AEE 2695: Running on Fumes? Idioms for Expressing Exhaustion

This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2695, Running on Fumes, Idioms for Expressing Exhaustion. Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection with your American host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer.

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There are times in life when we feel absolutely exhausted. We need to be able to express this so that people can empathize with us. Listen in for how to do it today.

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Take it today at allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e. Hey, Aubrey. When was the last time you felt exhausted?

I think right after we got back from our – I went to Mexico and we were on the beach for four days straight all day. You know how that is when you're in the sun on the beach. And I play hard when I'm at the beach. We're playing volleyball and board ball and spike ball and we're in the waves and we're –

There's a little bit of chill time relaxing on the beach, but not a ton. I like to be busy on the beach. No, I get that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you were fully exhausted.

I think I was super exhausted. Well, I'm sure you were too after I gave birth when I came home from the hospital. Yes. It was such a deception. I didn't realize, I didn't think about the fact that I would be so tired after giving birth and then I would go into sleepless nights with a newborn.

I didn't think about it. That is quite the double whammy. You're physically exhausted after giving birth and now the baby's up all night and you're not sleeping. It's tough.

It's crazy. I was not prepared for that, the intensity of that. But yeah, we all have times in our lives when we're completely exhausted and we need to express it in English. Yes, this is such a great way to connect, right?

We talk about this a lot when we're running on fumes is one of the phrases we're going to talk about today. Like you want to be able to empathize with people who are going through this. We've all been there. You need the language to be able to connect about being exhausted.

And it's just such a human thing, right? We love these very human emotions and states where we can articulate what's happening so people can give us some grace or they can relate to us or they can tell their story. Right? Exactly.

Yes. So we got a great question about this from Mohamed Abedi. Do you want to read the question for us, Lindsay? Yes. Mohammed says, thank you for the episode.

And I have a question. How common is the word exhausted in everyday English? Do native speakers use it often in casual conversations or are there more natural alternatives that they prefer?

And that's from Mohammed Abedi. Good question, Mohammed. Yes, this is a great question. We're going to get into this today. We do say exhausted and there are also a lot of alternatives that are more informal.

So yeah, be sure to hit follow guys to learn amazing vocabulary strategies for learning English. We're excited to go into this because this is a great connection skill for sure. Really good. Yeah, exactly.

Like Aubrey said, hit that follow button. So first phrase, exhausted. I mean, that's the most accessible one. It's very descriptive, Aubrey. I know exactly what you mean when you ask me that.

Right? Just extremely tired physically, mentally, because often we'll just say, I'm exhausted when we're not actually tired. Like you could go out dancing that night. You're just like mentally exhausted.

You're tired of thinking and problem solving. We'll say that. Yeah. And I like if we want to use an adjective here, I like using the adjective that maybe someone is exhausting or something is exhausting with an ing, right?

So this is going a little outside of the box of what we're teaching today. But we can play around with this word in terms of just being a little bit funny or I don't know. There are people out there who are exhausting to be around. Right.

Absolutely. Yeah. This is a very different, it is a, an insult, right? It's not very nice, but it's sometimes just super appropriate. If someone is very extroverted or super energetic, like it might be exhausting for you to be around them.

Some of my friends probably find me exhausting at the beach. They're like, can we just chill on the sand? I'm like, no, come play. Nope. Nope. You're the one pulling the games out all the time.

I love it. All right. Any other examples that we didn't hit? Let's see. Yeah. Some examples for exhausted, right? Just I was exhausted after studying for finals and working part time just means super tired, right?

Or taking care of three young children can leave parents exhausted. Yes. Or even one young child, right, Lindsay? Yeah, I don't know how you did twins.

It's crazy. It's crazy. Okay, next one. This one I don't really use very much. It's going to be new for me. I think it's so fun. I love that it's new for you.

This is very common in my regional dialect. To say we're very tired will say I'm bushed. Oh, I'm bushed. Interesting. And it just means, especially after physical activity, right?

If you're spending a long day out on a farm or working out in the yard, this is physical exhaustion, right? After work, when you're just thinking a lot, you wouldn't say, I'm bushed. You say this when you've been hiking, like a long hike or working a lot. That's when we would say this.

Yeah. The idea out in nature, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It makes sense. I also like to say I'm beat, right? To be beat. Yes. We're going to talk about that one too.

I'm going to give a couple examples for Bush though. Yeah. Bush. I spent all afternoon helping my brother move and now I'm completely bushed or after hiking for six hours in the heat, we were bushed and ready for dinner.

Yeah. That's a good feeling. Super tired. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great day. I think, you know, you come in, you've been outdoors. First of all, I love being outside.

So it's, to me, it's the best day when you've been outdoors, you come in and you're hungry, but in a good way, and then you sleep really well. It's the best. I agree. I love that feeling.

I love to feel bushed or beat. Cause yeah, this one, I agree. This next one we're going to talk about beat is more common. I've heard it more all over the U S I think, right?

You're familiar with this one, right? Yeah. I'm familiar with this for sure. So lacking energy, right? I've been traveling since 5 a.m. I'm beat or I'm totally beat.

Yes. Or after working all week and hosting guests all weekend, she was completely beat. Yeah. So physically tired. Again, this is more like Bushed where it's more about being physically tired and not so much about being mentally exhausted, right?

Yeah. Yeah, a good example of this would be I used to take a lot of red eyes back home to Boston, but I've tried to stop doing that because it just makes you completely beat. By the time you arrive, you're just a mess.

If you're not sleeping well on the flight, which most people aren't. No, no one is. And you're just so tired. Yeah, it's so bad. And then you'd be running on fumes all day, really?

And then it catches up with you after a few days, right? Having no energy left, but you're continuing to go, go, go. Maybe it's adrenaline, right? Yes.

I like this. I say this a lot. Oh, I'm running on fumes. And we'll actually, this is interesting. We might say this about not having eaten recently. Be like, I need a snack.

I'm running on fumes. Like I don't have a lot of energy because I haven't eaten. And then we might just say it about being super tired. If you didn't sleep well the night before, oh, I'm running on fumes.

Yeah, I feel like this happens to me at conferences a lot because often it's hard to get food. There's lines and it just takes time and you don't want to do it. So you end up not eating. And you haven't slept well because you've been traveling.

So you're just running on fumes all day long, meetings and things like that. So you read number one, yeah? Number one. No, right? So I would say I've had back to back meetings all day and skipped lunch.

I am running on fumes. Or you could say with only three hours of sleep last night, I'm running on fumes today. Yeah. And this is interesting. This comes from the gas tank of a car, a vehicle.

Right. If it's empty and there's no more gas in there, you'd say it's running on fumes, the gas fumes. Because that's what we talk about, fumes for gasoline or something else that has like a strong – is like giving off fumes. Yes.

So yeah, we take that and we use it in our everyday life to – to mean that just like a gas tank with no gas that all that's left is the fumes uh it's never happened to me thankfully but it's i've come close you know to running out of gas i think we've talked about this before on the show um scary i have a couple times yeah you have yeah especially in america the american west is man it could be dangerous if you're out there it's really desolate in places Yes. The worst time it ever happened to me was near Moab.

We had gone to Bryce Canyon and we ran out of gas and we were miles and miles from anything. So we had to flag down a driver. They gave us a ride. It was probably at least five miles to the nearest gas station.

to get a gas can and then he was nice enough to take us all the way back oh that's really out of his way it was so nice of him and you really are really stranded kind of just yeah you know we say up a creek without a paddle when you run out of gas in the middle of the west and there's nothing different on the east coast because there's gas stations everywhere but in the west you can go a long time um wow five miles was like best case scenario you could be really far from a gas station For sure. And then you might say, I'm ready to crash after that long day out in the woods hiking or something.

I'm ready to crash. It means I'm ready to go to sleep now. Exactly. Or at least like sit on a couch and do nothing. But usually we do mean like ready for sleep when we say this.

You might say, it's only 9 p.m., but I'm ready to crash. It's time to go to bed. Usually it's actually going to your bed. After the red eye flight, we just talked about red eyes.

I got to the hotel and was ready to crash. Yeah. Yes. This might even be if someone's like, let's watch a movie. You're like, no, I'm going to crash. Or I can barely keep my eyes open.

This is our last phrase. I'm so tired that it's difficult to stay awake. I say this a lot. Yeah, it happens sometimes. This movie is great, but I can barely keep my eyes open.

You know how you're just the one nodding. Yes. This is just such a more fun way to say just instead of like, I'm so tired, I can barely keep my eyes open. Or sometimes you're in a college lecture that's really boring.

By the end of the lecture, I could barely keep my eyes open. Yes. And this is a really interesting way to use it, I think, because you might not be tired, like you don't really want to fall asleep, but you're calling something boring, like so boring, it's putting you to sleep, whether it literally is or not. We use this as a phrase to say something was boring.

This has been happening to me, admittedly, unfortunately, at meditation, at my Sunday night meditation, because I've been so tired. I was getting up in the middle of the night with my new baby. Not anymore. This is changing now.

But that I would show up at Sunday night meditation and I just would be nodding off. Just, you know, that nodding feeling. Literally exhausted. Catch your head.

Yeah, I felt so bad, but it happens sometimes. That's the literal meaning. You can't keep your eyes open because you are so tired. Yeah, for sure. Have you ever felt exhausted after speaking English?

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This is a role play time, Aubrey. We're two co-worker friends and we're leaving work. Great. Perfect. I'll start us out. Yes. Hey, Lindsay, do you want to grab a drink after work?

Oh, I don't know. I'm pretty beat. Oh, long day? Yeah, we had meetings all morning and then I spent the afternoon training a new employee. Oh, wow. Sounds like a crazy day.

Honestly, I'm running on fumes right now. Let's go out this weekend when we're both less exhausted. Deal. Nice. Love this. Are we going to go out? So just as a bonus, this is good.

The phrase deal. Are we going to go out this weekend or not? Well, this is really interesting, right? I'm saying deal. It sounds like we both want to, but neither of us are giving a date or a time.

So unless one of us texts the other one like, okay, what's the day? What makes the plan? It's not going to happen. Right, right. But basically, you're expressing that you're open to it, right?

Yes. If I say deal, I want to. I'm not like, oh, maybe next weekend. I'm not giving excuses. I'm letting you know, yeah, I'm in. Yeah. Good, good bonus for today.

So first I say, you said, Hey, you want to grab a drink after work? And I said, I don't know. I'm pretty beat, meaning I'm pretty exhausted, pretty tired. Exactly.

So then I'm making a connection moment out of this. You know, I'm just not like, Oh, okay. Perfect. See you later. I'm like asking like, Oh, long day.

I want details. Yeah, you're trying to empathize with me. And coworkers do this a lot, especially if you have a tough workplace. You're both in that situation.

You're in the same boat. So might as well talk about it, right? And then I said, honestly, I'm running on fumes right now, meaning I haven't either. I haven't probably haven't slept.

Maybe I haven't eaten, but probably haven't slept. So I'm just running on adrenaline or I'm just powering with nothing. Yeah. And then I said, let's go out this weekend.

Let's go out this weekend when we're both less exhausted, right? So just that word exhausted, which is more general, physically, mentally, super tired, worn out. And this is interesting. I think there's a good connection skill here happening that I would love to go out for a drink.

But as soon as I see that you're tired, you're beat, I'm not pushing, right? Instead, I'm asking like, oh, long day. Yeah. And I'm letting you kind of vent about it.

And this could hurt the connection if I were like, no, come on, one drink. And sometimes people will do that. And that makes it harder to say no, right? No, that's a good point.

It makes you feel awkward to say no. You feel bad and then you end up going. You don't really want to be there. Yeah. It's not good. That's an important connection skill to let people say no.

Don't make it weird. No, that's true. And therefore, we need the words to articulate when we really are tired. And that's what we've had in today's episode, guys.

So super useful. Is there going to be a part two of this episode, Aubrey? Yes. Yes, because this is interesting. When I got this question, I'm like, oh, you know, they were asking for other meanings of exhausted.

So we stuck with that. But there is an entirely different meaning of this word exhausted to when we say like we've exhausted all of our resources, all of our ideas. So we're going to do a part two about that meaning of exhausted and the other ways we say that. So be sure to follow.

Okay. I'm excited for that one. Guys, hit the follow button right here on the show, All There's English, or you can also check out 2685 in our heart of hearts. We love these idioms, right?

We talked, we recorded that last time. We talked about how, you know, the things we know deep down, right? When we start to admit them, this is the language that we use. Love it.

Yes. Exactly. Awesome. So check out that episode and we will see you guys next time. Hopefully none of you are running on fumes. Yeah. Go get a snack, take a nap.

Yes. Please take care of yourself. Right. Yeah. All right, Aubrey. Talk to you soon. Have a good one. Awesome. Thanks, Lindsay. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English.

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