Transcript of AE 1212 - Expression: Close But No Cigar

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. Hopefully that includes you wanting to learn Australian English. So it's a pleasure to have you here guys. Don't forget, if you want to get access to the Premium Podcast membership where you'll get the transcripts, you can read and listen at the same time using the premium podcast player and you'll also get bonus episodes. Go over to the Premium Podcast page and sign up. It is AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast and hopefully I'll see you there.

So, oh man, I'm still recovering. My voice is still recovering from this really horrible sort of flu, bout of flu that I've had. I'm still under the weather, but I'll stop complaining. I'm still, I'm here. I'm here. I'm trying to do the episode. It's my second attempt, guys, so I'm trying to stay positive.

Anyway, today we're going to go through a question. We'll go through a joke. Well, then go through the expression "close, but no cigar". Some examples where it came from, a pronunciation exercise, and then right at the end I'm going to tell you about an Australian film that I love called Storm Boy, and we'll do an exercise using a clip from that film.

So today's question comes from Pranksyy.prod, who asks, "Do you guys Down Under use 'g'day' even if it's the evening?" So, 'g'day'. 'G'day' is a standard Aussie greeting we use here short for 'good day'. But when we use this we don't really think about time of day. So instead we just use it as a general, informal kind of greeting to make it sound pretty Aussie. You'll say, "G'day!" "G'day, mate. How's it going?" "Oh, g'day, Andrew!" "G'day, Jeff!" "G'day, Jane!" "G'day!" "G'day!" "G'day".

So you can say this at night. You can say this in the morning, you can say this at lunchtime. You can say it whenever you want. If it's a greeting. It's interesting, though, because if you were to use greetings like 'good morning' or 'good evening', these are tied to those times of the day. So you wouldn't say "good morning" obviously at lunchtime or in the evening, you'd say that in the morning. You wouldn't say "good evening". If it's the morning or lunchtime, you would say "good morning". Right? But ironically, "good night" is actually a way of us saying goodbye!

So say you went to a conference. It's in the evening. You're giving a speech, you might say "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen", right. "Good evening". "Good evening". But then at the end, you might say, "Oh, good night", or "I wish everyone a good night". And it's a way of saying goodbye. And we can also use this when putting someone to sleep or going to sleep. So if I put my kids to sleep, I might say "Good night, kids", and they might say "good night, Dad", right? So you can also use it for going to sleep.

So it is pretty interesting, the way that we use "Good day", "G'day", "Good evening", "Good morning", "Good night", it's just. Yeah, it's interesting that they're not all used in exactly the same way based on the words 'day', 'night', 'morning' and 'evening'.

Okay. So let's get into today's joke. So today's joke is, "What does an angel use to light his or her cigarette?" "What does an angel use to light his or her cigarette?"

It's weird, I don't think- How do angels have sexes, right? How are they male or female, when they've never been a real life person? Right? So they don't really have any use for their genitalia. So how are they female..?

Anyway, we're getting off track. "What does an angel use to light his or her cigarette?" "A match made in heaven!"

Ooh, "a match made in heaven". Do you get it? So a 'match' is a short, thin piece of wood or cardboard, used to light a fire. So that you can say "light your cigarette" or "start a fire", right? You 'have a match'. You 'use a match'.

But a 'match' can also mean a pair, right? A combination of things. And 'a match made in heaven' is the idea of a relationship or connection between two things being perfect. So it could be two people. "This couple is 'a match made in heaven'." You know, "My wife and I, we feel like we're 'a match made in heaven'." Peanut butter and jam may be 'a match made in heaven' as well for some of you people out there. My son at the moment has Vegemite and jam on his toast. Oh, so gross. But he loves it. He thinks it's 'a match made in heaven'.

So, "What does an angel use to light his cigarette?" "A match made in heaven", right. So the idea here being that it's a 'match' that was created in heaven, but it's also a pun with the phrase 'a match made in heaven'.

All right. So hopefully you see how that ties into today's expression "close but no cigar", right? A cigarette and a cigar. Today we are going to go through this expression. We'll go through the words in it. I'll then tell you what it means, where it came from, and then we'll go through some examples.

So, 'close'. 'Close'. 'Close', in terms of a competitive situation, involves only a small margin between the winner and the loser. So, "It was very 'close'. One nearly won, the other one narrowly lost." "One almost lost. One almost won. It was very 'close'", right. "The fight was really 'close' between the two boxers, but only one was the winner." 'Close'. "It was very 'close'."

'But'. 'But' is used to introduce a phrase or clause contrasting with what you have just mentioned. "I need to go to the dunny, 'but' I can't find one anywhere!" I need to go to the toilet, right. I need to go to the 'dunny'. That's some great Aussie slang. "I need to go to the dunny, 'but' I can't find one anywhere." 'But' I can't find one anywhere.

'No'. The word 'no' means 'not one'. 'None', right? Not a single one. 'No'. So, "I have 'no' time." "I have 'no' money." "I have 'no' space for this new hobby at home that I've created." Maybe it's breeding elephants. "I want to breed elephants! I have illegally imported 60 elephants into Australia and somehow brought them to my house. They are coming off the van at the moment in front of my house and I have 'no' time for them. I have 'no' money for them and more importantly, I have 'no' space for these elephants."

I wonder what's going to happen to them. 60 elephants.

'Cigar'. 'Cigar'. A cigar is a tube shaped tobacco product that is made of tightly rolled, cured tobacco leaves in a tobacco leaf wrapper, or a wrapper that contains tobacco. So that's the definition, guys. The most common way that I would hear this being used is usually with the idea of a Cuban cigar being the highest quality cigar out there, Cuban cigars.

So, "The man struck a 'match'. He lit that 'match' and then he used the 'match' to light his 'cigar'." So a match and a cigar are probably a match made in heaven.

So the expression, guys, "close, but no cigar". It's one of these ones in English where it's kind of difficult to work out what it means based on the words in the expression. But it's used to say that a guess or an attempt or something was almost right, or it almost happened, but just didn't, right? So there was an effort that was almost sufficient, but just missed out.

And it's interesting, I looked up the origin of this expression. Because it is one of these peculiar ones. You know, where does- why 'cigar'? Why 'close' but no win, or 'close' but no success? Why 'cigar'?

And Cigarcountry.com had the answer saying "It originates back in the 1920s when carnivals would hand out cigars as prizes."

"These games were obviously targeted at adults, and not children. Carnival games were very difficult to win and the stand owner would simply shout out the phrase when the player miserably failed to win." He would say, "Close but no cigar", meaning there's no cigar as a reward because you didn't win the game.

All right. So let's go through three examples of how I would use the expression "close, but no cigar".

Imagine you go fishing one day with your mates, right? So you have a boat. You've hooked the boat up on a trailer to the back of your car. You've driven off and you've picked up your mates and you've all head off down to the beach or the wharf, or the jetty, or whatever, to put your boat into the water. Right? You've used the boat ramp, you've backed your car down there, you've put the boat in the water and then you've driven off.

So after 30 minutes or so, say that you've done that here near me. You've gone down to say, Queenscliff, driven the boat off, you've come out of the Heads. So you've come out of Port Phillip Bay and you've looked for the perfect spot to set up shop, to set up and try and catch some fish. So you've got your fishing rods and your gear, your cast out your lines. Once you've baited your hooks and the wait begins. Shortly, you might start reeling in huge fish.

So they get some fish on the line, they start reeling them in, they get him in the boat and they're just like, "Woo! We caught some epic fish!" But you're still waiting, right? So they're chuffed. They're excited, They're pumped. They're really, really, really happy with themselves. But you're still waiting there with nothing.

Anyway, soon enough, something jumps on the hook and you've got this huge battle. And you know, it's going to be a whopper. It's going to be a huge fish. So you're battling away for like an hour. You finally get the fish right to the front of the boat. It jumps out of the water. And just as it jumps out of the water, the line snaps and the fish gets away. So it was "close, but no cigar". You almost had it. You almost got that fish. You almost succeeded, but you ultimately failed. It was close, but no cigar. "Oh, mate, 'close but no cigar'."

Example number two, imagine you are a race car driver. Maybe you race in the Formula One. So you've trained your entire life. You've spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars learning how to be a top notch racer. And you've been honing your skills since you were a small kid. When you get to about your 20s, the Formula One find out about you and you end up joining one of the biggest teams, you know, maybe a Mercedes or McLaren, whoever it is. Your first race comes up, you qualify really well.

You're getting into a great position. The race starts and you're off like a rocket. You get to the front of the pack and it's sort of neck and neck for the entire race with you and this other driver. Just as the race finishes though, this driver pips you. He beats you, he wins, he gets ahead and you unfortunately come second. So it was 'close, but no cigar'.

You know, not that second is anything to sniff at, you know, not that it is anything to be ashamed of, but you ultimately wanted to come first. But you didn't come first. It was 'close, but no cigar'.

Example number three. Imagine you've gone to a carnival with your friends and your family, right? Maybe I've taken my kids and my wife there. I want to go on a few rides, maybe a roller coaster or two. I want to eat some of the food and I want to play some of the games. So, you know, I might get on a few of these roller coaster rides. Maybe after I've eaten some of the food and then I feel like I'm in a puke. So I get off the rides. I'm like, "Screw that. I don't want to throw up. So I'm going to go play some of these games."

You guys go and have fun with that. I head over to one of these games and maybe it's the one with the clown heads where there's these sort of like porcelain painted clowns that turn from side to side with their mouths open. And your job is to try and throw a ping pong ball through the mouth. And if you get it through, you win a prize. So you get like three shots or something.

First, I throw one and I miss. Second one bounces off the clown's head and then the third one goes into the clown's mouth, but then bounces out. So it was so close. It was close, but literally and figuratively 'No cigar'. Although I guess they probably don't hand out cigars anymore at carnivals, so maybe not literally. It was 'close, but no cigar'. Almost. I almost won, but I ended up failing 'close but no cigar'.

So hopefully now guys, you understand the expression "close but no cigar". This is used to say that a guess or an attempt at something was almost correct, that the effort that you put in to do something was almost enough. But ultimately you didn't succeed. You failed. "Close, but no cigar".

Okay, so now it's time for a little pronunciation exercise for you guys to work on your Australian pronunciation. So just listen and repeat after me. You ready? Let's go. Close. Close but. Close, but no. Close, but no cigar. Close, but no cigar. Close, but no cigar. Close, but no cigar. Close, but no cigar. I said close, but no cigar. You said close, but no cigar. He said close, but no cigar. She said close, but no cigar. We said close, but no cigar. They said close, but no cigar. It said close, but no cigar. Good job, guys.

Now, I guess a little bit about pronunciation here. You'll notice that the word 'close'. Spelt C L O S E actually has two different pronunciations depending on the meaning. Right? So if you use this as a verb meaning to shut something, you would actually pronounce the s at the end of this word as a Z sound a voiced /z/ sound. /Cloze/. /Cloze/. But when it's a guess here we're using an adjective, right? It was close. Yeah. We're using it as an adjective. We use the /s/, the unvoiced /s/ sound. /Close/. /Close/. Hopefully you can hear the difference there. /Cloze/, /close/. So make sure that you're using the S in this example. "Close, but no cigar".

Now, I wonder if you notice what's happening when I say the word 'But'. So if I enunciate, if I pronounce it very clearly, 'but', I use the vowel sound /a/ and I pronounce that T clearly /t/ /t/. /But/, /but/. But when it's in the middle of a sentence, just like there or when it's in a sentence, but when it's in a sentence "close 'but' no cigar", it gets the schwa sound.

So it gets reduced. The vowel sound gets reduced. /Bət/ /bət/. And the T gets muted because there's a consonant coming after it. 'No', 'no'. Right. The N at the start of the word 'no', /bət no/. So we stop that in the mouth. Or you can also stop it in your throat, using the glottal stop. /Bət no cigar/ or /bət no cigar/. /But no cigar/. I'd probably stop it in my mouth because the T position is actually the same position for the tongue as the N that's coming, which is why it gets muted, right? We're sort of going straight into the N at the start of the word 'no', /bət no/. /Bət no/. /Close bət no cigar/. /Close bət no cigar/. /Close bət no cigar/. /Close bət no cigar/.

So hopefully that helps you with your pronunciation and connected speech. Guys, don't forget, if you want to really level up your Australian English pronunciation, check out my Australian pronunciation course at AussieEnglish.com.au/apc. You'll learn all the sounds in Australian English, the consonants, the vowel sounds. You'll learn how to use the international phonetic alphabet and then you will learn all of the 25 advanced lessons that I have at the end going over things like muting consonants, the syllabic L and N, the different pronunciations of the letter X in English, everything like that. So go check it out. AussieEnglish.com.au/apc.

So finally, guys, we have a little exercise here at the end. So this is going to be a listening and writing exercise where I'll play a clip from a famous Australian film called Storm Boy, and your challenge is to write out what you hear being said. So you can rewind and listen to it multiple times. I will play it twice.

Remember, you can get your answer from the free transcript that you can download with today's episode via the podcast player or if you just go to the website to this lessons page, you'll be able to download it for free there. And the answer is at the bottom. You can also print out this worksheet and there are lines at the bottom where you can write down what you think you hear being said. Otherwise, if you're a premium podcast member, you will obviously be able to see the answer written out in the transcript.

So today's clip comes from the Aussie film Storm Boy that was filmed in 2019, and that's actually a more recent remake of the original film Storm Boy from 1976. So I watched that growing up as a kid and I actually really liked the original one. The excerpt is "Storm Boy Lives a Lonely Life with his reclusive father on a desolate coastline. But when he forms a close bond with a pelican, Mr. Percival, his life takes a new and unexpected turn."

So it's a very cool movie. It's kind of heartfelt, where this boy develops a very close friendship with this huge pelican bird. Yeah, it's really cool. Okay, so here's the first playthrough.

They're going to have to go back soon. Go back where? Where they belong. We can't afford to keep feeding them. And even if we could, a life in captivity is... Captivity. You know what I mean. Not wild. Things need to be free. These birds could live to be 30, 40 years old. You can't look after them all that time.

Nice work. How'd you go? Did you get all of it? It was a bit of a long one. It was a bit of a long one. So you might have to listen more than twice, which is fine. Here's the second playthrough.

They're going to have to go back soon. Go back where? Where they belong. And we can't afford to keep feeding them. And even if we could, a life in captivity is... Captivity. You know what I mean. Not wild. Things need to be free. These birds could live to be 30, 40 years old. You can't look after them all that time.

All right. Hopefully you got all of that, guys. Don't forget to check the answer. Besides that, I hope you have an amazing week and I will chat to you next time. See ya!