Transcript of AE 1246 - Expression: Knock On Wood

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 mob! How's it going? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. I hope you guys are having an absolute ripper of a weekend. It is currently a Wednesday for me. My kids have toddled off to day-care. We've dropped them off at day-care and they are hopefully living their best lives there at the moment. I think my daughter has actually just fallen asleep. We have an app that is connected to day-care where teachers can add little notes, little photos.

They can give you updates about what your kids are up to, all that sort of jazz. And so you get to kind of, I don't know, I guess, stalk your kids right during the day whilst they're at day-care. It's a bit creepy, but endearing at the same time, if that makes sense. You get to make sure that they're all good, having fun, all that sort of stuff. So yeah, at the moment I have just woken up. I had a bit of a midday nap after lunch, which is always good because my sleeping sort of arrangement is all over the shop.

It's all over the place these days, it seems, because, you know, the kids go down, they go to sleep at about, I don't know, 9:00 at night, depending on the day and how much they've, you know, done. And if Joey has a nap, which she is having currently as we speak, then she's probably going to go to bed even later. But as a result, I end up sort of staying up late because that's my time to myself and then get up early and yeah, I feel like I need another nap. Anyway, that's what I'm currently up to.

So before we get into today's episode, as always, guys, don't forget if you want to support the podcast whilst also being able to level up your English simultaneously, get the Premium Podcast membership. You can get this at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast You'll get the transcripts to the podcast episode so you can read and listen at the same time. You can print them out, you can download them, you can study with them and you can learn all the phrases, expressions, slang terms, everything like that inside.

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Now let's get into today's Q and a question and answer. This one comes from Mazo from Instagram. So Mazo asks, "What are some alternatives for the phrase 'bring it on'? 'Bring it on'. I wonder if you guys have heard 'Bring it on'. It's used to express confidence in meeting a challenge, right? 'Bring the challenge on', 'bring it', 'bring it on'. And yeah, it can be shortened to just 'bring it'.

Okay so a good example, right? Someone comes up to you and they say, "Mate, I could beat you in basketball." And you're like, "Oh yeah, bring it on. Then let's see who's better." "I'll take this challenge. Let's do this." "Bring it on." "Bring it on, mate. Let's see."

Another example might be, you know, you love cooking chocolate cake and your wife is like, "Well, my chocolate cakes that I cook are better than yours." And if my wife said that to me, I'd probably be like, "You know what? Challenge accepted. Bring it on. Let's have a cook off, mate. Let's both of us cook a chocolate cake each taste, test it, ask other people their opinions. Let's get their two cents. Work out what they like. Which one do they like better? Let's see who's the best. Bring it on. Bring it, mate."

So some examples of other ways of saying this phrase 'bring it on', 'bring it on'. Another one would be 'come at me', right, 'come at me, bro'. 'Come at me'. And I guess that's kind of like welcoming a physical challenge. The person's like gonna fight you or something. And you're like, 'come at me', 'come at me'.

Another one would be 'anywhere, any time'. And you could reverse this and say 'any time, anywhere', as in, 'I will challenge you. I will accept this challenge at any time and in any place', right? 'Anytime, anywhere'. "Mate, you know where I am. You know where I am. Come at me. I'll take you on. I'll take you on." That would be like, "I'm going to compete with you. I will take you on." "Let's see who's better" or "Let's see who's the best." Okay, so those are some alternatives for the phrase 'bring it on', but really, 'bring it on' is probably the best way of saying that, to be honest. So yeah, don't be afraid to use just 'bring it on'. All right. Let's 'bring on' the joke! So give the bird a kick. Give it a slap. Make it cry. And let's get into today's joke.

All right, so it's a pisser. This one's a pisser. Right. It's gonna make you piss yourself. This is some informal slang in Australian English. Meaning it's going to make you laugh, right? It's going to make you absolutely laugh if something is a pisser. It is very funny. "Oh, mate, my mate is such a pisser. He's such a funny guy." "Everything he says is a pisser. It's just so funny." "We just piss ourselves laughing." That's a fun thought. So anyway, let's get into the joke.

The joke is "Why did the cake break up with the frosting?" So the frosting is the cream, usually with icing. So it's got sugar in it, powdered sugar in it. The frosting is what goes over the cake over the top of it. You know, it might be vanilla frosting. Chocolate frosting.

"Why did the cake break up with the frosting?" Are you ready? "Because it was too whipped!" "Because it was too whipped." All right, let's go through what's going on here.

The pun is on the word 'whipped'. Firstly, if you 'break up' with someone, this is to end a relationship with them. "I just 'broke up' with my girlfriend." "He just 'broke up' with his boyfriend", 'to break up with someone'.

Then, 'whipped'. Okay, this is where the pun was, right? "Why did the cake 'break up' with the frosting?" "Because it was too 'whipped'." So 'whipped'. Literally, if you 'whip someone' or if you are 'whipped by someone', this would be 'to flog or beat someone with a whip', right? "The slaves were whipped by their master." You know, it's probably a phrase out of the Bible. When the Egyptians were beating up their slaves with 'whips', they the slaves were 'whipped', right? They got 'whipped'. They were 'whipped'.

We can use this as slang though. And this is where the pun is, right? It's on this, this one firstly, 'whipped'. If you are 'whipped', it is that you are controlled by your partner as if they have a 'whip' and they're using that 'whip' to control you like a slave or a prisoner or something. Right. "He'd love to come out tonight and hang out with you. But his missus won't let him. He's way too 'whipped', if you ask me." 'Whipped'.

And a kind of vulgar way of talking about this, especially when talking about men. And again, this is very informal, but you may hear this is saying that a man is 'pussy whipped'. Right? So this is vulgar. Forgive me, ladies, 'pussy whipped' means effectively that they- Because now they are in a relationship and they are getting some action, right. They are getting some- Like, it just feels gross to just say it, but they, ugh. This is not the kind of thing I would generally use. But for the sake of teaching you English, now that they're in a relationship and they're getting some 'pussy', right, the woman is using that to control her partner, so he generally is 'pussy whipped' if she controls him. Using. Using, what? What, you can probably work out she's using. Okay, so so that's part of the pun.

The other part is that 'whipped', you can 'whip' cream and eggs or other foods to turn them into a froth. Right? So if you had some frosting that you're going to put on a cake, you'd mix it up, you'd usually 'whip' it. You'd put some cream and some eggs in there and some, you know, whatever else, icing sugar. You 'whip' it up and you turn it into a nice 'whipped' frosting. So that's the joke. Okay, that's the joke. "Why did the cake 'break up' with the frosting?" "Because it was too 'whipped', right?" That's why they broke up. Ah, okay. Anyway, moving right along.

So let's get into today's expression, which is 'to knock on wood'. 'Knock on wood'. Right. 'Knock on wood'. Let's break down the words in this phrase.

'To knock', 'to knock something'. This is to strike a surface noisily to attract attention, especially when waiting to be let in through a door. Right? Someone might come up to the door and (knocking sounds) they 'knock on' the door, or they could just 'knock the door'. But you can also bump into something. You can strike something and say cause it to tip over or fall over. So if I put a coffee on my desk, it's in a cup and I turn around and accidentally 'knock' it, it's that I hit the coffee. And if it tips over, I 'knock it over' and the contents, the coffee inside the cup will spill out, right? I accidentally 'knocked over' my cup of coffee.

If you 'knock on something', that's to hit something with something else. So I could pick up, say, a pen and I could 'knock on' the microphone (muffled knocking) Right. So 'knocking on' the microphone with a pen.

'Wood'. This is the hard, fibrous material that forms the main substance of the trunk or branches of a tree or a shrub. Right. And it's used for fuel or timber. A block of wood. I have grandparents who own a cabin and it is made out of logs of wood.

So the phrase 'knock on wood' though, you can also use this as 'touch wood'. It is used to express a wish that something will, or will not, occur. So you use it when you're hoping for something. You're hoping; whether you're hoping for that thing to happen, or whether you're hoping for that thing to not happen. You can 'knock on wood', and often people don't even knock on wood. They just say, "Oh, knock on wood" or 'touch wood', right?

And I looked up the origin of this. And dictionary.com says "This expression alludes to an ancient superstition that literally knocking on wood, or touching wood, will ward off evil spirits, so it'll keep evil spirits away from you." It'll ward off those evil spirits. Interesting, huh?

So, as usual, let's go through three examples of how I would use the expression to 'knock on wood'. When would I use this? How would I use this? All right, so example number one. Imagine that tragically you have ended up getting some kind of cancer, right? Probably everyone listening to this podcast will know someone who's got cancer. We have a dear friend whose daughter ended up tragically getting some brain cancer, about a year and a half ago. And has gone through loads of chemotherapy and loads of other treatments, radiotherapy, surgeries, everything like that. But now it seems like her daughter, thankfully is out of the woods, right? It seems like she's doing really well.

She's had her last round of chemo a while back, and now hopefully she's going to heal up and be all good. To show that you really hope that that occurs. You could say, 'knock on wood', right? So she's just had her chemo treatment for the last time. "Everything looks good, 'knock on wood'." And it shows that you're hoping that everything is going to go well now right? "Oh my gosh, 'knock on wood'. We really hope everything goes well."

Example number two. Imagine you are asking someone on a date, right? Whether you're you've met them in person, at a pub, at a bar, through friends, at a party, at uni, at work, or maybe you've met them spontaneously on a dating website or on an app like Bumble or Tinder or whatever it is. Right? So you've gone out on a date with them and you have absolutely hit it off, right? You love this person. They seem amazing. You think, "Oh my God, person of my dreams, this could be my soulmate. I really hope that they want to keep dating me. 'Knock on wood'", right? I'm hoping that we'll keep dating. I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm really hoping for that thing. I'm expressing a wish that we keep dating. 'Knock on wood'. "Oh, mate, if she ended up my girlfriend, it would be the best thing in the world. 'Knock on wood'."

Example number three. Imagine you have been killing loads of your houseplants, right? You've, like me, gotten into houseplants. You love growing plants around your house, getting a bit of a jungly vibe around your home, but you've been killing loads of them. You've been killing them with love. You've been over watering them. Maybe you haven't given them enough light and they've all just been kicking it, kicking the bucket. Dying, right? You've been killing your plants.

So you decide to shoot down to Bunnings and you stock up on the new batch of plants that you're hoping you won't kill. And you may say something like, "Well, 'knock on wood', this time I don't kill all these plants. I'm really hoping I don't kill these plants this time." "I'm hoping that everything goes well. I'm hoping they thrive. Knock on wood. I really hope they don't die. 'Knock on wood'."

So there you go, guys. That is the expression 'knock on wood'. And you can also just say 'touch wood'. And this is to express a wish that something will or will not occur. Right. It's showing that you're really hoping that something will happen in your favour. Right.

So as usual, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise where you guys can work on your Australian pronunciation. Okay, so listen and read out or repeat these phrases out loud after me. Okay, you're ready to go. Let's do it. Knock. Knock on. Knock on wood. Knock on wood. Knock on wood. Knock on wood. Knock on wood. Did I say 'knock on wood'? Did you say 'knock on wood'? Did he say 'knock on wood'? Did she say 'knock on wood'? Did we say 'knock on wood'? Did they say 'knock on wood'? Did it say 'knock on wood'? Good job guys.

Now, I wanted to use a question in today's sort of phrase that we conjugate through using the different pronouns, because it would just be a little, a little different. But we could also listen to my intonation, right. The way in which my tone falls and rises during this question. Okay, so firstly, let's note that before at the start of the question, before the rest of the phrase, I use the auxiliary verb 'did'. So, 'Did I say', 'did you say', 'did he say', but what do you notice happening when I speak really quickly and say this more naturally, right? The connected speech.

So if I go through, I'll do each of them again, and I'll just say the first few words. Okay. 'Did I say' 'Did you say' 'Did I say' 'Did she say' 'Did we say' 'Did they say' 'Did it say' So there's a lot of connected speech going on. Firstly /didI/ /didI/ /didI/ /didI say/.

The D at the end of the word 'did' turns into a T flap because I starts with a vowel sound and comes after 'did' /didI/ /didI/.

/didjyoo/ You're going to notice the D at the end of 'did' and the /yuh/ the Y at the start of 'you'. They merge, they assimilate and turn into a /jyuh/ sound. /didjyoo/ /didjyoo/.

/did/ /he/ or /didDee/ /didDee/ /didDee/ So again we get the T flap at the end of the word 'did'. And we're using H deletion and not saying the /huh/ the H sound at the start of the word 'he' /didDee/ /didDee/ /didDee/.

And then with the words 'did she', 'did we' and 'did they', the D can either be muted in the mouth. /did she/ /did we/ /did they/. Or you can also do this in your throat using the glottal stop. /did she/ /did we/ /did they/. That sounds a little less or feels a little less natural. I'd probably just mute it in my mouth.

And then lastly /didIt/ is like the /didDee/ where you're getting the D as a T flap, and we're also muting the T in the word 'it' /didIt/ /didIt/ /didIt say/ /didIt say/ /didIt say/.

So there you go! Remember guys, if you want to perfect your Australian accent and sound a lot more Australian when speaking English, go and check out my Australian Pronunciation course. Inside the course you'll learn how to use the International Phonetic Alphabet so that you can level up your English really quickly. You'll also get access to the second part of the course, where there are instructional videos and exercise videos teaching you every single sound in Australian English all the vowels, all the consonants.

And then in the last section, section number three, there are 25 advanced lessons on things like linking assimilation, sound changes when speaking English. This is the area that's really going to help you sound much more natural when speaking quickly, right? The sound changes that occur in connected speech, everything like that. So go check it out. AussieEnglish.com.au/APC100. If you go to APC 100 at the end there, you'll save $100 when you sign up.

So the last little section here for today's episode today we're going to play a clip from an Aussie horror film called Sissy, S I S S Y, Sissy. The excerpt is: "High school best friend Cecilia and Emily run into each other after a decade, and Emma invites Cecilia to her hen's weekend away." That's when you are getting married to someone, and it's the female, the woman's kind of party. The 'hen's weekend'. "Stuck in a remote cabin with her high school bully, Cecilia quickly develops a taste for revenge."

Okay, so the goal here, I'm going to play the clip for you twice. And your goal is to listen and write down what you hear being said. Remember, you can get the worksheet today, the free worksheet from the website, and you'll be able to check the answer, as well as have space to write down what you hear being said.

And if you're a premium podcast member, you'll be able to just check the transcript. All right, so you're ready to go. Here's the first playthrough.

Sissy? Oh my God, it's you! What's it been, like, 12 years? You remember me, right? Yeah, I just can't picture myself without her.

Awesome job. How did you go? Did you get all of it? Time for the second playthrough.

Sissy? Oh my God, it's you! What's it been, like, 12 years? You remember me, right? Yeah, I just can't picture myself without her.

All right, well, that's it from me today. Guys, I hope you really enjoyed this episode. Knock on wood and I'll see you next time. All the best! Tooroo!