Transcript of AE 1100 - Expression: Egg Someone 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 back to the Aussie English podcast, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. Think you guys know the drill, right? You know the routine. You know what's going on. But obviously anyone who is listening to this episode, or this podcast rather, for the first time, welcome as well. Welcome. Welcome, welcome. So guys, before we get into it, don't forget if you want the transcripts for today's episode as well as now, I think we're up to what 1088, I think, at the time of recording this, probably past 1090. If you want all the transcripts for every single one of those episodes so that you can read and listen at the same time, you can print them out, you can take notes, you can highlight new vocab, everything like that. Be sure to sign up for the Premium podcast at www.aussieenglish.com.au/podcast and also obviously go and check out all my other courses there if you're trying to work on your English and take it to the next level.

So without any further ado, guys, let's get into today's episode! To start with, I have a question from Chairuladi. So Chairuladi asks, How do you distinguish between the pronunciation of there isn't and there is an right, so there isn't, and there is an like an option and and and so they sound similar. So the trick here would be, in quickly spoken English, they would effectively sound the same, right? So 'there isn't any old clock here' or 'there is an old clock here'. 'There-is-an', 'there isn't'.

The only little difference, besides context, right? The grammar will dictate whether or not you're going to assume there's an 'an' in there, 'is an' or there is the word 'isn't' or 'isn't'. The only little difference in pronunciation is going to be that because 'isn't', right, like 'is not' contracted together, 'isn't' because it ends with a T. You're going to mute that T and the sound stops at the end of the word 'isn't'. So you can hear it stop right? Instead of hearing 'isn' where the N sound sort of continues, you're going to hear it suddenly stop. 'Isn't'. 'Isn't'.

So 'he isn't here', 'he isn't', 'he isn't here'. So it sort of stops in there. 'He isn't here'. Whereas if I said, 'he is an', I don't know what's, what can we say after 'an' here-an octopus! 'He is an octopus.' 'He is an octopus.' The context, again, the grammar shows that when you've got 'octopus', the word before it has to be 'an' in this case. It's not going to be 'He isn't octopus.' It's got to be 'He is an octopus.'.

So there you go. Here are some examples. There are minimal pairs here: 'bent'. So we can say this as 'bent' and the word or name 'Ben can't' as in 'cannot', 'can't', and the word 'carn' as in 'Carn the Bombers!' You know you say it to support your team. Or 'hunt'. And well, actually, I should have said that as 'hunt', right, we're muting the T. 'Hunt' and 'Hun'. 'Hun'. So again, muting it sound stops with that NT, 'hunt'. And it continues. You hear that N sound elongated in the word 'hun'.

So guys, if you are having trouble with your English pronunciation, be sure to check out my Australian pronunciation course. You can get that at www.aussieenglish.com.au/apc The course will help you master these kinds of tricky, similar sounds in English. Ok, so go to www.aussieenglishenglish.com.au/apc

All right, guys, slap the bird! Now it's time for today's joke. So why did the egg cross the road? Why did the egg cross the road? These are very standard jokes in English. I don't know if they're the same in your language, but we have those sorts of "Why did they cross the road", right? Like, why did the priest cross the road? Why did the wombat cross the road?

Anyway, "Why did the egg cross the road?" To get to the shell station? Right? Get it? Done all off at once, guys. Okay, so there we go. We're associating those two words: egg and shell, right? Because an egg is covered by a shell. Egg shell. Shell is a large petrol company in Australia that has service stations all over the countryside, right? They're dotted all along the highways and streets of the countryside. You're going to see them everywhere.

So I also wanted to ask, who knows what the slang term is for a petrol station in Australia? Have you heard this word before? And it's not- it's not petrol station shortened. It's a short version of the word or phrase service station. Service station. So when this is shortened, it is 'servo'. So you go to the servo, maybe it's a Shell servo and you put petrol in your car.

So let's go through the expression today, which is 'to egg someone on'. Maybe you see how I connected the joke there to the expression right, they're both about eggs. So 'to eggs someone on'. Before we go through what the expression means and I give you a few examples, let's go through the different words in the expression.

So, 'to egg'. If you 'egg' someone, you encourage someone to do something foolish or risky, and this is almost always associated with the phrasal verbs, 'egg on'.

In fact, I can't think of another example where you wouldn't say 'egg someone on', you know, you would never say, "Ah, I'm going to egg someone." Because if you said you would egg someone, that would mean you throwing an egg at the person. Sorry, "I went to my mate Jim's house and we egged his house." It's still like you've bought eggs. You know you've got a carton of 12 eggs, you've walked over to his house and then you've thrown the eggs at his house, right? The kind of thing that teenage boys might do to one another. I am, I'm not guilty of this. Okay, I'm not guilty of this.

So 'to egg someone' is to throw eggs at them. And you may have seen that story that got sort of famous on Australian TV about a year, year and a half ago where Egg Boy filmed himself on camera egging a racist Australian polly, right, a politician. He walked up behind this guy. I think his name was Fraser Anning. After this guy had made this sort of speech in parliament that had kind of referenced- I don't know if it was Mein Kampf or something that Hitler had said, right? He'd used the phrase 'final solution', which is the phrase that Hitler used when talking about getting rid of the Jews in Germany in World War Two.

Fraser Anning, we assume, intentionally used this charged, you know, emotionally charged and racist term in order to refer to migrants coming to Australia. And so anyway, Egg Boy, this young boy got offended by the fact like the, you know, the majority of the country, he went to one of Fraser Anning's, what would you say, like, speeches somewhere, walked up behind him and smashed an egg into the back of his head. He egged him.

All right, next word: 'someone'. Someone, this is a pronoun, an unknown or unspecified person, right? So "Someone just knocked on my door. I'll be back in a jiffy." Wait a sec. I've got a, you know, answer the door. "Someone knocked on the door. I'll be back in a jiffy."

'Back in a jiffy' is a good little expression here. That means 'back soon'. A 'jiffy' is a very short time. It's a moment and you'll hear lots of these kinds of phrases. There's variations on the same thing of 'I'll be back soon' where you can just say 'back in a jiffy', 'back in a sec', as in a second, 'back in a min' as in a minute. And you may even hear 'back in a mo'. I think I remember I used to say this at school: 'back in a moment', though- yeah, I'd probably just stick with 'back in a moment'.

On. Now, 'on', when talking about this paired- this preposition paired with a verb to create a phrasal verbs, this indicates the continuation of something. So 'going on and on and on' would be 'continuing again and again and again', right? 'Continuing on and on and on and on'. 'Going on and on and on', a good little slang term in Australian English would be 'to rabbit on'. This means 'to continually talk usually about nothing important'. 'Nah, he's just rabbiting on about his favourite footy team'. You know, he's- he's just talking on and on and on and on. My God, it's so boring. He's just rabbiting on.

But if we use this, yeah, with the word 'egg', 'to egg someone on', this means to continue to encourage them, right? So you're encouraging them to do something, often risky or foolish. You are egging them on. So you've got the definition of the expression for today as well 'to egg someone on'.

Now, guys. Don't forget, if you're having trouble with Phrasal Verbs, in English, check out my effortless Phrasal verbs course. Just go to www.aussieenglish.com.au/phrasalverbs It's an easy to follow step by step course that teaches you the concepts behind how phrasal verbs are formed. So you don't have to remember huge lists of prepositions like, you know, 'away' and 'on' and 'up' and 'in' and 'at' connected to different verbs because there's thousands of phrasal verbs, in English. Instead, you just learn how adding these prepositions to verbs changes the meaning of the verb so that you can then go away and just spontaneously create phrasal verbs when speaking.

That's the key to learning to use phrasal verbs! Whether or not you get the course, understanding the preposition and how it modifies the verb. It's the key to unlocking all phrasal verbs, so that you can just make them when you're talking. When I was giving you those examples: 'to talk on and on and on', 'to continue on', 'to go on', 'to rabbit on', I'm not trying to recall the phrasal verbs as such from my memory. I'm just thinking, what's the verb I want to use? And what's the preposition I want to add to the verb to give the meaning I want to convey? Bam, that's the phrasal verb. Okay? So anyway, if you do want to grab the course, go to www.aussieenglish.com.au/phrasalverbs

Alright. So I looked in- I looked into the origin of this expression. Because it is a weird one, you're not going to hear 'egg' with other prepositions in other forms, at least not that I can think of, right? You're not going to 'egg away' or 'egg up' or 'egg down' or 'egg in'. You're not going to have these other phrasal verbs. It's a very kind of unique expression here that's only used like this. So I looked into it and it kind of blew my mind.

What I found, because 'egg' here in this form, is not associated with an egg that comes from a chicken and this, yeah, blew my mind. I thought they would be associated for some reason.

So the word egg is in a chicken's egg comes from old English as 'æg' A E G, to Middle English, 'ey' E Y, and then 'egg' E G G in Modern English. Egg, as in the phrase 'to egg someone on' actually comes from Old Norse, the language of the Vikings from the word 'eggja', which was E G G J A, which meant 'to incite' and that became 'egg' spelt E G G and in Middle English, and then obviously maintained its spelling and pronunciation for Modern English. Pretty cool, huh? So in Modern Swedish, they still have the word 'egga', which means 'to incite' and in Danish as well, they have 'egge' 'to incite'.

So, yeah, it's interesting, 'to egg someone on' has kind of become this encourage someone to do something risky or foolish, but kind of in a positive way, whereas 'incite' would be to kind of encourage someone to get angry or upset. And it's usually a kind of malicious thing, right? If I was swearing at someone in the street, I'm probably going to 'incite' them, you know, to get angry, or to rage at- or rage up, lash out at me.

So let's go through three examples of how I would use the expression 'to egg someone on'.

Number one, imagine you've gone down to the beach with your mates. It's a hot summer day. Maybe you're planning to go for a swim. You know, you want to go for a bit of a dip in the water. Maybe you'll go for a surf or a- ah um, I'm trying to think of- a body surf, right, where you do it on your body. You don't actually have a board. So then you come out of the water, you lie down on the beach, you spread your towel out and you soak up a few rays. You know, you get some sun. Work on your tan, though hopefully you're being sun smart. You know, you've slip, slop, slapped: slipped on a shirt, slopped on some sunscreen, and slapped on a hat to avoid getting skin cancer.

Anyway, you end up on the beach and after an hour's swim, you notice the sand dunes behind the beach are really big, and they look like a lot of fun to jump off. You can jump off the top and land on the sort of soft sand below, so you and your mates run up there. And when yout mate starts 'egging you on', saying, you know, 'Do a backflip! Do a backflip!' You know you'll land on the soft sand below, you'll be fine. You're a bit nervous. But as they keep egging you on, you summon up the courage to do the backflip. And maybe you land it perfectly, or maybe you eat it. You know, you fall and hurt yourself. They 'egged you on' and you did it.

Example number two, you're a young man or lady who's single, on the dating scene. You've gone out one night to get some drinks with friends and hopefully meet some other single people. You know, you've gone to your favourite bar or pub somewhere and you end up spotting someone whilst out that looks, you know, are they relatively attractive? They look interesting. Maybe I wouldn't mind. You know, hopefully they'll come over here and talk to me. You're a bit too nervous and you don't want to approach this person. But your friends realise that you're kind of interested and 'egg you on'. They encourage you, you know, 'go over there, use a pick up line'. Say something funny. Get talking with this person.

So they end up giving you a hard time, teasing you a bit, 'egging you on', and then eventually you take the initiative, you summon up the courage you go on, approach this person and you say, "Were your parents angels? Because you look like you've fallen from heaven." You guys have my permission to use that one. Ok, that's a good little cliche pick up line.

All right. Lastly, number three. Imagine you've just finished high school and you're not sure about what you want to do. Do you want to go to uni? You know you want to go study there or do you want to go over seas for an exchange year? You know, do something in Europe or in America, South America, Asia, something interesting.

And, you know, just take some time off. Get to see the world get some life experience. The world's your oyster. Anything can happen. So you chat to your parents, your brothers and sisters. You tell them sort of your conundrum, what you're choosing between, and they kind of 'egg you on'. They encourage you to sort of take a year off and just plunge into life in France. You know, you've decided, "Ah, France's where I'd go if I went overseas for a year", for a gap year. So they 'egg you on' and you do it, you decide to go to France, you get online, you buy your tickets and off you go.

So there you go, guys. That is the expression 'to egg someone on'. Hopefully, now you understand it, it means 'to encourage someone to do something risky or foolish'. Risky or foolish.

So now it's time to go through a little pronunciation exercise. This is where I'm going to read out some phrases. Try and find somewhere quiet, away from other people where you're going to feel comfortable and confident speaking out loud. Read these out or say them out loud after me and work on your pronunciation. Focus on the sounds that I'm using, the way that I'm linking words, and the stress that I'm using, which words are being stressed and why.

All right. Ready to go. Let's do it. To. To egg. To egg someone. To egg someone on. To egg someone on. To egg someone on. To egg someone on. To egg someone on.

Now, interestingly, I've just noticed that I'm using the glottal stop. Instead of a W sound to link 'to' 'egg'. So instead of saying 'to egg', which you could say, you could totally do that 'to egg', 'to egg', 'to egg', instead of doing that, I'm using my throat, my voice box. I'm closing my larynx to stop the flow of air and instead saying 'tuh egg', 'tuh egg'. So there you go. You got multiple options when linking in English at times 'to egg' or 'to egg'.

I egged him on. You egged him on. She egged him on. He egged him on. We egged him on. They egged him on. It egged him on. Great job, guys, now, man, there's some interesting stuff going on there, linking wise. I wonder if, you know, if you noticed, how the linking between the pronouns and the word 'egged' actually changed a few times there. So for the most part, it was a 'yuh' sound, because when we link 2 vowel sounds, the semi vowel sound that you're using to link those sounds, the 'wuh' 'yuh' or 'ruh' is determined by the vowel before the second vowel. So when you hear 'i-y-egged' it's the first I sound that determines you're using a 'yuh' sound to link to 'egged'. 'I egged'.

But what happens with 'you'? So that's a different vowel sound. Instead of 'I', 'yoo' 'you'. Because your lips are rounded, you use a 'wuh' sound because your lips are going to widen for the 'eh' vowel sound, 'you-w-egged', 'i-y-egged'. Y, 'yuh'. 'i-y-egged'. 'you-w'egged' W, 'you-w-egged'.

Now for 'it', because 'it' here is the only pronoun that finishes with a T, a consonant sound. The T here, what happens to it when we say 'it egged'? 'it-egged' 'it-egged', doesn't turn into a hard T, right? It's not a hard T. It turns into a T flap. It's surrounded by two vowels. 'it-egged', 'it-egged', 'it-egged'.

And then lastly, I wonder if you notice what happened to the H in the word 'him'. So H deletion occurred. We didn't pronounce 'him', and instead the D sound linked to M 'i-y-egged-'m-on' 'i-y-egged'm-on'. 'i-y-egged-'m-on'. 'i-y-egged-'m-on', 'i-y-egged-'m-on'n. And the M at the end of 'him' went to the front of 'on' 'i-y-egged-'m-on' 'i-y-egged-'m-on'.

Anyway, let's get going. All right, so the last little section here, the clip. Today's clip comes from the TV show Bluey and I can just hear my friend Alida, who has two children that are absolutely obsessed with Bluey, just like my kids. Okay, so she's going to be listening to this episode and loving it.

Bluey is this really good Australian TV show, and adults can watch it as well as children, which is what makes it so awesome because the parents are absolutely hilarious. If you have children, definitely watch this show because you will see and understand. And probably, what would you say, you would definitely appreciate the humour and the situations that arise.

So the rules of the game, I'm going to play the clip for you two times and your goal is to listen and then write down what you hear being said. It's a great way for you to train your listening comprehension. So remember, you'll be able to check your answer if you download today's worksheet or if you've joined the Premium Podcast membership, where you can access the transcript for the episode. So are you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

If you don't take turns with people, people won't take turns with you.

How did you go? Did you get it all? Here's the second playthrough.

If you don't take turns with people, people won't take turns with you.

All right. I hope you got it, guys. That's it from me today. Thank you for joining me. Don't forget, if you want to read whilst listening. Be sure to grab the Premium Podcast membership at www.aussieenglish.com/podcast For everything else, head over to the website. Thanks again and I'll chat to you soon. See you!