Transcript of AE 1260 - Expression: Far Be It From Me

G'day you mob, and welcome to Aussie English! I am your host, Pete, and my objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken Down Under. So whether you want to sound like a fair dinkum Aussie, or you just want to understand what the flipping hell we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So sit back, grab a cuppa and enjoy Aussie English. Let's go!

G'day, you guys! How's it going? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. I'm your host, Pete, and I hope you guys are having an absolutely splendid week. A ripper of a week. It has been pretty hot over the weekend. We- what do we do? We had Joey, my daughter's birthday, had her birthday party. We had three days in a row of between like 36 and 40°C here in Victoria. We're down on the coast near the beach, so it was a bit cooler for us, thankfully, but it was still pretty brutal. Anytime you went outside, it was pretty hot. We had to bring the pets inside. So Baz, my guinea pig, Bazza, he was living inside in a cage trying to avoid the cats for a few days. That was fun. So we were sort of chucking carrots in and making sure the cats weren't harassing him too much.

And, yeah, I had to keep watering the plants outside so that they didn't cark it, so that they didn't die in the heat. But we survived. Okay? We went to the beach one morning. I think it would have been Monday morning and had an absolutely splendid time. It was great. Joey has really started to enjoy the beach and the water. Noah is a little more tentative. My son Noah, he's not as thrilled, but he still has quite a bit of fun too. So yeah, it was a good weekend and I hope you guys had a great weekend as well.

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I hope you guys are doing well. I hope you're relaxing today. It's it's nice and cold today. Finally. I think it's like 16 degrees, which is just great. You know, it's good, it's good. It's my kind of weather. All right. Let's get into today's question and answer. This one is going to be a quick one. This one comes from Brian Alverson who asks "Is there a difference in accents between Melbourne and Sydney?" And the short answer is 'no'. No, there is not really much of a difference. And I think a big reason for this would be that, you know, it's similar everywhere in Australia. We move around a lot. So if you move to Sydney, if you go to Sydney, if you've travelled there, if you've worked there, you'll probably notice that most of the people you'll interact with, if you're in the CBD in particular, or if you're at work, whatever it is, you're probably going to interact with as many, if not more people who aren't originally from Sydney as those who were born there, you know, and raised there.

And the same thing with Melbourne, right? Like if you go to the Melbourne CBD, I think, you know, it's probably like eight out of ten people that walk past you in the street probably weren't born and raised in Melbourne. They're they're studying there, they're working there. They're, you know, travelling, whatever it is. So long story short, you're not really going to notice any significant differences in accent between these two cities. In particular, you may notice accents becoming a little broader. You know, and this is a sort of this is a stereotype. It's a bit of a broad explanation.

But if you go to towns like, or cities like Darwin, Cairns, places that are a little more remote in Australia, a little further away from the big cities like Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, you may notice more people who speak with broad accents, right? So they're they might use different vowel sounds typically. But I think the biggest thing you may notice is difference in like slang words. In vocab, and how frequently or infrequently certain things are used.

Like, a big example would be if I go from Melbourne to Sydney and I ask for a pot of beer at a pub, they'd probably look at me a little confused because the sizes of the drinks are different. They have 'schooners' up there, whereas down here we have 'pots' and 'pints'. If you went to a fish and chip shop and asked for a 'potato cake', which is something I always get when I go to the fish and chip shop, right? It's kind of like a flat circular chip, right? It's just potato that's deep fried.

If you ask for a potato cake, they're going to be like, 'What are you talking about? Do you mean a potato scallop?' So there are those kinds of differences that I think would be more obvious than accent differences. But good question. And you guys will have to let me know, right? Get in touch, send me a message. Send me an email. If you've noticed any other kinds of differences between these two cities in Australia. All right, slap the bird, give it a kick, make it cry. And let's get into today's joke!

So today's joke. "Why didn't the grizzly bear get a job in Sydney?" "Why didn't the grizzly bear get a job in Sydney?" "Because he didn't have the proper koala-fications!"

Oh my God. All right, so this might need a bit of explaining. A koala bear. We often use this in Australia. In fact, there's a song, right? There's a song that's called Please Don't Call Me a Koala Bear by Don Spencer. I'll play a line for you. Have a listen. (song: So please don't call me a koala bear. 'Cause I'm not a bear at all.) Okay, so back in the day, I remember people used to call koalas 'koala bears', right? As if they were similar to bears. They're a bear-like arboreal marsupial in Australia that live in trees, right? They eat eucalyptus leaves. You guys will know what a koala is.

But because they're marsupials, they're not bears. A bear is a eutherian mammal, right? They're more closely related to things like otters and elephants and humans. Whereas koalas are related to possums and kangaroos and thylacines, Tassie devils, all that sort of stuff. Okay, so there's sort of a different branch of the mammalian family. So yeah, they're not bears. They're not bears. "Please don't call me a koala bear."

And we often have this kind of joke in Australia where we use 'koala-fications' as a way of saying 'qualifications', right? A condition- a 'qualification' is a condition that must be fulfilled before a right can be acquired. An official requirement, a qualification. So, 'Does he have the qualifications to get the job', right? Has he met the requirements? So the 'koala' had no 'koala-fications'. So I guess that's the joke with 'koala' and 'bear' here. "Why didn't the grizzly bear get a job in Sydney?" "He didn't have the proper koala-fications." Uh, it's a bit of a stretch, but hopefully there's a bit of Aussie culture in there that'll help you guys out. If you ever hear someone saying, 'Oh, I don't have the koala-fications!'.

All right, let's get into today's expression. "Far be it from me", "far be it from me". And then often a verb, right, "to something". So let's go through the different words. There's quite a few in this expression.

"Far". This is situated at a great distance in space or time. "He lives far away." "The Hubble telescope can see far into the reaches of the universe."

"To be". This is to exist, to occur, to take place. I'm sure you guys know the verb 'to be', right.

"It". This is used to refer to a thing previously mentioned or easily identified. So if you're talking about something, you may just refer to 'it' as 'it', as I just did, right?" The balloon is huge and I love it." "I love the balloon, I love it." "It".

"From". Indicating the point in space at which a journey, motion or action starts. So, "She began to walk away from him." That's where it began. She began at 'him' and she 'walked away' from him. "I live 50km from the city."

"Me". This is used by a speaker to refer to themselves. "Can you see me?" "Do you understand me?"

And then "To" is an infinitive marker. We use this to show that the verb coming after is the base form of the verb, right, the infinitive. "I'm going to do the dishes." "She wants to swim tomorrow."

Okay, so "far be it from me". "Far be it from me". "The Oxford Dictionary says that the phrase is a form of deprecation equal to "God forbid that I.." and then, you know, the rest of the sentence. So, "The usage is very old and in fact appears in the first English translation of the Bible, the Wycliffe Bible of 1382."

And, "Here's the quotation from Genesis 44:17: "Joseph answered, far be it from me, that I thus do". This is Old English, right. "This is rendered in the King James Version as "And he said, God forbid that I should do so." So, 'should do so', 'should do that thing'. 'Should do that thing'. All right!

So the meaning of the phrase, we use this phrase to mean that we will definitely not do or say something, you know, like, this thing is, it would be really bad if we ever did this thing. So, 'far be it from me to disagree with you'. You know, 'I know that you've got way more info than I do. Far be it from me to disagree with you'. So we use this quite a bit, but let's go through some examples of how to use this in everyday English, because I think then you'll understand it a little, a little more easily.

Okay, so example number one. Imagine you're a waiter at a restaurant in the city, and you have a manager who's always telling you what to do. Right? They're a little overbearing. They like to always give you orders, even though you know how to do your job perfectly well. Right? They love micromanaging you in every single thing that you do. So one day, a new waiter gets a job at the restaurant, and as they're learning alongside you how everything works, they may notice the manager's behaviour towards you and ask, you know, 'Is it okay that the manager speaks to you that way?' 'Is it okay for them to constantly be berating you, be so overbearing to be micromanaging every little thing that you do?'.

And if you want to say that 'It's not up to you to criticise or disagree with the person', you know, your manager, you might say, 'Look, you know, far be it from me to say anything about it', 'Far be it from me to complain.' 'Far be it from me to criticise the manager. The manager is the boss. I'm just the waiter.' So, 'Far be it from me to do anything differently. You know they're the ones in charge.'

Example number two. Maybe you're the dad of a teenage girl who's just gotten to an age where she started dating and wanting to wear makeup. Maybe skimpier clothing, right? Crop tops, all that sort of stuff. And one day your wife notices that she's got a nose piercing and says to you, 'You know, that's crazy.' As her father, what are you going to do about this? What are you going to say about this? And you might think, 'Well, you know, it's just going to make things worse, right? If I give her a hard time, if I have a go at her. So, you know, I'm a dad. But far be it from me to criticise her choices now that she's, you know, a teenager, far be it from me to say anything.' 'Far be it from me to comment on these things.' You know, it's kind of like, 'Look, I know if I say anything, I'm in trouble, so I shouldn't say anything.' 'I'm not going to say anything. Far be it from me to say anything.'.

Example number three. Imagine you're in a relationship with a really mean partner, right? Someone who's horrible to you. They never let you share your opinions or decide on things. They're always telling you exactly what has to be done, what to do, what they've decided is going to happen. And you're always fighting, right? Your partner always ends up winning, though, by getting angrier and more aggressive at you. So as a result, you end up getting massively sort of passive aggressive about things with them. And one day a friend sees these interactions between you and your partner and he's like, 'Are you just going to take that?', right? 'Are you just going to allow your partner to speak to you that way', you know, 'be so horrible to you?' And if you're annoyed about it, upset about it, and feeling a little resentful or sarcastic, you might say in a sarcastic tone to your partner, right when they're giving you a hard time and shutting you down, you might be like, 'Well, far be it from me to have an opinion', you know? 'Far be it from me to disagree with you.' 'God forbid that I have my own thoughts and opinions that I want to share. Far be it from me to think differently.'.

Okay, so hopefully now guys, you understand how to use the expression 'far be it from me'. It's a synonym would be 'God forbid that I do something', right. I would never do that thing. 'Far be it from me.' And we can obviously use it sarcastically, too.

So as usual guys, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise where we can. Work on our Australian accent, our Australian speaking skills in English. I'm going to read out all these words and phrases for today's episode, and your job is to listen and repeat after me. Are you ready to rock? Are you ready to go? Let's do it.

Far. Far be. Far be it. Far be it from. Far be it from me. Far be it from me. Far be it from me. Far be it from me. Far be it from me. Far be it from me to say that. Far be it from you to say that. Far be it from him to say that. Far be it from her to say that. Far be it from us to say that. Far be it from them to say that. Far be it from it to say that.

Great job guys. All right. So let's go over a little bit about what's going on, their pronunciation and connected speech wise. /Far be it from me/ /far be it from me/. So firstly, notice that in Australian English, Australian English is non-rhotic.

So we only pronounce the R, the R the letter R if there is a vowel sound after it. So you'll notice this in the word 'from', right. We say the R in 'from' because there's an R vowel sound after the R: /from/ /from/.

But in the word 'far', because the following word starts with a /buh/ consonant sound, right, a B, the A and the R represent just the long /r/ sound, right, /fa(r)/. So we don't actually say the R. There's no vowel, there's a consonant after it. /Fa(r) be/ /fa(r) be/.

Okay, linking 'be' and 'it'. Because these are two vowels together, between these two words /ee/ and /ih/, we use a /yuh/ sound here: /beeyet/, /beeyet/. And you'll notice that /ih/ in the word 'it' actually becomes a schwa vowel sound. It gets reduced and it becomes /ə/, /fa(r) bee/ /fa(r) beeyət/. /Fa(r) beeyət/.

And you may notice there that I'm muting the T sound. And this is because the following word from starts with a consonant /f/, right, an F. And so the T at the end of the word 'it' isn't released, it's muted. /Fa(r) beeyət from me/. /Fa(r) beeyət from me/. /Fa(r) beeyət from me/. /Fa(r) beeyət from me/.

Good job guys. Now remember, if you want to master Australian English pronunciation, check out my Australian pronunciation course. Just go over to AussieEnglish.com.au/APC100 and you will save $100 when you sign up to the course.

The course involves three different sections. It includes three different sections one. The first section will teach you how to use the International Phonetic Alphabet to master Australian pronunciation more quickly. It really helps if you understand those symbols and you know how to use them and refer to them when working on your pronunciation. Section two goes over all the different sounds. In Australian English there's about 42 or so.

So all the different vowel sounds, all the different consonant sounds, you'll learn how to pronounce them. You'll see the tutorials showing you what to do with your mouth, how to say them, and then you have loads of exercises so that you can practice them on a regular basis until you've mastered them, until you've nailed them.

And then in the third section, we have 25 advanced lessons about things like connected speech, vowel sounds that change, you know, reductions, all that sort of stuff. So go check it out and remember you'll save $100 if you go to AussieEnglish.com.au/APC100, APC 100.

Okay, so to finish up, we have a little clip for you. Today's clip comes from an Aussie TV show. It's a new one that's called Boy Swallows Universe. The excerpt is "A young boy growing up in the suburbs of 1980s Brisbane faces the harsh realities of life and the looming dangers that threaten his family."

So the rules of this game. I'm going to play this clip for you from the show two times, and your goal is to write down what you hear being said.

If you want to check your answer, there's a free worksheet that comes with this episode. You can access it via the link in the description or on the website, and you'll be able to see the answer at the bottom. There's also a space on that worksheet if you print it out for you to write down what you think you hear being said.

Otherwise, if you're a Premium Podcast member, you will obviously see the answer in the transcript itself. So are you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

Why did you run away from our dad? Eli, it's late. I don't want to talk about Robert right now. He did bad things, didn't he? We all do bad things sometimes. Alcoholism is a disease. He wasn't a well man. Was he a good man? He was a good dancer.

Great job. How'd you go? Did you get all of it? Time for the second playthrough.

Why did you run away from our dad? Eli, it's late. I don't want to talk about Robert right now. He did bad things, didn't he? We all do bad things sometimes. Alcoholism is a disease. He wasn't a well man. Was he a good man? He was a good dancer.

All right, that's it for today, guys. I am Pete, your host. I hope you have an absolutely awesome weekend and I'll chat to you next time. Tooroo!