Posts tagged slang

Slang: Chicken!

chickenAre you a chicken? In this episode we look at a familiar word but show you how it can be used in another way. Most of you probably know that a chicken is a kind of bird. And you can also probably imagine a chicken dinner. There is another funny way that we use chicken in English. Check it out here…or are you a chicken?


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Maura: Bawk, bawk, bawk, Chicken!
Harp: Yes, our Catchword today is chicken.
Maura: Which for many of you listening out there…I’m sure you are thinking, “I already know the word chicken. It’s an animal.” But we do use it in another way.
Harp: Exactly, there is slang use for chicken.
Maura: Exactly. So you already know the original meaning of the word, which is the animal, but in English sometimes we use chicken to describe a person who is very afraid of something.
Harp: Yeah, someone who is scared of things.

Podcast/ Lipservice: Culips ESL Podcast, Photo: Stephen Woods

Slang: Dude!

Dude! This word is very popular nowadays, especially with young people. You can often hear this word in movies and television shows, or with your Native English speaker friends. It has been around for awhile but young people are using the word dude, more and more. So…dude, what does it mean?
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Maura: You want to use dude with your friends in a casual environment like a party or something like that.
Harp: Yeah, so dude is an old word.
Maura: Yeah, and it has had a lot of different meanings that generally refer to a man.
Harp: Yeah exactly. And dude became popular in the 60s and the 70s in surfer culture and then it made its way into mainstream.
Maura: Yeah, so dude was really first used in a popular way by surfers, I guess maybe in California, somewhere where they surf in the USA.
Harp: Exactly, but we’ll talk about dude in the surfer culture in the Lipservice.

Podcast/ Lipservice: Culips ESL Podcast, Video: Dude – Bud Light

Slang: Get Down

pic_discoGet down is very important for you to know if you like to party! If you like to go out to the club and dance you will hear this expression! Or if you like to listen to dance music, it is fun to know all the slang for dancing. This episode we are talking about getting down (and Robin sings!)

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Robin : So for example, would you like to get down with me and my friends this weekend at the club?
Maura : Yeah, I love getting down to good music.
Robin : Yeah. Indeed.
Maura : So we wouldn’t use it in a professional way, to talk about professional dancing or performance. It is really just casual, for fun. What is another slang term for dancing?
Robin : We can talk about shaking your booty.

Podcast/ Lipservice: ESL Podcast Culips, Photo: ESL Podcast Culips

Slang: I’m so wasted.

WastedHave you ever been wasted? It is a slang word for something that is fun and important if you are going to a lot of parties. Check out Robin’s story below and see if you can guess what wasted means.

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Harp : So I feel like you need to tell me about the last time that you were wasted.
Robin : The last time I was wasted, well, I was on a cruise ship, I was visiting one of my friends and he was working on this cruise ship and he had access to a lot of alcohol. He was friends with the people behind the bar and the first night I got on and he took me to the bar and we drank and drank and because of that I was pretty wasted.
Harp : Nice, I want to go on a cruise ship.
Robin : Yeah, you should come next time.

Podcast/ Lipservice: Culips ESL Podcast, Photo: jsgphoto

Slang: “Crazy” means exciting, wonderful, and fun

CrazyAt Culips we always try to be a little crazy! This word has a literal meaning but also tons of slang ways to use it. In North America it is a very popular word. Other similar words include, “insane”, “bananas”, “nuts”. Check out this podcast to hear how we use them all.

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Maura: Well, I could say that I went to see a movie and the movie was crazy.
Harp:So, does that mean that it was mentally unstable?
Maura: No, it means that it was interesting, different, probably lots of energy.
Harp: OK, I understand, I understand. So, we use “crazy” in terms of something that is good, something fun, something exiting. For example, I went bungee jumping and it was crazy. Or I went skydiving, some adventure sport, something, you know?
Maura: Yeah, that’s a pretty crazy thing to do.

Podcast/ Lipservice: Culips ESL Podcast, Photo: Doug McNeall

Many expressions with “Stone”

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Do you know this expression? It’s a good one for kids to know. Check it out and other definitions like the one below in this episode!

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Maura – So like a stone they are not moving, they’re not showing any signs of happiness or if they are angry or not we don’t know. But I was thinking this could be good if you are playing poker, right because in poker you don’t want anyone to know what you are feeling. If you have a good hand or if you have a bad hand.
Harp – I have a really bad poker face. I can not be stone faced. When I have good cards, if someone looks at me, they know cause I have the biggest smile on my face.

Podcast/ Lipservice: Culips ESL Podcast

Slang: We’re going to dinner? Sweet!

Sweet! Have you all heard of this new slang term? What does it mean? When can you use it? Find out in this podcast.
We will give you a couple examples.

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Harp: “Hey, that’s a sweet bike,”
Maura: And “Hey, that’s a cool bike,” mean the same thing.
Harp:“I really like your new coat. It’s sweet.”
Harp: “Your new haircut is sweet.”

Podcast/ Lipservice: Culips ESL Podcast