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BEC : Interviews -Vocabulary

Hey, this is AJ. Welcome to the vocabulary lesson. Let’s start. Our first phrase is ‘a whole heck of a lot different’. That’s the whole big long phrase. ‘Heck of a’ is a casual phrase. ‘Heck of a’ kind of means very, it’s really a word that just adds more emotion. It makes whatever you’re saying stronger. So if you say heck of a lot, it means a lot, a lot, right? It makes it a lot stronger.

‘Heck of a’ is kind of a more polite way to say hell of a. So you might say we have a hell of a lot of money. That means you have a lot, a lot of money. So a hell of a lot, hell of a.

Or, you could say he did a hell of a good job so, again, a good job. ‘Hell of a’ just makes it stronger. It increases the strength of what you’re saying, good or bad. It can make a negative statement even more negative or a positive statement even more positive. So you can hell of a, that’s the slow way to say it, but usually we say it quickly. We put it all together, hell of a. Or, you can say a heck of a, but we put it all together heck of a.

All right, next phrase, ‘down to the nitty-gritty’, ‘get down to the nitty-gritty’. If you hear someone say we need to get down to the nitty-gritty, it really means get down to the important details. It means focus on the important details or do the important details or do the important work. The nitty-gritty, it kind of has the feeling the difficult, but important work. It gives a little bit of that feeling too. That, okay, it’s the tough important stuff that needs to be done or that needs to be learned or needs to be focused on, the nitty-grit The next phrase is ‘eyeball to eyeball’. That’s an easy one to imagine, what that means. It just means face to face, that’s another way to say it. Eyeball to eyeball, face to face, it means a live meeting in person. If you’re eyeball to eyeball with somebody you’re meeting with them in person.

‘Bad vibes’ bad vibes. It’s a little bit of an idiom here. ‘Vibes’ is short for vibrations. Bad vibes really means feelings, bad feelings. So if you give off bad vibes it means you’re showing bad emotions. You’re showing bad feelings. Maybe you don’t know you’re doing it, but with your face or your voice or something you can give off bad vibes. You give off kind of a negative feeling or a nervous feeling. That’s bad vibes.

‘To come into play’ - If something comes into play it means that something becomes active or something becomes important. That has a pretty clear meaning actually.

Next phrase is ‘to bite the bullet’, to bite the bullet. To bite the bullet means to do something that’s difficult and painful, but necessary. It really gives all that feeling. I’ll give you the history of this, because I know the history of this one. The history of this is back in the old cowboy west days if someone got shot, for example, or they’re hurt and the doctor has to cut them.

Well, at that time they did not have good painkillers so it’s going to be very painful. The doctor is cutting off your leg or cutting something or trying to take something out of your body so they would give the person a bullet to bite on. They had to bite onto the bullet because of the pain while they’re cutting them. So it was necessary, the doctor had to do this, but it was also something very painful. That’s where that phrase comes from. So now we use it in any situation where you need to get motivated and you need to do something that is necessary, but painful or necessary, but difficult.

‘To pertain to something’ means to be about something; to be related to something.

‘To come across’ –Now, to come across has a few meanings. ‘To come across as’ for example, if you come across as nervous it means you appear nervous, right? If you come across as confident it means you appear confident.

Next is ‘to do something like crazy’, ‘to interview like crazy’ I think is the phrase I used, it just means to do something a lot, to do it a lot and to do it with a lot of energy.

So if you interview like crazy, it means you interview a lot with a lot of energy and you’re doing lots and lots of interviews. If you study like crazy, it means you really study a lot.

The next phrase, ‘from one end of the spectrum to the other’, so one end of the spectrum to the other. A ‘spectrum’ is kind of a line, a range. It’s a range. So if we say from one end of the spectrum to the other, it means all possibilities, one extreme to the other extreme. If you say something like in the interview the questions might be from one end of the spectrum to the other, it means they might be really easy or they might be kind of average or they might be very, very difficult, the whole range. One end of the spectrum to the other, it means the whole range of possible things.

‘To gage’, to gage something. It just means to determine or to measure, to appraise.

There’s another vocabulary word for you. So if you need to gage someone’s reaction, it means you look at their face and you kind of determine their reaction. You measure their reaction. You look at their face and you understand their reaction. So it’s this idea of observing and measuring and determining.

The phrase ‘business casual’. This is a phrase you’ll hear certainly in business in the United States all the time. Business casual is a way of dressing. It’s kind of a dress code. So sometimes certain companies, their dress code, they’ll say business casual.

Or, if you go to a convention or a seminar they might say that the dress is business casual.

What does that mean? It can mean different things depending on the company. The general idea of business casual I think usually is kind of like nice pants. They might be khaki pants, like tan pants or some kind of slacks and then maybe a button shirt with a collar. Sometimes it could mean even like a golf shirt and usually no tie. That’s kind of the basic idea of business casual. So it means you still look neat. You still look nice.

You’re not wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but it also usually means no tie, no coat, maybe a sports coat.

Next, ‘runs the gamut’, to run the gamut. This is actually the same idea as one end of the spectrum to the other. If you say the possibilities run the gamut, again, it means the whole range. It means from the lowest extreme to the highest extreme. It means the whole range of possibilities, to run the gamut.

‘Body language’, of course, body language just means posture, gestures and facial expressions. Body language really means nonverbal communication. It’s how you communicate with your body.

Next, ‘quirks’ or ‘a quirk’ - A quirk is an eccentricity, which is another difficult word. So what do those mean? A quirk is a strange or funny little habit or a strange and funny little reaction. Like, for example, maybe when you’re nervous you always rub your eyebrow. That’s a quirk, right? It’s a strange, funny, unique, little thing that you do in that situation. You know some people tap their hands, tap their feet or tap their fingers.

Some people might make strange noises when they’re nervous, it’s another quirk.

Ahem, ahem, ahem, right? They clear their voice like that constantly. They don’t realize they’re doing it. That’s a quirk. It’s a strange little behavior, often it’s an unconscious behavior, something you don’t realize you’re doing. And some of them are annoying, so you don’t want to do them during an interview.

‘To give away the store’, to give away the store. To give away the store means to give away everything and it has a little bit of a negative idea. So in negotiation, for example, let’s say you’re trying to make a deal to buy something. Well, if you pay too much, if you give all your money to the person, you pay them much too much money then we might say oh, you gave away the store. You gave them too much.

This is also true for information. So in an interview there’s some information you don’t want to tell them about. You don’t need to tell them about. They don’t need to know it, but if you tell them anyway then it means you gave away the store. You gave away too much information. So giving away the store means giving away too much.

And finally, ‘a blank page’ - So my dad said you don’t want to be a blank page either.

So a blank page means kind of empty, right? If we’re talking about your appearance if your face is a blank page it means it’s empty. There’s no emotion at all. You’re not smiling. You’re not frowning. You’re not nervous, but you’re not happy, nothing. We call that a poker face. That’s another common phrase. A poker face is a face with zero emotion. No reactions at all and, of course, you don’t want that in an interview. So a blank page means empty.

And that’s it. That’s the end of our vocabulary for this lesson set. As always, listen to these lessons every day, all the audios in the set every single day for a minimum of seven days. I recommend at least 10 days, 14 or more days even better. The point is, learn it very, very deeply.

All right, see you next time. Bye-bye.

The End.