Transcript of AE 1110 - Expression: Sink or Swim

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.

Guys, what is going on? I am Pete, this is Aussie English. If it is your first time listening, this is the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English, culture, learn about news, current affairs, everything like that. If you are a repeat offender, someone who has come back multiple times to listen to the podcast, massive thank you to you.

It's good to see you again, although I can't see you. But yeah, it's good to have your company. Before we get into it, as always, guys, if you would like the full written transcripts for these episodes, be sure to go to AussieEnglish.com.au/Podcast.

You will be able to sign up for the Premium podcast, get the transcripts, print them out, take notes, highlight words, vocab everything like that. You'll also get access to all of the bonus episodes that are for members only. It is also a great way of supporting the podcast, so that I can keep doing what I am doing. Anyway, let's get into today's Q&A.

So, this one comes from Karen and she was German or is German. I don't think she was German; she's probably always going to be German. But she sent me this email and I wanted to read it out for you guys, because she wanted to set the record straight.

A few episodes ago, I talked about Waltzing Matilda, and I thought that the verb waltz, as in Waltzing Matilda was related to like a waltz, the dance, right? That's usually in three, four, you know, that one, two, three. One, two, three. So, anyway, here's what she said in the email.

I think it was during one of your Pete's two-cents episodes that you were talking about a question about the Waltzing Matilda- The song Waltzing Matilda and what it's about. Your explanation regarding the term waltz and its German origin weren't quite accurate, and since you asked to be given feedback, I thought I would explain. In German there are two similar words Der Walzer.

Hopefully, I'm pronouncing this correctly. Which refers to the dance, as you mentioned. Auf der walz sein or die Walz, also known as Wanda- And I'm gonna brutal it- I'm going to absolutely ruin this. Wanderjahre, I think it is, freely translated to being on the waltz or years of travel, has nothing to do with the dance.

So, when craftsman like a carpenter, roofer, bricklayer or stone mason finished their training, they are called Geselle or Gesellin. Some travel, they are not homeless, for three years in order to gain new experiences and learn from new master craftsman, meister.

They mustn't return home during this time; it is part of German immaterial cultural heritage. For more details, go to Wikipedia and type in "Journey Man Years". So, thank you so much, Karen. That was really interesting. And yeah, it's always great to have you guys correct me when I make mistakes. But when you correct me and educate me even more, especially about other languages, that is brilliant.

So, there you go, guys. These are two different things, Der Walzer and Auf der Walz sein or die Walz. All you guys who are German listening to this can have a little chuckle at my accent. Anyway, guys, slap the bird and let's get into today's joke. All right, so today's joke is, how do swimmers clean themselves? How do swimmers clean themselves?

So, "swimmers" being anyone who is interested in swimming and like swimming, they are a "swimmer". How do they clean themselves? They wash up on shore. You get it, guys? They wash up on shore. So, the joke here is with the phrasal verb, "wash up". This means to clean yourself often before having a meal, like dinner or tea if you want to use the Australian slang term.

So, your mum might yell out, you know, "wash up, kids, it's time for tea." So, this means clean your hands and face. But you could also use "wash up" after tea, which in that case would mean to wash the cutlery and crockery after using it to eat dinner.

So, who's going to do the washing up? Oh, I cooked, so it's Pete's turn to wash up. But in the joke, "wash up on shore", so to wash up somewhere means to appear on land because the ocean or a river or lake left it there. So, if you were lost at sea after a shipwreck, you know, the ship sank.

Hopefully, you'd grab onto some floating objects, flotsam and jetsam and float to land where the waves would push you ashore and you would "wash up on shore, you would wash up on the beach". Lastly, guys, did you notice a little phrase that I just used there that sounded a little weird? "Flotsam and jetsam". This is an interesting phrase, it means odds and ends, unspecified debris floating in the ocean, often after a shipwreck.

And interestingly, in maritime law, each of these words has a very specific meaning. "Flotsam" from the French "flotter" meaning to float is defined as debris in the water that wasn't deliberately thrown overboard, often as a result of an accident or shipwreck on the water.

Whether a, you know, a river, in the ocean, whatever. Whereas "jetsam" shortened from the word "jettison" is debris that was deliberately thrown overboard by a crew of a ship in distress, often to lighten the ship's load.

So, that it sinks more slowly or maybe hopefully doesn't sink. So, these words are interesting, "flotsam and jetsam" because they are known as fossilised words, which means they only survive within the idiom, "flotsam and jetsam". Similar to a phrase like "every nook and cranny". Right?

No one's ever going to just say, oh, it's over in that nook there or it's in that cranny over there. It's pretty much always that you're going to hear those words in the phrase "every nook and cranny". It's just a really cool phrase that you'll probably hear if a ship's sinking and people notice all this stuff in the water, it's "flotsam and jetsam".

And interestingly, the words that these come from, to float and jettison are used on a regular basis in English and aren't fossilised words. Anyway, the more you know. So, anyway, guys, let's get into today's expression. "Sink or swim. Sink or swim." We'll go through and define these. We'll define the expression. I'll give you some examples. Tell you about the origin.

We'll then do a pronunciation exercise. I'll play you a clip and then we'll finish up. All right, so "to sink", this is to go down below the surface of something, especially of a liquid, right, to become submerged. If someone can't swim very well and they jump in the deep end of a pool, they'll probably "sink", like a stone. "Sink, like a stone. To sink." "Or" we use the word "or", O-R, in order to link alternatives.

So, "do you want coffee 'or' tea?" "Which of these alternatives do you want, A 'or' B?" Right? "Are you going out tonight 'or' staying in?" "To swim", another verb. "To swim" is to propel your body through water by using your limbs or in the case of a fish or other aquatic animal, by using fins, tail or other bodily movement.

Ian Thorpe was a famous Australian swimmer who loved, obviously, "to swim", and he competed in swimming at the Olympics. He was an absolute machine. So, "sink or swim". What does this expression mean? If someone tells you, "well, you know, it's a 'sink or swim', guys." This is used to refer to a situation in which someone either must succeed by his own or her own efforts or fail completely. "Sink or swim".

So, it's to succeed or fail, mainly according to the competence and diligence of your own effort. Try hard to succeed or give up. So, I looked up the origin of this expression on phrases.org.uk and interestingly, it's been with us, it's been around in English since at least the 14th century, where at the time it was "float or swim" instead of "sink or swim". Pretty cool.

So, let's go through some examples of how you would use the expression "sink or swim" in day-to-day English. So, example number one, imagine you're at work one day and your boss suddenly comes into the office. You know, perhaps entering like Kramer from Seinfeld, you know, where he just busts in through the door and sort of explodes into the room. So, your boss looks like he's freaking out, he's frantic, his hair is all over the place.

It looks like he's been running. He's just been given a huge project that needs to be completed by the end of the week, and if not, there are high stakes. "So, he needs your help, it's 'sink or swim.'" If you guys don't succeed, if you fail, you could potentially be out of a job.

Maybe your boss is going to close down the part of the company where you work. "It is 'sink or swim', mate." We've got to do this, or we're stuffed. We're going to get things right. We got to swim, as opposed to sink. Example number two, so a great example was me with Aussie English. When I started Aussie English, I was finishing up my doctorate at the University of Melbourne and Museum Victoria in Melbourne.

And instead of applying for a job as a scientist after I finished, I decided to try and make things work with Aussie English as a full-time job. "So, after I handed in my thesis, I also quit my job as a waiter at a restaurant and it was 'sink or swim.'"

I either had to work really hard with Aussie English and try and earn a crust, right? Try and earn a living, make enough money to survive. Or give up and fail, which would have probably looked like me going back to my PhD supervisor with my tail between my legs, waving a white flag and asking him for a job.

Fortunately, though, that's not what happened, right. But it was "sink or swim" for a while. Example number three, imagine you're an avid fisherman or fisher woman if you want. So, you take things to the next level, you absolutely love fishing. Instead of fishing from a pier, a boat or off the beach, you like to pack all of your gear into a kayak and paddle out to sea and then cast a line out and see what'll bite.

So, one day you paddle right out into the ocean, you know, kilometres away from shore when you realise your kayak is taking on water. So, there's a hole somewhere on the boat, on the kayak, and it's sinking. So, it's figuratively and literally "sink or swim", or perhaps sink or paddle in this case, as you may not need to swim if you can paddle with your kayak. Before we finish here, guys.

I thought I would say, do you know the difference between a kayak and a canoe? I had to look this up. I was like, I can't actually define these off the top of my head. So, apparently in a kayak, the person paddling is seated and uses a double-bladed paddle, so a paddle with blades on each end to pull the blade through the water on alternate sides of the kayak in order to move forward.

Whereas in a canoe, the person's kneeling, so they're, I guess, resting on their knees and they use a single bladed paddle to propel the boat forward, potentially alternating from one side to the next.

So, I didn't know that. Pretty cool. I had to Google that. So, anyway, the expression "sink or swim", it's used to refer to a situation in which you either must succeed by your own efforts or fail completely, so try hard or give up. As usual, guys, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise now. So, this is where you can read out the phrases that I'm going to say, try and pronounce them as I do.

Obviously, if you're working on your Australian accent, focus really, really hardly- Hardly? Focus really, really, really intently on the way in which I'm speaking. If you're just doing any other English accent, obviously, say these phrases in your chosen accent. Okay, you ready to go? Let's do it.

"To. To sink. To sink or. To sink or swim. To sink or swim. To sink or swim. To sink or swim. To sink or swim. I'm going to have to sink or swim. You're going to have to sink or swim. He's going to have to sink or swim. She's going to have to sink or swim. We're going to have to sink or swim. They're going to have to sink or swim. It's going to have to sink or swim."

Great work, guys. Now I wonder if you notice what happens to the phrase within these sentences, "to be going to have to." So, we obviously don't split all those words out and say, I am going to have to sink or swim. We instead can track them all together in spoken English, and you're going to hear, "I'm gonna hafta. I'm gonna hafta sink or swim. I'm gonna hafta." So, "gonna and hafta".

And something really interesting that happens when you have- I guess these- It wouldn't be an auxiliary verb. "Have" in this case is acting as a normal verb, but for whatever reason, we can track this with "to" and the /v/ sound in "have" becomes an /f/ sound.

So, you're going to hear "hafta, haf-ta" instead of "havta, havta". I guess it's just harder to say, "havta". So, it's "hafta. Gonna hafta. Gonna hafta. Gonna hafta. I'm gonna hafta sink or swim. You're gonna hafta sink or swim."

So, learning these kinds of things and using them when speaking English, whatever the dialect of English is that you're, you know, trying to perfect, Australian, British, American, Canadian, whatever it is, is going to make you sound a lot more natural.

Guys, don't forget if you're trying to improve your English pronunciation, reduce your foreign accent and sound more Australian, as well as speak more confidently, be sure to grab my Australian pronunciation course at AussieEnglish.com.au/APC. Inside, you'll learn how to use the international phonetic alphabet in section 1 to improve your pronunciation by yourself.

In section 2 you'll get access to detailed tutorial video and audio lessons, teaching you how to pronounce every vowel and consonant sound in English, and you'll also get loads of exercises to make sure you nail these sounds. And then in section 3, you'll get 25 advanced English pronunciation lessons where you'll learn about things like connected speech, assimilation, sound changes, how to pronounce consonant clusters like in the word "strengths".

You know, there's like 4 different consonants in a row there, and loads more. So, go to AussieEnglish.com.au/APC to pick that up. Alright, are you ready to finish up today's lesson with a TV show clip? This clip comes from the famous TV show "Round the Twist".

This was an absolute favourite of mine growing up as a kid, and I have heard through the grapevine if you were to do a little YouTube search for "Round the Twist", you may be able to view all four series for free. So, go and have a look on YouTube for "Round the Twist". Every episode is a kind of crazy and weird story, often involving supernatural elements that affect the Twist family who live in a light house.

And it was filmed along the Great Ocean Road near where I live, so it's definitely worth a watch. So, the rules of the game, guys, I'm going to play a clip for you 2 times and your goal is to get a piece of paper and a pen, listen intently and try and write down the phrase or phrases that you hear being said.

Okay, so if you want to check your answer after the fact, be sure to grab today's worksheet, which is free, the PDF worksheet you can download that. Or join up to the Premium podcast, where you'll be able to get access to the transcripts and you can obviously read every single word that I'm saying, which will include the phrase from this TV show. So, here we go. Playthrough number 1.

"Oh, get lost! Don't come crying to me. I wouldn't help you if I could."

So, how'd you go? Did you get it all? Time for the second playthrough.

"Oh, get lost! Don't come crying to me. I wouldn't help you if I could."

Awesome. There you go, guys. That's it. Hopefully you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for joining me. Don't forget if you want to read whilst you listen, which is the best way to improve, well, your listening and reading skills, funnily enough, be sure to check out the Aussie English Premium podcast.

Just go to AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. And if you've got a question that you would like me to answer or share on the podcast, go to AussieEnglish.com.au/AskPete. Anyway, I hope you guys have a beautiful week and I will see you next time. Catch ya.