Transcript of AE 1161 - Expression: Over My Dead Body

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 guys! Why, I should say, 'G'day, you mob!' Man, I'm changing it up too much, huh? G'day, you mob. What's going on? I hope you're having an amazing week. Welcome to the Aussie English podcast. This is the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. To wrap their heads around the unique lingo, language, that is Australian English.

So if you are a first time listener, welcome. As the intro said, 'grab a cuppa, sit back, relax, enjoy yourself'. And remember 'cuppa', a cup of something, a cup of coffee, a cup of tea, 'a cuppa'. 'A cuppa'. 'A cuppa'. Anyway, yeah. Grab one of those, whatever your, whatever 'tickles your fancy', whatever you like, sit back, relax and enjoy the episode. And if you are a repeat listener, a repeat offender, welcome back. It is good to, I'd like to say 'see your face again', but I can't see anything, right. But it is good to have you listening to me again. Sounds a bit weird to say that, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, welcome, guys. Welcome. Now, I've just made myself a coffee, and it made me think- I'm just gonna have a quick sip. Give me a sec. It's really funny. I think you guys will have noticed, if you're following me on Instagram or you've seen my YouTube videos recently, if you've seen my face, effectively recently, you will know that I have a rather large beard with a moustache. Right. And making this coffee right now made me think of telling you this sort of anecdote, this story that has been happening recently.

My wife has been making jokes at my expense. Right. She has been making fun of me. She's been teasing me a little bit, having a laugh, taking the mickey out of me. So, making fun of me, because I have such a long moustache now. I have these extensive whiskers on my face. They are bending down over my lip and sort of almost coming back into my mouth. And so as a result, I have developed, as many men listening to this podcast, who also have moustaches and beards will probably know.

I have developed a few habits where when I am eating or drinking, I am often licking my moustache in order to remove whatever food or drink has attached itself to my moustache. And it's a sort of unique look, and it's something you kind of take for granted and as a male who has a moustache, you don't think about it. But then objectively, when my wife started laughing at me and making fun of me doing this in public and licking my moustache to clean it off, I did realise that it was a pretty unique and weird behaviour, right?

And I also noticed and she was, she was like, 'What the hell are you doing?' I also noticed that sometimes I use my tongue to position my moustache on either side, away from my lip, away from going into my mouth. I don't know if any of you guys do that. All the women are probably listening to this podcast just being like, 'What the hell is this dude on about?' This is a thing. And I tell you what, the worst is, typically now, cappuccino coffees.

So I always tend to have a large capp. Wherever I go out, I get a, I order a large cappuccino. And because it has that foam on the top with chocolate and you pick the cup up or whatever, and if it's not a takeaway cup with a lid on it, you tend to put your moustache into the foam. You can't really avoid it. And when you take the coffee away from your face, you tend to have quite a bit of foam on your moustache. And so instead of constantly just wiping my face with my hand or, you know, taking a tissue, which would probably make sense, and it'd make more sense to do that, I just use my tongue. So anyway, just a story I thought I would share with you guys that I noticed it was a bit, a bit unique and interesting.

And it's funny when you shave your moustache or beard for the first time and you remove it all off your face, those habits are sort of ingrained and maintained for several days, maybe even a week after the fact, right? Same thing happened when I shaved my head for the first time. I had dreadlocks and I shaved my head to the skin. So I shaved it all the way down, no longer had long hair. And every time I got something in my face like a, you know, I felt like there was a bug or a bit of dust or something on my eyes. I would twist my head thinking I was throwing my hair out of my face, but there was no hair on my head, so I just looked like I had a tic of some kind where my head was moving. Anyway, I don't know how we got here.

So guys, let's get into today's Q and A, Question and Answer. So this one comes from someone from Chile, and I know this because his, his or her handle was the.chileno.way and he or her, he or she rather, asked, "Do you say 'sit at a computer' or 'sit on a computer'?" Now, this was a great question because you can be 'at a computer' and you can be 'on a computer'! And there's a subtle difference here with those prepositions being used, 'at' or 'on'.

So in terms of a computer, if you are 'at a computer', you are situated in front of it, you are located in front of that computer, you are at it. So if I went to a library and I wanted to sit down and work on a computer, I'd pick a computer and I would sit 'at the computer', right. In front of it. That's the location of my body. It's 'at the computer'.

Whereas if I were to say that I am currently 'on a computer', I am sitting 'on a computer'- I don't know if I would use 'sit', right. I don't know if I would use the verb 'sit'. But if I were to say 'I am on the computer', this would mean that I am 'using the computer'. I've got browsers open, maybe I'm using Photoshop, I'm listening to music. So again, if I went to a library, I might 'sit at a computer' and then I would 'be on that computer' when I started to use it, if that makes sense. So if I'm not using the computer, I can still be at it. I could still be seated 'in front' of the computer. I'm 'at the computer', but I'm not on it.

But it's a bit hard to be on a computer and not be at it, I guess, you know, unless somehow you can access a computer from far away, I guess you could potentially be on it but not at it. But yeah, hopefully that makes sense.

To 'sit at something' is like 'to be in front of' that thing. To 'sit on something' would be 'to be on top of it'. And so it doesn't really make sense location-wise with the computer. Instead, if you mean you're 'using it', you would say you are 'on the computer' at the moment. So maybe your parents want to use a shared computer in the house and you're like, 'I'm on it at the moment'. So, yeah, there you go.

Okay, slap the bird, guys. And now let's get into today's joke. And it is it's a good. It is a good one, as always. I think they are all good. Okay, so here's today's joke. What do you call a dead body in space? A bit morbid. A little bit morbid. Dead body. What do you call a dead body in space? Are you ready? A celestial body.

All right, let me define 'celestial' first. And I should have looked this up ahead of time. So celestial means 'positioned in or relating to the sky or outer space as observed in astronomy'. Okay, so 'a celestial body' is 'an object that is in space'. So the moon. It could be a planet. It could be a an asteroid. It could be the sun, a star. It could be anything that is effectively floating around in space, that is a celestial body. And we're using 'body' here to mean, I guess, like 'an object', a 'physical thing', a 'body', right.

But the joke here is on the word 'body', where a dead body, a human body, maybe an animal's body, right. A dead body. Usually when we say 'a dead body', though, we mean a human body. A dead body in space has then become a celestial body because it is floating around in space. It's also a dead body. So hopefully that makes sense.

Okay. So the expression today is "over my dead body". Perhaps you'll see the link between the joke and the expression here, right. Dead bodies. So 'over my dead body'. 'Over your dead body'. 'Over his dead body'.

Let's first go through the different words in this expression and define them. So, 'over'. This is 'extending directly upwards from something', right, to be above something. So if a plane flies from one side of Melbourne to the other, it flies 'over' Melbourne, right? It flies up and above and from one side to the other. It flies over Melbourne.

'Over' can also mean 'at a higher level or layer' than something else. Right. So "His apartment is located 'over' the shop". It's above the shop. It's over that thing.

'My'. I'm sure you'll know 'my'. 'My' is the possessive pronoun for the first person singular. My. "I'm holding 'my' coffee". "This is 'my' moustache." I wonder if I can- Can you guys hear that? I'm scratching my moustache. It's a bit weird, but yeah, 'my' moustache.

'Dead'. Dead is 'not living'. 'Not alive'. Tragically, when I was in first year university studying biology, Steve Irwin passed away. He died. He was 'dead'. Well, he is dead today, right? He died in 2006. I remember that vividly because he was one of my heroes. He is dead, unfortunately. The koala fell out of the tree, hit a hiker in the head, and now the hiker is 'dead'.

And lastly, guy's, 'body'. In this sense, it is 'a physical structure' and it can mean, in this sense it's the bones, flesh, organs of a person or animal. Right. So their 'body'. But as we talked about just earlier, a celestial body would mean something like a physical object out in space. So the word can have different meanings. You can also have things like 'a body of water'. That's a common collocation, meaning a lake, or an ocean, or a pond. Right. A very small body of water could be a pond, but a body of what? I don't know if we would use that for rivers, or streams, or creeks, where the water is flowing. But if it's like 'still', it's a water in a certain location, we might refer to it as 'a body of water'. Particularly things like lakes, they're bodies of water.

So the expression 'over my dead body', I wonder if you've heard this before and know what it means. So if someone says to you, "Ha! Over my dead body!", they're emphasising that one completely opposes something. That they are completely against something. That the only way that you could achieve the thing that you were talking about is by killing them and stepping over their dead body. Does that make sense?

So it's effectively, if you want to do this thing, if you want to achieve this thing, you are going to have to kill me first, right. Over my dead body. You will do this over my dead body. Okay. So yeah, I think it's a very cool little expression here.

And I looked up the origin and this is what www.theidioms.com has to say. So great. I think it's Pyrenees mountain dogs. It may originate from Central Asia or Siberia. They were once known for guarding sheep and in the Middle Ages they gained popularity with the French nobility. By the late 17th century, almost every French nobleman or noblewoman, had one or wanted to own one. And they were really brave, sometimes standing up to things like bears and wolves. And so the expression "over my dead body" apparently comes from the Great Pyrenees breed trait.

If a farmer's sheep was ever found harmed, usually the Great Pyrenees dog was found dead as well, killed by whatever was trying to hurt the flock of sheep. So there you go. That's a really cool origin of this expression, that it potentially comes from a breed of dog that would die trying to protect a farmer's sheep. Over the dog's dead body would those sheep be harmed.

So let's go through some examples of how to use this expression in day to day life, okay?

Example number one. So a common cliche in teen films. So, films about teenagers, is when they're growing up, you know, a young teenage girl might want to go out with her friends. She might be dressing up in very provocative, very sexy, very revealing clothing. And when she comes down from her bedroom, so she walks down the stairs, and passes mum and dad in the living room, she might be like, you know, "See you, guys! I'm going out." And the dad or mum might say something like, "There is zero chance that you're going out. Over my dead body. Are you going out dressed like that? You are potentially asking for trouble." You know, "You're only 15 years old. There is no chance that I am letting you wear a G-string, you know, coming out of your skirt like that. There's just zero chance that that's happening. Over my dead body. You're going to have to kill me first, and then you can go out with your mates and dress like that."

Example number two. You've just bought a new car. It's your dream car, you know. You've saved up every penny, nickel and dime. Although we don't use any of those in Australian currency, we use cents and dollars. So you've saved up every dollar and cent that you possibly can. You've put all the money together and you have bought this car. You know, you go to the dealer, you want to pick it up, you want to drive out of the dealership and head out onto the highway.

And unfortunately, when you do that, you immediately get pulled over by hijackers, right. They're on a bike. They hold up a gun to the window and say, "Get out of the car, this is our car now. Get out." And you say, "Mate, over my dead body. I have just bought this car. I have saved up money for years. This is my car. And fortunately I had bullet-proof glass installed before I bought it. So, see you later fuckers!" Okay. Sorry, I probably shouldn't have sworn there, but I was trying to make it a bit funny. All right.

Example number three, guys. Example number three. So you've got some young kids who are both under the age of ten, right? So they're under the age of ten. You've never had a pet. Never had a pet in your family with the kids. You know, maybe you grew up with cats and dogs and you really like them. But whilst having small kids, which is currently my position, you decided, you know, pets are going to be a bit of a hassle. So I can't handle it. I can't handle it well. I've got really small kids, so they get to the age of nearly ten and they're like, 'Dad, we want a pet.' We want a cat, a dog, a rabbit, a guinea pig, something nice, cute, fluffy, easy to take care of. So they go out with their mum, they pick up the animal, they've decided on what it's going to be and they bring it home as a surprise.

They come home, open the door and your son has a 15-foot python wrapped around his shoulders and says, "Hey, Dad! Meet our new pet, Fluffy. This is Fluffy." You hate snakes and have a huge phobia of them. And so before you even get a chance to scream in fear, you managed to get out the phrase "Over my dead body!" So "Over my dead body will our new pet be a snake that is 15 feet long called Fluffy! That is not going to happen! Over my dead body, mate. You'll have to kill me first." The snake will have to kill me first before this happens. And maybe the snake will, and just sleeps in your bed from then on.

So there you go, guys. The expression 'over my dead body'. Over someone's dead body. It's used to emphasise that someone completely opposes something. That effectively you are going to have to kill that person, figuratively, hopefully not literally, in order to achieve something. Right. And then by killing them, and you're going to have to step over their body and then go for the thing that you're trying to achieve.

Okay. So as usual, guys, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise. This is where you can work on your Aussie accent, or if you are working on any other accent, just use the words and phrases that I read out as a prompt for you to practise them in the accent that you're working on.

Okay, so you're ready? Let's go. Over. Over. My. Over. My dead. Over my dead body. Over my dead body. Over my dead body. Over my dead body. Over my dead body. I said over my dead body. You said over your dead body. He said over his dead body. She said over her dead body. We said over our dead body. They said, over their dead body. It said over its dead body.

Great work, guys. Now, you may have noticed that I kind of kept it singular. So we said 'over our dead body' as opposed to 'over our dead bodies'. And then said 'over their dead body' instead of 'their dead bodies', you could potentially say 'over our dead bodies'. 'Over their dead bodies'. It just sounded a little weird to me. So it's probably one of those examples where you can kind of pick and choose what works best for you.

Now, pronunciation wise, some interesting things going on. If you were to just say the word 'over', 'over', 'over' and there's nothing coming after the word, the -er at the end is pronounced as a vowel sound -uh 'ow-vuh'. Right? Say it with like 'Pe-tuh' or 'lay-tuh'. -uh, -uh.

But as soon as there are words after it, it turns into a schwa sound. So you'll hear /oʊvər/ my dead body instead of /əʊ.və/ my dead body. Over, over, over, over my dead body. Over my dead body.

The other interesting thing here, pronunciation wise, is that the word 'dead' gets muted at the end. The D sound at the end of the word 'dead' gets muted because the next sound to come out of your mouth is a consonant sound /b/ the B sound in 'body'. Dead body, dead body.

So to mute it effectively, your tongue is going in the position to say that /d/ sound. It just doesn't release. You don't get the -duh at the end. Dead, dead, dead. You don't get the /d/ sound. It just goes 'dead body'. Dead body.

And then lastly in the word 'body', do you hear a hard D sound, or a T flap? Or D flap? Body, body, body. So is it body or body? It's a T flap. It's got a vowel either side of the D there. So we use a T flap. You can call it a D flap as well. But effectively where we are using that -dd sound, instead of a /d/ or a /t/ it was a T sound. Over my dead body. Over my dead body.

So remember, guys, if you want to work on your Australian pronunciation, definitely check out the Aussie English pronunciation course. You can go and grab it at www.aussieenglish.com.au/apc

So the letters APC as in Australian Pronunciation Course. Go check it out. You'll learn how to use the IPA, the international phonetic alphabet, so that you can study pronunciation on your own.

You can look things up in the dictionary to work out how things are pronounced. You don't need help from anyone else. Once you can kind of use that system and you'll learn the symbols and what sounds they represent, you'll then go through a section in the course where you will be able to practice every single sound in Australian English. All the vowel sounds, all the consonant sounds. And then at the end, the third section includes 25 Advanced Pronunciation Lessons where you'll learn things like the T flap, how to mute different consonants, things like the Syllabic L, the Australian R, loads of stuff, so go check it out and I will see you in there.

So finishing up guys, and it's been a bit of a long episode today, so forgive me for that. Finishing up, we have a clip from a movie for you to work on your listening comprehension. So this clip comes from a little known Aussie film called Brother's Nest, which is a sort of dark comedy. I kind of liked it. So the excerpt is "Brothers Terry and Jeff decide to kill their stepfather, Roger, but their plans soon go wrong when they have second thoughts. A series of unexpected events leads to them to a point of no return." 'A point of no return'. There's no going back.

So the rules of the game, guys, I'm going to play this clip for you two times. Your goal is to listen and write down what you hear being said.

So remember, grab a piece of paper and a pen. You will also be able to check your answer if you are a member of the Premium Podcast, you can sign up to that at www.aussieenglish.com.au/podcast

This is where you'll get all the transcripts, everything like that. But you can also check the answer if you get the free transcript for today's episode as well. Okay. Anyway, are you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

All right. We kill him because he left a perfectly good woman and three kids to fuck our lives up.

All right, good job. How did you go? Did you get all of it? Did you write it all down? Time for the second playthrough.

All right, we kill him because he left a perfectly good woman and three kids to fuck our lives up.

All right. So that's it for me today. Guys, thank you so much for joining me. It has been a pleasure. I love chatting to you guys. I really appreciate that my voice is back and I can now make more of these episodes again. I kind of missed it. I missed it, to be honest. So I've been pretty upbeat in this one. I've been really happy. And yeah, I hope it's shone through and that you've enjoyed this episode.

Remember, you can check out the Premium Podcast and the Australian Pronunciation Course at www.aussieenglish.com.au Everything else is there. I hope you have an absolutely beautiful weekend and I will chat to you soon. See you later, mate!