Transcript of AE 1216 - Expression: Up In the Air

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!

All righty. 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. I am your host, Pete and we are back again for another expression episode. So I hope you guys have been having an amazing week. It's been a bit of a slow one so far for me. It's getting a bit colder. But yeah, I've been trying to keep the kids entertained and get out of the house as much as possible. But I've definitely noticed that the days are getting shorter and it's getting darker much sooner, obviously, as we descend into winter.

And a bit of a problem with this is the fact that you have to keep the kids entertained. And if it gets dark at like 5:00, 5:30 p.m., then you kind of don't have much to do, but, you know, play around inside. So yeah, that's the battle that we're currently up to. So, guys, before we get into the meat in this sandwich that is this episode, let me remind you guys that if you want to get access to the transcripts, to all of these podcast episodes, except for the Pete's 2c ones, those are the only ones that don't come with transcripts.

You can sign up for the Premium Podcast. You can get access to this at www.AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. You'll get bonus episodes. You'll also get access to the Premium Podcast player where you can listen and read at the same time, whether on your phone, tablet or computer, all that sort of jazz. So go check that out once again. www.AussieEnglish.com.au/podcasts.

So let's get into today's Q&A question and answer. And today's comes from Manu, who asked on Instagram, "I'm Italian / German and dating an Aussie man. Do you think it could work culturally?" Now, I chose this question because I think it's an interesting one. It's obviously not necessarily related to grammar or vocab or pronunciation, you know, English related stuff, but more broadly to the difference between, say, Italian, German cultures and Australian culture.

Now I guess, you know, first and foremost, I think any cultural mix in a relationship can work. What's really going to matter is more the person and their personality, their behaviour, everything like that, and how well they meld with you. And obviously a big thing. I think the biggest thing that I would be looking out for when dating someone from overseas or you know, from someone who's not from the same country as you or doesn't speak the same language that you do.

I would be looking for someone who shows an interest in my cultural heritage. The place that I come from, the languages that I speak, my family and friends. You know, all those sorts of things that will show you that the cultural differences are not going to be a barrier in the relationship. But may actually be the opposite, where they add to the relationship.

So for instance, with me and my wife, Kel, I don't know if we've talked about this on the podcast before, but I was always kind of interested and I don't know how to put it, but I always wanted to marry someone who was from overseas. And particularly someone who didn't speak English as their native language. And this was because I wanted to make sure that I had a reason to learn a foreign language. But also I have a general curiosity about other cultures, other countries, other places, and other people, you know, their experiences, their history and yeah, the language itself, right? The person may speak and it may be more than one language. So I think that's going to be the key. If you're dating an Aussie guy, if you're dating anyone, for that matter, and they have no interest in learning your language, they have no interest in where you've come from.

You know the country you're from. They have no interest in other cultures, in other, you know, people's countries and their histories and everything like that. That's probably a red flag. That would be a big warning sign. Because it may, as a result, lead to other problems down the line of them, say, not being interested in travelling to your country, not being interested in being able to communicate with your family and friends more. You know, by learning, even if it's just learning a bit of the language, everything like that.

So I think if you're dating an Aussie guy and you're Italian, German and he seems to, you know, be really interested in your family language, the countries, you know, Italy or Germany or Switzerland or wherever it is that you're from, then I think it'll be fine, Right? So hopefully that helps guys. But yeah, as always, feel free to let me know what your experiences have been. You can always email me, you can message me on Facebook or Instagram or even YouTube. Leave a comment and let me know. What have your experiences been if you've been dating people of other cultures, whether or not they're Australian. So as usual, smack the bird, slap the bird, give that bird a pinch, make the kookaburra cry. Call? And let's get into today's joke.

Okay, So today's joke is, "What did the water say to the beach?" Hmm.

"What did the water say to the beach?" "Nothing! It just waved."

I remember finding this one. I wanted to find a, you know, a good joke for today's episode with a pun in there. And I found this one, and I actually pissed myself when I saw it. Like, I was reading it in my mind and I just started laughing. And my wife looked over and was like, "What the hell?" And I told her the joke. And she was just like, "Ugh. Yeah."

So anyway, to explain the joke, so the verb 'to wave'. It can be to move someone's hand to and fro in a greeting or as a signal, right? So if someone's in trouble, you know, maybe they're in the ocean and they're drowning, they might be waving their hand saying, you know, 'Help, help! Notice me! Notice me!' They're signaling to you. If they're on 'a wave', they're catching a wave, they're surfing a wave and they're trying to get your attention to be like, 'Hey, check me out. Look, I caught a wave!' They might 'wave' at you.

That obviously connects to the noun, 'a wave' which is a long body of water curling into an arched form and breaking on the shore. So if you go to the beach or if you go to, say, really large lakes, you'll often see waves breaking on the shore, right. Crashing into the shore.

So, "He was swept out to sea by a freak wave." Or, "I went to the beach and caught a few waves." I went surfing. So that's the pun there. Between the word, the noun, 'a wave'. Right. Doing, you know, wave things where it's crashing on the beach and 'to wave', as in waving your hand. So "What did the water say to the beach?" "What did the water say to the beach?" "Nothing. It just waved." "It just waved."

Ah, hopefully you guys aren't getting sick of these jokes. I feel like the puns are really useful. Right? Like, it helps you get a deeper sense of what these words mean, connecting them. It also gives you access to these jokes to tell other English speakers. But yeah, I definitely hope it's helping. But if you hate them, you know, feel free to let me know as well and I'll try and find something else to put into that slot of the episode.

So today we're going to go through the expression "up in the air". "To be up in the air". Something is 'up in the air'. Before we talk about what it means and how to use it and where it comes from, let's go through each of the words in the expression.

So 'up'. 'Up' is a preposition here, and it means towards a higher place or position, right? You might climb 'up' a tree to pick the fruit, 'climb up something' that's a phrasal verb.

"How did your cat get 'up' on the roof?" We can have phrasal verbs there with multiple prepositions 'to get up on something', 'to get up on the roof'. "How did your cat get 'up' on the roof?" 'Get up on the roof'.

'In'. 'In' is another preposition expressing the situation of being enclosed or surrounded by something. So within something, inside of something. At the moment "I am 'in' my office." "He's 'up' 'in' the top paddock of his farm, feeding the sheep", right? "He's 'up' 'in' that paddock."

'The'. You'll know what 'the' is, the definitive article, 'the' specific thing. "This is 'the' house that I own." "This is 'the' house that I live in." It's not just 'a' house. "I only have 'a' single house." So, "This is 'the' house", the specific house.

And lastly, the noun 'air'. This is the gas that we breathe, right? We're surrounded by air. It's what fills up our atmosphere. "I'm breathing in 'air'", right? I'm inhaling and I'm exhaling. So I'm inhaling and exhaling. "I'm breathing in and then breathing out 'air'."

So the definition of 'to be up in the air', if something is 'up in the air', like literally, this would mean that it's located up in the air. But here, figuratively, metaphorically, we're using it to talk about a plan or an issue. Something that is still to be settled. It's unresolved. It's uncertain. It's not for sure. It's not definite. It's up in the air.

So I tried to look into where this came from. Why do we use 'up in the air' to mean this? And I landed on idioms.com which said this phrase refers to unsettled particles or matter as something that is floating around in the air. And it's been used in English since the 1700s.

So, yeah, I guess if you've got, say, powder that's been shot up into the air, right, like you've dusting your table or something and all the powders up in the air, it's not settled. It hasn't settled on the ground yet. So yeah, I guess that's the connection there. If you've got a matter an issue, a problem, a plan or something that hasn't been resolved, it's uncertain. It's not settled. That's why it's up in the air.

So let's go through three examples of how I would use this expression. So example number one. So imagine you've got some plans to do something and they're a bit up in the air at the moment. They're not definite. They're not certain. So you want to catch up with a group of friends, for example, over the weekend, You know, maybe we'll go get a parma and a beer, a pot and parma, Right, A pot of beer, a small glass of beer at a pub. And a parma, a chicken parmigiana. And you're not sure if it's going to be, I don't know, maybe horrible weather or maybe some of your friends may not know whether they'll be available or not.

Maybe you're not sure if they'll be room at the pub, maybe it's booked out. So it's something that you're chatting to your friends about wanting to do. You're trying to organise this plan, but you're not sure if it's going to go ahead. It's uncertain. It's not definite, right? So it's 'up in the air'. We'll have to check closer to the date. We'll have to double check. We'll have to see if the weather's going to be right, if everyone's available and if there's space at this pub for us to get a pot and parma. So at the moment, things are 'up in the air'.

Example number two, imagine you're about to get married to someone, but then suddenly say on your, I don't know, the night before you get married that you find out some horrible secrets about this person that they've been trying to hide from you. Right. So you've discovered all the skeletons in their closet. That's a good expression for talking about secrets that they've been trying to keep hidden from you because, yeah, it would be awful if you found out. So maybe you've discovered that they've, I don't know, stolen money from someone. They've robbed a bank. Maybe they robbed a family friend. Maybe they murdered someone.

You know, if it's really bad. So awful secrets that are really going to be a game changer. They're going to completely change what's going to happen. Whatever the case may be, whatever the secret is, whatever the skeleton is that is in their closet. Suffice it to say that you discover these and you find out and it's going to be bad for the marriage. You know, you're sort of like, "Oh, I don't know if I want to get married to this person now that I have found out these secrets." You know, things are a bit dicey. They're not looking certain now. They're a bit unsure. So the marriage is 'up in the air'. It's not certain.

Who knows if it's going to happen or not. The wife or the person who's going to get married to the other person, whether they're a female or a male, they're undecided now. They're not sure if it's going to go ahead. The plans are 'up in the air'. It's all 'up in the air'.

Example number three. So when Covid struck a few years back, it probably caused many of us to have things end 'up in the air'. Right. To end up 'up in the air'. Many of us had jobs and careers that we were working on, but all of a sudden, at least in Australia, we had loads of lockdowns and we had to work from home. But perhaps you had a job where you were a waiter or someone who delivers food or something, and it was very hard for you to actually keep working.

So you didn't know if you'd continue at that job. You didn't know if you'd be getting paid. You didn't know if you could keep making a living, keep earning a crust. Everything was 'up in the air'. Your job was 'up in the air'. Your livelihood was 'up in the air'. Everything was uncertain. You didn't know what was going to happen. So it was 'up in the air'.

So hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression 'to be up in the air'. This is for a plan or an issue or a situation to be unsettled, unresolved, not certain. Uncertain. Okay. 'Up in the air'.

Okay. So, as usual, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise where the objective here is to listen and then repeat after me. Okay. And your best Australian accent. So you ready? Let's go. To. To be. To be up. To be up in. To be up in the. To be up in the air. To be up in the air. To be up in the air. To be up in the air. To be up in the air. I'd say things are up in the air. You'd say things are up in the air. He'd say things are up in the air. She'd say things are up in the air. We'd say things are up in the air. They'd say things are up in the air. It'd say things are up in the air.

Good job, guys. Now, there's a lot going on with regards to connected speech that I noticed in this pronunciation exercise. I'll see if I can go through it quickly and hopefully you can go back and listen and pay attention to these things that I'm doing when speaking quickly.

So you're going to have certain words like 'to' and 'the' or 'the' getting reduced, the vowels in them getting reduced, so weakened. And you're going to hear 'tə' and 'thə' 'tə be up in thə air'. To be up in the air. And in fact, we may say /thee/ here because we're trying to link the vowel at the end of the word 'the' to the start of the vowel in the word 'air', /thee◡air/. It actually may not be a schwa, but it may be more of an E sound here, just so that the linking is easier to be up in the air. /Tə be up in thee◡air/. Yeah, I think that would happen there.

Now what else are we doing? 'Be up'. 'Be up'. We're also linking two vowels there 'be' and 'up' we've got the /e/ vowel sound and the /u/ vowel sound. So we link it with a /yuh/ sound /tə beeyup/, /tə beeyup in/, /tə beeyup in thee◡air/. /Tə beeyup in thee◡air/. /Tə be up in thee◡air/. And in both cases there we're using a vowel sound to link.

Now the last thing I want to mention is that in the phrases where we're contracting would the auxiliary verb 'would'- well, modal verb 'would' onto the pronouns I'd, You'd, He'd, She'd, We'd, They'd and It'd.

I'd say, I'd say, You'd say - can you hear the D sound in there clearly? You can't. Because we're muting that D. So we're going to make the D sound /aID/ and then we mute it, we stop without going /i-duh/ so we don't do that /duh/. We don't release the consonant D there. We say /aI/ and then go into the next consonant at the start of the word 'say'. /aID/ say, /aID/ say, /aID/ say, but it's really important that we have that muting in there.

Otherwise it's going to sound like you're just saying /aI/ say, /you/ say, /he/ say. And when you're conjugating 'he' and 'she' and 'it' with say it's incorrect right. It should be 'he says', 'she says', 'it says' so it would be weird if you don't have that kind of muted D sound in there. So practice that with me quickly. I'd say. You'd say. He'd say. She'd say. We'd say. They'd say. And then It'd say. We actually have the T flap there at the end of the word 'it'. It'd, it'd say, it'd say.

So good job, guys. And remember, if you want to work on your Australian pronunciation, check out my Australian Pronunciation course at AussieEnglish.com/apc. We'll go over things like this linking vowels. You'll learn all the different sounds in Australian English, the consonants, the vowels. And then we go through connected speech and all the other stuff that's related to speaking more like an Australian and developing your own Aussie accent. Okay, so go check that out.

Now the final section for today's episode. So today's clip comes from a new TV show that has just been launched and seems to have great reviews called In Limbo. Now the expression 'to be in limbo'. If something is 'in limbo', it means that it is uncertain or in an undecided state. So it is effectively a synonym for 'up in the air', right. Plans can be 'up in the air', but they can also be 'in limbo'. "After graduating from university, she was 'in limbo' for a while whilst trying to decide what to do next." To be 'in limbo'.

So the excerpt for today's TV show In Limbo is "Charlie is rocked by grief when his best friend Nate dies, but Nate soon returns as a ghost trapped in limbo." And he needs Charlie's help to break free. So I'll link the trailer to this show in today's free worksheet, which you'll be able to download via the podcast link or on the website, obviously on the episode page.

And you can also watch this show for free on iView. So just go to iview.abc.net.au and you can make a free account and yeah, stream all these Aussie TV shows for free.

So the rule of the game today is that I'm going to play a clip from this TV show for you two times. Your goal is to listen and then write down what you hear being said. Remember, if you download today's free worksheet, there is space at the end there for you to be able to write out what you hear. And the answer is also at the bottom of the worksheet.

And if you're a member of the premium podcast, you can get access to the answer obviously in the transcript. So anyway, are you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

What's wrong? Are you nervous about your speech? It's a eulogy. It's not a speech. Would you like to practice your eulogy then? Not really. I'm sorry, mate.

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

What's wrong? Are you nervous about your speech? It's a eulogy. It's not a speech. Would you like to practice your eulogy then? Not really. I'm sorry, mate.

All right, well, that's it for me today, guys. I am Pete, your host. Thank you so much for joining me. And I will see you in the next episode. Tooroo!