Transcript of AE 1226 - Expression - More (Something) Than You Could Poke a Stick at

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 podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So I hope you guys have been having a ripper of a week. A really good week. I hope you guys have been living it up, living your best lives. It's just the start of my week to be honest. The kids are away at daycare so whilst the cats are away, the mice will play as the expression goes. So yeah, whilst they're at daycare I get to play at home and by play I mean work. So yeah. What have I been up to? This weekend has been a bit of a busy one. We did a lot of stuff for the, for the kids, mainly socialising with other friends who've got children and also doing things like swimming lessons and going shopping and getting clothes for the kids.

So it's yeah, it's one of those things the older you get and once you have children, you realise, you know, I'm still in this position where I'm like, Oh wow, the weekend's here, the weekend's here. But it's like, I haven't realised yet that the weekend is actually busier than the weekdays where it's all kid-centric, right? The kids are at home and you have to come up with things to keep them occupied. So it's tough. It's tough to really find find time for you guys to do stuff right when your parents on the weekends.

Anyway, I'll stop complaining and mention before we get into today's episode that if you want the Premium Podcast membership, if you want to get access to the transcripts to these episodes so you can read and listen at the same time, which is the most effective way at levelling up your English, you can get access to those at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. So you'll get bonus episodes, you'll get the Premium Podcast player so you can read and listen at the same time on your phone, tablet or computer, and you'll also get the downloadable worksheets and MP3s so that you can study anywhere, anytime at home. You can print out the worksheets, everything like that, and the transcripts, I should add as well.

So besides that, let's get into today's Q and A, the question and answer, and this one comes from Ahmed_battah. So he asks, "Why is the Australian women's soccer team called the Matildas?" Now this is a really interesting question. I actually had to look this up because I mean, I sort of know where the name comes from, Waltzing Matilda, the song Waltzing Matilda. Hopefully you guys have heard this. "Waltzing Matilda. Waltzing Matilda, You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me." This is a rather old song. It's probably over 100 years old. And it refers to a vagabond, we would say in English, someone who is sort of homeless and wandering around the countryside looking for work. And his 'Matilda' is his swag. It's the thing that he carries on his back.

And so the idea of Waltzing Matilda, right, it's kind of a joke suggesting he is doing a waltz, which is a type of dance with a woman. He is actually walking around with his swag on his back. He is Waltzing Matilda. He's walking around with his swag on his back. So that's sort of where Matilda comes from in the sense of the name for the women's team, the nickname for the women's team for Australian soccer.

Now, apparently before 1995, the nickname for the women's team was the female Socceroos, Right? And the Socceroos, the male team in Australia, the male soccer team. So I imagine that's why they probably wanted a different name instead of just 'female Socceroos'. So apparently on the Special Broadcasting Service, there was a sort of vote that was put out there, to work out what people wanted to call the female soccer team, Australia's female soccer team. And 'Matildas' is what ended up winning and apparently the players themselves didn't really approve of the name or like it for quite a few years. So yeah, that's where it comes from.

So let's get into today's joke, guys. Slap the bird, give it a kick and let's hear the kookaburra cry and then we'll get into the joke. Okay, So connecting today's joke with soccer, seeing as we were just talking about that, here's the joke. "Why did the soccer ball quit the team?" "Why did the soccer ball quit the team?" You guys are going to hate this. And by hate, I mean love. "It was tired of being kicked around." You get it? "It was tired of being kicked around."

If someone gets 'kicked around', this is the idea that they're being treated badly. So, you know, it could be literally that they're being kicked around the place. Right. They're being kicked so hard that they're getting moved around a location. But we'd usually use this term. I guess it's, um, it's an adjective, but it's kind of like a phrasal verb, right. 'To kick' someone around would be the verb 'to be kicked around'. Is the adjective there? I guess it's a compound adjective, like multiple words, but we would use it more figuratively. Metaphorically. Right. You're being 'kicked around'. You're being treated badly, you're being bullied. You're being treated very poorly by other people, being 'kicked around'.

So, "I hate working at this place. I feel like I just get kicked around by everyone. They treat me horribly." So, "Why did the soccer ball quit the team?" "It was tired of being kicked around." So the idea here is like the soccer ball is being bullied by everyone on the team, but it's literally being kicked around because it's the ball, right? So yeah, that's the joke. That's the joke.

All right, let's get into the expression. Today's expression is "more something than you can poke a stick at", "more than you could poke a stick at." I wonder if you have you've heard this expression before. You may also hear it as "more than you could shake a stick at", "shake a stick", "poke a stick". You know, you're going to hear either of these. But I think the most common one is going to be "more [something]", "more of [a thing]", "more of [that thing] than you could poke a stick at".

So let's go through the different words in this expression. So, "more", "more of something". This is a greater or additional amount or degree of something, right? "There is more chips in the bowl than I think I can eat", Right? "There's more chips in the bowl than I think I can eat." "There are more people here than I expected would come." All right. It's my birthday. It's my birthday. It's my birthday. And there are 4000 people that have come to my birthday. That is definitely more people than I thought would come. I was expecting three.

Okay. "Than". The word "than". This is used to introduce the second element in a comparison. So, "I'd rather go home than stay here", right? You're comparing 'home' versus 'here'. I'd rather go home. I'd prefer that thing. "I'd rather go home than stay here." 'Than' this thing, 'than' you.

"You" is the second person pronoun, right? So, "What are you doing?" "Is that you outside?" "Who's knocking on my door? Is that you?"

"Could". "Could" is a modal verb. So this can mean 'would be able to' in this sense, right. In the sense of this expression would be able to. "Could". "You would be able to climb the ladder if you wanted. You could climb the ladder if you wanted." "He could just come inside. He would be able to just come inside." It's funny, though, that you could- "he could just come inside". That sounds so much more natural. "He could just come inside than if you were to say, 'Look, he would be able to just come inside." So it is funny that they're synonyms, but you would choose could in that example. So that's good.

"Poke", "to poke something". This is a good verb. "Don't poke the bear." If you poke something, you jab or prod that thing with your finger or a sharp object, right? You poke at it. So you might get a chopstick. You know, you're eating food. You've gone to a beautiful Japanese sushi restaurant and they've given you some chopsticks to eat your food with. And you're poking the food with your chopsticks, right? You should probably just be using the chopsticks to pick it up, but instead you're poking it.

"A" There are so many words in this expression. "A" This is the indefinite article similar to 'an', 'A' and 'an'. One of something, but something non-specific, right? "There is a new song on the radio." "There is a new song." Could be any song. It's not this song. It's not the song that I mentioned earlier. It's just a song. "There's a song that's new."

"Stick", "a stick". This is a thin piece of wood that's fallen off a tree, right? Or it's been cut off a tree, a stick. You know, "I fell over and I fell on a stick and hurt my back." "Joey hit Noah in the head the other day with a stick." My daughter, she picked up a stick outside and smacked Noah in the head with it. And he wasn't, he wasn't chuffed. He wasn't too pleased.

And the last word. Oh, we finally got there. Guys, I wonder if this is the longest expression I've ever done in terms of how many words are in it.

"At", "at", expressing the object of a look, thought, action or plan. "What are you looking at?" Or expressing the target of something like a weapon. "Someone shooting at me!", "Someone throw a rock at me", right. At, at, at, at.

Okay. So if you "have more of something than you can poke a stick at". If there's more than- more of- more something- "more something than you can poke a stick at", there is a lot of it, right? There is loads of that thing, tons of that thing, heaps of it. There is a lot of it.

There is "more of [that thing] than you can poke a stick at". Right? So there's obviously a lot if you were sitting there poking a stick at that thing going, here's one, here's another one, here's another one, there's another one. I'm using the stick to poke at all these things. If there is more of that thing than you would ever be able to poke a stick at, there is obviously quite a lot of those things.

Now, I looked up the origin and it led me to chroniclelive.co.uk, which says the origin of the expression includes the following. "Farmers controlled their sheep by shaking their staffs to indicate where the animal should go. When farmers had more sheep than they could control, it was said that they had more than you could poke a stick at." Or "more than you could shake a stick at." Right? So how cool is that? That's where that expression originally came from.

So let's go through some examples of how to use this expression "more something than you could poke a stick at" or "shake a stick at". At the moment, my son Noah is obsessed with toy cars, trucks, bikes, pretty much any kind of vehicle, if you can get it as a toy. He's either got it or wants to get it, right. He's got an enormous collection. We have an abundance of vehicular toys in the house, right. They're always all over the floor.

They're in the living room. They're in the bedroom under the dining room table. Under the couch in the bathroom, probably under the toilet. They're everywhere. He has "more [toys] than you could poke a stick at", right. More toy cars, bikes, trucks, all that sort of stuff. More of them than you could poke a stick at. I'm always treading on them in the night, falling over, clutching my foot, hoping it's not bleeding, crying out, pissed off that I didn't clean up all of his stuff. He has more of it. He has "more [toys] than you could poke a stick at". He's got loads of them. Tons of them. Heaps of them.

Example number two, when I was at school, I was just a pretty average kid, right? I remember at high school it was very how would you say everyone's kind of organising themselves socially. They're working out. Are you a kid that's got loads of friends? Someone who's got no friends? Are you nerdy? Are you sporty? Are you, you know, really studious, you know, all that sort of stuff. And I remember there used to be one kid at school who had "more [friends] than you could poke a stick at", right? It was this kind of kid who just everyone loved. I was the kind of kid where I think I rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. But I also had some really, really good friends. So I think part of that was just not putting up with people's shit.

So I think when people bullied me, I didn't just kind of take it. I was, you know, I had a quick mouth, so I would talk back. So yeah, I made a lot of enemies, but I also had a lot of good friends. Anyway, there was one kid I remember who had everyone pretty much as a friend. Everyone loved this person. So they had more friends, they had more mates, they had more buddies, "more [pals] than you could poke a stick at", "more [friends] than you could shake a stick at".

Example number three. This is sort of a literal and figurative example. So my grandparents on my mother's side of the family, her parents, her folks, they're still with us. They're in their 90s now, but they own a farm up near Bendigo. And when I was growing up, and even now, we go there quite a bit. But when I was growing up, we used to go all the time, right? Every other weekend we'd be up there at the farm and my grandfather farmed sheep and he had hundreds of sheep. So often we'd get there and we'd have to round them up for shearing or for, you know, if they were getting wormed or having their feet cleaned or whatever it was. Again, I can't really remember the specifics, but we used to do those sorts of things. He would get all the sheep together, we'd round them up, you know, we'd have dogs and we'd get them all into a single small paddock and when they were all in there, the place was bustling with sheep.

There seemed to be "more [sheep] than you could shake a stick at", "more [sheep] than you could poke a stick at". There were heaps of them, probably hundreds of them. There were "more [sheep in that paddock] than you could poke a stick at".

So hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression "more [something] than you could poke a stick at" or "more [something] than you could shake a stick at". It's just a very Aussie kind of colourful way of saying a lot of something. It's one of these expressions where it sort of shows your personality a little bit more, right? That you're a little more informal, that you are using because you're using so many words to say something very simple.

There's a lot of something, you know, "Wow, there's a lot of sheep over there." That's one way of saying it. But it's kind of vanilla, right? It's kind of plain. Whereas if you say, "Oh, mate, there's more sheep over there than you can poke a stick at", it's very Aussie, it's very colourful. It kind of adds a bit of culture to your language. So that's why I wanted to teach you it and that's why you'll probably hear people using it. They're kind of really trying to sound a little more Aussie when they say that kind of stuff and be a little more informal with their language.

So as usual, guys, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise where you can practice your speaking skills, try and find somewhere away from other people and repeat after me. You ready? Let's go. More. More than. More than you. More than you could. More than you could poke. More than you could poke a. More than you could poke a stick. More than you could poke a stick at. More than you could poke a stick at. More than you could poke a stick at. More than you could poke a stick at. More than you could poke a stick at. I've got more friends than you could poke a stick at. You've got more friends than you could poke a stick at. He's got more friends than you could poke a stick at. She's got more friends than you could poke a stick at. We've got more friends than you could poke a stick at. They've got more friends than you could poke a stick at. It's got more friends than you could poke a stick at. Good job, guys.

Now, there's quite a bit going on there. I think what we'll cover today is a little bit of the emphasis, the intonation in these sentences, you know, which words are coming forward, being sort of stressed and which are being left reduced or unstressed. So if I say the phrase 'more than you could poke a stick at', which words do you hear being emphasised and which ones do you hear being reduced? 'More than you could poke a stick at', 'more', 'poke', and 'stick', right?

And maybe 'at', 'stick at', but still 'stick' comes forward further than 'at' in the sort of what would you say the way in which we put these, these words forward when we're saying these these phrases "more than you could poke a stick at". But then you'll notice 'than' 'you' 'could' and 'a' pretty much get reduced and given a schwa vowel sound "more than you could poke a stick at" "more than you could poke a stick at" "more than you could poke a stick at".

Pretty cool, huh? "More than you could poke a stick at". So understanding this, getting used to this, getting used to saying it will also allow you to hear it when it's being said to you. And this is going to allow you to understand quickly spoken connected speech. So when people do speak really quickly and they reduce these words and it feels like they all kind of get merged, meshed together or skipped over really quickly when they say things like then you could then you could more than you could poke a stick at. You're going to get used to hearing this so that you'll understand it much more quickly.

Now let's have a look at one of the full phrases. "You've got more friends than you could poke a stick at." "You've got more friends". So we almost say all of those. "You've got more friends". All those words emphasise sort of equally. "You've got more friends", although I should note have and has is reduced or connected to the pronoun before it. 'You've' 'he's' 'it's' 'they've' instead of 'they have' or 'he has'. "You've got more friends", 'got', we may say 'got' like /gət/, "you've got more"- You could do that potentially. "You've got more friends than you could poke a stick at" but you could also say 'you've got', "You've got more friends than you could poke a stick at." Yeah. So hopefully that helps, guys!

Don't forget, if you want to learn more about Australian pronunciation, connected speech, and how to sound Australian when speaking English so you can develop your own Aussie accent, check out my Australian Pronunciation course at AussieEnglish.com.au/apc. Now the last little section here, guys, we're going to go through a little clip from a, an Aussie film called Limbo. And the excerpt is "A jaded detective travels to a remote outback town in Australia to investigate the cold case murder of a local Indigenous girl 20 years earlier." I think this film has only just come out and it looked like it was black and white. It looked very artistic. I was watching the trailer and a scene from the film that I got this little snippet from, so it may not necessarily be out yet, but definitely look into it as it looked really interesting.

Okay, so the name of the game. I am going to play a little clip here for you two times. And your goal is to listen and try and write down what you hear being said. It's a good way of working on your listening comprehension. Remember, you can check the answer by downloading the free worksheet with today's episode. Just go to the podcast episode and whatever app you're using, the link should be in there. Otherwise it's also on the website, on this podcast episodes page and you can download it for free. There'll be a little section where you could print this out and you can write in the line section what you think you hear being said. And the answer is at the bottom of the worksheet.

And also obviously if you're a Premium Podcast member, you can see the answer to this section inside the transcript. Okay, so are you ready? Let's go.

How'd you find me. I just asked the cops. It seems they know a lot about you. You here about my warrants? Not here for you. Here about your sister. Yeah. Which one? Charlotte.

Okay, so that was the first playthrough. How did you go? Did you get all of it? Time for the second one.

How'd you find me? I just asked the cops. It seems they know a lot about you. You here about my warrants? Not here for you. Here about your sister. Yeah. Which one? Charlotte.

All right. Good job, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I will see you next time. All the best. Baron. Now.