Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! Welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them, maybe. Let's get to your first question this week.
First question this week comes from Ninad. Hi, Ninad. I hope I said your name correctly. Ninad says, "What does 'clocks' mean here: Before anyone 'clocks' my chopper?" Oh, super great question! So, "clocks." This has a couple of different meanings. We'll talk about this first one that we saw in your example sentence, and then we'll talk about a second use of "clocks" as a verb here. So, "clock," as a noun, of course, is the thing that we use to tell time. But, as a verb, it has a totally, totally different meaning. So, don't think about time at all with this answer.
So, first, let's look at the example sentence that you provided: Before anyone "clocks" my chopper. So, "chopper" is another way to say "helicopter." But, "clocks" here means impacts, or runs into, or hits, or damages in some way. So, we can sometimes use this word in like fight situations. For example, if we want to talk about a fistfight between two people, we might say, "One guy clocked the other guy," which means "punched" the other guy. Usually, it refers to a punch, some kind of impact in some way. So, we use "clocks" in this way, to mean he "punched" the other person. You might also hear people using "clock" in this kind of situation that you've described here, "clocks my chopper," which means impacts, or hits my chopper, or hits my vehicle in some way. "He clocked me," you might hear this used in like a car accident situation, to talk about the impact of two vehicles.
So, the reason that we use "clock" instead of like "impact," is because "clock" sounds a lot more casual and kind of rough, and it sounds kind of more like a word we would use in like a fight situation. So, there's a little bit of kind of an aggressive feel of this too. So, if you wanted to talk about a car accident and kind of a casual rough way, like maybe if you're describing an experience to a friend or to a family member and not to, for example, the police, you would maybe choose to use the word "clock." Like, "Ah! The other car clocked me out of nowhere." That sounds like you were impacted in a very surprising way and that it was kind of aggressive, or it was a very like shocking moment. So, "clock" can be used in this way to talk about hits, and impacts, and damages in fights, and in other accident kind of situations. So, this is one use of "clock" as a verb.
I want to talk about one more use of "clock" as a verb, and that is when we're talking about like racing scenarios in lots of cases. So, you might hear a "clock" used in a situation like this, "We clocked him at 60 miles an hour." So, this use of "clock" means tracked someone's speed, or tracked someone's time. So, when you "clock" a vehicle, usually, there's some kind of number that comes along with this meaning. So, in my example sentence, "We clocked him at 60 miles an hour," that means the pace of the car was traveling at 60 miles an hour, or the pace of the vehicle was traveling at 60 miles an hour. So, when you hear "clock" used with a number, usually, this is what happens with this pattern. It means that's the pace or that's the time that we tracked someone moving at. So, here's another example.
So, for this example, let's talk about a runner, someone running in a marathon or someone running in a running event. If you want to describe that person's time, you might use the verb "clock" to do it. For example, "Usain Bolt was clocked at one minute, 30 seconds for the race." So, that means that was the time that was recorded. If it helps you, you can think of this use of "clock" as having some relationship to an actual clock in that you use the clock to understand how much time has passed, or the speed of someone's travels, or whatever that might be. But, this use of "clock" is usually used to talk about pace, to talk about the speed of something, and we typically use it with a number. So, that's a quick way that you can figure out, "Is this a hit, an impact clock, or is this a pace clock?" Usually, the pace and the time one will have some kind of number along with it. Usually, when you talk about an impact, there's not a number. Maybe you might hear somebody say, "Ah, he clocked my car at 60 miles an hour." And, in that case, it might be kind of ambiguous and you might need to ask a follow-up question. In that case, even a native speaker would ask a follow-up question. They might say, "Wait do you mean he was traveling at 60 miles an hour or his car hit you and he was going at 60 miles an hour?' Like you might need to clarify a little bit, and that's totally natural. But, I hope that this answer helps you understand the different uses of "clock" as a verb.
To recap, we have impact, to "clock" meaning something, impacts something else. And, we also have "clock," meaning to record the time or to record the speed of someone else's movement, or someone else's travel. So, thanks very much for this interesting question. I hope this answered it. Okay. Let's move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Von. Hi, Von! Von says, "I recently learned the expression 'to shed light on something.' I understand this means to reveal something, but what does 'shed' mean in this expression? I checked the dictionary and it seems this word has many uses. Can you talk about it?" Yes, definitely! Okay. So, yes, the word "shed" has a lot of different uses. We have the noun form. The noun form often refers to a small building, a very small building. Like you can imagine it the slightly bigger than a closet that we usually keep outside of our houses. This is the place where we might store like gardening tools or other kind of home-use equipment stuff that gets dirty easily. We might keep this in a "shed." So, that's a very, very common noun use of this word. But, this expression "to shed light on something" uses "shed" as a verb. And, there are several different uses of "shed" as a verb. So, let's break down a few of the most common ones.
First, when we use "to shed light on something" as you said in your question, it does mean like to reveal or like to give some kind of clarity to a situation. So, one key thing that you can think about with the verb form of "shed" is that a lot of the meanings of "shed" as a verb are related to like giving something, or taking off something, or removing something. So, in this case, you can think of "to shed light on something" as putting light on something. When you put light on a surface, you can see it more clearly, right? So, that's kind of one way to think about it. The other uses of "shed" are closely related to this idea of removing something or revealing something. So, let's talk about a couple more.
First, "to shed" is commonly used with animals. So, animals when they lose hair, or for like maybe snakes and other reptiles, when they lose their skin. We use the verb "shed" to talk about that. We would say, for example, "My cat is shedding," which means my cat is losing their hair. Maybe it's getting hot, so the cat is losing their hair. We call this "shedding." So, they are removing their skin or they are removing their hair. With a snake, for example, you might say, "Oh, the snake is shedding its skin." So, that means it's removing one layer of skin. So, "to shed," with animals, means removing like some kind of hair or some kind of skin, something like that.
We have a similar application of shed when we talk about humans and kind of like their bacteria and their germs as well. So, one application that we see of shed in the news these days is when we hear people talk about shedding virus or shedding some kind of bacteria shedding something, that means we are giving off some kind of germ, or we're giving off some kind of virus or bacteria. So again, it's that same idea of kind of releasing something from your body. So, something is coming off of you. In this case, it's germs. So, we have this application for humans and we have it for animals. But, in both cases, we're talking about giving something off.
We also have the meaning of just letting go of something, of throwing something away kind of with "shed" too. So, for example, when we say like, "Ugh, I need to shed these things from my life." "I need to shed these concepts from my mind." It sounds like you're letting go of something. You're giving that thing to the universe maybe. You're going to stop thinking about that thing. So, we also have this. This use of "shed" tends to sound a little bit more formal. We might not use this so much in everyday speech, but you might see someone use this in a media situation. Like in a movie perhaps or in a TV show maybe. We don't really use this so much when we talk to our close friends and our close family members, but you may see this use of "shed."
So, the final use of "shed" that I want to talk about in this video is one that you kind of see sometimes in emotional situations. When we talk about someone crying, we often use the expression "to shed tears." So, again, we have that same idea of removing something or kind of letting something out, giving something. So, in this case, the tears come from our eyes. You can think of the eyes kind of giving us our tears if you want to imagine it that way. But, we have this expression "to shed tears," which means "to cry." So, that means referring specifically to the water coming from your eyes. This is another common use of "shed."
So, to recap quickly, as I said before, all of these uses of "shed" have the common kind of meaning of giving something off or removing something, or something kind of being revealed in some way. So, I hope that this answers your question about the use of "shed" in the expression "to shed light on," and I hope this answer also helps prepare you for the other uses of "shed" that you might see here and there. So, thanks very much for this interesting question. Let's move on to the next question.
Okay. Next question comes from Mari. Hi, Mari! Mari says, "I know there are some curse words in English people use when they're very angry or upset, and they are rude words. But, sometimes, I hear people use words like 'shoot,' too. Are these words rude? Are these curse words? How do I use them?" Super good question, yeah. So, yes, there are many very creative, sometimes curse words, or swear words, or bad words in English. We have a few different vocabulary words we use to talk about them.
Curse words, or swear words, or bad words, these are the words that, yes, they are rude and we should not use them in polite situations. Don't use swear words at work, or when you're meeting like your relatives maybe. I don't know. Maybe you have a special relationship with your family, and it's okay in your family culture to use swear words. That's cool. That's up to you. But, generally, yes; swear words are not acceptable in polite situations. However, we do have these kind of substitute swear words. So, if you're in a situation where maybe you injure yourself or you make a mistake, and you want to kind of express your frustration but you need to do it in a polite way, we do have these kind of "soft curse words." So, "shoot" is one perfect example of this.
So, regarding whether you can use them or how to use them and so on, these are words that you can use pretty much anywhere. Little kids are taught to use these words to express their frustrations in a polite and soft way, too. So, it's okay for adults to use them as well. So, "shoot" is one example of this. Another good one is "darn, D-A-R-N. So, when you make a mistake, people might say, "Darn!" So, this is a very, very, very soft way to express frustration or to express that you're feeling upset. So, I would say "shoot" and "darn" are probably some of the most common ones in American English, and those are probably some of the most popularly taught to kids.
Some other examples of sort of soft swear words might be "Dangit!" "Dangit!" So, "dangit" is D-A-N-G-I-T. "Dangit!" So, again, we use this when we've made a mistake or something has gone wrong, and you might often hear people using this kind of snap sound along with that, too. "Dangit! I messed that up." Or, "Dangit! I didn't do that correctly." Whatever that might be. So, that's another common one. So, you could put "darn" and "dangit" together to get "darnit" as well. So, you might have heard that in like a cowboy movie somewhere along the line, too. That's another one that you might hear in media from time to time.
So, each person kind of chooses whichever sorts of soft curse words they feel are the most appropriate, or sometimes we just make up something in the moment that sounds kind of funny. So, some other common ones that you might hear are people using the word "fudge" to mean that they've made a mistake. They can use this as a verb. Like, "Ah, I fudged this!" Or, you might use it as an exclamation like, "Ah, fudge! I messed it up." "Fudge" is a type of chocolate. This is a pretty soft kind of curse word.
So, you might hear that you might also hear people using the pattern "son of a (something)!" So, this word, in an official curse word, ends with a very rude word. But, some people like to use some kind of crazy word at the end of this expression. So, one that you might hear sometimes is "Son of a gun!" That's a good one. Or, you might hear people say like, "Son of a beeswax!" Or, something kind of weird. They might create something totally original. You can do that with curse words. If you want to just make something up, that's fine to do. I have a friend who says like, "Son of a biscuit!" I think. So, you can make up kind of whatever you feel like expresses yourself in that moment, and just choose like a really soft word to kind of express your frustrations. But, the point is here, there are a few swear words that are kind of soft. So, "shoot," "darn," "dangit," "fudge," "darnit." These kinds of things, and "son of a…" plus a kind of soft word.
These sorts of things express our frustration and they kind of tell the other people around us, "I'm aware I made a mistake," or "I really hurt myself," something like that. So, you can use these to express those frustrations and you will not be considered rude for doing that. These are much, much better choices than using a very rude swear word. But, of course, if you are in a situation where you hurt yourself, you can just us "Ow!" or "Ugh!" or "Argh!" Those kinds of sounds are totally fine. Don't worry about choosing a word. Most of us just go or "Ah!" when we hurt ourselves. So, you can do the same thing, too. You don't need to think of a specific vocabulary word. Unless you want to.
So, I hope this answers your question about these kind of soft swear words. I hope that you enjoy choosing some and finding some creative new ones for yourself.
All right. That is everything that I have for this lesson. Thanks very much for watching this video. Thanks very much for watching this week's episode of Ask Alisha, and I will see you again next time. Bye!

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