Transcript of AE 1224 - Expression: Dig Your Own Grave

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, you guessed it, Australian English. So, guys, how's it going? Sorry again for missing the episode last weekend. It just- yeah, it had been a full on week. Lots going on with kids and I just need to get better with managing my time. But yeah, in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the Pete's 2cents episode that I released during this week. So I'm currently recording this on a Thursday and I believe that the Pete's 2cents episode came out yesterday, maybe the day before. It all becomes a bit of a blur.

But anyway, how have you been going, guys? I hope you're all well. I thought I would share with you today. You know, it was a bit of news. I started guitar lessons recently, so I think we've covered on the podcast before, probably in the episode with my wife Kel, where we talked about how to ace a job interview. She got hired for a music school working at reception, and I've recently sort of taken up guitar again after a probably 15 year hiatus.

I haven't really played since my early 20s, and she obviously working in a music school was like, Why don't you get lessons here? You know, I can hook you up with a good teacher and you can come in when you're picking me up from work and I can take care of the kids and you can have your half an hour lesson. So I said initially I was like, No, I feel a bit embarrassed. I'm old, you know, I'm not like most of the people going to these lessons are probably, you know, in primary school or high school.

So I feel like a bit of a weirdo being a little older, sitting there with my guitar, going in and getting lessons from a teacher that's about my age. But yeah, in the end I ended up kind of swallowing my pride and being like, You know what I want to learn? I want to get lessons from a teacher. And so I started and I had my second lesson yesterday, which was amazing. And I thought I would mention it just because I have made real progress already after just two lessons because of the information that the teacher has shared. So it is really funny sort of getting back into private lessons for something and learning something again from the beginner stages and trying to improve at that thing and having a better appreciation for how useful this is, right? Because you guys, a lot of you are probably getting private lessons, maybe group lessons.

If you're inside my Academy and you know you have these experiences as well and I need to get my head back in the game and be able to relate to that so that I can help you. But it's been really interesting getting these lessons because I definitely know better now how to learn a new skill, especially something like music where my main goal is to try and get better at improvisation and being able to play right. I want to be able to improv. I want to be able to just sit down with a guitar in my hands and sort of make a tune up on the spot and just play.

And in order to do that, you effectively have to build quite a bit of fluency. You know, you have to understand the fretboard on the guitar, the chords, the patterns, the different chord progressions, and then all the different scales and positions for your hand to go in and everything like that. And so that's sort of like music theory is the underlying grammar of guitar. And being able to play songs like this is sort of like having a giving a speech spontaneously about a subject, right? There are a lot of a lot of similarities, a lot of parallels between learning to be good at improvisation with a musical instrument and being fluent in a language.

So yeah, I think at the moment I'm sort of treating guitar like a foreign language and it's been paying off. It's been paying off so far because yeah, I'm focusing on the sort of low hanging fruit, the stuff that I can smash out quickly and get the biggest result from. So yeah, that's what I've been up to. Bit of spiel there at the start. Hopefully you guys who are learning an instrument as well can apply what you learn from learning languages to speed things up.

Before we get into today's episode where we're going to cover the expression 'Dig your own grave', 'to dig your own grave', I want to remind you, if you want the transcripts for all the episodes on the podcast except for the Pete's 2cents episodes, those don't come with transcripts, if you want the transcripts so you can read and listen at the same time, you want to be able to get bonus episodes. You want to use the premium podcast real time player so that you can listen and read at the same time. I really recommend signing up to the premium podcast membership. You can get access to this at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. Okay, so let's get into today's Q and A, Question and Answer. This one comes from Jaden Souza, who asks, What does the word 'avo' mean in Australian English? '[H]ave an avo' That used to be an expression I think we saw on ads on TV where effectively we're reducing the word 'have' and saying 'Ave' because it rhymes with avo and avo is Aussie slang for an avocado an avocado.

Avo. Have an avo. [H]ave an avo. An avocado which is a pear shaped fruit with a rough, leathery skin and smooth, oily, edible flesh, right. It's green on the inside. It's got a massive seed on the inside. And I think these things initially evolved from memory. When I was doing biology at uni, they evolved a really thin layer compared to today of the flesh around the seed and they were eaten by things like elephants and would pass all the way through them and the seed would end up in the elephant poo and have a lot of fertiliser and be able to grow out of that.

But the flesh initially around the outside of the fruit was there to attract things like elephants to eat them. But yeah, it's a really cool word. And the reason I love the word avocado, as well as the slang term avo, is because it comes from a- I think it's a central or South American language. I think it's Nahuatl. So that's Nahuatl. You Central and South Americans will probably know this better than me. And the word in Nahuatl is ahuacatl. I think that's how you would pronounce it. And it translates as testicle, right? So the genitalia of a male! How cool is that? And the reason is because avocados often grow in one or 2 or 3 dangling down from a tree and they kind of resemble testicles, you know, hanging out of a tree.

So yeah, it's just a really interesting word origin, right? You know the word avocado or the word avo. The slang term comes from avocado, which I think comes from the Spanish word avocado from ahuacatl and ahuacatl means testicle in a Native American language. Really cool. Really cool. Anyway, guys, smack that bird. Give it a slap, give it a kick, and let's get into today's joke. All right.

So I've tried to connect this to the Q&A section we just went through. All right, so here's the joke. What kind of exercise do avocados do best? What kind of exercise can you imagine? Some avocados doing some exercise, maybe rolling on, on a treadmill or something? What kind of exercise do avocados do best? Are you ready for this? Avo-cardio! Avo-cardio!

So cardio is the short slang term, I think, used everywhere in the English speaking world. It's short for cardiovascular exercise, right? And if you do cardiovascular exercise, it's usually things like running or cycling, things that require you to move a lot and breathe heavily and everything. And it's getting the blood flowing all throughout your body. Your heart rate peaks, your breathing goes up. Cardiovascular, right, cardiovascular system. So your blood system in your body. Cardiovascular exercise is that which gets the the blood moving, right? Cardio. Cardio. So yeah, everyone likes going to the gym and doing a bit of cardio. Well, I don't know about likes, but they tend to at the gym.

All right so today's expression 'to dig your own grave'. I wonder if you guys have ever dug your own graves. Hopefully not literally, figuratively. So before we get into this expression, let's go through the words in the expression. We'll then go through the meaning, its origin, some uses and a pronunciation exercise, and then we'll finish up with a little clip from an Aussie TV show or film. Okay.

So 'to dig', 'to dig'. This is to break up and move Earth with a tool or machine or with hands, paws or your snout. Obviously, if you're an animal that has a snout, something like a pig or a dog. So, 'Darryl dug a hole', right? If you've seen The Castle, the movie. 'Darryl dug a hole', right? 'It's filling with water, Dad!' So the son goes into the backyard and starts digging a hole and hits a pipe and it starts filling with water. But yeah, most Aussies will know that 'Darryl dug a hole! He dug a hole!

'The dog dug up his bone to finish eating'. Dug something up. He dug it up, to dig something up. We can turn it into phrasal verbs as well.

So, 'your', second person possessive pronoun. This is almost in every second expression episode, right? 'This is your house.' 'It's not my house.' 'It's your house.' 'That's your dog.' 'It's not his dog.' 'It's your dog.'.

'Own.' Own. Own. This is something that belongs to a person. Or the thing that's mentioned, right? 'This is his own work.' He did this work. He wrote this essay. 'It's his own essay.' 'It's his own work.'.

'Grave.' A grave. This is a hole that is dug in the ground to receive a coffin or a dead body, typically marked by a stone or mound. So a grave. 'The zombie woke up and he dug his way out of the grave in search for brains.' Right. Mm. That's unpleasant.

Okay, so if you 'dig your own grave', you can imagine yourself, right? Being forced to dig your own grave by the Italian mafia back in the early 20th century. You know, they're getting you to 'Here's a shovel, dig your own grave, mate.' So that would be the literal sense, right? Digging a hole in the ground that you will be buried in.

But we use this figuratively to mean that someone is behaved in a way that has caused them to lose or fail. Right? So to get yourself into serious trouble, you've 'dug your own grave'. It's kind of like you have caused your own demise. So to cause serious problems for yourself in the future, you've 'dug your own grave'.

So the origin of this I look this up and I was trying to work it out. Apparently, 'to dig your own grave' is a biblical proverb. So a proverb from the Bible. And I'll see if I can read this out. I think this is from the King James Bible. "Who so diggeth a pit shall fall therein." "Who so diggeth a pit shall fall therein." So this is archaic English, which effectively means whoever digs a pit is going to fall into it, right? Whoever digs a hole is going to fall into it. So whoever digs a hole will fall into it first, right?

Obviously, the phrasing has changed over the years and become the more modern. Whoever digs a grave falls into it. To dig your own grave is the expression that we would use here. But yeah, it's kind of cool, right? It's the idea of just facing the consequences of your own actions to dig your own grave, to dig your own grave. So let's go through some examples of how I would use this expression in everyday English.

So example number one. An example might be that my wife wants to go on a date night with me. Right? This, this may or may not be true. So imagine that my wife sends me a text and she's like, Look, we need to organise something. Just you and I. Put the kids over at Nana and grandpa's house for the night or something and we'll go out and do something. So, you know, we haven't been out in ages and she wants to catch up for some quality time together. So maybe she's booked a restaurant for us to go and eat at. Anyway, the night comes and I decide, You know what? I'd actually prefer to stay home and watch the soccer match on TV.

I might do that instead. Is that all right? But you still go to the restaurant. Well, you know, if you if you want to eat at the restaurant, you go, I don't want to stop you. You know, clearly, if I said something like that to my wife, I would be digging my own grave. I would be in serious trouble. I would be causing a huge problem for myself and I would have to. Deal with the consequences, which would probably not be good, right? I would have dug my own grave.

Example number two, imagine you're looking for a job and you know you apply to anything and everything, even certain positions that you're not necessarily qualified to get. So maybe you embellish your CV, your curriculum vitae your resume a little bit and add a few extra points in there saying that you have experience that you don't necessarily have and all of a sudden you find out that you have been hired as a lion zookeeper at the Melbourne Zoo.

Your heart sinks. You know, you realise that you've accidentally applied for a job that you have no experience doing. You have absolutely no idea how to take care of lions, but you're like, You know what? I still need to make some money. So what's the worst thing that can happen? So you turn up to work. And yeah, you pretty quickly I found out to be a fraud, right? To have to have lied on your resume.

They pretty quickly work out that you are not indeed a lion zookeeper when you accidentally head over to the elephant enclosure thinking that the elephants are the lions. So you've dug your own grave, you probably don't get to come back the next day and keep working. You know, you're probably going to get fired. You'll have to live with the mess that you've made. You have to live with the consequences. You've dug your own grave.

Let's go through a literal example. Right. You've probably seen, as I mentioned earlier, those gangster films like The Godfather made about American mobs and criminals back in the early 20th century. You know, Al Capone using Tommy guns, that sort of thing. So there's always some poor guy in these shows or these movies that ends up, you know, stealing from the mob or maybe being a rat. Right. Someone who snitches on them tells the police or maybe the enemy about something the mob are doing, and they end up tapping the person on the shoulder, you know, chucking them in the back of a car, shutting the boot, driving off into the wilderness, handing them a shovel and getting them to literally dig their own grave.

But they're also figuratively doing it because they're living by the actions that they have done right. They're living by the consequences of their actions. They have both literally and figuratively, figuratively dug their own grave.

So hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression to dig your own grave. If you dig your own grave, it's to behave in a way that will cause you to lose or fail, right? To get yourself into serious trouble, to cause yourself serious problems in the future. To dig your own grave.

So as usual, guys, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise. So this is your chance to practice your speaking out loud and work on your Australian accent. Are you ready to go? Let's do it. To. To dig. To dig your. To dig your own. To dig your own grave. To dig your own grave. To dig your own grave. To dig your own grave. To dig your own grave. I dug my own grave. You dug your own grave. She dug her own grave. He dug his own grave. We dug our own graves. They dug their own graves. It dug its own grave. Good work, guys.

Now, let's talk a little bit about pronunciation. So what's going on? Connected speech, pronunciation, emphasis wise, to dig your own grave. Which words are being emphasised 'to dig your own grave', 'dig', 'own' and 'grave'. They're the important words in this phrase. So you'll notice that to and your get reduced and are given the schwa vowel sound to dig your own grave. To dig your own grave. To dig your own grave. And you'll notice there that I'm linking your or your and own with that /r/ sound at the end of 'your' your◡own, your◡own. To dig your◡own grave. To dig your◡own. To dig your◡own grave. And then you'll notice in the phrases. Right? I dug my own grave. You dug your own grave. He dug his own grave.

That the word before own links to the word own because there's a vowel at the start. So you'll have things like my your own grave. We're linking with a /g/ sound. My◡own my◡own grave. Your◡own with the /r/ her◡own. Again. His◡own. Our◡own. Their◡ own. Its◡own. Its◡own.

And then lastly, I wanted to mention you probably noticed when we say 'she dug her own grave' and 'he dug his own grave' that we drop the H at the front of the words 'his' and 'her'. So this is H deletion. She dug [h]er◡own. She dug [h]er◡own grave. This happens when we speak really quickly. And you have a consonant before the H. dug [h]er◡own dug [h]er◡own. She dug her◡own grave, dug [h]is◡own, dug [h]is◡own, dug [h]is◡own grave. He dug [h]is◡own grave.

So there you go, guys. These are the kinds of things you need to master if you want to sound more Australian or native level when speaking English. Right. You want to reduce your foreign accent and sound a little more Aussie, but also pay attention to them so that you can listen and hear what's being said by native speakers or people with these kinds of accents, Australian accents. Because when we speak quickly, as I'm sure you're aware, a lot of these words get parts of them dropped off, they get reduced, you know, they get given the schwa vowel sound, they get contracted and a big key, a big part of learning to understand people easily clearly when they're speaking is to work on your listening comprehension and focus on these aspects.

And shameless plug as always, guys, if you want to work on this sort of stuff in a course, check out my Australian pronunciation course, which you can get at AussieEnglish.com.au/apc, you will be able to learn the international phonetic alphabet so that you can study on your own effectively and improve really quickly. We'll go through all the different vowel sounds and consonant sounds in Australian English so you can master those.

And then lastly, we go over all the advanced aspects of spoken English, spoken Australian English, things like the Australian R sound, the linking sounds, the syllabic N and L, all those sounds that are really difficult that most people never really teach you. You know, you often hear people that have been in Australia for decades still not master these sounds and they're not that hard to master. So go check that course out guys. AussieEnglish.com.au/apc.

To finish up, we have a clip from a recent Aussie film called Blueback. Blueback. The excerpt is "After befriending a wild blue groper", that's a type of fish. "A girl finds inspiration from her activist mother to save the magnificent fish from poachers."

So Blueback, and it's got some familiar faces In it. You will see Radha Mitchell. She's been in quite a lot of Australian films and Eric Bana in particular. You'll see him in that film as well.

So the rules of the game. I'm going to play this clip for you two times and your goal is to listen and then write down what you think you hear being said. Remember, you can download today's free worksheet and there's a space at the end of the worksheet where you can write down what you think being heard. And the answer is at the very bottom of the worksheet. And if you're a member of the Premium podcast, you'll also obviously be able to check the answer by reading the manuscript because it'll be in that as well. So are you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

Gropers can live until their 70s, old and wise. They live in the same place most of their life. They don't tend to leave. All right. Good job. How'd you go? Did you get all of it? Time for the second playthrough.

Gropers can live until their 70s, old and wise. They live in the same place most of their life. They don't tend to leave.

All right. That's it for me today. Guys, thank you so much for joining me. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I wish you an absolute ripper of a week and I'll chat to you next time. Tooroo!