Use Animals as VERBS in English! “to parrot”, “to yak”, “to hog”...

0

Now, I'm just going to mess with your head a little bit here, okay?

Learning English.

I'm going to be a teacher.

I am an English teacher.

I'm going to blow your mind, because I'm going to give you something that you know

is an animal, is a noun, and by the magic of confusing English, it's going to now be

So, animals, you know what they are, they're

animals, but now we're going to use them as

Also, check out my lesson on the next step, using these animals with phrasal verbs, but

Let's start with this one.

I don't know if everyone else knows, but I despise internet.

Not full stop there.

I despise internet trends.

Like all these people using the same words that other people use have some creativity

and some originality to you people.

Just don't be...

Copy what other people say.

It's so boring, and you look stupid.

That's my rant.

And, you know, just to get the attention of everyone out there, this new thing that's

maybe not so new, "hawk-tue", mm-hmm, people

like to spell it like this, but they're using

my first verb here, "hawk", so maybe you know

"hawk-tue" to mean "to spit", "horkaloogie".

I always said "horkaloogie", but it's "hawkaloogie",

and it just means, you know, spitting, so for

some unknown reason, "hawk-tue" has become super popular.

Let's hope that trend dies quickly.

So "hawk", other than this thing, bye-bye.

It means "to sell something".

Don't know why, but usually at a market, not

in a legitimate store most of the time, so

people go to markets to "hawk" their wares, mm-hmm.

Pop-up markets are really famous these days,

farmers' markets, craft markets, go check

them out, support your local markets.

They're going to "hawk" their wares to you, they're going to sell something, and you're

going to buy something.

It's going to be great.

Next up, "yak".

I love this one.

Don't talk back.

If you were around in the 1950s or '60s and knew that song, amazing.

Great tune, by the way.

"Yak" means "to talk", mm-hmm.

Kind of like "rabbit", which you'll learn.

So he was yakking all the time.

Yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak.

The next one is "throw up", which I love.

I love throwing up, it's my hobby.

So you could say, like, "Oh my god, he yacked all over the bus."

It was terrible.

Or the guy in the bus was yakking.

"Oh, did he throw up or was he talking?

What's happening on the bus here?

Is this the craziest bus?

Is it the vomit comet?

What's going on?"

So yak, too many things.

"Throw up" or "talk too much".

"Bat".

You know the bat as the animal, right?

Is it an animal?

It's an animal.

Also, there's a baseball bat, but it also

can mean to hit something, so "Oh, one of the

things that I hate the most in the world are flies, house flies.

I love all animals and insects, I think they're cool, except for flies.

So I try to bat at the flies, and they never go away, and I hate flies.

So if you guys are looking to send me a gift,

please don't send me flies, please just send

me money so I can buy some fly swatters.

So, "bat", one meaning means to hit something or try to hit it.

Now, the other one is...

And I'm not good at this.

See these things called eyelashes?

Yeah, they're...

If you bat your eyelashes, it means you blink

a lot to look attractive and flirt with people.

Does this look good?

Do you think I'm flirting with you now?

Because I'm like...

Do you have something in your eye?

Okay, so "bat" means to flutter like a butterfly, you're sometimes massive.

What are you people doing with your eyelashes, man?

They're like fucking caterpillars on your face.

So you've got your massive eyelashes, and the

wind's blowing, they're fluttering around,

you're on the bus and they're just taking off.

Hope that trend dies quickly, too.

Massive eyelashes.

So, she was batting her eyelashes at him, and he was like, "Whoa, dude, you all right

Next one, "parrot".

You...

If you're learning English, you do this.

Hopefully it's a really good technique to

practice your pronunciation and your fluency.

If you "parrot" someone, because parrots, it means repeat.

So maybe your teacher or me, when I'm speaking,

you repeat what I'm saying to help you improve

This is called "parroting".

So you're parroting your teacher.

You can parrot anyone.

If you're watching a movie and you want to learn good pronunciation or fluency, again,

you just copy in the same intonation, the same tone as the person speaking.

Are you doing it now?

Are you parroting me?

Parrots are cool.

Next one, "hog".

Hog's a pig, hog is a pig.

And if you hog something, it means you're selfish, and you use or eat everything, and

you don't allow the other people to have any.

So, you can, for example, hog the bed.

Don't worry, there's no pig in your bed.

It just means that you're taking up all the space in the bed.

Or you can hog the remote control.

Do people even watch TV nowadays?

If you hog the remote control, it means you use it, and you don't let other people use

the remote control.

You can hog anything.

Who's hogging all the chips?

Oh, this one's good, too.

To "hound" someone.

So, "hound" is a type of dog.

Oh, Elvis Presley, he ain't nothing but a hound dog.

And it's basically if you hound someone, you

ask them too many times or so many times,

you actually get what you want.

So, this is a good technique when people are

not giving you what you deserve or what you

think you should get.

If you hound someone, it can also be annoying.

So, you're like, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Ronnie, hey, Ronnie, hey, Ronnie."

And you're like, "What?

What do you want?

Stop annoying me."

You ask them too many times.

Don't hound me.

So, this is funny because there was in the

1980s or early 1990s, there was a singer from

Britain called Seal, and I thought that was

funny because he's an animal, but he's a singer.

And also, "seal" is a verb, and it means to close something tightly.

So...

Oh, what's this?

It's a baggie with...

Oh, look at this.

In...

So, this is a sticker of the really cool website,

and I'm going to put it in the baggie, and

I'm going to do-do-do-do-do seal it.

So, guess what?

This sticker's not coming out.

"Bug".

They bother or annoy me."

If you bug someone, it means you annoy them, like, "Hey, hey, hey."

It's kind of similar to "hound", but "hound"

is more verbal; "hound" is asking repetitively,

again and again.

"Bug" can be physical, poking someone, or it can also be oral.

Have you heard this one?

It ticks all the boxes.

Another catchphrase that can die.

It just means "check", so you've got your little writing instrument and you go tick,

So, some people call this a checkmark; some people call it a tick.

Tick is also, like, a nervous thing that some people have.

I don't have that, but that's good.

So now, I want you to look at your animals around you in a very different way, and if

I've missed any of these verbs as animals or animals as verbs, just jot it down below

in the comments here.

Don't hound me for answers, but let me know if I've missed any of these, and I'm going

to badger off now.