Transcript of AE 1242 - Expression: Sell Yourself Short

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 flippin' 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, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So guys, I hope you've been having a really good weekend. What have I been up to this week? Recently I had my daughter at home so she normally goes to my parents place on a Tuesday. I think I mentioned to you guys my dad's going in for heart surgery, probably around the time that you're hearing this episode, so wish him luck. But as a result, they're kind of isolating themselves from the kids just to avoid getting any kind of illnesses, you know, viruses, diseases from day-care.

So anyway, on Tuesday, I got to hang out with my daughter, and one of the cool things that we got to do was go down to the beach, and we just sat there picking up shells. So she was sort of sifting through the sand, looking for all kinds of different shells, and ended up bringing back like a hundred of them that she shoved in her bag.

And then, um, yeah, it was really chuffed when we got home. She was playing with them all day. And then when Noah got home from Day-care, my son, she was showing him all these different shells. And yeah, it's just really fun hanging out with kids and kind of seeing all these things you take for granted that you wouldn't even really notice, right? You go to the beach and there's some shells on the sand and you're kind of like, Man, I'm an adult, I don't know, I don't care.

Where is all this stuff tends to be new with kids, and so it's so much fun hanging out with them and just sort of paying attention to what they find interesting and fascinating and what they get really excited about. Because quite often you kind of get to see it again and be like, Yeah, these things are pretty cool, you know? So Joey was showing me all these different shells she'd found and Oh, this one's the mama one. This one's the baby one, and this one's the brown one. So that was a lot of fun.

So before we get into today's content, guys, don't forget, if you want the transcripts for these episodes so that you can read and listen at the same time, you want the bonus episodes, you want to be able to access the premium podcast player to read and listen whilst you watch the text, scroll on the webpage. Be sure to sign up for the premium podcast membership. You can get that at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast

So now let's get into today's question. Today's question comes from rayhane8 who asks "What does it mean when you ask someone something like 'Do you want more?' And they say, 'I'll pass.'"

So that's something we often say, 'I'll pass' or 'Just pass.' 'Yeah, no, I'll pass.' 'I'm good. I'll pass.' So this is cool. So we're using the verb 'to pass' here to mean forgo one's turn in a game, or when you're offered an opportunity to do something or to have something. Okay. So we could use this as a phrasal verb, like to pass on something. And the idea here would be someone's offered you something and you're like, 'I'm going to pass on this thing. I'm going to give it a miss.' 'I don't want this thing, thank you very much. But I'm not going to have this thing.' 'You know, I'm going to pass on this thing.' 'I'm going to give this thing a pass.' 'I'm going to pass.' Okay. So that's how we're using pass there.

And yeah. So, I don't know, some examples. Imagine you're at a tea party with some mates right. With some girls with some. Well boys, if they're drinking tea too. And someone offers you a slice of cake and you're like, 'Okay, yummy, this is great. This is cheesecake, my fave. My favourite.' And then they're like, 'Oh, do you want another slice?' You might say, 'You know what? I'm pretty stuffed. I'm full. I've had enough cheesecake, so I'll pass.' Or you could say, 'I'll pass on the next piece of cheesecake.' 'I'll pass on that piece of cheesecake. I'm just going to pass', right. 'Give it to someone else.' 'Offer it to someone else. Go. Pass me.' 'Pass it on to somebody else. I'll pass.' 'You can pass me.' 'You don't have to give me that piece of cheesecake.'.

So hopefully, there you go, you understand the little phrase there. It's a cool little phrase to use, you know, to say you'll pass on something or just you'll pass when someone offers you something. But you're, like, politely, you want to say 'no', 'no, thank you'. Right? Okay, give the bird a kick, a slap, make the kookaburra cry out, and let's get into today's joke.

So today's joke is "Why was the builder so short?" Hmm? "Why was the builder so short?" "Because he'd been contracting for a long time!" You get it? "Because he'd been contracting for a long time." It's interesting, isn't it?

I noticed my emphasis there, so it depends on how I would emphasise that word, where I would put the stress. "He's been CONtracting for a long time." "He's been conTRACting for a long time."

So the difference there would be CONtract and conTRACT. So if you conTRACT with the schwa there at the start of the word contract C O N T R A C T, this means to decrease in size, in number, in range, in extent, right? To get smaller, effectively. To conTRACT. "The universe isn't conTRACTing, it's expanding."

Whereas if you CONtract someone to do something or if you are CONtracting, this would be the idea that you are arranging for work to be done by another organisation, right? Another organisation might be paying you on a CONtract to do a certain amount of work. So you could say "He does a lot of CONtracting work."

It would sound weird if you were to say 'he does a lot of conTRACTing work'. It'd be like, 'What do you mean? He just shrinks all the time?' So hopefully you get the joke, guys. "Why was the builder so short?" "Because he had been conTRACTing for a long time." All right.

So anyway, let's get into today's expression, which is to "sell yourself short". I wonder if you see how that ties in with the the joke to "sell yourself short". Have you ever "sold yourself short"? Do you know this expression? So before we get into it, let's go through the words in the expression.

Sell. 'To sell' something. This is to give or hand over something in exchange for money. Right? So if I go to a shop and I want to buy a musical instrument, I bring the money and they have the instrument there, I pick the instrument and then give them the money. They've 'sold' me the instrument. "They 'sell' instruments."

Yourself. 'Yourself' is used to refer to the person being addressed as the object of a verb or preposition- it's such a boring definition, when they are also the subject of the clause. Gosh, Pete. 'Yourself' So, you could do something to 'yourself', right? He did something to himself. It's kind of that reflexive pronoun, right? We use it with verbs when we're showing that we're doing the verb to ourselves, or you are doing the verb to 'yourself'. He washed himself. You washed yourself, I wash myself. I'm sure you guys will know how to use yourself.

Short. Measuring a small distance from end to end. So the distance from my house to the neighbour's house is quite 'short'. It's not very long. It's a couple of metres, right, maybe three metres. It's a 'short' distance.

But here, 'to sell yourself short'. 'Short' here means to sell stocks or other securities or commodities in advance of acquiring them, with the aim of making a profit when the price falls. 'To short something.' So you'll often hear this in investment terms okay, 'to short something'. The rule prevents sellers from 'shorting' a stock unless the last trade resulted in a price increase. Okay, to 'short' a stock. To short something.

Okay, so 'to sell yourself short'. If you 'sell yourself short', the idea here is that you belittle yourself in judgement, right? You underestimate yourself and your abilities. You fail to see the good qualities of someone or something. You undervalue that thing. You don't give that person or that thing enough credit when they deserve it. Okay, 'to sell yourself short', and it's usually that reflexive thing of you do it to yourself. You're not going to 'sell someone else short'. Really. You sell yourself short. I sell myself short. He sells himself short. Et cetera.

So when I went to try and work out where this expression had come from, the origin of it, I went to the website, rollsoffthetongue.com Okay, so you can check it out here. And here's what they said. "Origin: 14th century British English -- The expression originally meant betting or forecasting that the price of something will go down in stock or other markets. Most people speculate that if they buy something, it will increase in value. This is called selling 'long', but you can also speculate that something will decrease in value. This is called selling 'short'." So we sort of covered that earlier on when talking about the definitions of short.

So, "You borrow stock for a specific amount of time. At the end of the time you have to return it. The idea is to sell it at the same price in hopes that the price will go down by the time you have to return the stock, and you get to keep the difference." So that's how you make money there.

"Essentially, it's selling something you don't really own. This is a common practice in the commodities markets, where predicting price fluctuation often depends on seasonal weather changes and predictable supply and demand. Going long and short are old financial terms going back to the Middle Ages." So there you go guys. I didn't realise how long we'd been using those kinds of financial terms. "It's not clear when selling oneself short came into metaphoric usage, but most likely it was in the 19th century, possibly in the US."

So there you go. That's pretty cool. So let's go through some examples of how I would use the expression "to sell yourself short". Have you guys ever "sold yourselves short"? Okay.

Example number one you're at high school and it's lunchtime. So you're out in the yard hanging out with your mates, and they're all like, Let's play a game of footy!, right? We want to play some rugby or some AFL, we want to play footy. So there's about 20 of you. You get onto the oval and you line up and it's time to decide who's on what team, right? You've got to separate into two teams of ten.

You're unsure of whether or not you're good enough to play the game. You don't think anyone's going to pick you. So maybe you say, "Look guys, I'll pass." Right. See how I tied that back in? "You guys can pass on me." "I'm going to pass on this game. I don't think I'm good enough to play."

Your mates might say, "Mate, what are you smoking? What are you talking about? You're an amazing footy player. Don't sell yourself short." "You should be on my team. You shouldn't underestimate your abilities. You shouldn't be hard on yourself." "You shouldn't belittle yourself. You're an amazing player. Don't sell yourself short."

Example number two, at work. Perhaps your manager or boss calls you into the office for a chat, and perhaps initially, you're worried that you know you might be in some trouble. Maybe you think, "Oh gosh, what have I done? I'm going to get fired." There's some sort of issue.

But you realise after the door shuts that your boss or manager is pretty excited, right? They seem pretty happy, which is not what you would expect if you were about to get fired. And they open their mouths and it turns out you're going to get a promotion, or maybe you're going to get a pay rise, which is, you know, great news. However, the problem is you don't have a lot of confidence in yourself, right? You don't think you have the abilities to justify this pay rise or promotion.

And maybe you say that you can't accept it. You know, I've got to pass on this offer. See what I did? "I've got to pass", you know. "Sorry, I don't think I'm worth it." You know, "Find someone else for the job", and your boss may be like, "Mate, don't sell yourself short. Why are you selling yourself short? You've got some great skills. Great abilities. This promotion is going to be great for you. You're going to make a bit of extra money as well." And you're going to have, you know, more, more work that you can challenge yourself with. Don't 'sell yourself short'. You got this.

Example number three maybe you're a man or a woman who's been dating people for a long time, but you've somehow always been single at the end of the day, right? You haven't been able to find the right person. Your friends, though they all know you're an amazing catch. You're an amazing person. You would be an amazing girlfriend or boyfriend when and if you find the right partner. The problem is in their opinions you lack confidence. You don't think you're amazing, you don't think you're going to make anyone happy. You belittle yourself and you just scream. Lack of confidence. Someone who's unconfident and that's the one thing they wish you would change.

Just build your confidence a little bit. You shouldn't 'sell yourself short'. You'd be an amazing partner. We know you're amazing, so don't 'sell yourself short'. Be sure to remember how awesome you are next time you're on a date, let it out. You know. Let the other person sort of see the awesome thing that is you, and hopefully you'll end up with a boyfriend or girlfriend in no time.

So there you go, guys. That is the expression 'to sell yourself short'. If you 'sell yourself short', this is where you are belittling yourself in judgement. You're underestimating your abilities or skills. You are undervaluing yourself. You are 'selling yourself short'.

So as always guys, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise. This is a listen and repeat exercise. You can say these words and phrases out loud after me to work on your pronunciation, your connected speech, your cadence and rhythm. Everything like that. Okay, so are you ready to go? Let's do it.

To. To sell. To sell yourself. To sell yourself short. To sell yourself short. To sell yourself short. To sell yourself short. To sell yourself short. I don't want to sell myself short. You don't want to sell yourself short. He doesn't want to sell himself short. She doesn't want to sell herself short. We don't want to sell ourselves short. They don't want to sell themselves short. It doesn't want to sell itself short.

Great work, guys, man. There's some interesting connected speech going on. There was sort of paying attention to it whilst I was saying these phrases, man. All right, let's let's get into it. So I wonder if you hear what happens to the L sound when I say the word 'sell'. All right.

So I'm pronouncing the light L at the end of the word 'sell'. But when I say it and there is a /yuh/ sound, this is a, I guess a semi consonant or semivowel that's coming after the L. You'll hear, sometimes, the Dark L being used: to sewl◡yourself.

So instead of saying /sell/yourself/, I'm sort of rounding my lips. I'm bringing them in to make a little sort of O symbol shape with my lips and saying O instead of L, if that makes sense. To sel, to sel◡yourself, to swl◡yourself. And I do it really quickly to sel◡yourself.

And you'll notice also I do it in the word yourself instead of yourself. Right. Because it's, it's harder to say /ulf/ all right, and L and then an F sound, it's much easier to just use the Dark L with the F after it, with a consonant that comes after it, or a semivowel or consonant as well, to sel◡yourself. To sel◡yourself.

So you're going to notice this all the time in quickly spoken English. This is something that pretty much I think all Australians would do. There's probably a lot of Brits that do it, and Americans too. There may be the odd accent here and there or dialect where they do or don't, where they don't use the Dark L in the same places or the same way that we do. But by and large, I think this is something you're going to notice when people speak really quickly.

Now, when we were going through the phrases, I don't want to sell myself short, you don't want to sell yourself short. And then we got to 'he doesn't want to sel(h)imself short'. She doesn't want to sel(h)erself short. What do you notice happening to the L sound at the end of the word 'sell'? He doesn't want to sel(h)imself. She doesn't want to sel(h)erself.

So now, because we're using h deletion, we're not saying the H at the start of the words, 'himself' and 'herself', we're saying (h)imself (h)erself. We're linking with the L at the end of the word sell. And to do that, we can't do it with a Dark L, otherwise it'll sound like a weird W sound. /sewl(h)imself/. It just. It's weird. So you use the Light L sell himself. He doesn't want to sel(h)imself short. He doesn't want to sel(h)imself short. Sel(h)imself. She doesn't want to sel(h)erself short, sel(h)erself, sel(h)erself short.

And then beyond that, you'll notice this also happening with "We don't want to sell ourselves short" and "It doesn't want to sell itself short." And that's because 'ourselves' and 'itself' start with a vowel sound, /sel◡auə'selvz/, /sel◡itself/.

But the other interesting thing was how we're saying /don't wanna/ /doesn't wanna/ how those are getting contracted. So listen to these phrases again. I'll try and say them as naturally as I would when speaking quickly. /I don't wanna sel◡myself short/. /I don't wanna/.

In fact, I can track that even more than I think I was saying when I was reading these phrases out. /I don't wanna/ /I don't wanna sel◡myself short/ /I don't wanna sel◡myself short/ /Don't wanna/ /Don't wanna/ /He doesn't wanna sel◡(h)imself short/ /He doesn't wanna/ /doesn't wanna/ /He doesn't wanna sel◡(h)imself short/ /She doesn't wanna sel◡(h)erself short/ /doesn't wanna/ \

So we do this quite often with auxiliary verbs. So 'don't', in this case, and 'doesn't', as well as the verbs like 'want' with the preposition 'to' that comes after it: /wanna/ instead of /want/ /to/. So instead of saying /I don't want to sell myself short/, I contract it all the way down to /I don't wanna sel◡myself short/. /He does not want to sell himself short/. /He doesn't wanna sel◡(h)imself short/. So there you go guys. We did quite a bit there today in connected speech and contractions and linking.

Remember, if you want to level up your pronunciation, especially your Australian English pronunciation, check out my Australian pronunciation course. Just go to AussieEnglish.com.au/apc100. If you put in the number 100 after APC, so the letters APC and then the numbers 100, you will get $100 off the Australian Pronunciation Course. Okay, so that's my way of giving you a 33% discount and saying thank you and your way of saving a bit of a buck, but also being able to work on your Australian accent. So go check it out at AussieEnglish.com.au/apc100.

All right finishing up today I have a little clip here for this listening comprehension exercise which comes from the TV show called Glitch. I wonder if you've seen the TV show Glitch. It's an Aussie show. The excerpt is: "A police officer in a small country town finds his life turned upside down when six recently deceased residents return from the dead in perfect health." That would freak you out, right? If all of a sudden there were six people that you thought were dead, but they're in perfect health that it just come back into your town and they're like, "G'day, Pete! How's it going?" And you're like, "You died 20 years ago. What are you doing, Bob?"

Anyway, the name of the game is to listen to the clip that I'll play for you two times and try and write down what you hear being said. Okay? And remember, you can check your answer in today's transcript. If you are a premium podcast member, you can sign up for that at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. Otherwise, you can download today's free worksheet on the website and it has the answer at the bottom of the worksheet. It also has a link to watch the trailer for the show Glitch, and you'll also have space to write out what you hear being said. So are you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

I was wondering when you'd end up here. You know Charlie Thompson helped pay for this place. Really? Mm hmm. Wow. If he founded this place, that would explain why his medals are here. They are?

Good job. So, how'd you go? I know it was a bit of a long one. And I should tell you, the name is Charlie Thompson. Sometimes names are sort of difficult when learning a foreign language, but the name that is mentioned here is Charlie Thompson. Okay, ready for the second playthrough? Let's do it.

I was wondering when you'd end up here. You know Charlie Thompson helped pay for this place. Really? Mm hmm. Wow. If he founded this place, that would explain why his medals are here. They are?

All right. Great work guys. That's it from me today. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will see you next time. Tooroo!