Transcript of AE 1201 - Expression: Sit On Your Hands

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 Australian English. I hope you guys have been having an absolute ripper of a week. I'll tell you what. Summer is almost over, guys. I mean, you know, you're probably aware if you're here in Australia and it's been an interesting one, right? This summer has been pretty mild, you know, it's been pretty cool. We haven't had, I don't think, at least down here in Victoria, we haven't had a single day over 40 degrees Celsius, which is pretty unheard of, usually.

You know, usually a handful of days at least where we get over 40 degrees Celsius. So yeah, I guess we're in the, the La Nina period, as opposed to El Nino, where we have loads more water in the atmosphere, loads more moisture. And this may be a result of the moisture sucking the heat out of the atmosphere and there being less rain. So yeah, it is a cool thing when you look into it, I think. It's been fascinating. Anyway, guys, it's great to have you here. If you want to get access to the transcripts, to the bonus episodes, to the Premium Podcast player so you can read and listen at the same time, be sure to sign up to the Premium Podcast membership. You can get access to this at www.AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast, so go and check that out.

Anyway, let's get into today's Q&A and today's question comes from Appu. Okay, so, A P P U Appu, thanks for the question, mate. Appu asked "What's the difference between offer and deal?"

'Offer' and 'deal'? This is an interesting one. So an 'offer' is 'an expression of readiness to do or give something to someone if desired', right? So someone can offer you a car, they can offer you help, they can offer you money for something, right? "I offered him $1,000 for his car and he thought that wasn't a good offer". So it can be a verb. It can be a noun, right? "They give you an 'offer'." That's a noun. "They 'offer' you something", that is a verb, right?

But a 'deal'. This is where it overlaps with a deal. A 'deal' is 'an agreement entered into by two or more parties'. So, two or more people or groups, for their mutual benefit, especially in business or politics. So, "The car was valued at $15,000, but he sold it to me for a 'deal'." Right. And that would be that, in this sense, it would be like he sold it to me for less than it was worth, right? So it was a very good agreement. It was a very good arrangement. It was very beneficial. It was 'a deal', right. And we can use this as well as a verb, 'to deal with someone', but this would be more to have interactions with that person. So hopefully that helps, Appu! Hopefully that helps. Let's get into today's joke, guys. Let's smack the bird.

Okay, so here's today's joke. "Are you ready? I sprained my thumb at work today. On the other hand, I'm doing okay!"

Do you get it? So it wasn't a question answer sort of joke this time. Instead, it was sort of, what would you say? It's just a bunch of phrases, but the pun is on the expression, 'on the other hand'.

So, 'on the other hand', can be used to introduce a contrasting point of view or a fact or a situation. So, you know, "Inside my house, it's really hot. On the other hand, outside it's really cold." So it's a contrasting fact or contrasting situation here. It's hot outside. It's cold on the other hand. 'On the other hand'.

But the other use of this phrase could be literally that you're talking about one hand, right? One of your hands, maybe your left hand, and 'on the other hand', 'on the right', something else. Right. So I sprained my thumb at work today. So I've injured my thumb, I sprained it, I sprained it. And 'on the other HAND', I'm doing okay. So it could be like, "Besides that, I'm okay", right. A contrasting point. "Besides that, I'm all right". But it could also be that literally 'on your other hand', you're fine, right? So you sprain one thumb and the other thumb is fine. "On the other hand". So hopefully, hopefully you get the joke, guys.

Anyway, let's get into today's expression, which is "to sit on your hands". "To sit on your hands". I wonder if you have heard this expression before.

So, we'll go through the words and the expression. We'll go through what it means, where it comes from. Some uses, a pronunciation exercise, and a little listening comprehension exercise using a snippet from a TV series at the end.

Okay, so, "to sit". This is 'to adopt or be in a position in which one's weight is supported by one's buttocks', your bottom, 'rather than your feet or your back'. And your back is upright. Right? So effectively, I think you guys are going to know what 'to sit' means.

It's always funny when it's like a very obvious and simple verb or word, but the definition is actually quite specific, you know, "to adopt or be in a position in which one's weight is supported by one's buttocks rather than one's feet and one's back is upright".

So, "He sat on a chair", right? Or, "The cat sits on the bed". 'To sit'.

'On'. This is 'a preposition physically in contact with and supported by a surface'. So, "The cat sits 'on' the chair" or "My book is 'on' the table". It is in contact with the surface of that object and being supported by it.

'Your'. It seems like we go through 'your' quite a bit, guys, in all these episodes. 'Your', the second person possessive pronoun. "This is your book." "This is your chocolate."

'Hands'. I'm sure you'll know what 'hands' are. They are the end parts of a person's arms beyond the wrist, including the palm fingers and thumb, although the thumb is just another finger, right. Hmm. So I have two hands. "Put your hands up, thief!" 'Hands'.

So, "to sit on your hands", I guess you could imagine someone sitting down. They put the hands onto their bum, right? And they're sitting on top of their hands. So if you're doing this, what are you doing? You're doing nothing. You're not acting. You're not helping. You are just sitting there. You are doing nothing. You're 'sitting on your hands'. So that's how we would use it figuratively.

And I looked up the origin and I found it on TheHindu.com and they say the expression comes from the world of theatre. The people sitting on their hands in this case are members of the audience. If the people in the audience chose to sit on their hands to keep them warm, what would be the result? The poor performers would get no applause, right? So, if you didn't hear an applause, no one's clapping, because maybe it's cold in the theatre. It's probably because everyone's sitting on their hands trying to warm them up. Or because they didn't find what you did very entertaining.

So, let's go through how to use the expression "to sit on your hands", to do nothing, to not act and not help.

So example number one, imagine your house catches on fire one day, right? The fire alarm goes off. There's a huge fire that started in the kitchen. You know, maybe you're boiling some oil and it's, got set on fire. And instead of putting a rag over the top of it and letting it extinguish itself, you poured water in it and it made things a hell of a lot worse. Don't ever do that, guys. Check out the videos on YouTube and you'll see why.

So fortunately, everyone notices that there's this fire. You know, no one's in danger, but you just sit on the sofa as if nothing is wrong, right? Your wife's getting water. She's getting the kids. She's trying to organise everyone outside. She's calling the fire brigade. She's getting a fire extinguisher. She's running around like a 'headless chook', right? She's running around everywhere trying to make sure everyone's okay. Meanwhile, you're just sitting on the couch, just sitting there, just watching everything happen. Just sitting on the couch. You aren't doing anything to help. You aren't acting. You are just 'sitting on your hands'. You're doing nothing. You're 'sitting on your hands'.

Example number two. Imagine you're a police officer who's out with your partner patrolling the streets one night, right. So you come across some dodgy looking dudes who are picking a fight with someone on the street. Some poor, you know, innocent person. You drive past, you see what's going on.

But instead of stopping the car, getting involved and trying to interrupt the situation and resolve it, right. Maybe slap the cuffs on these dodgy looking dudes who are picking a fight, you and your partner instead just keep rolling down the road. You keep cruising by because you guys are in a rush. You're heading to a doughnut store and you're going to buy today's most delicious chocolate chip doughnut. So instead of doing something to help, instead of acting, instead of doing your damn job, you leave it. You roll on by, you drive by, you 'sit on your hands'. You 'sit on your hands'.

Example number three. Imagine you're a tradie who works as a chippie, right? So a tradesman or a trades woman working as a carpenter. The slang term for that in Australia is a 'chippy'. A 'chippy, which we can also use for a potato chip and I think chippy for carpenter, right. Someone who works with wood, it would be like a wood chip, someone who chips bits off wood. They are a chippy, if that makes sense. Right.

So you've got a team you work with, but you're probably the laziest one on the team, right? So there's a bunch of other guys. Every time you go to the work site, everyone else gets out, They start doing the heavy lifting, they start doing 'all the hard yakka', doing all the work, but you're lazy. So most of the time you just sit on your hands. You do 'bugger all', you do 'jack squat', you do nothing, you don't help, you don't act. You just sit on your hands and let everyone else do the heavy lifting.

And hopefully you see there, I'm referring to one of the previous expression episodes with the expression "heavy lifting". I hope you remember that one right. Remember, to 'do most of the work', the hard work.

So there you go, guys. Hopefully now you understand the expression "to sit on your hands". This is 'to doing nothing, not to act, not to help', to "sit on your hands".

So now let's go through a little pronunciation exercise. This is where you can work on your spoken English, right? You can pronounce these words and phrases out loud. So find somewhere away from the rest of the world, from other people so that they're out of earshot. They can't hear you. And you can say these words and phrases out loud and work on your pronunciation. Are you ready to rock? Let's go.

To. To sit. To sit on. To sit on your. To sit on your hands. To sit on your hands. To sit on your hands. To sit on your hands. To sit on your hands. I was sitting on my hands. You were sitting on your hands. He was sitting on his hands. She was sitting on her hands. We were sitting on our hands. They were sitting on their hands. It was sitting on its hands. Good job, guys. Good job!

So let's talk a little bit about connected speech and the spoken English that's happening here with the phrase "to sit on your hands", "to sit on your hands".

So firstly, which of the words you hear being emphasised? "To sit ON your HANDS", "sit ON hands", "to sit ON your HANDS". And which of the words then being reduced? 'To' and your', 'to sit on your hands', 'to sit on your hands'.

So getting used to that rhythm, the intonation right, and the stress where the stress is on these different words is going to make you sound so much more natural when speaking English. And it's going to make you easier to understand by native speakers. Because quite often when I hear people speaking English, when they've learnt it as a second language, if they miss the stress on certain words, sometimes you don't know which word they're saying. But then other times you don't know which is the more important thing that they're putting stress on.

So it is one of these really important things to work on. You don't necessarily have to go and try and look up the rules and memorise them, but I would just pay attention to these kinds of things when practising your pronunciation.

Listen to people speaking, listen to, you know, do listening exercises like this one. And this pronunciation exercise, and really pay attention to where the stress is, right. Try and follow it.

Now, the other thing that I want to mention here is what happens to the T at the end of the word 'sit', right? So I say it. If I just say the word 'sit', 'sit'. I say the hard T. It's a /t/ sound. Sit, sit.

But when it's followed by a vowel and it's in the middle of a phrase, what happens to the word T? Have a listen to /sit̬◡on/, /sit̬◡on/, /sit̬◡on/. To /sit̬◡on/ your hands. /sit̬◡on/. It's a T-flap now where your tongue is just sort of tapping the top of the roof of your mouth instead of going /to/ /sit/ /on/, you wouldn't do it. It sounds a bit weird to do that, right? To /sit/ /on/ your hands. To /sit̬◡on/ your hands, /to◡sit/ just flows a little better. Okay. So hopefully that helps.

All right, guys. Now let's get into the little listen and writing exercise here.

I'm going to play you a little clip from a TV show. Today's TV show is Les Norton. And the excerpt is that "This show is set in 1985 and follows the exploits of a gentleman named Les Norton, a country bloke from outback Queensland, on the run from a troubled past". Hmm. So it's a cool show. Go check it out, guys. Les Norton. It's a name, L E S space N O R T O N.

And yeah, the goal here is for you to listen to the clip. I'll play it two times, and then you can write down what you think you hear, right. It's a good way of working on your listening comprehension. If you want to get access to the answer, you can download today's free worksheet. Just go to the website to the episode for this episode. Obviously, 'sit on your hands', to that page and the free worksheet you can download right there.

And then if you are a Premium Podcast member, you will see the answer obviously in the transcript as it's being read out. Okay. And I might also add that in the worksheet, the free worksheet, you can download, you can actually, there's a space at the bottom of the worksheet where there are lines and you can use that as something to write on whilst listening to this. Anyway, are you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

Impressive debut. A little unconventional. Oh well, as my grandma used to say, "Can't eat a mango without getting a little juice on your chin." Sounds like a wise lady.

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

Impressive debut. A little unconventional. Oh, well, as my grandma used to say, "Can't eat a mango without getting a little juice on your chin." Sounds like a wise lady.

All right, well, that's it for me today, guys. Thank you so much for joining me. It's been a pleasure, as always. And I will chat to you soon. All the best!