Transcript of AE 1188 - Expression: Under The Pump

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. I hope you guys are having an amazing week. It's been a bit of a long one for me. I am so wrecked guys. I'm like, talk about lack of sleep. Oh my God. Like last night. I'm sleeping in my son's bed at the moment. So effectively we have like, we have we bought him this Kombi van bunk bed, so it's like a blue Kombi van made from wood, and there's a bed on top and a bed on the bottom, and he sleeps on the bottom usually. But when we moved house, because it was so sort of big and cumbersome, kind of heavy to move, we just left the bottom section in his room as sort of the bottom bunk bed, and we've just said, Oh, it's a race car now. So instead of a Kombi van, he has a race car. Anyway, So I've been sleeping there because we're in a pattern at the moment of Noah getting up probably around midnight usually, and going into our room and wanting to sleep in our bed with my wife.

Usually I'm still awake when this happens. So, you know, he gets up, I hear his door open and I'm like, Alright, let's go to the toilet quickly. Otherwise, you know, you're gonna be busting for a piss in the middle of the night. You might wet the bed. So we do that. Then I take him in and let him sleep in our bed. And I'd been sleeping there trying to fit myself in the bed with him. We probably need to get like a king sized bed, but he sucks his thumb and grinds his teeth, and it just keeps me awake all night. I don't know how, but my wife sleeps through it. She's snoring dead to the world, completely fine. Whereas I'll just be lying awake with my eyes wide open, hearing this grinding of teeth.

Anyway, so last night he woke up. I took him in there. He's, he's in the bed. And, you know, the new cat that we have is also in that room. So she's hiding under the bed, purring away, kind of, you know, happy, as happy as a pig in mud. So I sleep in his bed and I wake up at like, Jesus, it must have been like 3 a.m.. And my wife's handing me our daughter Joana, and she had apparently been up, you know, woken up and was coughing or whatever. You know, she's had a cold a month ago but still has this sort of residual cough.

And so I'm awake from- I think I went to bed at about two. I know, I know. And was up until, well, went to bed 2:00, got woken up at about 3-something, Joey was trying to sleep with the with me in the bed. There's barely any room because it's a kid's bunk bed and she's coughing so I couldn't sleep. Finally at 5:00, she sort of half wakes up, so I go give her to my wife and then I get to sleep for another three or 4 hours and then have to get up and start the day. And it's, this pattern just keeps repeating.

And I know what lots of you guys will be thinking. Why don't you just go to bed earlier? And it's like, I don't know, we're just in this pattern. It's just easier if I kind of hold the fort late at night, watch over the kids and make sure that they're sleeping well whilst my wife sleeps. And then usually we change over. But it can be a nightmare when my daughter wakes up. Anyway, so long intro, guys. But that's how, that's how it's been for me. And today, like, I've had so many naps in the afternoons these days, like I just go, I go down at like 3:00 for an hour or two and then wake up and have to go get the kids from day-care. And I'm like, Where did the day go? Where did it go? Anyway? Let's get into the episode.

So welcome to the episode, guys. This is the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. Today we're going to cover the expression "under the pump". "Under the pump".

So we will answer a question from a fan first, go through a joke, we'll break down the expression and how to use it where it comes from, go through some pronunciation exercises and then at the end will go through a little listening comprehension exercise using a little snippet from a TV show or film, usually an Australian one.

And don't forget, guys, if you want the transcripts for the podcast episodes so that you can read and listen at the same time, you can get access to bonus episodes, you can use the Premium Podcast player so that you can read and listen on screen. The text moves as the audio plays, everything like that. Sign up for the Premium Podcast membership at www.AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast

So let's get into the question. The question comes from Sajad, I believe. It's S A J A D Sajad. So they ask, how do you pronounce the words "bean" spelt B E A N, and the word "been" spelt B E E N, and the word "bin", spelt B I N. So, "bean", "been", and "bin". I wonder if you notice two of these sound like each other and the other one is different. "Bean". "Been". And "bin".

So, "bean" B E A N is an edible seed. Typically kidney shaped, growing in long pods on certain leg- This is a hard word to say: leguminous? Leguminous plants. So things like yeah, I guess, green beans would be one of them. Peas are probably one of them. Kidney beans or another one, baked beans. They are a type as well, although they're probably just kidney beans that have been baked, I guess. But yeah, those are beans. B E A N "I love eating baked beans."

"Been" as in B E E N is the past participle of the verb "to be". "I've 'been' studying English this week." "I've 'been' eating a lot of 'beans' this week", and those two sound the same. It's the long /ē/ vowel sound. "Bean" and "been".

Now, the third one has the short /ĕ/ vowel sound. "Bin" /ĕ/ "bin". And this is a receptacle in which to deposit rubbish, as we would say in Australia. Americans might say trash, trash. We'd say rubbish. Here in Australia. "You put rubbish in the 'bin'". "I've 'been' putting a lot of 'beans' in the 'bin'." See, there's a sentence where I've used all of them. "I've 'been' putting a lot of 'beans' in the 'bin'."

So if you want to learn to pronounce those different sounds guys, and master your pronunciation of all the sounds in Australian English, go and check out my pronunciation course, The Australian Pronunciation Course. You can check it out at www.AussieEnglish.com.au/apc

So now let's get into the joke and I hate to associate this one with 'beans' for obvious reasons. So here's the joke. Are you ready?

"What did the 'bean' say to the other 'bean'?" All right, so this is B E A N.

"What did the Bean say to the other Bean?" "Hey, mate! How have you 'bean'?"

Can you get it? Ah, god.

"What did the Bean say to the other Bean?" "Hey, mate, how you 'bean'?

So the joke here is obviously on the word "bean" B E A N and the word "been" B E E N. "How have you 'bean' spoke B E E N as in, 'Yeah. How are you'. You know, 'how you "bean"?' "How you "bean"?' And the joke obviously, if you are a 'bean', then yeah you could say "how you 'bean'?" B E A N. Anyway, let's move on.

Okay. So today's expression "under the pump". "To be under the pump". I wonder if you've heard this in English before. "Oh, man, I've been 'under the pump' this week." "I've been 'under the pump'."

So let's go through and break down the different words in the expression first. So, "under the pump".

"Under". "Under". This is 'to be beneath something'. "The cat is 'under' the table." Or it can also be typically in this example, if you're 'under the pump', 'under' here is like 'in a state of or experiencing something'. So, "I'm 'under' a lot of pressure at the moment." "He's 'under' a lot of stress" and it's usually something negative. Right? So a lot of pressure, a lot of stress. You're 'under' those things, you're experiencing them. You're in a state of pressure or stress or whatever it is. "He's 'under' a lot of stress. Just give him a break."

The word "the" "the". You know what this one is. This is the definite article, "the" specific thing. "That's 'the' cat that I like." "That is 'the' dog that I saw yesterday." "This is 'the' chocolate that I am eating."

And lastly, "a pump". This is a mechanical device that uses suction and pressure to raise or move liquids, compress gases or force air into inflatable objects such as tires. So you might use 'a pump' to inflate your bike tires or car tires, or you might use 'a water pump' to move water around, say, your backyard pool. So 'a pump'.

But if you are "under the pump", "under the pump", it is "to be under pressure", "under pressure to do something".

So you might be performing a certain task. You need to do it quickly. You need to do it rapidly. There's a lot of pressure, a lot of stress involved. You are 'under the pump'. It's kind of associated with, say, 'flat out like a lizard drinking'. You know, if you're at work and you're 'flat out like a lizard drinking', you're doing a lot all at once and you're working really hard. I guess you're also 'under the pump', right? You're also, you know, "We've got to get this done, done, done, done, done!" We're "under the pump".

So I looked this up. I tried to find the origin and I found a little explanation here from www.MacquarieDictionary.com.au So go check them out. That's the sort of Australian, the official Australian dictionary, the Macquarie Dictionary. So here's what they had to say.

"What does it mean to be under the pump? It seems that the story begins in merry England with the village pump. This is an account in The Pickwick Papers where Mr. Pickwick is almost put under the pump until Sam Weller rescues him. Colonial Australia also had public pumps where people could have a wash or cool down. But this facility was then used frequently to sober up people who were drunk, not uncommonly to quiet down people who were unruly or violent, and occasionally to extract information from people who were reluctant to give it."

So yeah, it sounds like an interesting use for the village pump, right? The pump that's used to pull water up for the village.

"For any of these reasons, you could be put under the pump. By the 1860s in Australia, the phrase 'put under the pump' was being used figuratively in the sense of being severely criticised or disparaged. It was the equivalent of pouring cold water over something but with a bit more intensity. Then there was the curious use of the phrase 'Don't put him under the pump', an exhortation, which is evident from the 1880s to the early 1900s. This was a call to others to do exactly that, put the victim under the literal pump, but phrased so as technically not to be inciting violence."

"There is a story of the university professor watching his students laying into an undergraduate they considered had done something reprehensible. 'Don't put him under the pump', cries the professor from the window. 'Good idea', they say, and carry the student off to do exactly that. Again, this phrase was referred to in other contexts. It almost had the sense of 'I say one thing, but I mean another'. [And] by the 1950s, we get 'under the pump', meaning 'under some kind of pressure'."

So how cool is that? It has been around for quite a while. So what, about 160 years or so? And its original use has sort of evolved until it means what it means today, which is 'to be under a lot of pressure' to do something right.

So let's go through some examples of how I would use the expression to be "under the pump". So example number one, imagine you're a baker and normally you have to get up really early in the morning, right? Probably before the crack of dawn, before it's daylight, maybe even around midnight that you've got to get up in order to go to work and start cooking the day's bread and have it already nice and fresh for when customers start coming in in the morning. So one day your alarm clock carks it, right. It breaks, it goes on the fritz, it no longer works and you sleep in way past when you are meant to get up to go to work.

So that sounds like something I'd probably do. So you arrive really late to work and have to get a heap of work done in a very short period of time. You're going to be 'under the pump' that day. You're going to be 'flat out like a lizard drinking'. You're going to be working your ass off. You are going to be under pressure, under stress, having to do a lot. You're going to be 'under the pump'.

Example number two. You work in a cafe and every day there are certain times when you're under the pump. So there isn't just a continuous flow of customers all throughout the day, you know, one by one coming in continuously at a steady rate. Instead, you have certain times of the day, maybe in the morning around breakfast or around lunchtime when people come in all at once. So during these periods of the day, you've got lots of people coming in, ordering coffee and food, wanting to sit down and have something to eat and drink. And the cafe is 'under the pump'. The staff at the cafe are 'under the pump'. Everyone is incredibly busy. They're under pressure to serve all these customers. They are 'under the pump'.

Example number three. It's your day off work, but you've got a lot of chores and errands to run at home. You know, this is something that I commonly find myself doing or experiencing. So, yeah, you've dropped the kids off at Day-care in the morning. Then you have to take your wife to work in Geelong. This is something I do. Then you come back home. You filmed some videos for Aussie English. You water the plants, you go to the post office to mail something, you feed the animals, pick up the kids again from Day-care, feed them, bathe them, get them ready for bed. Then you go pick up the wife from work again. So all day you are 'under the pump'. You are 'flat out like a lizard drinking', you are flat chat, flat out, working hard, busy, non-stop, always doing something. You are 'under the pump'.

So hopefully guys, now you understand the expression "to be under the pump". It is an Australian slang term, meaning "to be under a lot of pressure to do something". To be working really hard, to achieve something.

So let's go through a little pronunciation exercise, guys. This is where you can work on your Australian pronunciation. So if you want to sound more Aussie, just listen and repeat after me and try and practise my accent, my pronunciation. If that's not your goal and you just want to improve your accent, whatever it is, you know, South African English, New Zealand English, American English, whatever it is, then just read out these phrases in your own pronunciation as you would say them. Okay, you're ready to go? Let's do it.

To. To be. To be under. To be under the. To be under the pump. To be under the pump. To be under the pump. To be under the pump. To be under the pump. I'll be under the pump. You'll be under the pump. He'll be under the pump. She'll be under the pump. We'll be under the pump. They'll be under the pump. It'll be under the pump.

Good job, guys. Now, there's some interesting stuff happening there, pronunciation wise. Let's talk a little bit about linking vowel sounds. So how do you notice the vowels /e/ and /u/ being linked when I say the words 'be under'. /be(Y)under/ /be(Y)under/ /be(Y)under/ There's a little /j/ Y or /yod/ vowel sound or semi vowel sound that links the two. It's a, /yuh/ /be(Y)under/ /be(Y)under/ "to /be(Y)under/ the pump" "to /be(Y)under/ the pump". So you'll notice that happen.

And then let's talk about, say, emphasis in this sentence, which words are being emphasised, which ones are being stressed. When I say "to be under the pump". "To /be(Y)under/ the pump". Which words do you hear being stressed? You may hear "be" being slightly stressed, "to 'be(y)under the pump". You could say "to be(y)'under the pump" or you could say "to be(y)under the 'pump", but you'll definitely hear "under" and "pump" being stressed. So these are the sort of content words, the important words that need to sort of rise to the surface to be heard by the listener.

Whereas words like "to" and "the", and maybe even verbs like "be", you know, especially when they're conjugated as auxiliary verbs or modal verbs, they can often be reduced as well. "To be(y)'under the pump", "to 'be(y)under the pump". So there you go.

And then when we went through the phrases "I'll be under", "you'll be under", "he'll be under", etc., etc., etc.. I was saying the L or the two L's that are the contracted form of the word "will". As in "I will be under." "I'll be under." I was saying these with the Light L so I was making sure I was pronouncing the /l/ sound. "I'll be(y)under". "I'll be(y)under". "I'll be(y)under". "I'll be(y)under".

But you could also use the Dark L here because the sound that comes after the L is a consonant sound. It's the B at the front of the word "be" B E, right. /b/.

So because of this, if there is a consonant sound after an L sound in a phrase that's being spoken, you can use the Dark L as well. So you could say "I(oow)ll" instead of "I(y)ll", right. So that's where we use our lips to kind of round and make a sort of what I call a 'reverse w' sound. So instead of /wuh/ you get this /oow/ sound. /oow/ so /I(oow)ll be(y)under/, /you(oow)ll be(y)under/, /he(oow)ll be(y)under/, /she(oow)ll be(y)under/. That often happens, you'll hear that quite a lot in Australian English when people are speaking quickly and they're saying an L sound, that is before a consonant sound. If there's a vowel sound after it, we have to say the Light L /l/.

All right. So let's move on to the outro here, guys, which is where we talk about an Aussie TV show or movie. And I play you a little snippet and you have to- the goal here is for you to try and write down what you think you hear.

So today's clip comes from a new series called The Tourist that came out this year, and the excerpt is "A man wakes up in the Australian outback with no recollection of who he is, and he must try to piece together his memory as merciless figures from his past pursue him." So that sounds like a pretty interesting show. I might, I've only watched sort of part of the first episode and pulled this little snippet out. I tried to find something new for you guys, but I might have to give the entire thing a watch because any time you have these sorts of movies or shows where people lose their memory and they have to kind of piece together with the audience in real time who they were and why things are happening the way they are, they tend to be pretty interesting, right?

So it's a bit of a long one, but I'm going to play it two times for you. Get some paper, try and write down what you hear, and then if you want to check your answer, you can get either the free worksheet for today's episode. So just go to the website and you'll be able to download that.

Or if you have the Premium Podcast membership and you're reading the transcript, the answer will obviously be in the transcript as well. So you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

It's like embarrassing to lose the weight 'cause then I've given in. I can't win. It's like I'm on a highway going 80 and that's the minimum speed limit, but there are just road bumps everywhere.

All right. Good job. How did you go? It was a bit of a long one, but did you get all of it? Time for the second playthrough.

It's like embarrassing to lose the weight cause then I've given in. I can't win. It's like I'm on a highway going 80 and that's the minimum speed limit, but there are just road bumps everywhere.

All right. That's it for me today. Guys. Thank you so much for joining me. And don't forget, if you want to read whilst you listen to these episodes and take notes, highlight new words or expressions, and just get a lot more out of each episode and improve your English more rapidly, then be sure to check out the Premium podcast at www.AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast And yeah, I look forward to seeing you in the next- well, seeing you, speaking to you, in the next episode guys. Have a great week! Tooroo!