Transcript of AE 1241 - Expression: A One-Trick Pony

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? Hope you're having a good week. Well, weekend, these episodes come out on a Sunday, so weekend, but I hope your week was also good. Prior to this weekend, what did I get up to? I have been running around like a headless chook over the past weekend because I took my kids up to Melbourne, to a suburb, a suburb called Camberwell, where we caught up with my grandmother, my grandfather, and all the extended family because it was her 90th birthday, it was my grandmother's 90th birthday.

But it was awesome because my kids got to sort of meet a whole bunch of family members and other young cousins and everything that they didn't really know very well, or maybe hadn't even met in the past. And they also got to hang out with my cousins, who are pretty young. I have some cousins who are about, geez, what are they, 15, 17 and 19, I believe. So my uncle had them at a much later age than his siblings had their kids.

So yeah, that was a lot of fun, a lot of playing in the yard, eating good food, hanging out with good people. And then, yeah, just managing the kids in the car for that drive, which was about two hours either way. So yeah, that was my weekend.

So before we get into today's episode, guys, as always, don't forget if you do want the transcripts to all these podcast episodes, except for the Pete's 2cents episodes, so something like 1200 episodes, if you want the transcript so you can read and listen at the same time, study the vocab, learn the grammar, all that sort of stuff. Sign up to the premium podcast at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast, and you'll also get access to bonus episodes.

You'll be able to use the premium Podcast player, which is a little audio and text player on each of the podcast episodes pages so you can read listen at the same time. You can obviously download the transcript, print it out, do whatever you want to it, write on it, read it backwards. It's really up to you at the end of the day. But yeah, the whole point is to give you access to extra resources to help you learn Australian English. So again that is AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast.

So let's get into today's Q&A. So today's question comes from Matt who asked on Instagram. He said "I've heard people using 'rather' in order to correct themselves. Can you please explain what this means and how they're using it?" So 'rather' R A T H E R.

So this has quite a few different meanings, right? We can use it when showing preference for one thing over another thing. You know, "I rather dogs than cats. I grew up with dogs all my life. I don't really like cats, so I rather I prefer dogs". But in this case, when people are using the word 'rather' to correct themselves. For instance, "He walked, or rather, he ran to the shops" where they're using 'rather' here. They're putting it, in this case in front of another verb or another. Yeah, another verb here. And they're showing "Oh, well, it's not really walked. I meant ran." Right. So 'rather', 'rather ran'. "He walked, or rather, ran."

So literally we're using 'rather' here to mean more precisely, more accurately or "what I mean to really say is.." Right. So "He walked, or rather, ran, to the shops" or "He commanded and I obeyed. Or rather, I pretended to obey." So hopefully that makes sense. You can use it in these sorts of examples where you sort of clarify what you really mean. Right? So it's usually in spoken English where you've said something and then you're kind of like trying to correct yourself and be like, "Well, more accurately, more precisely, this is what I mean" right?

So, you know, it was "It was wet yesterday, or rather, it was soaking wet." You know, it was, it was pissing down rain. It was raining cats and dogs. You know, "It rained yesterday. Well, rather it rained cats and dogs." It was an absolute massive storm. It was ridiculous. Right. So yeah, you're sort of clarifying. So hopefully that answers your question Matt. But good one. All right. Kick the bird. Slap it, punch it. Get that kookaburra to sing. And let's get into today's joke!

Okay, so today's joke ties into the expression. Hopefully you can see the connection, okay. So, are you ready for this one? "How do you get a pony's attention?" Right? A pony, a small horse. "How do you get a pony's attention." "You just have to yell, 'Hay!'[Hey]" "You just have to yell, 'Hay!'[Hey]" Do you guys get it?

So that's how you spelled H E Y as opposed to H A Y. So 'hey', spelled H E Y is used to attract attention, to express surprise, interest, or annoyance, or to elicit agreement. Right. So you may hear people say something like, "'Hey', what are you doing?" And they're using, 'hey', it's sort of "Oi!", "Oi! Yeah, you!", "Hey! What are you doing?" to get your attention.

You may use it as like, a greeting to show that you're happy or surprised, you know. "Oh, hey, Pete. It's you, mate!" "Pete! Hey! How are you?" So that's. Hey H E Y.

Then we have. Hay, H A Y. And this is grass that has been mown. So you've mowed it, you've mowed it, you've mown it with a lawn mower, and then it's been dried to use as fodder. And 'fodder' F O D D E R is food for livestock, right. So horses and ponies eat 'hay'. "The farmer harvested all the 'hay' in his field." And in Australia in particular, you'll notice 'hay' in fields at the moment at least I think. Yeah, pretty much now. Right, in spring, at least locally.

This is the period of the year where they start harvesting all the 'hay' in the fields and you'll see these kind of, what are they like, um, cylindrical looking bundles of. Yeah, hay, grass. Right. Just sitting in fields. And they eventually get collected up and then obviously transported to places for livestock like ponies and horses to eat.

So that was the joke. "How do you get a pony's attention? You yell, 'Hay!" Ugh. All right, let's get into today's expression!

Today's expression is "a one-trick pony". I wonder if you know this expression "a one-trick pony". Let's go through the words and what they mean. We'll then go through the definition. The origin. Some uses, a pronunciation exercise, and then a little listening exercise at the end as well. Okay.

So, 'a'. 'A' 'an', it's the indefinite article a non-specific thing. Right? "I have 'a' car." "He owns 'an' axolotl." "She likes 'a' guy."

'One'. This is very similar to 'a' or 'an' a single unit of something. You know, the lowest cardinal number. Half of two, one. "I have one friend." "I have a friend." "He owns one dog." "He owns a dog." "She likes one guy. Not two guys. Not ten guys. Just one guy."

'A trick'. So this can mean many things. But in this case, it is a skillful act performed for entertainment or amusement. Right. So you might get a job at a circus doing tricks for the crowds. Maybe you can do some party tricks, like a backflip or a card trick. So, "Her cat has been taught to do a bunch of tricks." Trick.

'One-trick something'. So here we're using a kind of I guess it's a compound adjective, a one-trick something, and it's obviously a way of describing a thing, something as being able to do just one trick, as opposed to two tricks. Five tricks, a million tricks. It's a one-trick. Something, you know, a one-trick. Something can only do one trick.

And lastly, a 'pony'. This is a horse of a small breed, especially one below 15 hands. Well, or more precisely, for 14 hands and two inches. So hands. This is. We should mention this. 'Hands' are actually a measurement that is used- The only place I know where this is used in English at least, that I'm aware of is measuring how high a horse is. Right? So it's a weird, it's a weird thing. I don't know why I'd have to look into it.

It's probably American. Well, actually, it's probably British. And yeah, it's used to talk about how tall a horse is. And I'm not sure if it's to the shoulder or to the head how they decide. But hands. We use 'hands' in English to describe how tall a horse is. I wonder if you guys do it in other languages. I wonder if the Portuguese say mão, right. Mão, meaning 'hand'. So yeah, "She's part of the 'pony' club." "He loves riding 'ponies' on the weekend." A pony, a small horse.

Now, 'a one-trick pony'. Literally. This would be a pony. A small horse that can just do a single trick. Right? But the meaning of this expression here is a person or a thing with only one special feature or talent or area of expertise. So it's only able to do a single thing well.

And it's interesting. I was looking up the origin and according to learn- LearningEnglish.com, some word experts say the idiom 'one-trick pony' comes from the circus. "A circus pony that can only do one trick is not going to entertain a crowd for very long. The term one-trick pony appeared around the turn of the 20th century, so guess that's the early 1900s. Within about 50 years, the term had become an idiom." So pretty cool, huh?

All right, let's go through three examples of how I would use the expression 'a one-trick pony'. "That guy's a bit of a one-trick pony." "My car's a bit of a one-trick pony." Can it just do one thing? All right.

Example number one. Imagine you buy a dog for your family. This is something we're currently debating thinking over, right. My family, you get at home, you know, maybe you've bought a Labrador. You bring it home, your family is ecstatic. They're happy, they're amazed. They're excited. They're like, oh my gosh, we have our first puppy. Our first dog. And you're thinking as the parent, oh my God, I'm going to have to do so much training. This is going to be so much work. It'll be me feeding the thing, cleaning up the poo and the wee in the house, taking the dog for a walk in the early mornings and in the evenings. So much added work.

So anyway, you realise you're going to have to train this dog over the coming weeks and months so that it will hopefully behave well and hopefully it'll learn all the basic commands like 'come', 'sit', 'stay', 'lie down', 'fetch', 'heel'. Okay, which tends to be used for like "You can eat now, okay!" My parents used to always say, "Your turn!" I don't know where they learnt that. "Your turn!" Is it your turn to eat? I guess.

But it turns out the only command that your dog ever learns is 'come'. And that's it, right? He's. He's a one-trick pony. He can only learn one thing. That's the only trick he can do. He's a one trick pony. He can only come. He can't sit. He can't stay, he can't fetch. Hopefully he can eat. But all, all he knows, word wise, command wise, is 'come'. So the dog is 'a one-trick pony'. And it's kind of ironic saying that when it's not a pony, it's a dog. Right? But the idiom is a one-trick pony.

Example number two. You apply for your dream job. Maybe you want to get a job at a circus and you want to be a circus performer. You want to be an acrobat, right? And this is funny, one of my my friend's sisters, when I was at uni, she had a sister who was a, an acrobat, at one of the circuses. And yeah, could do insane tricks. Imagine you're trying to get a job like hers. You say you're an acrobat on your resume. You go to the verbal interview where they chat to you, and then everything seems fine, and it comes time for you to display the tricks that, you know, show us your talents, you know, what can you do? Can you juggle knives? Can you do backflips? What can you do? So this is where the truth comes out. Where the truth is revealed. Discovered that you actually only know a single trick. How to balance a chair on your nose. That's all you know. That's the only trick you can do.

You can't do anything else. You can just balance a chair on your nose and you're doing the trick and you're like, "Hey, hey, what do you reckon?" And the interviewers are thinking, "Okay. Well, that's cool. What's next? Show us some more stuff." And you're like, "Oh no, that's it." So they may say, "All right, well, we thought you kind of had more tricks up your sleeve. We thought you had more in your repertoire."

And "Yeah, it turns out you're just a one-trick pony, unfortunately. So we're not going to be able to hire you. We need someone who is able to do many tricks, not just a single trick. We can't hire a one trick pony. Sorry, mate. We can't give you the job."

An example. Number three. Maybe this is where it's kind of like a positive, right? A one-trick pony is a positive. You're a criminal and you're trying to organise a huge bank robbery. Maybe you hear there's, you know, $1 million worth of diamonds that has been deposited in this bank. And you need to get a team together of crack thieves who know how to use their specific talents and abilities to break into the vault, into the bank. And you guys can get away and steal the diamonds. So one of the team is a getaway car driver. That's all he knows how to do. Another one is a weapons expert, and he's going to be able to control the bankers and maybe, you know, shoot the cops and let you get away.

And the last one is really good at breaking into vaults, right? Breaking into safes and being able to steal whatever, whatever's inside. So each person is a one-trick pony. They just know how to do one thing. They have a single job that they're very, very good at, that they're very talented at, and that's all they need to know. And that's why you get them together as a team. Each of them is a one-trick pony.

So hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression a one trick pony. If you are a one-trick pony, you are a person or thing that is able to do one thing very well, right? You have a very single and specific feature, talent or area of expertise. A one-trick pony.

So as usual guys, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise where you can listen and repeat out loud after me these words and phrases and work on your Aussie accent. You're ready to rock. Let's do it! A. A one. A one-trick. A one-trick pony. A one-trick pony. A one-trick pony. A one-trick pony. A one-trick pony. I'm a one-trick pony. You're a one-trick pony. He's a one-trick pony. She's a one-trick pony. We're a one-trick pony. They're a one-trick pony. It's a one-trick pony.

Great work guys. All right so let's talk a little bit about pronunciation here. One-trick pony. So we can mute the K at the end of the word 'trick'. /one-triK pony/. And we do that because there is a consonant, a P that comes after the K. So this happens with stop consonants like K, P, B, T, G, and I'm missing one. There's six of them. Yeah, D! There we go, D. I got it. A /one-triK pony/. /triK pony/.

So any time with stop consonants like that, if we have a consonant coming straight after it, we can mute the consonant where we stop it in our mouth. Right? /triK pony/ /triK pony/ as opposed to /trick pony/. /triK pony/ /triK pony/ /a one-triK pony/.

You'll notice as well that the word 'a' becomes a schwa sound, right? So we just change that vowel sound from the diphthong /a/ to ə, and you'll notice this in the phrases /I'm ə one-triK pony/, /you're ə one-triK pony/, /he's ə one-triK pony/, /she's ə one-triK pony/. You'll notice we really skip over it quickly, and we do this a lot with things like articles, right? 'The' and 'a' and 'an'. They get reduced. /She's ə one-triK pony/ /We're ə one-triK pony/.

So that's it for today. Don't forget guys if you want to improve your pronunciation, be sure to check out my Australian Pronunciation course at AussieEnglish.com.au/apc and when you join up, you will learn how to use the International Phonetic Alphabet.

So you'll learn those special symbols so that you can recognise and understand how to use, how to pronounce all the different sounds in Australian English and English more generally. You'll then go through the 20 different vowel sounds in Australian English and the 24 different consonant sounds in Australian English. You'll go through video tutorials of how to pronounce them, and then exercises so that you can master them. And then lastly, there are 25 advanced English lessons to help you with things like connected speech.

You know, what happens with consonants, like D Stop Consonants that are then followed by a vowel sound, versus a consonant sound, all that sort of stuff. So go check that out at AussieEnglish.com.au/apc.

Now the last little section here guys. This is where we are going to play a little clip for you from an Australian TV show called Cleverman. It's a great series as it has loads of Indigenous Australian actors in it, and it is infused with Aussie indigenous culture and stories. So I really recommend checking this out. You should be able to find it online on websites like SBS On Demand or iView. Check it out. The excerpt is "In the very near future, creatures from ancient mythology must live among humans and battle for survival in a world that wants to silence, exploit and destroy them."

So the rules of the game. Guys, I'm going to play this clip for you twice, and your goal is to listen and then write down what you hear being said. You can obviously listen many more times than two times if you want. Just rewind. It's a great way to train your listening comprehension. There are multiple different accents, different Australian speaking in these sorts of clips.

Remember, you'll be able to check your answer in today's downloadable worksheet, which is free. It's at the bottom of the worksheet. You can see the answer there. There's also space for you to write what you hear being said. And obviously if you have the Premium Podcast Membership, you'll be able to see the answer in the transcript itself. So are you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

What have you got in the bag? Something dead in there? Take it. Go on! Your father would want you to have this. Hey, it's not a toy. Sure, Jimmy. Whatever.

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

What have you got in the bag? Something dead in there? Take it. Go on! Your father would want you to have this. Hey, it's not a toy. Sure, Jimmy. Whatever.

All right, guys. Awesome work. I'm actually thinking I have to go back and watch this series. It's been a long time, but Cleverman. What an awesome series. Go check it out. I hope you have an awesome weekend guys and I will chat to you next time. See ya!