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CONVERSATIONAL VOCABULARY

INTERNATIONAL BROMANCE

Hi everyone. This is Aaron Campbell. I’m now going to talk about some of the language usage that occurred in the conversation Dan and I had about Brother Orange and Matt Stopera and the international bromance.

1. stand for

The first one is ‘stand for’. I was talking about the fact that the Chinese netizens gave Matt Stopera a nickname. They called him “Doubi” and Dan says, “What does that stand for?” So when we use this little phrase ‘stand for’, ‘what does something stand for?’ it means, what does it mean? What does it represent? What does it symbolize?

For example, USA stands for the United States of America, or SCUBA stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. Those are acronyms and they stand for something. If you look at the United States flag, the stars stand for the 50 states of the United States and the stripes, the 13 stripes stand for the original colonies, the 13 original colonies. The dove, the white dove, the bird, the dove, stands for peace. That’s an international symbol of peace. It symbolizes peace. It stands for peace. The new political candidate stands for women’s rights so we should vote him in, like this.

Stand for, what do you stand for? What does your middle initial stand for?

1. What’s the deal with ____?

Let’s move on. A little bit later, Dan is talking about how Doubi and Brother Orange got so famous.

He says, “So Doubi and Brother Orange. What’s the deal with these guys? Why did they get so famous?” ‘What’s the deal with?’ This is a little phrase that I think is really useful and you should start incorporating this phrase into your lexicon, into the language that you use. Basically, ‘what’s the deal with?’ means ‘what’s going on with?’ So when Dan says, “What’s the deal with these guys?” he means what’s going on with these guys? Let’s talk about these guys in a way that reveals something beyond the surface, in a way that gives us insight into their situation, their issue, their problem.

It basically means, when you say, “What’s the deal with something?” it means “Let’s answer the question ‘why?”’ So anytime you don’t understand why, you can use this phrase ‘what’s the deal with’.

If I’m out with my friend and we’re in a room or something, and I see my friend’s friend, and my friend’s friend looks very unhappy I might say, “Hey Mike, what’s the deal with your friend over there? He seems a bit depressed. He seems a bit sad. Is there something wrong? What’s the deal with him?”

Or maybe you’re going to work in the morning and you’re driving and usually the traffic is very heavy in the morning but now it’s a Tuesday morning and it’s very late. You’re going in to work very late and you do not expect there to be any traffic at all. But there are still traffic jams. There’s still lots of traffic. So you might say to yourself, “What’s the deal with all this traffic? It’s Tuesday at 10:30 in the morning, why is there so much traffic here? What’s the deal? What’s going on here?” Or maybe you’re at a restaurant and you look at menu and you say, “What’s the deal with all these high prices? Why is it so expensive? I didn’t expect this.”

So ‘what’s the deal with?’ You should really use that. That’s a really nice way to say ‘why?’ To ask the question ‘why?’ ‘What’s the deal with?’

1. pissed off

All right, let’s move on. The next one I’m going to talk about is pissed off. Dan says if he lost his iPhone he would really be pissed off if he had his iPhone stolen. Of course ‘pissed off’ means angry, upset, mad. You can get pissed off when bad things happen to you or you can get pissed off if someone treats you poorly or rudely or disrespectfully. It can piss you off. Of course the verb is ‘to piss off’. You can piss off someone else if you’re not careful. If you behave badly, you might piss off someone. You can piss off your neighbor by making lots of noise. Of course ‘to be pissed’ like ‘he is pissed’, you can use that to describe someone who is angry. You don’t have to always use ‘off’. We do frequently say ‘pissed off’ but you can say, “He’s pissed. He’s angry. He’s really pissed at you right now.”

Be careful with this because in British English, ‘pissed’ means ‘drunk’. It doesn’t mean ‘angry’. So you might say, “Hey, that guy. Look at him, he’s really pissed. He’s stumbling around.” It means he’s drunk. And if you tell someone to piss off, you’re telling them to go away or get away. So there’s a little bit of a difference between how this term is used in American English and British English, so please remember that.

1. in the middle of nowhere

The next expression is ‘in the middle of nowhere’. ‘In the middle of nowhere’. Dan uses this when he’s talking about an article he read about real estate developments in China that are just kind of in the middle of nowhere. They’re these luxury properties and the way they market them is to hire Caucasians to pretend they’re living there.

‘In the middle of nowhere’ basically means ‘in a remote area’, far from not only far from the city, but it also has a connotation of being not so significant, not so meaningful. It kind of has a random meaning about a rural, unfrequented, unimportant place, without any reason. So Dan is talking about these developments, how they’re just built in the middle of nowhere without any obvious reason. Maybe there’s no river nearby. There’s no special valley or forest. There’s just nothing special about it. Seems like such a random place. It’s the middle of nowhere, far from civilization.

Another way you might use this phrase is you were invited to a party and you were driving there and you totally got lost. Your friend’s instructions were terrible and you ended up in the middle of nowhere, completely lost, not knowing where you were. So that’s ‘in the middle of nowhere’.

1. double-edged sword

We’re going to move on now and talk about the next one. It’s called the ‘double edged-sword’. I was talking about becoming famous and how fame is a double-edged sword. We can use this to describe any situation or thing that has good and bad consequences. Both good and bad consequences.

The reason I said that fame is a double-edged sword is because when you’re famous, most people see that as a good thing. You can do many things with your fame. You can become wealthy and you can influence many people and maybe many people admire you. But at the same time people won’t leave you alone if you’re famous. They’re constantly talking pictures of you, asking for your autograph, disturbing your private life. So there’s a bad side to being famous as well. It’s a doubleedged sword.

What else is a double-edged sword? Maybe being a really attractive, physically attractive human being would be a double-edged sword. Of course, just like fame, if you’re very attractive you’re going to attract a lot of attention and it will open up many opportunities and doors for you. But at the same time people might not leave you alone. They might stalk you or treat you differently in a way that is not normal and in a way that bothers you. So it could be a double-edged sword just like being rich.

Being rich can be a double-edged sword. With money you can do many things, but at the same time when people know that you have money, they try to get it and I can imagine that’s what it’s like. So you may not experience much peace or you may not trust people. They seem friendly but maybe they’re not being friendly. It’s a double-edged sword.

1. at the crux of

Let’s move on to the next one. It is ‘at the crux of’. Dan says, “I think that’s also at the crux of the story.” Maybe a lot of people secretly desire to be famous. So that secret desire to be famous, Dan is saying that’s at the crux of the story. That’s why this story has become so popular in China and in America. Maybe people relate to these two men becoming famous so quickly. And these two men there’s nothing extraordinary about them. They’re just normal everyday American, everyday Chinese people.

So ‘crux’ is actually the Latin term for ‘cross’ but really it doesn’t mean ‘cross’ so much in the way that it’s used here. It mostly means ‘at the heart of’. So I would substitute the word ‘crux’ for ‘heart’.

People’s desire to be famous is at the heart of this story. It’s at the center of this story. It’s the basic point, the central point, the critical point, the most important point. So ‘at the crux of’. That’s how it’s used and that’s what it means. You can use this when you’re talking about the most important, most crucial part of something.

Doing lots and lots of speaking is at the crux of becoming fluent in a language. Letting go of your fear and making mistakes and speaking out is at the crux of becoming a better speaker, becoming a more fluent speaker, becoming a more confident speaker. ‘At the crux of’.

1. that would suck

Let’s move on to the next one. It’s called ‘that would suck’. Dan is talking about being famous and how you can’t do anything when you’re really famous without cameras coming out and taking pictures of you. That would suck. Basically, when something sucks it means it’s bad. It’s terrible. It’s unfavorable. It’s undesirable.

This term ‘suck’ is extremely colloquial and it’s also very strong, so you have to take a lot of care with using this. I wouldn’t use this in polite situations. I wouldn’t use this term in professional situations. I would only use it with good friends. The reason Dan says this to me is because we’re very casual with one another. We’re friends and it’s okay to use it. But it does have a very strong feeling to it so you have to be a little bit careful when you use this word around certain people or in certain situations.

He says ‘that would suck’ because he’s using the unreal conditional, meaning that if I were Brother Orange or if I were Matt Stopera and cameras came out and took pictures of me, that would suck.

If I were famous, it would suck. So he’s using the unreal conditional.

A couple of other examples…like let’s say tomorrow or maybe this weekend. This weekend I’m having a big family reunion with all my grandmother and grandfathers and aunts and uncles and cousins and we’re having it outdoors at a beautiful park. Man, it would suck if it rained. It would really suck. That would ruin the whole weekend.

Just like if you had a party and it was a special party for you and you invited all of your friends and nobody showed up. That would suck. You would feel really bad about that.

Also, this word ‘sucks’ could also have another meaning, a slightly different meaning. It could also mean ‘unskillful’ at something. ‘To suck at’ something means to be unskillful at it. He sucks at playing tennis. He’s a very bad tennis player. He’s very unskillful at tennis. He sucks at playing tennis.

I suck at playing musical instruments. I’m just really bad at music. I’m not skillful at it. So I suck at that. What do you suck at? Everybody sucks at something. But again be careful with this. This is a very strong… Some people would say it’s a vulgar way to speak so just be aware of that when you use it.

1. go viral

All right. We’re coming on to the next one. It’s ‘go viral’. Dan talks about how the story can go viral and of course Matt Stopera works for Buzzfeed and their whole business model is they try to create content that goes viral in order to sell advertising. So ‘to go viral’. ‘Viral’ is a word that comes from the noun ‘virus’ and we all know that a virus is kind of like an organism that is very, very tiny.

It’s microscopic and it can spread very quickly and dangerously to infect a population of organisms.

When content like videos or stories, articles, images, whatever it is that people put on the internet can go viral. It means it’s shared very quickly all throughout the world on different networks. It goes from being one little piece of content to being shared everywhere. It becomes ubiquitous and everybody knows about it. So that’s what it means to go viral. A lot of content creators like artists, writers, musicians, et cetera, they would love to create something that goes viral because it can give them lots of exposure very quickly.

Maybe a famous singer makes a demo tape, makes a YouTube video of himself or herself playing the guitar and singing in hopes that that would go viral so that they can become famous quickly and then maybe get a recording contract or something like that. So going viral.

1. who knows?

Let’s move on to the next one. ‘Who knows?’ Who knows? I use this phrase when I’m talking about these… I guess I’m talking about Matt and his connections with not only the company he works for, Buzzfeed, but perhaps Buzzfeed had some kind of relationship with Weibo. Maybe. I don’t really know and so that’s why I say, “Who knows?” Maybe they were actually setting this up from the very beginning to make it go viral in hopes that it would go viral. But who knows? I have no idea.

That’s what it means. If you don’t know something, you can use this phrase ‘who knows?’ Do you ever use this phrase? You should use it. It’s very common. And it’s just another way of saying ‘I don’t know’. What’s the weather going to be like tomorrow? Who knows? I have no idea. It beats me. Hell if I know. I have no clue. Who’s going to be the next president? Who knows? It could be anybody, right? Who knows? So use that. That’s really useful. It’s a very useful little phrase. ‘Who knows?’

1. blew up

Okay, next one. We’re getting to the end here. This is ‘blew up’. So I’m talking about Justin Bieber, this young popstar who now gets himself into a lot of trouble. He had a lot of talent and he still does. But when he was a teenager, or actually he was just a boy, I think he was probably 12 or 13 his mother or maybe it was him that started posting videos of himself playing the guitar and singing on YouTube. It eventually blew up. It means it became so popular. It’s kind of like saying ‘go viral’ but it’s a little bit different in the sense that we can apply it in different context not just on internet sharing on social networks. For someone to blow up, it could mean that they become famous or very popular very quickly.

A company can blow up. If a company starts up maybe someone has an idea, a piece of software or some kind of service and it starts out really small, but within months it just becomes so popular and that company blows up. They become super, super successful in a very short amount of time.

This happens quite frequently on the internet because internet businesses can very quickly blow up.

A person can blow up if they become famous overnight and their career suddenly takes off to blow up. If you imagine an explosion, that’s kind of the feeling of it. It stats out really small and then suddenly it’s huge. Do you know of any artists, music artists, bands, people who blew up quickly overnight? Became famous. Became popular. To ‘blow up’.

This story blew up. The story of Brother Orange and Matt Stopera. That blew up. It went viral. It became super popular very quickly.

1. flash in the pan

I think it’s going to be a flash in the pan, and that’s the last phrase. ‘Flash in the pan’. I use this when I’m talking about this story because I feel that yes, it’s very, very popular but it’s only popular for a very short time. In another month, people are going to forget about it. In another two months, people are going to forget about it. It’s still an amazing story and I think it’s a very interesting story but it’s a flash in the pan.

I think this comes from probably cooking. Where you’re cooking and suddenly a big flame appears quickly and then it’s gone. It disappears. If you ever watch a chef cook, sometimes a very colorful blue or yellow flame will just appear when they’re frying something in the pan and then it disappears within a second or less. It’s a flash in the pan.

This is the case with, let’s say, musicians that creates one song that becomes number 1 on the bestseller list and then it’s over. So that was a flash in the pan. It was a one-hit wonder. A one-time success. And a lot of news stories are flashes in the pan. They’re popular for a day or two maybe a week and then everyone forgets about them and doesn’t talk about them anymore. It’s just a flash in the pan. It comes and it goes and then things are back to normal very quickly.

Okay guys, that brings me to the end of this commentary. I hope that these 11 words and phrases were useful to you and I hope you put them to use. That’s the important part. Putting them to use, incorporating them into your everyday speech patterns and into your conversations. That’s going to make you a better English speaker.