Transcript of AE 1185 - Expression: Call Bullshit on Something

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!

Right. So g'day, guys! What's going on? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English, guys. This is the first episode that I am recording in our new house. Round of applause, please. You know, could we believe it? Or could you believe it?

We got into the housing market in Australia. Jesus. So after a long time it's been a very, very long time of thinking about buying a house. My wife and I, and our family, finally got our hands on one and it was actually about 500 metres around the corner from where we currently lived. So yeah, finally, house owners!

Anyway, guys, I hope you've been going well. Sorry that there haven't been a lot of expression episodes coming out recently. It has just been incredibly hectic as a result of moving house. I can't believe how much work and effort that was. And I'm going to try and get my wife to sit down with me at some point and do an interview about it for you guys so that we can, yeah, tell you about what the process was like and everything like that.

So guys, anyway, if you want to get the transcript for these episodes so that you can read and listen at the same time, be sure to sign up for the Premium Podcast membership at www.aussieenglish.com.au/podcast. You'll get all the transcripts for every single episode except for the Pete's 2cents episodes. Those are the only ones that don't come with transcripts. You'll get access to the Premium Podcast player. This is the player on the website that allows you to read and listen at the same time. So the text kind of scrolls up as the audio plays and you can pause, you can take notes, you can copy and paste, text, everything like that. And you'll also get access to bonus episodes. So, bonus episodes like The Goss episodes that I do with my dad, we do some bonus ones every now and then. And other bonus episodes that have only come out for members in the past as well. So yeah, www.aussieenglish.com.au/podcast. See you there!

So, let's get into today's episode and the expression we're going to cover is "to call bullshit on something". This is obviously informal because we are using the word bullshit, which includes the word 'shit', a swear word in English, but this is quite often used in Australian English and probably in American English and British English too. I would imagine this is something that they would use, or at least understand if they heard this expression.

But before we get into that, let's get into today's Q and A, Question and Answer, and this one comes from moozhy. I think that's M O O Z H Y. What do Australians do for Halloween? So this was an interesting question. We just had Halloween pass. This is All Hallows Eve. I originally, I believe, was originally, the name of this, a wholly Christian celebration. And it's very famous in the United States of America, at least I'm sure it's famous elsewhere in the world as well. But that's where most Australians are going to know that this holiday is very, very famous.

We always see it in movies and TV shows and yeah, it's where kids dress up, usually in sort of scary costumes and then go around the neighbourhood knocking on doors, asking for treats. So yeah, what would we do in Australia? It is becoming more and more popular and I think it's that kind of commercialist- commercialist? Commercialism, that is driving it. I think stores, especially supermarkets now like Coles and Woollies, they want to sell a lot of these costumes or a lot of these food products and everything else, you know, candy, lollies, all of that jazz.

And so this, this little holiday, that wasn't really a big deal in Australia, you know, decades ago is becoming more and more popular. But yeah, we would do, I guess, much the same as Americans. If we decided to celebrate it, we would probably decorate the front of our house a little bit with, you know, some spiderwebs or skeletons or whatever else, you know, you can sort of think about. And if kids walk through the neighbourhood and they see houses that have these decorations, they know that they can knock on the door and do the trick or treat thing to try and get some lollies out of the inhabitants.

But yeah, it's an interesting, interesting holiday. And I looked up some information about it and found this on www.InsiderGuides.com.au and thought I would read you a few little paragraphs here because this was an article about why Australia doesn't celebrate Halloween.

"Despite Halloween's rich history and the shared culture between Australia, Britain and the US, Australia doesn't really celebrate the festival. There is no straightforward answer as to why. But the three most common beliefs pertain to the Victorian pushback against Halloween, the Australian seasons and Australian disdain for American cultural imperialism." Mmm, so that's interesting. Alright, let's keep going.

"An article in the Washington Post blames the British social conservatism of the Victorian era as a reason for the lack of enthusiasm for Halloween in Australia. During the 19th century," so, the 1800s, "the British Empire was at its peak and its rule was more absolute. The Post argues that it is this legacy of imperialism that remained in Australia long after the Empire broke down, leaving a lack of interest in Halloween to this day. The second argument as to why Halloween isn't popular in Australia is the Australian climate. Halloween essentially marks the end of summer and the harvest, with the spooky events associated with Halloween being linked to less daylight."

Hmm. But it's the opposite way around in Australia. Right, guys? "However, Australia is in the southern hemisphere, so when it is summer in the northern hemisphere, it's winter here. The lack of religious reason to observe the festival, as with Easter and Christmas, simply meant there was no reason to celebrate Halloween in Australia."

So that's the second reason. Then the third one here. "The third argument for Halloween's lack of popularity Down Under is Australian contempt for American culture." And this is where I probably think it's along the lines of why I'm not a massive fan of Halloween.

"While American movies and TV shows are popular in Australia, Dr. Paul Harrison from Deakin Business School believes the US commercialisation of Halloween has put Australians off the festival." Yes, so I think that last reason is probably a big part of it for me, at least in my family. It was always seen as a bit tacky and a bit like, 'Oh, it's just about spending money on costumes and eating too much lollies.' Too many lollies, right. Too much candy.

So yeah, I don't know, but it'd be good to hear from you guys and see what you think. What's the reason you reckon that Aussies don't celebrate Halloween like the Americans?

All right, so now it's time to get into the joke. So today's joke is what's a ghost's favourite dessert? What is a ghost's favourite dessert? Are you ready? I scream. As in, I. Scream. Do you get it?

What's the- what's a ghost's favourite dessert? I scream!

Instead of 'ice cream'. So 'ice cream' is a soft, sweet frozen food made from milk and cream, typically flavoured with vanilla fruit or other ingredients. You know, it could be chocolate, everything like that. And if I use the phrase, 'I scream', right? 'I' conjugated with the verb 'scream' in the present tense there. It is me, or I, giving a long, loud, piercing cry. So this can be to express extreme emotional pain. Okay, so yeah, this was a funny one. It's a common thing, right? Hearing 'I scream' instead of 'ice cream' as a kind of play on words there.

And it made me think of this, saying that a lot of us here, but don't necessarily know where it comes from. And it's the "I scream, you scream! We all scream for ice cream!", right? I scream. Aah! You scream. Aah! We all scream (aah!) for ice cream!

And it turns out I look this up. It's a popular song that was first published in 1927. So, yeah, how crazy is that? And I might play a little excerpt from this song for you guys to just have a quick listen to the chorus where they sing 'I scream, you scream, we all scream ice cream'.

And I should add, too, that, the words and music were by Howard Johnson, Billy Moll and Robert A King.

(song) When he says, Come on, let's go, though it's 45 below. Here is what those Eskimo all holler! Come on, let's go. I scream, you scream! Will scream for ice cream! Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah.

All right, so let's get into today's expression. This is 'to call bullshit on something'. So we'll first go through the different words in this expression on what they mean. I'll tell you what it means. Maybe we'll talk a little bit about the origin of the expression. I'll go through some examples. We'll go through a pronunciation exercise and then finish up with a listing comprehension exercise.

Okay. So, "to call". In this case "to call" is being used like an umpire would pronounce a decision, right. So for instance, in the game of cricket, if an umpire makes 'a call', it's that they decide something, right? They make a decision, they pronounce something to be the case. So a good example might be that if someone is bowling a ball in cricket and the ball is way too wide and the batsman has no chance of hitting the ball, the umpire can 'call' the ball 'wide', as in 'it's a no ball' because the ball was bowled too wide and the batter couldn't hit it. So that's the 'call' that the umpire makes. That's the noun, to make 'a call', but the verb is "to call".

Bullshit. Bullshit. I'm sure you guys have probably heard the word "bullshit", so this is a stupid or untrue thing that is spoken about or written about. So, it's nonsense. It is lies, it's untruths, it is 'bullshit'. So, 'what that guy said is total bullshit'. It's nonsense. It's completely untrue. It is bullshit.

And we can also use this as a verb: "to bullshit". So if you 'bullshit' someone, "this guy is bullshitting you, man. He's bullshitting you". It is that you lie to someone. "He's bullshitting you. He's lying." "He's lying to you. He's not telling you the truth. He's bullshitting you."

So, if you "call bullshit on something", "to call something on" something else. This structure here is used to accuse something of something. Effectively, right? So if you call bullshit on something, it is that you are suggesting that that thing is bullshit. You are suggesting that it is a lie. Okay. And I guess before we talk about that again, the meaning of this expression, 'something' here is an unspecified thing, item or object. "I'm holding 'something' in my hand". "Did you hear 'something' outside?" 'Something'.

Yeah. Okay. So if you "call bullshit on something", it is that you are saying what someone has said is garbage. It is nonsense. You're accusing the person of saying things that are incorrect, of lying, right? You're calling someone out on their lies or falsehoods. You are "calling bullshit on something" and that 'something' there is referring to the thing the person has said.

So if this person says, "I want $1,000,000" and you say "bullshit", you know, "I call bullshit on that". It's the thing that they've said "I want $1,000,000" that you are saying is bullshit.

So I looked up the etymology of the word 'bullshit' because this is one of those weird ones that you kind of get used to as part of the English language. You know, you hear this all the time. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. But you think, Why do we use 'bull' and 'shit' together? Why not just 'shit', right?

So I looked this up and Wikipedia had the following to say: "Bull, meaning nonsense, dates from the 17th century." So the 1600s, "while the term bullshit has been used as early as 1915 in British and American slang and came into popular usage only during World War Two." So it took another, what, 30 years or so for it to become popular. "The word 'bull' itself may have derived from the old French bole B O L E, meaning fraud or deceit."

And "the term 'horseshit' is a near synonym. An occasionally used South African English equivalent, though more common in Australian English, is bull dust. Although there is no confirmed etymological connection, these older meanings are synonymous with the modern expression 'bull', generally considered and used as a contraction of 'bullshit'."

And it means yeah, you think someone is lying. "Ah, bull. That's all bull." You know, "I don't believe you". It's kind of a politer way of saying bullshit.

"Another proposal, according to the lexicographer Eric Partridge, is that the term was popularised by the Australian and New Zealand troops from about 1916 arriving at the front during World War One. Partridge claims that the British commanding officers placed emphasis on 'bull'; that is, attention to appearances, even when it was a hindrance to waging war. The Diggers allegedly ridiculed the British by calling it 'bullshit'."

So there you go, guys. Hopefully that's a little bit of interesting history there about where the term 'bullshit' may or may not have come from.

Now let's go through a few examples of how to use the expression "to call bullshit on someone".

So example number one. When I was at primary school, as a young boy, I used to hang out with a group of other kids. And as kids, as they usually do, we used to make up stories to try and seem cooler to one another. Right? To get a bit of credit, to get a bit of street cred. Right. To sort of, yeah, to seem cooler to all the other kids.

So if these stories were particularly ludicrous and unbelievable, other kids might call bullshit on what the person was saying, right? So if someone said, "My dad is a spy in the army and he goes on secret missions every single week." Someone might say, "Yeah, I call bullshit". "I call bullshit on what you said." "I call bullshit."

"Oh, I once accidentally got shot in the arm whilst hunting and we were hunting a bear. And then I caught the bear with my bare hands and killed it. And I have the pelt as a rug on my bedroom floor." I think you'd say "I don't believe you. I call bullshit on that story." "I think that's bullshit." So there you go. "I think that's bullshit." "I call bullshit on that."

Example number two. If I was down at the pub one day with some mates and we met this new random person, you know, who maybe someone just came up beside you, sat down and said, "Hey, mate, I'm from the royal family", you might be like, "I don't believe you. I think you're spinning yarns." "I think you're lying. I call bullshit." "All of us here call bullshit. We don't believe you." "We don't think you're royalty. We call bullshit." "We reckon you're making this up. We reckon you're full of it."

Example number three. So there was a news story recently that some guy had run across Australia in something like 46 days, and initially I 'called bullshit'. I couldn't believe it. I thought there's no way that someone could run across Australia, you know, it was something like 4000 kilometres that he was said to have run in 46 days. But when I looked into it, it turns out that this bloke Ned Brockman, actually did run 4000 kilometres across Australia in 46 days and he raised $1.85 million for charity. So I 'call bullshit' on it, but I was completely wrong and it turned out not to be false. It turned out to be true. And yeah, you legend Ned Brockman. Good on you, mate!

So there you go, guys. That is the expression "to call bullshit on someone". This is a performative utterance, a speech act, in which one publicly repudiates some something objectionable. So that's sort of a lengthy way of saying you're saying someone's lying, right? So you're accusing someone openly of being incorrect, of spreading falsehoods, of spreading lies. You're 'calling bullshit' on what they're saying.

So as usual, guys, let's go through the little listen and repeat exercise. This is your chance to work on your pronunciation skills in English. If you're working on your Aussie accent, shut the door, get somewhere by yourself and try and just read these words out after me in your best Australian accent possible. Are you ready? Let's go.

To. To call. To call bullshit. To call bullshit on. To call bullshit on something. To call bullshit on something. To call bullshit on something. To call bullshit on something. To call bullshit on something. I call bullshit on that. You call bullshit on that. He calls bullshit on that. She calls bullshit on that. We call bullshit on that. They call bullshit on that. It calls bullshit on that.

Good job, guys. Good job. Okay, so let's go through a little bit of pronunciation, intonation, all that sort of interesting stuff.

So, "to call bullshit on something", let's say that again. "To call bullshit on something".

Firstly, the L sound at the end of the word 'call', it can be a standard light L, the luh luh luh luh sound. Call. Call. To call bullshit on something. But because the next word 'bullshit' starts with a consonant sound /br/ the B, 'to call bullshit'. You can actually use the dark L.

So this is where it sounds more like a little /w/ sound at the end of the word 'cawl' instead of 'call'. So I'm doing the L sound with my lips effectively closing into a small ring. /cawl/ /cawl/ 'to cawl bullshit'. I /cawl/ bullshit. Call, call instead of cal-l, cal-l, cal-l.

The other thing that happens here with the word 'bullshit'. What do you hear happening to the T at the very end of the word when it links to the next word 'on', which starts with a vowel? /bullshi-(t)on/ /bullshi-(t)on/ "I call /bullshi-(t)on/ that." "You call /bullshi-(t)on/ that." It links and so it becomes a T flap. The T isn't at the start of a syllable that is emphasised because it's an unstressed syllable there, or it's at the boundary of an unstressed syllable. We use the T flap /bullshi-(t)on/, /ɾ/ /ɾ/ /ɾ/ It's where the tongue lightly taps against the roof of the mouth /bullshi-ɾon/ /bullshi-ɾon/ "I call /bullshi-ɾon/ that." "You call /bullshi-ɾon/ that."

So those are two things to focus on there when speaking with connected speech. When linking these words together, the consonant sounds like that light L /l/ and the T /t/ can change and you can end up with things like the dark L and the T flap, which is how native speakers would quite often pronounce these sounds.

And remember, guys, if you want to learn more about these specific topics as well as master your Australian accent, go check out my Australian pronunciation course at www.AussieEnglish.com.au/apc

All right, guys. So to finish up, I have a little clip here that comes from the Aussie kid's show Bluey. I think we've featured Bluey a few times. I am a huge fan of this show and the excerpt is that it is about and overenthusiastic and imaginative blue heeler puppy named Bluey, who goes on adventures with her younger sister Bingo, which unfold in hilarious ways.

So the rules of the game, guys. I'm going to play a clip for you two times, and your goal is to listen and write down what you hear. So get a pen, get some paper, or you could open up a word document on your computer and try and type things out.

And remember, if you want to check your answer today, you'll be able to download the free worksheet. Or if you have the Premium Podcast membership and you can access the transcripts, you'll be able to see the answer in the transcript itself. Okay, so are you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

Now, look at this lovely new garden gnome.

Great work, mate. How did you go? Did you get all of it? Time for the second playthrough.

Now, look at this lovely new garden gnome.

All right, that's it for me today, guys. Thank you so much for joining me. Don't forget, if you want to read whilst you listen to these episodes and take notes, highlight new words and expressions, all that sort of stuff, all that jazz. Be sure to sign up for the Premium Podcast at www.AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast and for everything else, go check out the website. Thanks again. My name is Pete, This is Aussie English. It's been a pleasure and I'll chat to you next time. Tooroo!