Transcript of AE 1069 - Expression: Sleight of Hand

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. I hope you guys are having an amazing week. I have just opened myself a focus sparkling new tropic passion fruit drink, so this is one of those kombucha like drinks at Woollies I found this, I think, by the brand Nexba. So, yeah, it's interesting to see how healthy a lot of these brands are getting.

So, you know, back in the day, you know, back in the 80s and 90s, everything was just sugared up soft drinks. There was, you know, very few healthy options out there, but it's nice to see that there are more and more healthier options available from places like, you know, the supermarket, at Woollies and Coles and, you know.

Whatever you want, if it's coffee, you can get it in there with no sugar, you can get diet drinks, you can obviously get these healthy juices and healthy kombuchas. Loving it, just loving it. Anyway, today is going to be a good episode, guys.

It's the first one where I'm just doing the audio. There's no video for this expression episode, so that's kind of a weight off my shoulders, which is great. You know what, without any further ado, guys, let's just get into the Q&A section. So, today's video was from Gen from the Philippines. Let's have a listen to Gen.

G'day, Pete. I'm Gen and I'm from the Philippines. I really like the Australia song Waltzing Matilda, and it's more than 100 years have passed since this simple outback ballad was written, and the song is widely known around the world.

So, my question is why does this improbable tale have such appeal? What does Waltzing Matilda mean? What exactly Matilda is? And who does the waltzing? Does it have a message? Thank you. And I hope this question will answer in your next podcast.

Awesome work, Gen. So, thank you so much for the question, and it's a really interesting one, too. So, she was interested in Waltzing Matilda, the song, which is an outback ballad about one hundred years old. I think it was first published in 1895. She wanted to know, why does it have such appeal? What is Waltzing Matilda mean? What's a Matilda? And who does the waltzing?

Okay, so the title was Australian slang at the time for travelling on foot, right, the idea of waltzing, I guess, which is a, I think, a German word for a German dance. I imagine that... (mimicking the beat) One two three, one two three.

And it was where you were walking with your belongings, which is the Matilda, or your swag slung over your back. So, the song narrates the story of this itinerant worker or swag man making a drink of Billy Tea at a bush camp and then capturing a stray jumbuck or sheep to eat.

So, when the jumbucks' owner, a squatter or landowner and three troopers, mounted police pursue the swag man for theft because he stole the sheep, he declares, you'll never catch me alive. And then, you know, tragically commits suicide by drowning himself in a nearby Billabong, you know, a watering hole, after which his ghost haunts the site.

So, that's the basic idea of the song Waltzing Matilda, and it was developed from a poem written by Banjo Patterson. So, we've got an episode on that that you can go and check out. I think we also talk about that a bit in the Aussie English academy. So, yeah, the title of the song Waltzing Matilda effectively is just a slang term from back in the 1800s for a guy, an itinerant worker walking around with his matilda over his back.

So, these swag men used to walk around the country looking for work at different farms, different locations, right. They were kind of like the, what would you say, like a homeless tradie that was walking around looking for work. And yeah, it's just been in Australian kind of culture ever since, you know, Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda.

So, yeah, it's a really cool song that you should definitely learn. And I think if you're to come into contact with any Aussie, they're going to know the song Waltzing Matilda. All right. So, thanks, Gen, for the question. Guys, remember if you would like to be featured on the podcast and ask me a question, you can do so at AussieEnglish.com.au/AskPete.

So, when you click the link, you'll see a video with instructions and then all you have to do is hit "go" and you can record the audio and or video of your own question. Okay. So, please submit something, ask me about Australia, about our culture, about our history, about English, about me, whatever you want, and I'll feature you on the podcast.

All right, so it's time to get into this week's news. So, a woman has allegedly pretended to be a gem expert and swindled a London jeweller out of 4.2 million pounds, roughly 7.8 million Australian dollars. The daring act succeeded when the woman used sleight of hand to replace the diamonds that she was examining with worthless pebbles.

Prosecutors accused Lulu Lakatos of posing as a gem expert who went to value seven diamonds at the jewellery store known as Boodles in 2016. She allegedly presented herself under the guise of working for some wealthy Russian buyers. After she had checked the diamonds out and made the unnoticed switcheroo, the jewellers placed them in a bag and locked them in a vault, waiting for Miss Lakatos's deposit to be transferred.

However, as you've probably surmised, the deposit was never transferred, and Miss Lakatos had disappeared into thin air with the diamonds. The jewellers quickly cottoned on to the con when they opened up the bag that had had the diamonds in it and discovered seven worthless pebbles.

The prosecutor said quote "the conspiracy in which she is alleged to have played an integral and central part was one of the highest possible in terms of sophistication, planning, risk and reward" end quote. They told of how Miss Lakatos then made her getaway with some accomplices to France using a rental car.

Lucky for the jewellers, the two men and Miss Lakatos were arrested in France and extradited to the UK to face trial. Clearly, evidence that crime doesn't pay. All right, so hopefully you enjoyed that story, guys, and hopefully you see the sort of link with today's expression, "sleight of hand", but we'll get into that in a little bit.

First, let's slap the bird and get into today's joke. Why did the art thieves van run out of gas as he drove away from the museum? Why did the art thieves van run out of gas, or petrol if you're in Australia, as he drove away from the museum? Because he had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh.

All right, so the joke here is that Claude Monet was a famous French painter and founder of Impressionist painting, Edgar Degas was a French impressionist artist and Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter. So, there's the joke. Why did the art thieves van run out of gas as he drove away from the museum? Because he had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh.

That has to be one of the worst ones I've had on the podcast so far. All right, anyway, let's get into today's expression. So, today's expression is "sleight of hand", to have "sleight of hand". I wonder if you've heard this before. So, let's go through and break down the different words in this expression. We can then talk about what the expression means, how to use it, and then I give you some examples of how I would use this in daily English.

Okay, so let's get into it. So, the word "sleight", this is a bit of a weird word, right. This is S-L-E-I-G-H-T. "Sleight" is the use of dexterity or cunning, especially so as to deceive. So, it's cunningly skilful and it comes from Old Norse, right, the language of the Vikings hence the spelling E-I-G-H-T.

Right. That sort of weird "ght" that appears all the time is usually, if not always, I think, from Old Norse. So, for example, he showed a lot of "sleight" of logic. And remember, don't confuse this with the word slight, S-L-I-G-H-T, meaning slim or delicate build, right. She was slight of stature. All right, "of" you're going to know "of", this is that preposition. "Of".

"Hand". "Hand" is the end of a person's arm beyond the wrist, so it includes the palm, the fingers and the thumb, which is also a finger. So, if you have "sleight of hand", you have dexterous and skilled hands, which can deceive. So, this can be as a thief, you know, imagine a thief is using "sleight of hand" to steal things. But you could also use this when talking about something like a magician or someone who can do card tricks, right.

Something that requires you to be very good with your hands in order to say, deceive the audience, right. Pulling a rabbit out of your hat, or maybe a dove out of your sleeve. So, let's go through three examples of how I would use the expression "sleight of hand". Example number one.

So, imagine, as in today's story earlier, you are a thief, right. Perhaps you specialise in breaking into museums and stealing works of art, right, you're a cat burglar, someone who dresses up in black. You, you know, ascend walls, cut the glass in windows, sneak in, dodge laser beams, all that sort of stuff. So, you get into your little black cat burglar outfit, and you sneak into Paris during the night and slip into the Louvre Museum.

Once you're inside, you dodge lasers, motion detectors cut through the glass surrounding the Mona Lisa and use "sleight of hand" to pry it away from the wall without setting off any motion detectors around the painting. Boom, you steal the painting, take it to your boss, and its payday baby. You get paid for your work. You get paid for your "sleight of hand".

Example number two. Maybe you're a pickpocket, you know, maybe you're a pickpocket who lives in the streets of Rome, in Italy. And this isn't about badmouthing any Italians. But I was watching a doco recently and there are some amazing pickpockets, old school guys that live in Italy. And these guys, I think, had finished that sort of career, but were showing how easy it was to pickpocket people in the streets, pickpocket tourists.

So, it was just phenomenal. They would walk around, bump into someone and all of a sudden be like, oh, here's your wallet, mate. You dropped this, here's your phone. Or where's your camera? Hmm, I've got it. So, imagine you are this pickpocket, and you steal all these things every single day from unsuspecting victims using "sleight of hand" and then go and sell them, and that's how you make your living, right.

You use "sleight of hand" to earn a crust, to make your living. Example number three. Imagine you're a card magician who works in the streets of Los Angeles in the US, right. Maybe you're a busker, someone who goes there and does this sort of magic on the streets in order to get money from people walking by you know, they donate a little bit of money to reward you for your talents.

So, you've got incredibly dexterous hands, and your entire livelihood is based on these magic tricks that you perform on a table out in the street. Maybe you do the whole "pick a card, any card" trick where someone has to pick a card out of the deck in front of them and then they give it back to you.

And you use "sleight of hand" to shuffle the deck, but unbeknownst to your subject, unknowingly or at least they don't realise, they don't know that you maintain that card at the bottom of the deck the entire time, so that when you pluck it out at the end, you say that cliche phrase, "was this your card?" And they're like, oh my God, amazing. Incredible. How did you know? All right, you've used "sleight of hand" to pull that trick off.

So, what does "sleight of hand" mean, guys? Hopefully, you know now, it means to have dexterous and skilled hands, which you can use to deceive. This can be that you steal something, or it can be that you're tricking someone with something like magic.

So, as usual, guys, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise. This is where you can listen and repeat after me. Find somewhere quiet away from the crowds. Be careful of those pickpockets, you know. Pay attention. Hold your phone in one hand and repeat after me. Okay, so are you ready? Let's go.

"Sleight. Sleight of. Sleight of hand. Sleight of hand. Sleight of hand. Sleight of hand. Sleight of hand. I displayed good sleight of hand. You displayed good sleight of hand. He displayed good sleight of hand. She displayed good sleight of hand. We displayed good sleight of hand. They displayed good sleight of hand. It displayed good sleight of hand."

Good work, guys. So, there's some interesting stuff going on there pronunciation-wise, I wonder if you notice what happens to the "T" at the end of the word "sleight" when you say the phrase "sleight of hand". What happens to it? "Sleight of hand". I'm not saying sleight of hand, I'm saying "sleight of hand". It turns into a T-flap. That's because on one side, you have a vowel sound the "I" in the word "sleight".

And on the other side, you have another vowel sound at the start of the word "of". "Sleight of, sleight of, sleight of, sleight of hand, sleight of hand". The other thing that happens if I speak really quickly, too, is H-deletion in the word "hand".

So, instead of saying "hand" because there's a consonant before the "H" at the end of "of", I can say "sleight of hand, sleight of hand, sleight of hand". So, you may notice that as well. "Sleight of hand, sleight of hand".

So, there you go, guys. To finish up I've got a little clip here for you and this is from the movie The Hunter, which is a movie about a man who's sent to hunt down the last thylacine that's rumoured to be roaming the wilderness of Tasmania. So, the thylacine is that animal that went extinct in the early 1900s, that was like a dog, but it was a marsupial.

So, it was from Tasmania or at least that was the last place that it was found in Australia, in Tasmania. They went extinct because people hunted them down because they were worried they were killing their sheep. They were a beautiful animal; you can actually check out YouTube to see videos of them. They got a few videos of the last ones captured in zoos.

But yeah, this is the movie The Hunter, it's worth checking out. It's pretty interesting and you get to see quite a bit of Tasmania's wilderness. Okay, so I'm going to play this for you two times. Once, have a listen. See if you can get a piece of paper and some, and a pen and then write down what you hear.

I'll play it again. See if you can correct any mistakes you've made. And then at the end, if you want to check your answer, be sure to download either the worksheet for today's episode, the free worksheet, or make sure that you sign up to the Premium podcast, where you'll get access to all the full transcripts of every single episode on the podcast.

Okay, are you ready to go? Number one.

How's the room? Alright? Yeah. It's fine thanks. Any problems you just let me know. I'll sort it out.

Good job. How did you go? Did you get everything? Did you write it all down? Time for number two.

How's the room? Alright? Yeah. It's fine thanks. Any problems you just let me know. I'll sort it out.

All right. Awesome stuff, guys. Thanks for joining me. Don't forget that if you want to sign up to the Premium podcast, you can do that at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. If you want to ask me a question, just go to AussieEnglish.com.au/AskPete, and for everything else, go check out the website.

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