Transcript of AE 1245 - Expression: Get Your Story Straight

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. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So guys, I hope you're having a ripper of a week. I am your host, Pete, and today I'm going to be teaching you how to use the expression 'get your story straight', 'to get your story straight'.

So at the moment I am still in my office. It is still incredibly hot outside. In fact, I think this is probably going to be the last episode that I try and record today as our aircon broke recently, right? Our air conditioning system in the house broke. And what's today? Today is the 13th of December. We have to wait until the 22nd of December for the aircon, guys, the repair men or women to come and check out what the issue is and try and resolve it. And it is going to cost a pretty penny.

It is going to cost a lot of money. So yeah, but I can't wait. I hope we don't get any like extreme 40 degree days in the next week and a half before that happens. Because yeah, I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle it. I'm going to have to like drive the car into the city, into Geelong and just hang out in the mall, I think, and enjoy their air con over there.

Anyway, if you're in Australia, guys, I hope you're surviving okay and escaping the worst of it. I know today. In fact, the cyclone in Queensland, Cyclone Jasper has just smashed into Cairns and I think north of Cairns, right. Pork, port pork, Douglas, Port Douglas, and Cooktown as well, are getting the worst of it. So if you're up in that area too, I hope you guys are safe and sound and not getting blown away or rained into the ground. Anyway, thanks for joining me today, guys.

Remember, before we get into it, if you want to get access to the transcripts for all of these podcast episodes, be sure to sign up for the premium podcast membership at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. You'll get access to, obviously, the transcripts so you can read and listen at the same time. You can print them out, you can take notes, highlight things you can learn with the transcripts.

You can also use the Premium Podcast player to read and listen simultaneously on the website. That's a great way of obviously consuming the podcast episodes and you'll get all the bonus episodes, so go check that out at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. So today's question, today's Q&A. This one comes from Milad who asks "What does the phrase 'Mate, you're a gun!' mean?"

So if you call someone 'a gun', that's a bit of a weird, a weird expression in English. 'You're a gun, dude', 'this guy's a gun'. 'This chick's a gun'. 'They're a gun'. 'A gun' like a gun, pew! pew!

So 'a gun' here, if you call someone 'a gun' in Australian English, at least I assume it's probably used in America as well. I'm not sure about Britain. It means that someone is incredibly good at what they're doing. Right? They're the best at that thing. Or at least very competent at that thing.

So maybe "My mate is an artist and he's an absolute gun at it", right? 'A gun at something'. "He's an incredible artist. He's a gun." You could also use it like 'top bloke' or 'top sheila'. Although yeah, you wouldn't really say 'top sheila'. 'Top bloke' is like an amazing guy, right? "I've got a mate. He's a top bloke. He's an absolute gun", right. "He's just a lovely guy. He's just the best. He's a gun and he's really good at cooking." "He's an absolute gun when it comes to cooking."

Now, the other way that you'll hear this being used in English, 'guns', right. To have guns. We can use this to mean muscular arms. Right. Well-developed bicep muscles, usually. So someone will hold their arms up beside their head and be like, "Whoa, check out my guns". Right. "Did you get a ticket?" "To what?" "The gun show?!" Right.

So it's encouraging to note that Schwarzenegger wasn't born with massive guns, right? So Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't born with huge 'guns'. He had to work on them and take quite a bit of steroids as well. So. So anyway, that's 'a gun'. Okay. All right, slap the bird. Let's get into today's joke. And yeah, it's a it's a bit of a funny one. All right, so give the bird a kick. Let's go.

All right, so "What gun does a military chef use?" Hmm. A chef in the military. What gun do they use? "What gun does a military chef use?" This is awful. "A salt [assault] rifle!" "A salt [assault] rifle!" Right.

I guess that would be like a rifle that shoots salt. I've seen those for sale on Facebook for killing flies in Australia here. I've never actually bought one, because I feel like you're just going to end up with salt all over your house, funny that. And dead flies, but yes. 'A salt rifle' versus 'an assault' rifle, right?

An 'assault rifle' is a lightweight rifle developed from the submachine gun, which may be set to fire automatically or semi-automatically. So obviously people in the military are going to use assault rifles. A S S A U L T 'assault rifle' and a military chef, if he needs to fire salt into his meals, might use a rifle that is 'a salt' S A L T 'rifle', 'a salt rifle'. So, yeah. Ugh, bad joke.

All right, so let's get into today's expression 'to get your story straight', 'to get your story straight'. So before we do that, let's get through all the different words in this expression to get this verb. Man, this has a lot of different meanings, right?

'To get something' here, usually it means to obtain or receive something, right, to achieve something, to reach or cause to reach a specified state or condition. So, "You can get thinner." "She got a pay rise at work", right? To receive that thing, to become that thing, to achieve that thing, 'to get'.

'Your'. This is the second person possessive pronoun. "This is your father." "This is your mother." "Is that your guinea pig?" "Is that your dog?" 'Your'.

'Story'. 'Story' is an account of well, it can be imaginary or real people, events or other things told for entertainment, right? So an 'adventure story'. "I love reading stories", right? A 'story book'. "I read a story book to my kids."

But it can also be an account of past events in your life. So, "I want to hear about the story of your early childhood", right? A 'story'.

And then, 'straight'. 'Straight', extending or moving uniformly in one direction only. Right? Without a curve or a bend or a twist. 'Straight'. 'Dead straight'. "This road that we're driving on is dead straight." It goes in a straight line.

But 'straight' here, 'to get your story straight', in the expression means correct, aligned, settled or finalised. So, "I need it to be straight. I need it to be correct."

So how would you define 'get your story straight'? This can be to give one's account of something in a clear, comprehensive and accurate manner, especially in a way that corrects or clears up a previous mistake or misunderstanding.

So 'to get your story straight'. "Let me get it straight." "Let me get your story straight." "I'm going to get my story straight." But it can also mean to construct or deliver an alibi or explanation that does not contradict itself or conflict with someone else's. Okay, 'to get your story straight', this will be a little a little clearer as we go through some examples of how to use this.

So example number one. A great recent example in Australia would be the voice to Parliament referendum, where the population of Australia had to vote on whether or not Indigenous Australians would have a voice to Parliament. A big issue with this 'voice to parliament referendum' was that the government, the Labour government, didn't 'get their story straight'. They didn't put together a clear and concise way of communicating what 'the voice' was about. They sort of fumbled over things and they confused the public.

And so Australia ultimately voted no to the voice to Parliament. So they didn't 'get their story straight'. They really needed to 'get their story straight'. If they were going to convince the Australian public to vote yes.

Example number two. Imagine you and your best mate are criminals, right? Your crims and you have recently been arrested for, I don't know, being caught at a crime scene where there was a theft, right? Or maybe you kidnapped someone, maybe there was a murder nearby, or a huge robbery. But the cops, they've grabbed you, they've nabbed you. They've taken you back to the cop shop, to the police station.

And just as they have taken you guys together out of the divvy van. Right. The cop car, both of you look at each other and say, "We better get our story straight", right? "We better get our stories straight". The idea here being that they're- both people need to tell the same story. They need to construct and deliver a good alibi, a reason that they weren't the ones that the cops should consider the criminals in this story. They need to both construct and have a consistent story as to not contradict each other. Because obviously, if they tell two completely different stories, they'll look guilty, right? So they need to 'get their stories straight'.

Example number three. A great example is Silverchair's memoir. This was released a little while back by the bassist and the drummer of Silverchair, one of Australia's most famous bands. And so yeah, they were huge in the 90s and the 2000s. And when the bassist and the drummer's memoir was released, there was a lot of controversy in the news because the frontman, Daniel Johns, I think that's his name. Right? Daniel Johns had a falling out with these guys and never got to proofread or give his feedback on the book. So he didn't get to add his two cents, his point of view.

And there was a bit of criticism in there, apparently, about him, but he didn't get to defend himself. So there was a lot of arguing, going back and forth in the media, and neither side seemed to have their story straight, right? So it was a bit confusing. We didn't know who was telling the truth. No one had their story straight. It was confusing.

So, 'to get your story straight', if you 'get your story straight', you give an account of something that is clear and comprehensive, or you construct and deliver an alibi or an explanation that doesn't contradict itself or conflict with someone else's right. Two criminals have to get their story straight so that they're believed by the police.

So as usual, guys, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise. This is where you can work on your spoken English. So listen to these words and phrases as I say them out loud and then repeat them out loud yourself. Are you ready to rock? Let's go!

To. To get. To get your. To get your story. To get your story straight. To get your story straight. To get your story straight. To get your story straight. To get your story straight. I need to get my story straight. You need to get your story straight. He needs to get his story straight. She needs to get her story straight. We need to get our story straight. They need to get their story straight. It needs to get its story straight.

Great work guys. Great work. So there's some really interesting stuff happening there with connected speech 'to get your' 'to get your story', 'to get your story straight', 'to get your story straight' What do you notice happening between the words 'get' and 'your', right? What happens to the /tuh/ sound and the /yuh/ sound at the end of 'get' and start of 'your'? 'get' 'your' becomes /get̬chor/ /get̬chor/ /to get̬chor story straight/ to get̬chor story straight/.

So this is called assimilation where we have two different sounds that kind of fuse together in spoken English. They get contracted together and they form a new sound which is /tuh/ and /yuh/, becoming /chuh/. So /get/ /your/ becomes /get/ /cho(r)/ and we reduce 'your', the vowel sound in 'your' /or/ to the schwa sound /uh/ /getchuh/ /getchuh/. /getchuh story straight/ /to getchuh story straight/.

Same thing happens with 'to', right? The /oo/ vowel sound becomes /uh/, /tə getchuh story straight/, /tə getchuh story straight/.

Now the interesting thing you'll notice with the phrases 'I need to get my story straight', 'You need to get your story straight', 'He needs to get his story straight'. And I did that quickly. Sorry. Is that the T at the end of the word 'get' can be different depending on the word following it, right? So whether it is a consonant, it is the yod like the /yuh/ at the start of 'your' or it's a vowel sound.

So, 'get my'. When I say 'get my' I'm muting the T, 'geT'. So I'm sticking the tongue to the roof of my mouth and saying 'geT' 'geT/ /to geT my/ /to geT my/. 'get' 'your' becomes /geTchoR/ or /geTcha/ /geTcha/. Remember the assimilation /geTcha/.

/geT his/ and /geT her/ /geT our/ and /geT its/ all have the T flap at the end of the word 'get'.

So it happens with 'his' and 'her'. Because we delete the H. We don't say the H, we say /geT'is/ /geT'er/. This is H deletion, /geT'is/ /geT'er/ /geT'awr/ and /geT'its/. So the T becomes a T flap.

And then in the case of 'get there', the T also gets muted, like /geT my/, /geT there/ /geT there/ /geT there/.

Lastly, 'need to' and 'needs to' become /neeDah/ and /needsTah/ /neeDah/ and /needsTah/.

So remember guys, if you want to master Australian pronunciation, be sure to check out my Australian Pronunciation course and use this link. You'll save $100 if you use this link when signing up. AussieEnglish.com.au/apc100. So go check it out. Inside you'll learn how to pronounce all the different vowel sounds and consonant sounds in Australian English. Then you go through some really advanced lessons, including things like what we talked about today, assimilation, reduction, linking of words and sounds. Everything like that to help you with your spoken English. So remember go to AussieEnglish.com.au/apc100.

Okay, so the final little part here for today's episode guys, is where I'm going to play a little clip for you from an Australian film called Nitram. "Nitram, a lonely and frustrated man meets Helen, a reclusive heiress, and the two develop a close friendship. When the relationship ends tragically, Nitram becomes the cause of a great disaster."

Hmm. So the rules of the game, guys, I'm going to play this clip for you two times, and your job is to listen and write down what you hear being said. Remember, you can check the answer. If you are a premium podcast member, you'll be able to see what's being said in the transcript. Obviously. Otherwise you can download the- I'm Having a brain fart- the free PDF download from the website for the page that is this episode. Okay, so you can download that for free. Man, it's been a long day. All right. Anyway, are you ready to to go through the first playthrough? Let's do it.

When he was a little boy, we used to play a game at the fabric shop in town. He'd go off and hide in all the big, tall rolls of fabric, and then I'd try and find him.

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

When he was a little boy, we used to play a game at the fabric shop in town. He'd go off and hide in all the big, tall rolls of fabric, and then I'd try and find him.

All right, awesome job guys. I hope you have an absolutely amazing week and I will see you next time. Tooroo!