Transcript of AE 1131 - Expression: A Drop in the Ocean

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 flipping 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. So, guys, hopefully my voice is holding up. I have been sick as a dog for- Well, to be honest, I haven't been sick as a dog. I was sick as a dog for about two days, about a month ago, and for whatever reason, this cough has hung around. Right.

I think I've had this post-viral cough. "Post" meaning after. Right. So, post-viral, after the virus. I had the virus and then after it I've had this cough; I've had this post-viral cough for like a month.

So, as a result of coughing a lot, my voice has really been affected and you'll probably hear it, if you go back and listen to the Voices of Ukraine and Voices of Russia episodes on the podcast, which I hope you guys liked, you'll hear that my voice is a bit husky, I guess, you know, a bit rough as it probably is at the moment.

Anyway, welcome to this episode, guys. Don't forget if you want the transcripts to all of these podcast episodes so that you can read and listen at the same time, which is the best way to level up your English, improve your reading comprehension, bring more words into your passive vocab, and then hopefully when you go and speak English, more words into your active vocab. That's the best way to do it. Read and listen at the same time.

So, go to AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast and you can sign up for the premium podcast where you get the transcripts, bonus episodes, video lessons that are associated with certain episodes, everything like that. Anyway, let's get into today's episode. So, to start up with a question and answer, Q&A, we have a question here from Liind. "How do you pronounce 'kilometres'? I've heard people stress either the 2nd or 3rd syllable."

So, how did I just say it? "Kilometres". I guess that's the 2nd syllable right there. "ki-LOM-i-ters. Kilometres." But yeah, you could say, "KIL-o-ME-ters. Kilometres." And I think that would be the secondary stress would be on the first syllable, "KIL-o-ME-tres", and the primary stress would be on the third one, "-metres, KIL-o-ME-ters, kilometres".

So, you could do either of those. It is one of these interesting things that I have noticed in English that there are certain words where there are multiple stresses that are kind of acceptable. I can't think of any other words off the top of my head, but I have noticed that before. I should try and research this and do a video on it one day.

But yes, a "kilometre", which is how I would say it. So, stress on the second syllable, "ki-LOM-i-ter" (kilometre) is a metric unit of measurement equal to 1,000 metres or approximately 0.62 miles. So, in Australia we use the metric system, right, millimetres, centimetres, metres, kilometres, obviously in distance there, then we've got millilitres, centimetres, litres, everything like that. So, we tend to use the metric system.

All right, slap the bird, guys, and let's get into today's joke. So, the joke today, this is a good one. "Why do kangaroo mothers hate the rainy season? Why do kangaroo mothers hate the rainy season?" You guys ready? "Because their joeys are stuck playing inside." Yeah, you get it, guys?

So, when it rains, obviously, usually for families who have small children, the kids want to play, but they can't play outside because it's raining, so they play inside. Kangaroo mothers, as you guys will know, have a pouch, which is where the joey, the baby kangaroo often hangs out, stays safe until it gets to a certain age where it's probably way too big for the pouch and it gets kicked out. Right.

So, obviously, if your kid is needing to play inside and you're a kangaroo mother and it starts raining, it's going to be uncomfortable because the kid is going to get into your pouch. So, there you go. There's the joke. All right let's get into the expression. So, today's expression is "a drop in the ocean. A drop in the ocean". Let's go through and define the words. We'll do the definition. We'll go through the origin.

Some examples, a pronunciation exercise, and then we'll do a little a little clip at the end to finish up. Okay. So, I'm sure you guys all know what "A" is, right? Or "an", it's the indefinite article, an unspecified single thing. "I can see 'a' kangaroo. That kangaroo has 'a' joey inside its pouch." "A drop". "A drop" is a small round or pear-shaped portion of liquid that hangs or falls or adheres to a surface.

So, if you go outside and it's raining, there is a lot of "drops" of water falling from the sky. And we can also use this as a verb, right. So, instead of "a drop", a noun, we can use it as "to drop", meaning to let or make something fall vertically. So, you could say "'a drop' of water 'drops' from a cloud." "In", this is a preposition here, meaning within, inside of something.

So, "I locked my keys 'in' the car. I can't get into the car because I locked my keys 'in' the car." "The", another article, the definite article. So, this is a specific single thing. "Can you see 'the' koala climbing the tree?" So, you would use the specific definite article there, right, "the", because it's "the" koala you're looking at and it's climbing "the" tree that you're talking about. Right.

As opposed to "can you see a koala climbing a tree?" That would be sort of like, any koala climbing any tree. But if you can see a specific koala climbing, a very specific tree that you're looking at, all of a sudden it becomes "'the' koala climbing 'the' tree". And lastly, guys, "the ocean", this is a very large expanse of sea, in particular each of the main areas into which the sea is divided geographically.

So, you could have the "Indian 'Ocean', the Southern 'Ocean'", right? "Ocean". Okay. So, I wonder if you guys can work out what the expression "a drop in the ocean" means. This one is one of those expressions that's a little more obvious. So, I think you guys will be able to gather, you'll be able to work out what this expression means.

"A drop in the ocean" is an amount that is so small that it doesn't make an important difference or have much of an effect. So, it is a very small amount compared to the amount needed. We can go through some examples shortly to give you, well, examples on how to use this expression.

But first let me read out a little bit on the origin of this expression. So, I love this website. It's called Phrases.org.UK. This website has a lot of information about specific expressions and where they come from.

So, here's what it has to say about "a drop in the bucket, a drop in the sea or a drop in the ocean". I guess there are many different versions of this sort of metaphor. The metaphor first appeared in the English translation of the Bible by John Wycliff in Isaiah 9:15. Okay. So, "lo! Jentiles as a drope of a boket, and as moment of a balaunce ben holden." Geez, that's old English, so I have no real idea what's being said there.

In the King James version, the passage reads: "behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the balance." Charles Dickens gave impetus to the further alteration and expansion in a Christmas Carol. In the first conversation between Scrooge and the ghost of his deceased partner, Marley, the ghost says, "the dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business."

There you go. So, how interesting is that? It's been with us for quite a while, that concept of "a drop in a bucket, or the bucket, in the sea, or in the ocean". So, let's go through three examples of how I would use the expression to be "a drop in the ocean".

So, imagine you're saving up for something incredibly expensive. Maybe it's a Ferrari, a house, or maybe, you know, a super-sized luxury yacht. If someone offers to help you save up and hands you a small amount of money, like, say, 100 bucks, which will make effectively no difference when it comes to you buying this expensive thing. That contribution, right, the money they've given you, the hundred dollars is "a drop in the ocean".

You effectively need an ocean of money to be able to afford, say, a Ferrari. I don't know. The cheapest Ferrari today that's new is probably like half a million dollars. So, a hundred bucks is not going to make much of a difference. It's not really going to help much. It's "a drop in the ocean".

Example number two: There's an Aussie marsupial species that's very endangered in Australia and it's called a bilby. You might see this during Easter, the Easter bilby. So, if you go into Woolworths or Coles and you go and buy some chocolate Easter bunnies, that's the usual one, right? Chocolate rabbits.

Get the Easter bilby because that's the Australian version, and I think that if it's an Easter bilby, a portion of the money that gets- That they get for selling the Easter bilby will go towards the conservation of the bilby. And it's kind of like a marsupial version of a rabbit.

Anyway, so there's loads of breeding programmes where zoos and other organisations are trying to breed the animals up, so that they can then release them into the wild to hopefully replenish their population. If they manage, say, to breed only one animal at the zoo and then release it, it's "a drop in the ocean", right? It's not enough to help the species survive in any significant way.

It's a very small contribution. It's a very small amount of animals compared to what's needed. It's "a drop in the ocean". Example number three: If we want to make things a little bit political, for the last example here. At the time of writing this episode, Putin is about a month now into the invasion of Ukraine. He's sent a lot of troops into Ukraine in order to capture the country.

"However, his army is so huge that the troops he's sent in so far are just 'a drop in the ocean'." They're only a small amount of the total numbers of troops that he has in the Army. "They're a drop in the ocean." And unfortunately for Putin, they are not doing very well. They are not doing well at all. They're getting massacred.

Anyway, so that's the expression, guys, "a drop in the ocean". An amount that is so small that it doesn't make an important difference or have much of an effect. It's a very small amount compared to the amount that's needed. "It's a drop in the ocean".

So, now let's go through a little pronunciation exercise, guys. This is where you can find somewhere away from the rest of the world where you can read out loud or you can speak out loud, rather without feeling self-conscious, and you can work on your pronunciation. Okay. So, listen and repeat after me.

"A. A drop. A drop in. A drop in the. A drop in the ocean. A drop in the ocean. A drop in the ocean. A drop in the ocean. A drop in the ocean. I reckon it's a drop in the ocean. You reckon it's a drop in the ocean. He reckons it's a drop in the ocean. She reckons it's a drop in the ocean. We reckon it's a drop in the ocean. They reckon it's a drop in the ocean. It reckons it's a drop in the ocean."

Great job, guys. Great job. Now there's a lot going on there in terms of pronunciation changes for the articles like "A" and "the or the", and then also connected speech. There's loads going on there. Okay. So, firstly you'll hear me say "a" as like the letter "A" when I'm pronouncing it clearly, but as soon as it is used in a sentence like "'a' drop in the ocean", you'll hear it become unstressed and a schwa sound.

"'A' drop in the ocean. 'A' drop in the ocean. 'A' drop in the ocean." With "the" as I would- I would usually say this as "the" if I were to just say the word. "The". But there are actually multiple pronunciations of "the", there's three. There's "th/uh/" when the word "the" is followed by a consonant sound. So, for instance, "'th/uh/' cap, or 'th/uh/' dog".

There's "th/ee/" when it's followed by a vowel sound because we link with the /yuh/ kind of sound when you have that long e vowel sound first. So, you would have heard "th/ee/" ocean, "th/ee/" ocean, "th/ee/" ocean. And when the word is within a sentence and it's followed by a consonant, it may become "th/ə/, th/ə/, th/ə/", the schwa sound.

And if it's followed by a vowel sound, it may be the schwa, but it could also be just a very short version of "th/ee/". Right. So, "a drop in the ocean". Yeah. You still hear the /e/ sound. "A drop in the ocean." It's very short, though. "The ocean. The ocean. The ocean". So, what happened, though, connected speech-wise? I wonder if you guys hear it, if I read out a phrase, so like, "he reckons it's a drop in the ocean."

"Reckon sit' sa. Reckon sit' sa." So, those all link together. "Reckon sit' sa. Reckon sit' sa." and the "it's and a" almost become two schwa sounds because they're unstressed. "He reckon sit' sa drop in the ocean. He reckon sit' sa drop in the ocean." And then "drop in the ocean", well, "th/ee/ ocean".

So, you've got "dro pin, dro pin, dro pin", linking together and "th/ee/ ocean" with the little /yuh/, /yod/ vowel sound, well, semi-vowel sound. "Th/ee/ ocean. Th/ee/ ocean. He reckon sit' sa dro pin th/ee/ ocean." And which words are being stressed? Your final test here, guys. We'll talk about stress.

"He reckons it's a drop in the ocean. He reckons it's a drop in the ocean. Reckons, drop and ocean." The verbs and the nouns here. So, if you want to learn more about this, guys, and you want to nail your English pronunciation, your speaking skills, obviously Australian pronunciation. Make sure to grab my Australian pronunciation course.

It'll teach you the IPA, the international phonetic alphabet, so you can improve your pronunciation on your own using a dictionary or say my resources in this course that have the IPA transcribed for words, it'll teach you all the different vowels and consonant sounds in Australian English. And then finally there are 25 advanced lessons teaching you things like the Australian R the Dark L, the T-flap, everything like that.

So, just go to AussieEnglish.com.au/APC or just get onto the website and search for Australian pronunciation? course, you'll find it and you're going to love it. Okay. All right, finishing up, guys. So, today we have a little clip here and the name of the game is for you to listen to this clip and see if you can write down what you hear.

So, ideally get a piece of paper somewhere and a pen, listen to the clip that I'm going to play for you and see if you can write down all the words that are being read out.

So, this clip comes from a really touching film in Australia here called "The Last Cab to Darwin", which is about a terminally ill cab driver who is acted out by Michael Caton, the guy from the movie "The Castle", and he picks up an Indigenous drifter and a backpacker whilst travelling through the Australian outback to get euthanised.

So, he's effectively terminally ill from cancer and he wants to end his life using euthanasia. And so, the movie is all about his decision making and the people he meets. It's a really good film. So, anyway, you know the aim of the game. I'm going to play for you- I'm going to play for you this clip one time, give you a little break and then we'll do it again. Okay. You ready? Here is playthrough number one.

"I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

Okay, so how did you go? Did you get all of it? Now it's time for playthrough two.

"I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

All right, so that's it for me today, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Don't forget, if you want to read whilst you listen to these episodes, take notes, highlight new expressions and words, use the online premium podcast player, get the bonus lessons, get the video lessons, everything like that. Get the premium podcast membership. Just go to AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. Have a great one. See you next time.