Transcript of AE 1173 - Expression: Keep Your Shirt On

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. The lingo from Down Under. Now guys, I have had a good morning. I had a pretty good sleep. We're at a stage at the moment where my son is the bad sleeper now. So for a long time my daughter was, and she would be waking up at all hours of the night for different reasons, you know, screaming and needing someone to come in to give her milk or to give her cuddles or to find a pacifier or her dummy and give that back to her. But recently, she's become a really good sleeper. And conversely, my son has sort of regressed from being an amazing sleeper to now waking up usually around midnight and wanting attention or comfort. So he wants to come and get a cuddle. He wants you to come and sleep with him. You know, he always comes out. He's like "5 minutes! 5 minutes, Dada! 5 minutes!"

So he wants me to come and sleep with him in the bed for 5 minutes and obviously help him get back to sleep. Or, he wants to come and sleep with us in our bed. And it's one of those tough things. You kind of want him to be able to sleep on his own. But at the same time, I understand that he's a young child. You know, he's only three years old. And if he's scared and wants to sleep with his parents, you know, screw it. He can come and sleep with us.

The only problem is, the weird thing that I've noticed is that: one, he moves around so bloody much. So he'll be kicking and, you know, twisting and turning and moving his hands around and making noises and sucking his thumb whilst lying in our bed between mum and I, his mum and I, not my mum and I. And it just keeps us awake forever.

And the other thing I notice is that he grinds his teeth. I've never noticed that. Well, I mean, I haven't really slept in beds with young children ever before my kids, but my son grinds his teeth in his sleep. And I just, you know, it's- it's horrible. It keeps waking both my wife and me up, and we're like, I can't handle this. It's- it's one thing if he was just kind of like snoring or sucking his thumb, but the grinding of teeth, it's almost a sound that is like when someone drags their fingernails down a chalkboard. A blackboard. Right. And it's just, oh, it's grating. It's horrible.

So anyway, that's where things currently stand. Fortunately, this morning my beautiful wife woke up earlier than me and took them to day-care and I got to sleep in a little bit and then drove my wife to work and came home. And here we are. It is currently 11:38 a.m.. I'm going to have a cheeky stretch. Oh! I'm still sort of waking up. Still sort of waking up and it is time for an episode. So. All right, let's get into the Q&A!

Q&A. Okay. So this one comes from Brian. "Hey, Pete, how's it going?" It's going good, mate. It's going well. I hope you're well. "I can't pronounce the words 'worn', 'warm' and 'worm' correctly."

So, 'worn', as in the past tense of 'wear'. Worn W O R N. That's an ō, long ō vowel sound. 'Warm', the same long vowel sound 'warm', as in of, or, at a fairly or comfortably high temperature. Right. So it might be 'warm outside'. That's 'warm'. So that's the same pronunciation as 'worn'. The only difference is one ends with an N sound, 'worn', and the other ends with an M sound, 'warm'.

And lastly, 'worm', W O R M. Now this looks confusing because compared to 'worn', it's the same spelling, except it ends with an M, but the vowel sound is different now. Worm. So now we have a long /er/ vowel sound instead of a long ō vowel sound. So 'werm', 'werm'. And this is any of a number of creeping or burrowing invertebrate animals with long, slender, soft bodies and no limbs. Right. So you might keep your garden healthy by ensuring it has a lot of worms living in the soil.

So 'worn', 'warm' and 'worm'. 'Worn' and 'warm' rhyme with 'horn' and 'war', right? The- both of those words also have that /or/ and /ar/ spelling for the ō vowel sound, and then 'worm' rhymes with 'word'. Okay, the /or/ being an /er/ vowel sound.

Guys, before we get into the joke though, I should say firstly, if you want to work on your Australian pronunciation, be sure to check out the Australian Pronunciation course. I'm currently doing a sale on that so you can go to www.aussieenglish.com.au/apc100 and you will save $100 on that course. So go and check that out, 33% off if you want to work on your Australian pronunciation. It is probably my most popular course that's sold on its own and I've had thousands of students go through it and get amazing results, reducing their foreign accent, learning to understand the Australian accent really quickly as well, and then just feeling more natural and confident when speaking English, Australian English, with other Australians. And then secondly guys, obviously if you want the transcripts for these podcast episodes, be sure to sign up for the Premium Podcast at www.aussieenglish.com.au/podcast.

All right, guys. So with that aside, slap the bird and let's get into today's joke.

So the joke today is: Why does Waldo, or- well, we would call him Wally in Australia, not Waldo. Why does Wally wear a striped shirt? And Wally is from the book Where's Wally?, right.

So we have this book where this guy has a beanie and a shirt on that striped in red and white colours. And I think the beanie is, too. And you have to try and find him amongst usually thousands of people in different scenes, different images in this book. Right. I used to love it, it's cool.

So, why does Wally wear a striped shirt? Because he doesn't want to be spotted!

Did you get it? He doesn't want to be spotted. So obviously you could be 'spotted' here in that you could be spied, seen, discovered, found, you know, with sight. So if I'm looking for Wally in this image, you know, with thousands of other people around, if I 'spot' him, I find him. I can see him. There he is! I've spotted Wally!

But if you are 'spotted', you could be a leopard, for example, and you have a 'spotted coat', right? So you have spots on your coat as opposed to, say, like a tiger having stripes. So you have these dots, these spots on your coat and you are 'spotted', as opposed to being 'striped' and having stripes on your coat like a zebra or a tiger.

So that's the joke. Why does Wally wear a striped shirt? Because he doesn't want to be spotted.

And I will tell you, I don't know if I mentioned before, but Waldo is what Americans call Wally. I don't know why it's Waldo. It's one of these weird names, like Wally is short, I imagine, in Australia, at least for Walter. Right. The name Walter. 'Hey, Walter. Hey, Wally. What's up?' I think in Crocodile Dundee, his sort of sidekick is called Wally, from memory. I think that's what his name is. And it would be from Walter.

But Waldo, I don't know where they get that, if that's from Walter or if that's from another name or something in the US. I've never heard of like an American being called Waldo. 'Hey, this is Waldo.' You know, it sounds a bit weird.

Anyway, let's get going. Okay, so today's expression, guys, is "to keep your shirt on". And perhaps you saw the connection between the expression to keep your shirt on, and you 'spotted' the connection between that and the joke, right? A striped shirt. All right.

So, "to keep your shirt on", I wonder if you've heard this, guys. Have you ever been told "Keep your shirt on!" "Jeez, mate, settle down, keep your shirt on!"

So, before we go through the expression on what it means, let's go through the different words in the expression.

So, "to keep something". If you 'keep' something, you hold onto it. You maintain that thing in a certain position. You don't change it, you don't move it. You keep a- I don't know. Yeah, you 'keep' a change. Someone wants to make a change. They make the change, and you 'keep' it. You allow it to stay. Maybe you 'keep' your mate's car in your garage, right? You hold on to his car, you maintain it in that position in your garage, you 'keep' it there.

"To keep something on" is to maintain it on your body, usually obviously associated with clothing, right? So if you keep your hat on your head, obviously you maintain the hat on your head in that position. But you could also I guess you could also keep- 'keep the TV on'. That's the previous definition, right? That maintaining the TV on. You can 'keep your pants on', right? So you've got your pants on, and you're wearing your pants. "To keep it on". I guess we've turned it into a phrasal verb there.

Lastly, 'a shirt'. I'm sure you guys will know what a shirt is. It's a t-shirt, a garment for the upper body made of cotton or a similar fabric, with a collar and sleeves, and often with buttons down the front. So, "I lost my shirt at the beach. Couldn't find it, I lost it." Or, "I ripped my shirt."

So, if someone walks up to you and says, "Keep your shirt on", it means don't lose your temper. Stay calm, be patient, right. Be more patient, "Keep your shirt on!" "Just keep your shirt on."

So it's often used to ask someone to wait, or to hold on. So, if someone's kind of trying to hurry you along, you know, like, "Come on, mate, come on! Come on!" You'd be like, "Keep your shirt on, dude! Chill out. Relax. Just be patient."

And it's really interesting. I looked up the definition of this expression. And again, we ended up on grammarist.com and it was first used in the mid 1800s. "Keep Your Shirt On is an American term that most probably stems from the fact that, at the time, most men only owned one or maybe two shirts before taking part in an altercation. So if they were going to have a fight with someone, a man would remove his shirt in order to spare it from being ruined or soiled." Or ripped in that altercation, in that fight.

So, it's funny because you'll see videos and, you know, maybe movies, TV series, all that sort of stuff where two men will get into a fight and one or both of them will take their shirts off. And I always used to think, why did guys do this? You know, what the hell is the deal with people pulling their shirts off? Is it sort of like a sign of aggression? Or something? You know, like I'm big and tough. I'm not afraid to have my chest scratched if we get into a fight. But I think it probably stems from this behaviour, obviously, all the way back to the 1800s where people were doing it because they didn't have many t-shirts and they didn't want to destroy their clothing.

But today it kind of makes no sense unless you really are wearing something that's really expensive that you don't want ruined. And I think the average person isn't going to be wearing a t-shirt that's worth hundreds of dollars, you know, like a Gucci t-shirt that's worth $800 or something ridiculous. They're going to be in something that they got, you know, for under 50 bucks and they probably have dozens of them. So yeah. Anyway, I found the origin of this expression 'keep your shirt on' to be really interesting. And I didn't know that previously. I never thought about it. You know, "keep your shirt on". As in 'calm down', you know, someone's ripped their shirt off wanting to fight you and you're like, literally, "Keep your shirt on, mate. Put it back on, chill out, relax, take a seat. Take a chill pill. Calm your farm. Just relax!"

All right, let's go through three examples of how I would use this expression: "to keep your shirt on". So my dad and my mom are a classic example here. Every time my folks have some kind of event they're going to, my dad is always the first to get ready and be on the way out of the door, ready to climb into the car and drive off to the event.

My mom usually drags her feet a bit. She takes a while to shower, get dressed, maybe put on some makeup. Although I don't think my mom's a big make up person. She doesn't really wear much makeup. She, you know, gets to check all the doors in the house to make their lo- make sure they're locked. She'll make sure the pets are okay before eventually shutting the front door, locking it and getting in the car with my dad.

By this point, my dad is usually pretty irritated and he'll be like, "You know, why did you take so long to get ready? You knew when we needed to leave. We needed to leave at 12:00 and it's now 12:30. Why did you drag your feet all afternoon? Why did you take forever to get ready?" And my mum will probably just turn around and be like, "Keep your shirt on, stay calm. Be patient, calm your farm." You know, "I'm ready now. Let's go." "Keep your bloody shirt on, Ian!" You know, "keep your shirt on".

Example number two, another great example. Maybe, you know, you get stuck in traffic. So you're in a long line of cars that have been held up by something ahead of you. You don't know what it is yet. The people behind you start kind of raging up and getting impatient and annoyed, frustrated. They want to get to work. They've got places to be. So they start beeping their horns. They start thinking, you're the problem, you know? Or the people in front of them are the problem, when in reality you're like, 'It's not my fault! There's some issue further down the road', you know? So you might turn around or yell out the window, "Bloody hell, mate! Keep your shirt on!" Or "Keep your shirts on!" if there's multiple people you're yelling at, "It's not me. It's not my fault. Stay patient, keep calm. Chillax, relax! Calm your farm!" "Keep your bloody shirts on."

Example number three. You're at a festival one day and really need to go to the loo. So you really need to go to the dunny, to the toilet. You're busting to go to the toilet. But there's a huge line. Everyone's been waiting for ages because there are way too many people busting to go to the dunny and there are not enough portaloos, right? Portable toilets, at the festival. So you finally get to the front of the line where you can hop into one of the stalls, shut the door, lock it, pull your trousers down, pull your pants down, sit down and just unleash the beast. Right. You can do your business. You can finally relieve yourself. So you end up taking a little while for whatever reason.

You know, maybe you ate some really spicy curry the night beforehand and it's not agreeing with you. You hear a bang on the door, though, and someone out there is like, "What the hell is going on? Did you fall asleep on the dunny, mate?" "Hurry up. The rest of us out here are busting to take a piss or, you know, do a number two as well. Come on, how long are you going to be?"

In which case you might reply "Jesus, mate, hold your horses. Take it easy, chillax. Keep your shirt on." You know. "I'll be out in a sec. I'll be done when I'm done. Keep your bloody shirt on, mate. Keep it on."

So there you go, guys. That is the expression "to keep your shirt on". Don't lose your temper, stay calm, be more patient, calm your farm, chillax. 'Just take a chill pill'. You know, there's some more informal ways of telling people to calm down. Just relax, mate.

So, as usual, guys, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise. So this is where you can work on your pronunciation skills. Obviously, you can work on speaking out loud. Listen to the words and the phrases that I say and try and repeat them exactly as I do. If you're working on your Australian pronunciation, if you're working on a different accent, that's cool too. No problem at all. Just say the words as you would in that accent after me, and pay less attention to my Aussie accent. All right, so you ready? Let's go.

To. To keep. To keep your. To keep your shirt. To keep your shirt on. To keep your shirt on. To keep your shirt on. To keep your shirt on. To keep your shirt on. I told him to keep his shirt on. You told him to keep his shirt on. She told him to keep his shirt on. He told him to keep his shirt on. We told him to keep his shirt on. They told him to keep his shirt on. It told him to keep his shirt on.

Great job, guys, man. There's some really interesting stuff happening there in terms of connected speech. Let's first go through the words that get reduced. So in the phrase 'to keep your shirt on', which words do you hear having the schwa vowel sound inserted in, instead of the usual vowel sound that those words have, right?

To keep your shirt on. To keep your shirt on. 'To' becomes /tə/ and 'your' becomes. /yʊə/, and you'll notice that rhythm. Da da da da da. 'To keep your shirt on'. So the words that are getting emphasised are 'keep', a verb; 'shirt', a noun; and 'on', a preposition. To keep your shirt on. To keep your shirt on.

Now, I also wanted to talk about Connected Speech, so there's some really interesting stuff happening with the D at the end of the word 'told' and the T at the end of the word 'shirt' in this phrase, or phrases, 'I told him to keep his shirt on'. So I wonder if you guys can hear a D sound at the end of the word 'told' when I say /tol-dim/ or a T sound at the end of the word 'shirt' when I say /shir-(t)on/.

I think you probably just noticed in both cases there are actually T flaps happening there. And this is because they're linking to the next word that starts with a vowel sound and you might be thinking, where's the vowel at the start of the word 'him'? Isn't there an H sound? No. We use H-deletion quite often when words starting with H are found within sentences, and there's a consonant before them.

So instead of saying 'told' 'him', with a clear D and H sound, 'told' 'him', I'll say /tol-dim/, /tol-dim/, /tol-dim/, /tol-dim/, /tol-dim/.

And /shir-(t)on/, /shir-(t)on/, /shir-(t)on/. 'I /tol-dim/ to keep his /shir-(t)on/'. And you'll notice H deletion again when I say /kee-(p)is/ instead of 'keep' 'his', /kee-(p)is/, /kee-(p)is/.

'I /tol-dim/ to /kee-(p)is/ /shir-(t)on/.' 'You /tol-dim/ to /kee-(p)is/ /shir-(t)on/'.

So, working on that sort of stuff, the advanced aspects of pronunciation, intonation, connected speech is really going to help you sound more natural no matter what accent you're learning. If it's the Australian accent, American accent, British accent, whatever it is, when you dive in a little deeper and learn a bit more about Linked Speech, Connected Speech, emphasis, which words get emphasised, the intonation, and everything like that. Getting deeper there is really going to help you sound much more natural. And this is why I always suggest, guys, check out my Australian Pronunciation course.

Go check it out, sign up to it, give it a go for a month. Remember, I offer a 30-day money back guarantee. So if you decide it's not for you in the first month I'll give you 100% of your money back. So sign up, give it a whirl. I think you're really going to enjoy it and you're going to learn to master these more advanced aspects of Australian English, as well as learn the basics like the pronunciation of all the different vowels and consonants and how to use the International Phonetic Alphabet.

And remember guys, you can get 100 bucks off it - 33% if you sign up this week! I think it'll have a day or two left when this episode comes out. Just go to www.aussieenglish.com.au/apc100

And if you have trouble just send me a message or an email and I'll hook you up with the link.

All right, guys. So the last little section here is a clip. It's a little listen and write down exercise. Right. So this is a clip from a great Aussie film called The Dry, which came out in 2020. And it stars famous Aussie actor Eric Bana. And the excerpt is: "A man returns to his drought-stricken hometown to attend a tragic funeral. But his return opens a decades old wound, the unsolved death of a teenage girl." So it's a really interesting kind of mystery. I don't know if you'd call it a murder mystery, but definitely involves death, but is a mystery kind of- solving mystery movie. I don't know if I'm really explaining this very well, but it's definitely worth checking out.

Anyway, the aim of the game here is that I am going to play a clip from this film for you two times. Your sort of goal is to listen to what's being said in these clips and then write down the answer somewhere. If you need to check it, you can do so via the transcript for today's episode. If you have the Premium Podcast Membership, or you can download the free PDF for today's episode and the answer is right at the end of the PDF, so you can check it there too.

All right, so you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

How could you know it was going to turn out like that. All right. None of us knew.

Great job. Great job. Did you get all of it? Time for the second playthrough.

How could you know it was going to turn out like that? All right. None of us knew.

All right. That's it for me today, guys. I hope you had a good time. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. It's always an absolute pleasure chatting with you guys and hopefully helping you to level up your Australian English. But your knowledge about Australia, our culture, history, news and current affairs, everything like that as well. I am Pete. It's been a pleasure and I'll chat to you next time, mate. Tooroo!