Transcript of AE 1190 - Expression: Music to Your Ears

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. My name is Pete, I'm your host and this is the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So guys, welcome to this episode. It's another expression episode. And today I'm going to be teaching you the expression "music to your ears" and hopefully learning that is 'music to your ears'. You'll probably understand how I just use that at the end of this episode.

Anyway, so it's been a good week, guys. Nothing too interesting to really tell you. Just been doing the standard stuff, taking kids to Day-care, taking the wife to work, hanging out with the parents and yeah, sort of taking it easy. I'm glad that the rain has kind of slowed down. It has abated. It has stopped down here in Victoria, at least for now. Knock on wood, I've probably just jinxed things and all of a sudden you'll hear a lightning bolt and some thunder and a whole heap of rain coming down. Hopefully not.

But yeah, besides that, I've just sort of been playing with my plants. Really, hanging out with my plants, just doing my thing. I already feel like an old man, you know, with that kind of indoor garden hobby. I'm old beyond my years!

Anyway. So guys, if you want the transcripts for these episodes so that you can read and listen at the same time, you can print them out, you can read them online on the website, you can use the premium podcast player to read the words on screen as the audio plays, and you can get access to the bonus episodes, sign up to the Premium Podcast, you can get access to this at www.AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast

And yeah, I hope to see you in there. So as usual, guys, let's get into a cheeky Q and A, question and answer. And guys, remember if you want to ask me questions, I usually take the questions that I get on Instagram every Monday or Tuesday. Usually Monday, I ask you guys to ask me anything. So I put out a story on the Aussie English Instagram page and just say, "You guys can ask me anything you want. About English, about Australia, about me, about horses, not that I know much about horses, but the idea is you can ask me anything you want". Today's question comes from Jozumaya. Hopefully I've said that correctly and they have asked "Why do you call it soccer?" So I did a bit of digging and I found an article here that is pretty short but kind of thorough from Britannica.com.

So this is the encyclopaedia, right? The Encyclopaedia Britannica. They have a website. There's loads of stuff on there that's really interesting. Go check it out. It's at britannica.com. But this story was 'why do some people call football soccer?' So here we go.

"One of the best known differences between British English and Australian English and American English is the fact that the sport known as football in Great Britain is usually called 'soccer' in the US. Because the sport originated in England. It is often assumed that the word 'soccer' is an Americanism. In fact, the word is thoroughly British in origin." And this is something, guys, that I learnt today. I had no idea. I always assumed that this word was made up by people in the US.

"So why is it that Americans, not to mention Canadians, Australians and others are likelier to use the word [soccer] than Brits are? The answer lies in how the sport developed in each country. [So] although football type games have been around for centuries, the sport we know today is often said to have begun in the year 1863." So I guess that's only about what, 160 years ago, almost 160 years ago, 159 years ago, "when England's newly formed Football Association wrote down a set of rules."

"At the time, it was the most widely played game of its kind in the country. But it wasn't the only one. 'Rugby football', named after an English boarding school, was a variation that allowed players to carry and run with the ball to advance it toward the goal. The game played under the Football Association's rules, thus became known as 'association football'." I wonder if you can see where this is going guys. I wonder if you can say 'association', A S S O C ? Can you see a bit of an S O C thing there in the word? Hmm.

Inevitably, the names would be shortened. Linguistically creative students at the University of Oxford in the 1880s distinguished between the sports of "rugger", as in "rugby football" and "asoccer" A S S O C C E R "association football". The latter term was further shortened to just "soccer", sometimes spelt as S O C K E R." Back in the day though, I have never seen it spelt like that in modern English.

"And the name quickly spread beyond the campus. However, "soccer" never became much more than a nickname in Great Britain. By the 20th century, "rugby football" was more commonly called "rugby", while "association football" had earned the right to be known as just plain old football. Meanwhile, in the US, a sport emerged in the late 19th century that borrowed elements of both rugby and association football." And it's a similar story to football here in Australia. So, "Australian Rules Football".

"Before long, it had proved the more popular sport in full. It was known as 'Gridiron Football'", and in Australia, 'Australian Rules Football'. "But most people never bothered with the first word or words [and] as a result", Americans called it 'football' and Australians called their respective sport 'Australian Rules Football', 'football' as well.

So there you go guys. That is why in Australia we don't say football for soccer, we say soccer and it's the same for the US. It would be confusing. We have a more popular sport here where we kick the ball the same as the Americans with their gridiron football. In Australia, we have Australian Rules football. And I think too, people in the north, would it be the north east parts of Australia where rugby is more popular would refer to rugby as football. So they would call that football, and soccer would be I guess, yeah, the original football. And down here in the south east we would say football for Australian Rules Football, AFL, instead of soccer.

So yeah, it's just to avoid confusion and obviously wherever you are in the world, the most popular football-kind of sport ends up getting the name football and we use different words to distinguish other sports. So hopefully that answers your question. But it was really interesting to learn that that the word 'soccer' was a shortening of 'association football'. And not only that, but it was created in England.

I had no idea that this was originally British. Like everyone else, I sort of assumed that it was an American word that perhaps they meant they 'sock the ball', right, with their feet. I don't know. Anyway, let's slap the bird guys and get into today's joke.

So today's expression is "music to your ears". So it's related to music and is, obviously. So I thought, how do I find a joke about music? And I ended up finding the following one. Are you ready? "What's the difference between a piano and a fish?" Hmm? "What's the difference between a piano and a fish?" You guys are going to hate me.

"You can't tuna fish." "You can't tuna fish."

And tuna here is spelt T U N A as in the fish. "You can't tuna fish." So the joke here is on the words "tune a" as in "to tune a piano". To 'tune a' guitar, to 'tune a' harp. This is where you adjust that musical instrument to correct or uniform pitch, right. So that it is 'in tune'. You 'tune' that thing. "I 'tuned a' piano."

A 'tuna' is any of several mostly large sea fishes in the ocean. They are related to mackerels and they're caught for sport and for food. They are really large. You're going to see these often in little cans at the supermarket. It's very popular in sushi, I think like yellowfin and bluefin tuna, they're really popular. But yeah, so that's the joke: 'tune a' as in 'tune a' piano, T U N E space A, 'tune a' piano, and 'tuna', 'tuna' as in the fish.

So, "What's the difference between a piano and a fish?" "You can't tuna fish." "You can't tuna fish." Hmm. There you go. All right, so ... god, this, it's really not that funny. It's really not that funny. I don't know why these jokes- it's that whole dad joke thing, right? The older you get, especially as a male, and jokes that are sort of slightly clever, but not really that hilarious, become all the more hilarious because they're not hilarious, if that makes sense. So you end up laughing even more because they're just dumb. I don't know. I don't know. It's the same for you guys, but that's why I find them funny.

Okay, so the expression "music to your ears". Let's go through and break down the different words in this expression. We'll then go through its meaning, the origin of this expression, how to use it, and we'll go through a pronunciation exercise and then a little listening comprehension exercise for you guys.

Okay, so the first word "music", vocal or instrumental sounds or both combine in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony and expression of emotion. What a definition! So that is "music". I love listening to music. "What's your kind of your favourite kind of music?" "He's in a band and he loves playing music."

"To". This is a preposition and in this case, music 'to' your ears. It is being used to identify the person or thing affected by or receiving something. Okay, so it's kind of complicated in terms of definition, but "music 'to' your ears", "you were terribly unkind 'to' her", right? You did that 'to' her. "That looks like rain 'to' me". "He sounds like an idiot 'to' them". All right. "To"

"Your". This is the second person possessive pronoun. "That's 'your' cat", "that's 'your' dinner", "that's 'your' surfboard".

And lastly, an "ear". An "ear" is the organ of hearing and balance in humans and other vertebrates, especially the external part of this. So this is something interesting. In English, we use ear to talk about the outside of the ear, but we can also mean the inside as well, right? So it can be the ear that's the canal all the way down to the inner ear. We have different ways of sort of describing it, if you want to be more specific. But by and large, the internal and external parts of the ear are the 'ear'.

Whereas when I was learning Portuguese, they have multiple words. They've got at least two words that are used for the outside and the inside of the ear, I believe, at least. And again, you Portuguese speakers, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's it. And it's interesting, they have different genders for these words, too. So there you go.

Anyway, the definition of this expression, "music to someone's ears". "Music to your ears", "music to my ears". This is something that someone is very happy to hear. So when someone tells you something, when you learn information about something and you are really happy about that thing, it is "music to your ears". And I guess the idea here is that when you hear it, it is like pleasing music that you really like.

Now, I looked up the origin and I found myself on the website, www.TheIdioms.com, and you can go check out this website to find out more about your favourite English expressions or idioms.

"Origin. The exact and authentic origin of this idiom is not available. However, it is easy to deduce that it is related to amusement. It is used when something is amusing to hear or pleasurable to hear. In 1838, James Fenimore Cooper used the phrase in the following manner: The earnestness and passion with which the young man added his feelings, made music to her ears." So obviously in this example, the way that he talked about how he felt was music to this girl's ears. So she was very happy to hear how he felt, presumably about her. So hopefully that makes sense. When you hear something that is very pleasurable, that makes you very happy that you're amused to hear that you, yeah, very comforted to hear, this is "music to your ears".

So let's go through three examples of how I would use this expression. Example number one. So you, imagine that you work at a restaurant and it's always busy on Fridays. But you've got a few workers that often show up and work with you on the same shift on Fridays and they don't pull their own weight, right? They don't work as hard as you. They don't work their butts off like you do. So on these really busy days, if these workers don't show up or they're not on shift with you, at the same time they've taken the day off or they've pulled a sickie off work so they don't have to work, that's "music to your ears". You don't have to work with them. You're so happy you're going to be working with other people who work hard like you. It's something that's really, really pleasurable for you to hear. Maybe it's even a little bit amusing if you find it funny, it's "music to your ears".

Example number two Imagine you're a musician who plays in a band and you're a skilled guitarist or bass player or drummer or even a vocalist, and you and your band practice all the time. You play gigs at local pubs, you know, you go to small venues, you like to plays a small fan base that you've got, but you're trying your best to sort of make it big. You're writing as many songs as you can, you're getting around, you're trying to get these songs heard after a gig.

One night, though, you end up meeting a music producer who happened to be at the gig, and he or she says, "You know what, you guys absolutely rocked it. I want to give you guys a record deal. We'd like to sign you up to our record label. We'd love to pay you a bunch of cash to write a few records or write a few albums." Hopefully this is the start of your dreams and you're going to become huge stars. So when you guys hear this, it's "music to your ears". It's "music to the band's ears",it's "music to each player's ears". It's "music to your ears". You're incredibly happy to hear this. It's "music to your ears".

Example number three. Unfortunately, one day you end up sick. The cat is down here going nuts, chasing a fly. I've got to- get out of here! Scat! Scat! Peaches! Bugger off! I got the door open in my office, and there's a fly in here, and she's just obviously chased it out of the, out of the kitchen and lounge room, and is doing sort of like little pirouettes and jumps in the air. Anyway. Okay. So, unfortunately, one day you end up sick and you have to call the ambos, the ambulance and the paramedics. They're to come and get you and take you to hospital. So you end up in there for a few days with the doctors and nurses taking care of you and running a whole bunch of tests, right. Doing your blood work. I don't know. Taking your temperature, and massaging your feet? I don't know. You know what I mean.

At the end of everything, though, it turns out you're okay. And it was just something very minor. So in a week or two, you'll be sweet. You'll be fine. You'll recover. Just. Just, just well, you'll be all good. And you'll be good to go. When you hear this news, it makes you incredibly happy because you were kind of panicking, thinking, 'Oh my God, am I going to be really ill' and 'am I going to be in trouble' or 'am I going to die?' You find out, No, that's not the case. It's nothing bad, severe, awful. You are sweet. You're good to go. It's a positive result. It's "music to your ears". You're happy to hear it. It's "music to your ears".

So hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression "music to your ears" or "music to anyone's ears", right. "To someone's ears". This is when something is very pleasurable for you to hear, right? It makes you very happy to hear this thing. So as usual, guys, let's go through a little listen and repeat exercise. So I'm going to read out a bunch of words and phrases in the following section. I want you to find a quiet space where you can speak out loud and repeat these phrases and words out after me and try and put on your Aussie accent if that's what you're working on.

Okay, so you're ready to rock? You're ready to go? Let's do it.

To. To be. To be music. To be music to. To be music to your. To be music to your ears. To be music to your ears. To be music to your ears. To be music to your ears. To be music to your ears. That's music to my ears. That's music to your ears. That's music to his ears. That's music to her ears. That's music to our ears. That's music to their ears. That's music to its ears.

Great work, guys. Great work. Okay, so let's go through a little bit of connected speech and what's happening here with how the words are actually changing when I say them out loud.

So as usual, 'to', becomes /tə/, we reduce it and use the schwa vowel sound when it is in a phrase like this: "/tə/ be music /tə/ your ears". And we do it twice in both those instances where that word is: "/tə/ be music /tə/ your ears", "/Tə/ be music /tə/ your ears", "/tə/ your ears".

Now what about the word "your"? Do you hear the vowel sound /ɔr/ or do you hear, /ə/, "to be music to /jə(r)/ ears"? It's the vowel sound. /jə/ /jə/. /jə(r)ears/, /jə(r)ears/, /jə(r)ears/, "/tə/ be music /tə/ /jə(r)ears/", /tə/ /jə/ /(r)ears/, "/tə/ /jə(r)ears/". So we can reduce that one to and give it the schwa of our sound, the /ə/ vowel sound.

And lastly, you'll hear in the expression phrase here, "to be music to your ears". And then all of the other phrases that we read out that 'ears' is getting a semi-vowel or consonant sound before it that joins the previous word. /m(y)ears/, /you(r)ears/, /hi(z)ears/, /he(r)ears/, /it(s)ears/, right. So we link the vowel at the start of the word 'ears' to the previous vowel or consonant, linking with a Y sound, a W sound, an R sound, or the previous consonant sound, if that makes sense. /m(y)ears/ /you(r)ears/ /hi(z)ears/.

And the last thing to mention is that you will have noticed with the words 'his' and 'her' that I dropped the H's. So I did h deletion here and I said /tə(w)iz/. So we link with the /w/ semi-vowel /tə(w)iz/ /tə(w)iz/ /tə(w)iz/ sounds like a little W and /tə(w)er/ /tə(w)er/ /tə(w)e(r)ears/ /tə(w)e(r)ears/ /tə(w)e(r)ears/ instead of /to/ /her/ /ears/, /tə(w)e(r)ears/ /tə(w)e(r)ears/.

So there you go, guys. All right, now, the last little section here. I'm going to play a clip for you from a TV show called Upright. This is an Aussie TV show which stars Australian comedian, musician and actor Tim Minchin. I believe he wrote it as well.

And it also stars an actress called Milly Allcock, who I wonder if you'll recognise the name of. So she played Rhaenyra, Young Rhaenyra in the recent TV show Dance of Dragons season one. So she's actually an Australian actress and she was in Upright, which was made in 2019, and I think there's going to be more seasons of this out in the future. The excerpt is: "Two misfits thrown together by chance in the middle of the Australian desert forge an unlikely bond in their attempt to transport a precious upright piano from one side of the country to the other." So yeah, go check this series out. It is an amazing series.

Before I play the clip for you though, it's a bit of a long one today, so you may need to go back and listen multiple times and it's going to test your skills. But I wanted to mention there are a few place names from Victoria, Australia. So the state that I'm from in this little clip. Okay, so there's a place name Dimboola. D I M B O O L A, Dimboola. And Bendigo, which is where the gold rush has happened in Victoria. Bendigo, B E N D I G O. Okay, so listen out for the places and I think they also mention a pub or a club called Wicked. Okay, Wicked W I C K E D. Anyway, if you're ready to go, here's the first playthrough.

Mr. Flynn. Yes. Hi. I've just had a message from the radiologist. He forgot he was on call tonight, so he's kind of gone and gotten drunk at Wicked. In Dimboola. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. But we have got another one coming from Bendigo. But she's probably at least a couple of hours away. I'm really sorry. That's great.

Good job, guys. Good job. How did you go? Did you get all of it? Here's the second playthrough.

Mr. Flynn. Yes? Hi. I've just had a message from the radiologist. He forgot he was on call tonight, so he's kind of gone and gotten drunk at Wicked. In Dimboola. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. But we have got another one coming from Bendigo. But she's probably at least a couple of hours away. I'm really sorry. That's great.

All right, so that's it for me today, guys. Don't forget, if you want to get access to the transcripts and the bonus episodes and the Premium Podcast player, sign up at www.AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast to see if you're correct for this little previous exercise that we just did. You can download the free worksheet on the website so that you can check your answer. The answer will be on that. Or if you're a Premium Podcast member or inside the Academy, which includes the Premium Podcast, you can just download the transcript and obviously all the words in this episode are transcribed, so you will see the answer in there as well. Anyway, I hope you guys have a beautiful week and I will chat to you next time. See you!