Transcript of AE 1074 - Expression: A Sticky Situation

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.

Alrighty, guys. What's going on? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. I'm your host, Pete. I hope you are having a phenomenal week. I hope you're having a great week. It's been a bit wet here. We've had quite a bit of rain, the odd storm kind of roll through, a bit of lightning, bit a thunder. Sort of woke up my daughter recently, actually, because she was sort of like, what the hell is this?

I think it's probably the first time that she's sort of had really loud thunder and lightning in the middle of the night. So, it must be such a weird thing to experience for the first time, right? Imagine just lying there in the dark, trying to sleep, and then all of a sudden, just... (thunder sound effect) ...You know, in the background, you'd just be like, what the hell is that?

Anyway, let's get straight into today's Q and A. So, this one was actually sent in as a written question. Remember, guys, if you want to ask me a question, you can record the audio and or video at AussieEnglish.com.au/AskPete.

When you go to this link, there's a little video there of me giving you instructions and then all you have to do is- You can do this on your phone, all you have to do is hit go and you record your own message, okay. So, you can ask me anything you want about Australia, about me, about culture, history, English, whatever it is.

So, this one comes from Mreza, he says, how can you ask an Aussie girl out that you've just met for the first time and she's half drink and might say anything? So, that doesn't sound sus at all, mate. That doesn't sound very sus at all. How would you do it? So, if this were me and I was still single and I was at a bar, first of all, I probably would have had a drink too.

Because there's this weird sort of situation you can end up in if you're sober and the person that you are potentially interested in is drunk or at least not sober, right. There's kind of an imbalance there.

So, if I was going to somewhere like a bar or a pub and, you know, obviously assuming that drinking alcohol is okay for you culturally or religiously, you know, as long as that's okay, I would probably have at least one drink, right, or at least have a drink in my hand.

Then I would be obviously trying to strike up a conversation with this person and find common ground, you know, where are you from? What are you into? Try and ask this person questions that are small talk easy-going questions, right. Oh, come here often? You know, that's the sort of cliche.

But then when you actually get to the point of asking for the person's details, right, asking them out, something you could do, right, is first of all, give them a compliment. Like, look, I think you're a really cool person, and I would like to get to know you more. Is it okay for me to ask for your number? Right. So, you can say things like, is it okay for me to ask for your number?

Do you mind if I grab your number? That's a good one. Do you mind if I grab your number? Can I give you, my number? Can I add you to Facebook? There's another one. Can I add you to Facebook? Or have you got Facebook? Or What's your Facebook? You know, it's weird.

It's kind of a cliché today, but Facebook now is so sort of synonymous with chatting to people. It's almost like sending text messages, right. So, I remember even when I was dating, probably four or five years back, I would still often just ask for the person's Facebook instead of their phone.

And it sometimes seems like a safer option because they can just block you, right. I guess they can do that with your phone number, too, but it's almost like it's less private in a way. If you just say, what's your Facebook? So, yeah, they're the things I would do. I would be drinking if they're drinking. I would try and strike up a conversation with the person.

If I can tell that they're interested and they're still chatting with me and we're getting on like, you know, a house on fire. I would then give them that sort of compliment of, look, I think you're amazing. We're having this amazing conversation. I'd really love to continue this conversation another time. And then I would ask for their number or Facebook, right, a way of getting in contact with them.

So, I hope that helps. But good question. All right, it's time to get into the news story. Let's do it. So, this week, Colorado wildlife officers have completed a two-year quest to remove a car tire from around an elks neck, an elk is a type of deer. I love this kind of stuff. It wasn't in Australia, but it definitely ended up on Australian news.

So, apparently this elk had been constantly photographed on trail cameras that were set up in the Colorado wilderness in the US for several years. And that's not necessarily something strange or new, right, taking photos of deer. The weird bit was the fact that the male bull elk had somehow managed to get a car tire over its head and was wearing it like a huge rubber necklace.

Elk are a type of deer and bull elk lose their antlers every single year and then have to regrow them before the rutting season, where they then use them to fight other males in order to secure their mating rights with female elk.

Somehow, this bull elk thought it would be a great idea to shove his head through a car tire after losing his antlers and never managed to get the tire off his head again as his antlers regrew and trapped that tire around his neck. After two years of trying to track the animal down, authorities were finally successful.

They sedated the nearly 300-kilogram bull elk and safely removed the tire, then set the elk free to go on his way back to his herd. So, brings a whole new meaning to the expression "to put your head in a noose", doesn't it? Alrighty, guys. So, as usual, let's slap that bird and get straight into today's joke.

All right. So, I was trying to think, how do I tie this joke in with deer, with today's sort of expression as well? But the best I could do is linking it with deer. So, here we go. What did the deer say after prancing around a cloning machine for an hour? This is so dumb.

What did the deer say after prancing around a cloning machine for an hour? Right. A cloning machine is a machine that makes clones of something, right, produces multiple copies of that thing.

So, this deer is prancing around, you know, dancing around a cloning machine for an hour. What did it say? I feel like a million bucks. So, the joke here is that the expression "to feel like a million bucks", this usually means to feel amazing, right. I feel like a million bucks. It's like if you're wearing a really nice suit or something, but as you will have known, as you will have heard from the previous story a buck is a male deer.

But it's also used to mean a dollar. So, a million bucks could be a million dollars, but it could also be a million male deer's. So, he's been prancing around this cloning machine for an hour, and a million deer have been made. Anyway, that's the joke. All right. So, today's expression is "a sticky situation, a sticky situation".

I wonder if you've heard this expression before in English, maybe you've gotten yourself into a bit of "a sticky situation" and you've had to use this expression to describe it. Sort of almost given it away, haven't I? Anyway, we'll go through the words first. We'll go through some ways that I would use it. We'll do a pronunciation exercise and then a little clip at the end here to test your listening skills and we'll finish up.

So, "a sticky situation". "A", this is the indefinite article. You'll know what "a" is. "Sticky". Literally, this means tending or designed to stick to things on contact, right. So, if you have a sticker, you'll peel it away from the paper, and if you put it on your hands, it's going to "stick" to your hands because of the glue, the "sticky" substance that's behind it. Right.

So, yeah, a substance is "sticky". It's glutinous, it's viscous and it causes things to stick together. But figuratively, we can use this to mean problems or difficult or awkward situations, right. They're a bit, ugh. They're a bit "sticky".

A "situation". A "situation" is a set of circumstances in which you find yourself; a state of affairs. So, "a sticky situation" would be a difficult, awkward or sensitive set of circumstances in which you find yourself. So, you found yourself in these difficult circumstances. You found yourself in "a sticky situation". So, let's go through three examples of how I would use this expression in daily life.

Example number one, imagine you're a fisherman who goes out into Bass Strait, right, the area between Victoria and Tasmania that is ocean. And you go out there to try and go fishing and catch some tuna. Right, maybe you want some bluefin tuna or yellowfin tuna. So, one day you go out despite there being, you know, a severe weather warning. Maybe it was recently.

There's been so much rain and storms here, you decided to go out anyway. A storm rolls in and you get into a bit of strife, right. You get into dire straits. You get into a bit of a difficult situation because the engine in your boat conks out, its cactus, it stops working. So, you have to call the Coast Guard and say, mayday, mayday, we need your help. You've got to come and help us. We're in a bit of "a sticky situation".

So, you're in a difficult set of circumstances. You need help. You're in trouble. You're in "a sticky situation". Example number two, a new movie has come out this week and you want to go to the cinemas to see it. So, you want to take a friend, but both friends that you usually take, you're unsure if they're going to say yes. They usually sort of say yes and then cancel last minute.

So, you sort of want to hedge your bets and you ask both of them assuming that at least one will say no. Unfortunately, both of them this time say yes, but you've only got one spare ticket. So, now you're in a bit of "a sticky situation". You're going to have to explain yourself.

You're going to have the hard task of either deciding which of your friends can come or can't come. Or maybe you've got to fork out for an extra ticket. You've got to lash out. You've got to spend a bit more money on an extra ticket because you're a good sport, right. You're a mates, mate. You're going to take care of your friends.

Example number three. So, imagine you've got to travel to Melbourne one day, but your car's broken down. So, you have to catch the bus to a local town called Port Arlington. You then have to get the ferry from Port Arlington all the way to the CBD of Melbourne across Port Phillip Bay. But once you get to Port Arlington, you get on the ferry and you lose your wallet and phone.

So, you eventually arrive in Melbourne, but find yourself in "a very sticky situation" where you've got no money to buy, say, a tram or train ticket, and you've also got no phone with which to contact someone. So, that is a very bad predicament to be in. It's a very difficult situation to be in. You'd be in "a very sticky situation".

So, there you go, guys. That is the expression, "a sticky situation" it means to be in a difficult, awkward or sensitive set of circumstances. That's what you found yourself in, you're in "a sticky situation". So, as usual, guys, let's go through a pronunciation exercise, find somewhere quiet where you're away from the world and you can speak freely.

You don't have to feel conscious about your pronunciation. You know, you want to be relaxed, easy-going, and listen and repeat after me. Okay, so are you ready to go? Let's do it.

"A. A sticky. A sticky situation. A sticky situation. A sticky situation. A sticky situation. A sticky situation. I'll be in a sticky situation. You'll be in a sticky situation. He'll be in a sticky situation. She'll be in a sticky situation. We'll be in a sticky situation. They'll be in a sticky situation. It'll be in a sticky situation."

Great job, guys, great job. Now there's a few interesting things to point out here, pronunciation-wise, although the spelling of the word "situation" has two T's in it, right. S-I-T-U-A-T-I-O-N, situation. Do you hear a hard T at all in this word? Do either of these T's get pronounced as a hard T, like a /t/ sound? As in the word "sticky", right. "Sticky". Sit-u. Sit-u-a-tion. Sich-oo-ey-shun.

No, there's something going on called assimilation here, where the /u/ sound after the first T combines with the T to get this /ch/, sich-oo, sich-oo, the /ch/ sound. And then the next T with the I-O-N ending has assimilation again, but instead of being a /ch/, it's a /sh/ sound. So, it's interesting, huh. This is where a T can either become a /ch/ sound or a /sh/ sound. Sich-oo-ey-shun, sit-u-a-tion, situation.

So, this happens a lot in English, and it's something to be aware of, just because you see a T in a word doesn't mean it's pronounced as a hard T. In fact, I think there are about four, maybe even five different pronunciations of the letter T in English.

If you would like to learn all of these, as well as master your Australian pronunciation, all the sounds in English and level up your accent to sound more like an Aussie, then go and check out the Australian pronunciation course. You can get this at AussieEnglish.com.au/APC, go check it out. Anyway, guys finishing up, I wanted to show you a little clip here from the movie 'Ali's Wedding'.

So, the description of the movie is, after a reckless lie, the son of a Muslim cleric finds himself caught between his sense of duty and following his heart. He must follow through with his arranged marriage or be with the girl he truly loves. This was really an interesting film.

I liked it quite a lot because I got a bit of insight into Muslim culture and how that sort of has combined with being Australian in the outer suburbs of Sydney, where this movie was filmed. It was really interesting, so I definitely recommend checking out Ali's wedding. I'm going to play this clip for you twice. Remember to grab some paper and a pen, see if you can write down what you hear.

Listen again the second time, correct any mistakes. And if you want to see the answer, download the free worksheet with today's episode or sign up to the Premium podcast, where you'll get the entire transcript for this episode, as well as over a thousand other episodes, and you can read and listen at the same time. Anyway, time to play the clip the first time.

I don't know. But once we get married, we could do things. I can say things to you. We can say things now.

All right. How did you go? Did you get all of it? Time for number two.

I don't know. But once we get married, we could do things. I can say things to you. We can say things now.

All right. Good job, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Don't forget if you would like to leave me a question and be featured on the podcast, go to AussieEnglish.com.au/AskPete. If you would like the Premium podcast, you can get this at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. For everything else, go to the website. And lastly, if you could, please leave a review for the podcast on whatever app you're using.

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