Transcript of AE 1178 - Expression: A Kick in the Teeth

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, number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So guys, I hope you've been having a great week. I hope you've been working hard, I hope you've been doing really well. And I guess I should say first and foremost that I want all of my Iranian listeners to know that I am 100% with them. You know, it's really disturbing to see what's going on in Iran at the moment after the killing of Mahsa. And yeah, I just really, really hope that you guys can ultimately change the government and get your freedoms back that you guys once had. You know, Iran used to be an incredibly open, and a little more liberal, well, a lot more liberal than it is currently back in the 70s and earlier. And yeah, they- they were taken over by a regime that has really cracked down on human rights, but in particular women's rights.

So, guys, I'm with you. I stand with you guys. I hope other people will learn about what's going on in Iran and stand by your sides as well, because, yeah, you guys deserve to live free lives.

Anyway, guys, with that aside, yeah, I hope you're having a great week. It's been a busy one for me. I have been playing with the kids a lot. My wife's been on school holidays and it is funny, as soon as you kind of, I don't know, as soon as you're not at school anymore, as soon as you finish high school and you start going to university, even after that, really, you sort of get out of the loop. Before you have children again- again?!

Before you have children, you don't really remember or know when all these different holidays are. And it is something that I, until recently, had been totally out of the loop with and never, you know, you just suddenly go outside and you're like, 'Well, there's kids everywhere. What are the kids doing here? What's going on? Oh, it's holidays.' So yeah, that's something that I'm going to have to get used to again in the coming future when my kids start going to school and everything and having holidays. But my wife, because she works for a music school at the moment, they follow the school term as well. And so she, she has holidays just like kids do now.

So she's enjoying herself at the moment, living her best life. And we're about to move house as well. That's probably less than two weeks away, I think. Settlement, we have settlement on the 10th of October. So it probably means that as of the 10th of October, we are able to move into the house and that's exciting. I, I'll have to share more about that, and the process, and what it's been like trying to purchase our first house with you guys in the future.

Anyway, let's get into the Q and A, the question and answer, and this one comes from Parissa. So she asks, 'Why do you think a Republican is better than being part of the Commonwealth for Australia?' So this is obviously a question that was asked because the Queen recently passed away, you know, rest her soul, and everyone's been talking about whether or not Australia should become a republic and that would effectively be where the monarch is removed from our head of state and we are no longer beholden to them and we are our own country.

So at the moment we're part of the Commonwealth. So, you know, effectively the head of our state is the Queen, or it was the queen, now it's the king. So yeah, I looked into this and to be honest, there'd be no real noticeable difference in terms of daily life besides perhaps superficial things like the money having the monarch's face, you know, that would be removed from it.

And perhaps the royal family would be spoken about less frequently by the media here in Australia and by the average person who is, you know, a bit of a royal family pundit. The only real difference would be that the Queen would no longer technically, or the king, would no longer technically be the head of state under whom the Governor-General would have control of the leadership of the country. So you'll know that, if you know Australian history, go back to when Gough Whitlam was our Prime Minister.

He came into power and then because he couldn't shore up the numbers and get a solid government coming forward, the Governor-General ended up removing him from power with the permission of, I believe, the Queen at the time. And so yeah, it was a very weird part about our history that people sort of raged up a bit about. But yeah, I don't think there would be much, much of a change really, to be honest. I mean, you wouldn't really notice anything, but it might just be cool to be like, we've got a president now, someone you know, who's 'this is our own leader that we voted in and is has 100% power' as opposed to, you know, the Queen, sort of, or the King. I'm still sort of getting used to having to say 'the king'. The queen, the king, the monarch being on the periphery there and still having a lot to do with Australia.

So let's get into the joke, guys. Slap the bird! All right. So today's joke is: "What has teeth but no mouth?" And I guess it's more of a riddle than a joke, right? "What has teeth? But no mouth." Hmm. What would have teeth, but no mouth. Are you ready? A comb! A comb, right?

The implement that people with hair, people unlike myself, used to. Yeah. What would you say? They- they use it. They pass it through their hair to untangle their hair. I want to use the verb 'They comb their hair with a comb'. Right. But it's the same word as the noun that I'm trying to define.

So a comb is something you pass through your hair to untangle it. A comb. So there you go. "What has teeth, but no mouth?" A comb. And we call those little, I guess they would be metal or wood or plastic points on a comb. You know, normally there's dozens, maybe a hundred or so on the comb. We call those 'teeth'. Okay. So that's something that has teeth, but no mouth. A comb.

All right. Let's go through the different words in the expression, 'a kick in the teeth', 'a kick in the teeth', and then we'll define it. Talk about the origin, give you some examples. Go through a pronunciation exercise, and then the little listen and repeat exercise at the end.

Okay, So the word 'A', it is an indefinite article. So we use it in front of a noun that is a singular, non-specific thing. So if I look out my window, I can see 'a fence', maybe I can see 'a dog' or I can see 'a cloud'. Right? It's non-specific. It's not important that it is a specific one of those things. It's just, Ah, yeah, there is one of those things out there. "I can see 'a' dog".

'A kick'. This is a blow or forceful thrust with the foot. So perhaps you're a bit of a horrible person and your dog farts and you kick the dog, right? And we have that kind of expression in Australian English. I remember when I was young, I used to obviously, you know, fart in front of my parents or whatever, and my dad would always be like, 'Pete, kick the dog, mate!' And he was suggesting that I should blame the fart on the dog. Right? So if he heard a fart or he smelt a fart, he might turn to whoever he thought did it and say, you know, 'Pete, kick the dog.' 'Kick the dog, mate.' You know, at least try and pretend like it wasn't you.

All right. 'In something'. So I 'kick in' something. This is a preposition, right. In, 'in' something. And it expresses the situation of something that is, or appears to be enclosed, or surrounded by something else. It is 'in it', 'within it', 'inside of it'. In.

'The'. This is the definite article, so a singular thing this time, but it is a specific thing. So if I look out my window, I can see 'the' fence that surrounds our house, right? It's not just 'a' fence. We don't have many different fences. And this is one of them that surrounds our house. We only have a single one. So this is 'the' specific house. 'The ice cream that I bought today was chocolate.' I only bought one ice cream and it was chocolate. It was 'the' ice cream that I bought. 'The' ice cream I bought was chocolate. If I bought several ice creams and one of them happened to be chocolate, I might be like, 'Oh, this is 'an' ice cream that I bought and it is chocolate.'.

All right. Lastly, guys, the word 'teeth'. I'm sure you'll know what 'teeth' means. Each of a set of hard, bony enamel coated structures in the jaws of most vertebrates used for biting and chewing. So humans have roughly 32 teeth. A shark's mouth is full of razor sharp teeth.

All right, so the expression 'a kick in the teeth'. This one is somewhat self-explanatory. It's kind of obvious what this means. 'A kick in the teeth' is something that is very shocking and disappointing. Right. It compares something to being painful, discouraging, humiliating. It's just not pleasant. It's about as fun as you would imagine. A literal kick in the teeth would be, right? Not nice.

Now, I looked up the origin of this expression and it led me to www.languagehumanities.org and they said there that "'Kick in the teeth' is one of a large number of idiomatic English expressions dating back to the 18th century which relate to being kicked. The song 'Ain't That a Kick In the Head', made famous by Dean Martin, uses a kick in the head to refer to a sudden shock, while 'kick in the pants' has a similar meaning. Similar to defeat an opponent is 'to kick his butt', while to summarily eject someone from a business is to 'kick that person out'."

So, we have a lot of these expressions with 'kick' but yes, 'a kick in the teeth' is something very shocking, unpleasant or disappointing.

So let's go through some examples of how I would use this expression in daily English. All right. So I'll give you a personal example. I went to high school with a guy who ended up becoming one of my best friends. So I think we met probably probably in the first week or so of high school and became friends all the way up to second and third year of uni. So we used to play in bands together. We loved music, we hung out all the time. We went to parties, We had all, you know, similar friends and in second and third year university, I ended up getting a girlfriend and we moved in together with three of my other friends from high school.

So there were five of us in this house: me, my girlfriend, and three of my other mates from high school. Unfortunately, after 12 months or so, my girlfriend and I ended up breaking up and two weeks later I found out that my best friend, the one that I talked about previously from high school, was suddenly in a relationship with my ex-girlfriend. And had pretty much moved into the house where I once lived with my three other mates as well. Neither my girlfriend nor my supposed friend, who was now in a relationship with her, told me about what was going on and I ended up finding out through one of my mates who was living there.

After a few weeks, needless to say, that was a kick in the teeth. It felt like a horrible betrayal of my friend, not to mention my ex-girlfriend to do that. You know, it's like, 'guys at least wait a few months', right? You know, you don't just get out of a relationship with someone and then start dating their best friend within weeks. So, yes, that felt like a huge kick in the teeth.

All right. Example number two, imagine you're a talented athlete who competes in the 100 metre sprint. So you've trained all your life as a kid up until your early twenties, and now you've become so good that you have won all of the competitions in your country, you know, maybe state competitions and then national competitions and you end up going to the Olympics to represent your country. So you get there, you get into the finals only to end up losing and coming second by the skin of your teeth, right?

So only just, you only just lose by the skin of your teeth. So you come second best, and second best in the world is nothing to sniff at, right? It's nothing to be disappointed with. It's an incredible achievement, but it's bittersweet and it feels like a real kick in the teeth. You came so close to winning. You worked your entire life to get there, to hopefully win a gold medal at the Olympics, right? That is the crème de la crème. That is everything that you've ever wanted. But unfortunately, you just missed out and came second. That would feel like a real kick in the teeth.

Example number three. Imagine that you've studied really hard at high school to get into university and you want to study something like medicine. It's an incredibly competitive subject to try and get in or a degree, rather, to get into and try and study. And you need a really, really high score from your final year at high school to be able to be competitive enough to get into that course at a university.

So when you graduate, you get your score from your final year at high school, year 12 and on which your entry to medical school at university hangs, and you find out that you've missed the benchmark by half a point, right? So you've missed out by the skin of your teeth. You have only just fallen short of the score that you need to get into medicine. So it's devastating. It's gut wrenching. You're shocked and disappointed. It's a devastating kick in the teeth. It is a massive blow. You feel awful. It's a kick in the teeth.

So hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression 'a kick in the teeth'. This is something that is shocking, disappointing, gut wrenching, devastating. And it's comparing those things. Right? It's comparing literally being kicked in the teeth with something that is painful, discouraging and humiliating.

So, as usual, guys, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise. This is where you can find somewhere quiet, get away from the world and listen to this exercise and repeat these words out after me. Remember, it's good if you're working on your Aussie accent, you know, to try and copy me as much as you can. But if you're not just read these things out after me in the accent that you're working on, okay, That's all good too. All right, you ready to go? Let's do it.

A a kick. A kick in. A kick in the. A kick in the teeth. A kick in the teeth. A kick in the teeth. A kick in the teeth. A kick in the teeth. What I said felt like a kick in the teeth. What you said felt like a kick in the teeth. What he said felt like a kick in the teeth. What she said felt like a kick in the teeth. What we said felt like a kick in the teeth. What they said felt like a kick in the teeth. What it said felt like a kick in the teeth.

Good work, guys. Now, there's a lot of connected speech going on there. You'll hear things like 'wha-(t)ai', 'wha-(t)ee', and 'wha-(t)it', and you'll notice that we're turning the T at the end of the word 'what' into a T-flap when we link to another word that's starting with a vowel sound. 'wha-(t)ai', 'wha-(t)ee', we're saying 'he' there with the H deletion so we don't pronounce the H, 'wha-(t)ee' 'wha-(t)ee', and 'wha-(t)it', 'wha-(t)it'. You'll also notice this muting a lot of these consonants at the ends of words. So muting the T at the end of the word 'it', or 'felt' and the same for the D at the end of the word 'said', 'wha-(t)it said felt like a kick in the teeth'. 'What it said felt like a kick in the teeth'.

Instead of saying something like 'what it said felt like a kick in the teeth'. That's something to really work on. And as I always say, guys, check out my Australian Pronunciation Course, if you're trying to learn these more advanced aspects to pronunciation in English. If you want to learn to mute these different consonants, how to link these different words together, consonants and vowel sounds go over to www.aussieenglish.com.au/apc

Sign up, follow the course curriculum. I've helped thousands of students improve their pronunciation and sound more Australian with this course and remember that you've got a 30-day money back guarantee. So you've nothing to lose by signing up, giving it a go and trying it for 30 days. If you decide in that first 30 days it's not for you, I'll give you your money back. But ultimately, I just want you to go check it out and get out of it as much as possible if pronunciation and Australian pronunciation in particular is something that you're working on.

And then I guess lastly, we should talk a little bit about linking the words 'like a' and 'kick in', right? So 'li-kah', 'ki-(k)in', 'li-kah', 'ki-(k)in', 'li-kah', 'ki-(k)in', 'li-kah ki-(k)in the teeth'. 'Like a kick in the teeth'. 'Like a kick in the teeth'.

There you go, guys. All right, so now let's get into the last little section here where I'm going to play a clip from a famous Aussie film called Priscilla: Queen of the Desert.

And I had a look online. You can actually purchase this film on YouTube if you want to watch it. So it's probably a couple of dollars if you want to go and watch this film. It's a classic Aussie film. I love this. I watched it. I think it's from the 1990s and it's about two drag queens and a transsexual who take their act on the road in Australia. They have several adventures and uncover deep secrets as they travel across Australia, entertaining homophobes and enthusiasts alike.

So it is a very, very interesting film. I just, I reckon you should give it a look. Even, even if the subject matter is a little touchy for you, it's worth sussing out, and learning Australian slang, Australian expressions and our sense of humour. And you might also learn a little bit about homosexuality in Australia in the nineties and bigotry as well.

So anyway, the rules of the game here are that I'm going to play this clip for you two times and your goal is to listen to the clip and try and write down the words that you hear being said. Okay, so get a piece of paper and a pen, sit down somewhere. I'll play it once. I'll give you a little pause. I'll play it again. And then if you need to listen multiple times, you can obviously rewind.

And also, don't forget that if you want to check your answer, either grab the free PDF download for this episode, which you'll be able to get on the website on this episode page. Or if you're a member of the Premium Podcast, you'll have the transcripts for all these episodes, and the text will obviously be transcribed in those transcripts so that you can read it and see if what you've written down is what you're hearing. And you can sign up for the Premium Podcast at www.aussieenglish.com.au/podcast

So anyway, are you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

I think you're overreacting. Really? Yes. You're just being a drama queen. You're going to have to drop all that shit if you're going to be a good father.

All right. Good work. So how did you go? That was a little bit of a long one. Did you get all of it? Time for the second playthrough.

I think you're overreacting. Really? Yes. You're just being a drama queen. You're going to have to drop all that shit if you're going to be a good father.

All right, So that's it for today, guys. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for hanging out with me, as usual. I really appreciate it. And I wish you guys an amazing week and I'll chat to you later. See you later!