AE 1114 - Expression
Any Port in a Storm
Learn Australian English in this expression episode of the Aussie English Podcast.
These episodes aim to teach you common English expressions as well as give you a fair dinkum true-blue dose of Aussie culture, history, and news and current affairs.
In today's episode...
Welcome to the weekly English expressions episode here on the Aussie English podcast!
In today’s episode, I will teach you about the English expression “any port in a storm”.
We will be breaking down the expression by defining the words in the phrase and give you the meaning of the expression.
I will also be answering a question from Esmaeil, who says “My friend told me in order to sound Aussie, I should call another friend a mad dog. Should I do that or not?”
There’s a bonus phrase for you right there! Stay tuned for my answer!
We will be doing a pronunciation exercise so pay attention to how I say the phrase.
And finally, listen to a clip from the Australian movie Razorback! It’s a 1984 thriller film based on a novel by Peter Brennan.
Find your cosy spot today, listen well, and enjoy this episode!
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Transcript of AE 1114 - Expression: Any Port in a Storm
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. This is the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English, as well as get a fair dinkum dose of Aussie culture, history, news, current affairs, all that jazz.
So, if it is your first time here, it is an absolute pleasure to be sending sound waves down your aural canals, right, down your ear-ways into your brain and be hopefully stimulating you and teaching you English, exposing you to Aussie English. If you are a return listener, it is also a pleasure, it is also a massive pleasure to have you receiving my auditory signals.
I'm just mucking around a bit, guys. I'm a bit pumped up. I just got home from a walk, so I have been walking, trying to do my 10,000 steps every day at the moment, trying to lose a bit of weight. I have reduced my intake; I'm watching what I eat and have been losing about a kilo a week for the last few weeks.
So, I have been, yeah, trying to get into shape, trying to get back my fitness that I once had, you know. I sort of reached that limit of dad bod, right, dad body, the body you get when you become a dad.
I'm sure many of you, you men who are dads out there listening to this episode will know, and probably many women as well who are married to dads or in a relationship with dads and they have noticed the transition from, say, six pack to beer gut. So, I am hoping to reverse that transition as we currently are.
Anyway, welcome to this episode, guys. So, today we are going to be going through the expression "any port in a storm". I'm going to answer a little question that I got from a listener. I am going to then break down the different words in the expression.
I might tell you a joke before I do that, break down the expression, give you some examples, everything like that, pronunciation exercise. And then at the end, we'll go through a little clip from an Aussie film.
Before we get into that, guys, don't forget if you want the transcripts for these episodes, you can sign up to the Premium podcast, you'll get the transcripts that you can download, you can read and listen at the same time, you will have access to the premium podcast player on the website, which rolls the text through as the audio plays.
So, all you need to do is sit, read and listen, and you will be able to access obviously over 1,100 and I think- I think we're almost getting close to 1,150 episodes. We might even be past that. I kind of lose track, guys, to be honest. It's- Yeah, Aussie English has come a long way since the start.
Anyway, I will stop rabbiting on and let's get into the question for today, which is from Esmaeil, who says, "my friend told me in order to sound Aussie, I should call another friend a "mad dog". Should I do that or not?" So, good question, Esmaeil. So, this is interesting, and I thought I would answer it because a "mad dog" is a wild and crazy person, generally a man.
"So, Pete is a 'mad dog'. Every time we have a party, he goes crazy skulls ten beers, hangs out with everyone. He's just wild. He's a 'mad dog'." A cool, awesome kind of crazy person. However, if you call someone a "dog", it can either be an insult. "That guy's such a 'dog'." Or a compliment. "You dirty 'dog'." Depending on the context.
So, if you call someone a "dirty dog" with an obvious negative tone of voice, you're probably emphasising they're subhuman qualities, right, you're insulting them. "This guy is such a dirty 'dog'." Whereas on the other hand, if a friend or colleague just say accomplished something that took a good deal of cleverness on their part, you could give them the compliment by saying, "you sly 'dog'. Or you clever 'dog'." Right?
So, the irony here is that I find dogs in general are good creatures that are very trustworthy, but it can be an insult, meaning you think someone is a liar or a cheat or someone who is untrustworthy, right. "That guy's a 'dog'. Be careful of that guy, he's a bit of a 'dog'."
And I looked up the origin and in the 17th century in New England, to call someone a "dog" was an insult of the highest order as dogs were believed to be used by sorceresses, this is like witches, to carry out evil commands. So, there you go. That's why it had a negative connotation to it in the past.
Anyway, slap the bird and let's get into today's joke. So, it's a quick one today. Here's the joke. Here's the joke. Where do the sick boats go for check-ups? Where do the sick boats go for check-ups? To the doc. Do you get it? To the doc, except this time it's spelt D-O-C instead of D-O-C-K, right.
So, here we go. The pun here is on the word "doc" as in short for doctor. "Hey, 'Doc', I've got a sore leg. What do I do? Can you give me some pills?" And the word "dock" spelt D-O-C-K, which is an enclosed area of water in a port for the loading, unloading and repairs of ships. "So, ships come into a 'dock'." And you can turn this into a verb and say, "they 'dock' in a 'dock'." Hopefully, that makes sense.
All right. So, the expression today, "any port in a storm", hopefully you see how that links to the joke. "Any port in a storm". I wonder if you've heard this before. Let's break down the words in this expression first, though. So, the word "any", this is a determiner. It's used to refer to one or some of a thing or number of things, no matter how much or how many of them there are.
So, for example, "are there 'any' chocolates in the pantry? Are there 'any'- Is there one? Is there many? I don't care. Are there 'any' chocolates in the pantry?" A "port". A "port" is a town or city with a harbour or access to navigable water where ships load or unload. Right.
And a "port" can also just be a harbour. So, in, say, Port Phillip Bay, there is a "port" near Melbourne, ironically called Port Melbourne. I mean, you know, there's not really much irony there, that's kind of the point of what I just said, I guess. The irony there being that Port Melbourne is where there's a "port" near Melbourne.
All right. "In". "In", this is within something, inside of something. "So, I'm 'in' the car. I'm 'in' my room." "A", this is the indefinite article.
So, it's also a determiner used when referring to someone or something for the first time in a text or conversation. "I saw 'a' dog." This could be any dog. It's non-specific, singular dog. "I saw 'a' dog. Or here's 'a' drink." It could be any sort of drink. Water, beer, Pepsi, could be anything, but it's "a" drink.
And lastly, "storm". A "storm" is a violent disturbance of the atmosphere, with strong winds and usually rain, thunder, lightning or snow. "The 'storm' came through and blew down a tree." So, now let's go through the definition of the p- Of the expression, "any port in a storm, any port in a storm". Because it's kind of confusing, the words in it you might understand, but the meaning is a little different.
Okay. So, we say "any port in a storm" to say that a person will use anyone or anything for comfort, help, etc when in a bad situation. So, when you're in a really difficult situation, you need to not seek the perfect solution, you just need a solution. Any solution will suffice. So, if, for example, you are a boat in a storm, any port is where you want to go. It doesn't matter which port; you just need to get to a specific port.
So, I looked up the origin of this, and on Phrases.org.uk, there was a good explanation from where this came, so I thought I would read this out for you guys. The first known use of this proverb in English was from author John Cleland's bawdy novel "Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure", 1749. Quote; "Pooh!", says he "my dear, any port in a storm."
Cleland's book is better known as "Fanny Hill", the content of the book is in the words of Mary Whitehouse, the founding president of the UK National Viewers and Listeners Association and campaigner against the permissive society, utter filth. So, it's obviously a book you probably don't want to read.
Anyway, Cleland goes to elaborate lengths to describe the events in the story, which are, by any standards, exceedingly lewd in euphemistic language. That is the case in the extract, where "any port in a storm" is found. What the heroine was doing with her gentleman companion uttered the line above, I'll leave you to look for for yourself. Whether Cleland coined the term "any port in a storm" isn't clear.
He made no attempt to define it, so it may be that he knew that his audience would have been familiar with it. It might also be that he made the line-up and didn't feel the need to explain it any further. Either way, no example of this line was found before 1749. So, there you go. Pretty cool little story.
So, let's go through three examples of how I would use the expression "any port in a storm". So, example number one, imagine you're out with mates on a Friday night after work. You're looking for a pub to have a few drinks at. So, you go to your usual watering holes for a bunch of random reasons, though they're all shut, right.
So, "watering hole" can be used here sort of euphemistically to mean a place where you can buy drinks to drink, right. It's a watering hole where animals would go to drink. It's a pub or a bar somewhere you go to get drinks. So, maybe one of these places that you normally go to has had a gas leak and then another one's closed because it, you know, had a fire or something, or had renovations.
So, all these bars and pubs that you normally go to are closed. So, you keep walking the streets and eventually stumble on a pub that you're not really a big fan of, but you're dying for a drink, so you know what they say, "any port in a storm". You're in a desperate situation. You're seeking a solution to this problem. You just want to drink. "Any port in a storm", any port, any pub will do, right. Any pub will do, "any port in a storm".
Two. When Kel and I were desperate to find a house to rent in 2020, when our landlords decided to evict us because they wanted their son to move in, so this is when we were living in Ocean Grove. We were obviously very desperate to find somewhere else to live.
So, we applied for dozens of places, and we went to inspections, but it was a landlord's market, right, the owner of the house's market, as there were way more people trying to rent houses or buy houses than there were houses available.
So, eventually we got accepted for a house that wasn't necessarily the ideal location, but it was a beautiful house and so we decided to accept it. "Any port in a storm". It was a nice house, it wasn't the perfect situation that we wanted, you know, it wasn't in the suburb we wanted, but we were desperate for somewhere nice to live, so "any port in a storm". It was a tough situation, and we needed a resolution.
Example number three, so imagine you go out on a cruise one day with your family on a boat, you're hoping to go fishing or to see the sights along the coastline of Australia. When you're out on the boat, though, suddenly a huge storm rolls in, comes out of nowhere, out of the blue and you realise that you're in dire straits and the boat, the captain on the boat he knows he needs to get home, right, he needs to get to safety.
You know, the port or the harbour that the boat left from is way too far away for you guys to reach and, you know, allow the storm to pass safely. So, "any port in a storm", right, literally and figuratively. Any port that you can get to is going to do, you just need to get to safety. "Any port in a storm".
So, hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression, "any port in a storm'. It's used to say that a person will use anyone or anything for comfort or help, etc when in a bad situation. So, when in difficulty, you need not seek the perfect solution, you just need some kind of solution that will fix your problem, right. That is the answer to your problem.
So, as usual, guys, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise. This is where I am going to read out the phrase "any port in a storm", word by word, we kind of do a little inverted pyramid here and work on our connected speech. And then I'll go through the phrase, "you know what they say" and then "any port in a storm" and I'll conjugate through the different pronouns. Okay, so are you ready? Let's go.
"Any. Any port. Any port in. Any port in a. Any port in a storm. Any port in a storm. Any port in a storm. Any port in a storm. Any port in a storm.
I know what they say, any port in a storm. You know what they say, any port in a storm. He knows what they say, any port in a storm. She knows what they say, any port in a storm. We know what they say, any port in a storm. They know what they say, any port in a storm. It knows what they say, any port in a storm."
Great job, guys. So, in terms of connected speech there, "any port in a storm". Firstly, what do you reckon happens to the "T" in the word "port"? So, if I enunciate that, if I pronounce that very clearly, "port", you say the T sound. "Port. Port". Interestingly, because it's at the end of a word here, it's unaspirated.
So, as opposed to a word that starts with T like "to" where you really feel and hear the /t/ the aspiration, right, where the air's coming out. A trick for this is if you hold your hand up in front of your face, as you say a word with a stop consonant like P, T, K and- You should be able to feel that aspiration.
So, if you say "to", you should be able to feel the air hit your hand clearly. However, when it's at the end of a word, say in the example "port", it's unaspirated. So, it's- The air that's coming out of your mouth is nowhere near as strong as when it's at the front of a word.
So, "to", really strong aspiration. 'Port", very soft, okay, very soft. The interesting thing that happens with the "T" in the word "port" when it's in this phrase, though, because it is followed by a vowel sound in the word "in" the "T" turns into a T-flap. "Port̬ in. Port̬ in. Any port̬ in a storm. Any port̬ in a storm."
And then lastly, for this little phrase, which words do you hear stressed? "Any port in a storm". "Any, port and storm". "In a" get reduced down, they get the schwa vowel sound. "Any port in a storm". In fact, it may be "in a, in a", so you'll still get the /ɪ/ sound in "in", but "a" will become /ə/. "Any port in a storm".
Good work, guys. All right, so finishing up today's clip comes from an Aussie horror film called Razorback. This was from the 80s, and it's about a huge wild boar in the desert, and these are known as razorbacks, really large male wild boars. And a- Yeah, the thesis of the film is effectively that a big Australian pig attacks an old man, grabs a baby and kills a newswoman, and her husband investigates.
So, the film's pretty average, but it's also kind of funny if you like 80s style tacky horror films, especially those set in the Aussie outback. So, the rules of the game are going to be that I'm going to play a clip for you twice, and your goal is to listen and then write down what you hear being said. It's a great way to train your listening comprehension and remember you'll be able to check your answer if you download today's worksheet.
This is free, so you don't have to be a member of anything. You can just download this worksheet, you'll see the words that were defined in the episode, and you'll also see the pronunciation exercise. But you can also get it if you have access to the Premium podcast membership, where you will get the full transcript of every word spoken in this episode, so you can obviously read and listen at the same time.
All right, so are you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.
"Wasn't so bad a couple of years back. Now these boars are eating us out of house and home." How'd you go? Did you get it all? Time for the second playthrough. "Wasn't so bad a couple of years back. Now these boars are eating us out of house and home."
All right, great job, guys. That's it for me. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Don't forget if you want to read whilst you listen, grab the Premium podcast, just go to AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. And for everything else, just head over to the website. Check me out on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, all that good stuff. And that's probably enough for today. See you later!
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