maybe it’s a Christmas dinner, or maybe it’s someone’s birthday, but you’ve got your family around, and you guys are all chatting, you’re enjoying yourselves. Your father is an avid footy fan. He loves the team Essendon, the Bombers, Essendon. Whereas, your uncle is an equally avid footy fan, but he loves Carlton, The Blues, Carlton Footy Club. And these two teams have a long running rivalry. So, imagine that there’s a game coming up in a week or so and these two teams are going to play against each other, and you ask your father, “Who do you reckon’s going to win? Who do you reckon’s going to win between Essendon and Carlton?”. Obviously, your father’s going to say Essendon and your is going to say Carlton, and so by asking this question it might lead to a massive discussion, a big argument, a heated debate. And so, inadvertently by asking that question you’ve opened a can of worms. When you asked, “Which team do you reckon’s going to win, Carlton or Essendon?”. You opened a can of worms.
2.
Example number two. Alright so, imagine you are a cop or a copper. So, a policeman or a policewoman, an investigator, someone who asks to solve a crime. Maybe there’s been a murder committed in your town and you have to sort out what happened. You’ve got to solve it. So, at first it seems like it’s a simple case. The suspect has been caught red handed and it seems like it’ll be an open and shut case, meaning that you open the case, you solve the case, because there’s so much evidence, and then you shut the case and move on. Open and shut case. You find out though that it is a great deal more complicated. Maybe the person who committed the murder was forced to commit the murder by someone else, maybe the Mafia or an organised crime group, and they’d forced him to do this because they’d kidnapped his wife, who had been kidnapped because she owed them money for gambling debts. So, you see how it’s getting a lot more complicated now. So, because it’s so much more complicated than you originally thought it was going to be, you could say, “When I decided to look into this crime that looked easy, it looked like it was an open and shut case, I inadvertently opened a can of worms. This crime led to a whole bunch of other crimes that had also happened and been related to this one that I also had to solve as a result. So, solving this crime led to a huge can of worms being opened.”. That’s example number two.
3.
So, example number three. Imagine that you’re finishing high school and you have to make a decision now about which university you want to go to and what you want to study at that university. Maybe your parents have a certain idea in their mind, you know, they might expect you to do medicine or to do law or engineering, something they see as respectable that will earn you a lot of money and set you up to have a great life, but maybe that’s not where your passion lies. Maybe it’s not where your heart is. And maybe instead, your heart is set on becoming a primary school teacher or maybe becoming a social worker. So, when you finally summon up the courage to tell your parents your plans about studying social work or primary school education at university, it opens a can of worms. So, by telling them it inadvertently turns out to cause a huge number of other problems, arguments, fights, disagreements, maybe even your parents say, “Well, we’re not going to support you at uni financially unless you do a course that we want you to do.”. So, you’ve opened a can of worms. Telling them this thing has led to a whole bunch of other problems. Okay? Open a can of worms.
So, hopefully you understand the expression now, guys, “to open a can of worms”. It means to examine or attempt to solve a problem but end up inadvertently complicating it and making the problem or related issues even worse.
And I wonder, too, if you guys see the connection between this expression “to open a can of worms” and the expression “to let sleeping dogs lie”. Do you remember that one? That one was from episode 4-0-9, 409, to let sleeping dogs lie. So, these are kind of opposites. They kind of mean the opposite thing. So, for example if you do something that leads to more problems, you’ve opened a can of worms. Whereas, if you avoid doing something so as to avoid problems that it would cause, say, bringing up a topic in front of your family, you’ve let sleeping dogs lie. So, these are two really good expressions to learn that kind of mean the opposite of one another.
Anyway, guys, let’s go through the listen and repeat exercise, and then we’ll get into the Aussie English fact, and then I’ll let you get on with your day. So, the listen and repeat exercise, guys, is for you to practice your pronunciation. Repeat after me as best you can with your best Aussie accent or any English accent that you are currently working on, guys. And try and keep in mind, what is the intonation that he’s using? Is his voice going up? Is it going down? Is it speeding up? Is it slowing down? Is there connected speech happening? All of those things are going to help you become a better English speaker, but it starts by you trying to pay attention to them. Okay? So, listen to my voice and try and sound exactly the same. Let’s go.
Listen & repeat:
To
To open
To open a
To open a can
To open a can of
To open a can of worms x 5
I’ve opened a can of worms
You’ve opened a can of worms
He’s opened a can of worms
She’s opened a can of worms
We’ve opened a can of worms
They’ve opened a can of worms
It’s opened a can of worms
Great job, guys. Really good job there! Make sure that if you want the bonus content for this pronunciation exercise, which is usually a video, I normally go through step by step all of the components of connected speech and intonation and everything like that in a video, make sure that you sign up to the Aussie English Classroom, guys. And remember, it’s just one dollar for the first 30 days. So, you have an entire month to give it a go, to see if it’s what you like, to see if it helps you improve your English, before it will cost you anything else.
Aussie Fact:
Anyway, guys, let’s get into the Aussie English fact for today, and then we’ll finish up. So, the Aussie fact for today, I wanted to talk to you about Australia’s biggest worms. So, these are some famous worms from Gippsland and they’re called that giant Gippsland earthworms.
So, what’s Gippsland? Where’s Gippsland? Gippsland is a large portion of the state of Victoria and it comprises the east corner of the state. The state of Victoria is in the south east of Australia down the bottom of the country just above Tasmania, and it looks kind of like a triangle sitting on its side. So, it’s like a weird shaped piece of pizza, and Gippsland, the area, the region, is the tip of that piece of pizza. Okay? And there are many beautiful lakes and forests and beaches out there. I did my masters out there, actually, studying goannas. So, there are a lot of goannas out there. Lace monitors. These guys are really beautiful. (I) recommend that you look them up in Google. Lace monitors. Anyway, so, that is what and where Gippsland is.
What’s an earthworm? So, an earthworm is a burrowing annelid worm that lives in the soil and it’s important for aerating and draining the soil and in burying organic matter. So, this is why they’re so important for composts when we put our veggies and all our leftover food in the compost, we know it’s healthy when there are loads and loads of worms in there eating everything. So, you usually come across these guys when you’re digging in the backyard, mixing up the compost, or playing around with garden mulch, you know, or they might be on the footpath after a lot of rain. You might see them moving around if there’s been loads of rain.
Anyway, what is the deal with the giant earthworm from Gippsland? So, I’m just going to read through the Wikipedia page for today, because it was pretty short, and I’m going to chuck some quick clips in there too from the David Attenborough clip at the start of the episode, and you can see that via the link in this transcript if you want to watch the whole thing. So, here we go.
The giant Gippsland earthworm Megasco… Megas… Let’s see if I can say this Megascolides australis is one of Australia’s 1,000 native earthworm species. So, let’s describe this species. What does it look like? How big is it? What’s its size? So, these giant earthworms average about a metre, so three and a half feet in length, and about only two centimeters, about an inch or so, in diameter or in width. However, the body is able to expand and contract making them appear much larger. On average they weigh about 200 grams, and they have a dark purple head and a blue grey body, and about 300 to 400 body segments.
So, if they can expand, though, you guys might be asking, “How do you know how fit they are or how long they are?”. Well, that’s a really good question. I’ll let David Attenborough answer this one.
So, the question is, “How long is a giant earthworm?”. Well, it’s not an easy question to answer. The fact of the matter is they’re rather delicate creatures and a break. If I was so unfeeling as to try and stretch it, well, I guess it might stretch to a couple of metres, almost six feet long.
Alright, so ecology wise, how do these guys live? How do they live? How do they interact in the environment? Where do you find them in the environment? So, these guys live in the subsoil of blue, gray, or red clay soils along stream banks and some south or west facing hills of their remaining habitat, which is in Gippsland in Victoria. So, they are living along streams like this because obviously the ground is wet and they’re living on south or west facing hills, because they’re the hills that aren’t receiving much sunlight. Right? So, they’re not heating up the soil. So, these worms live in deep burrow systems and they require water in their environment to respire, so in order to breathe they need water, they need to be kept moist.
They have relatively long lifespans, for invertebrates at least, and they can take up to five years to reach maturity. So, how long do these guys live until? David, can I handball you the question, mate?
How long they live, well, some say up to 20 years, but we really don’t know, and we certainly don’t know how they managed to mate deep underground as they squelch their way through their lonely tunnels.
So, they breed in warmer months and they produce egg capsules that are about four centimeters to seven centimetres in length, which are laid in their burrows, and these worms take about 12 months to mature, and when they hatch, they’re about 20 centimetres in length.
They’re usually very sluggish, but they can move rapidly through their underground burrows, and it can cause an audible gurgling or sucking sound, which allows them to be detected, like you heard at the start of this episode.
So, the Gippsland earthworm colonies are small and isolated and the species’ low reproductive rates and slow maturation make those small populations very vulnerable. Their natural habitats are grasslands, and while they can survive beneath pastures, cultivation, heavy cattle grazing, and effluent runoff are adversarial to the species.
So, there used to be a museum, guys, out in Gippsland that used to be able to go and see if you wanted to see these worms, and I think I went there as a kid, but I just learnt, whilst reading this Wikipedia page, that it closed in 2012 amid animal welfare concerns.
So, the Wildlife Wonderland Park near Bass in Victoria was home to the Giant Earthworm Museum, and inside the worm-shaped museum visitors were able to crawl through a magnified replica of a worm burrow and a simulated worm stomach and displays and educational material on the giant Gippsland earthworm and other natural history of the Gippsland were also featured there, but unfortunately, (it) sounds like you can’t go and see it anymore.
So, anyway guys, that’s it for today. I definitely recommend going and checking out the BBC’s Life in the Undergrowth documentary series with David Attenborough. The link to the video will be in the transcript, if you would like to see the video from today’s episode.
Anyway, I hope you have an amazing week, guys. Thanks again for listening. Oh! And, a quick mention, if you guys want to support the podcast, please don’t forget to give it a share, give it a like, comment on the videos, and also give it a review if you can on any platform that you listen to this on. Right? So, on iTunes, Stitcher, whatever it is, every review helps. So, that’s what I would really appreciate if you want to help the podcast grow.
Anyway, I’ll chat you soon, guys. All the best!
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