AEE 2709: When Ugly Doesn’t Mean What You Think it Means

This is an All Ears English Podcast, episode 2709, when ugly doesn't mean what you think it means. 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, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. To get real-time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All Ears English app for iOS and Android. Start your seven-day free trial at allearsenglish.com forward slash app.

Want to connect more? Use literal words in a more figurative way to describe exactly how a situation made you feel. Find out how to do it with these four words today.

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Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e. Hello, Lindsay. How are you today? Good, Aubrey.

I'm excited to be on the microphone. How about you? How's it going? Excellent. Yes, I'm great. I have a question for you. Okay. Have you ever gotten a bill that was higher than you expected it to be?

Oh my gosh. Kind of every time I eat out now. Every time I go to a restaurant. Yeah. Every time I go to a restaurant, my, my bill is ugly. I mean, what about you?

Anything? Yeah. Astronomically high. Specific example. When once we were at a restaurant and the server recommended the seafood salad and it wasn't on the menu, but like, that sounds amazing.

And he brought this giant salad that had all of this like lobster and crab. And when the bill came, just the salad was $250. Oh, So we were like, oh, we should have asked how much it was.

I was about to chime in and say I had something similar happen. But what happened to me was we were kind of upsold into a plate. Instead of spending like $12, it was a $35 meal. But now that you've said $2.50, I can't say anything.

It was shocking. It was shocking. That's insane. Even that, $12 to $35 sounds a lot. Wow, $2.50, it was a lot. Which this was years ago. So inflation, that...

It would be a thousand dollar plate. Right? Exactly. It was so much. And we just, cause it was, it was, we were with, um, it was my husband and I, we were trying to find a place to do our wedding luncheon.

So it was a nicer place than we would usually go to. We were with his parents and my parents. And so we, they like split the bill and was fine. But both of us were just like, whoops.

Oopsies. Didn't mean to do that. Sorry. I mean, they should have told you. They really should have. That felt really sneaky for us. That's sneaky. That is great.

Yeah, that's kind of the definition of sneaky in a way, isn't it? Yeah, it felt that way. But I loved that you called your bill ugly. This came up recent.

This was inspired by a recent episode when we were talking about my AC bill. And in the summer, my electric bill is always really ugly. But it's interesting how we use this word ugly as slang to mean terrible, disappointing, upsetting, right? Because of course, that's not how we usually use the word ugly.

Yeah. So today we're going to show you four fun slang ways to describe something that is kind of disappointing or difficult or terrible or something that you dread, a bad situation. Okay. Because that's also fun to connect about when things go terribly wrong.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. So guys, go ahead and hit that follow button right now, wherever you're listening. If you are on YouTube, which you might be because this video is there.

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Okay. Awesome. So we are going to share four slang phrases that we use, and we're going to share both the literal meaning, how we usually use it, and then how we use it as slang to mean, like you said, terrible, disappointing. Yes.

Love this. Okay. So for the word ugly, starting off here, I mean, the familiar meaning that we all know is just unappealing, unattractive. Maybe you think a hat looks ugly on you, for example, you might say that, or I don't know, it's kind of a basic word.

I feel like maybe kids might use this word a lot. Be careful. Or I might say something like, you know, some people might think this painting is ugly, but I love it. So often we'll use this word to talk about like style, taste, you know, that someone else, you know, you might find furniture and be like,

The average person might think this is ugly, but I think it's cool. That's what, like I said on a previous episode, we're looking around at houses in Denver. And that's a thing that happens for sure. When you walk into, when you're home shopping, there's a lot of ugly stuff that you see because people renovate their own homes and they go by based on their own taste, right?

Or the first condo we moved into had all of this wallpaper and it was all so ugly. One of them had like giant red chili peppers and all over on the walls. They just were all terrible.

How did someone choose this? Oh, that's so funny. But then what if we want to go out of the literal meaning and be more of a C2 level speaker where we're using kind of different meanings for something? What does it mean?

Yeah. So we use this to mean unpleasant, difficult, disappointing. So for example, my credit card bill maybe is going to be ugly after this vacation, right?

So it's just an interesting way of like saying, I'm not looking forward to it. It's going to be ugly. Ugly or their argument ended up getting ugly. This is so ugly is used frequently when it comes to an altercation, some kind of a when people are kind of going up against each other in some way.

Right. This is going to get ugly or a game. Right. Someone got wiped out, just defeated. There was like no contest. Right. That's a good example. I'd be like, oh, it was ugly.

Ugly. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's interesting. Whatever you're talking about, we can use it in a lot of different contexts. We're just wanting to share that something was unpleasant.

It did not go well for someone. Exactly. And then painful. Now, what does it mean literally? Yeah. So of course, this familiar meaning is causing pain.

You might say it was extremely painful when I injured my shoulder. But very similar to ugly, we also use painful as slang to mean something's unpleasant or difficult. Yeah. like that medical bill is going to be painful right or watching my old audition tape was so painful i had this experience i was in this like talent competition in high school when i was like 17 and then some friends found the tape and played it i was playing like phantom of the opera dressed as the phantom of the opera with the white um mask and

It was so embarrassing. It was painful to watch. Or looking at photos. I remember when I played clarinet, which I hated the clarinet, but I played it in school.

And I went to a concert when I was in fourth grade and my mom dressed me in this awful, awful like tie thing, like a female tie thing that like you wear with a sweater. Yeah. You know what I mean? I know exactly what you mean.

You're looking at these old photos of your like, I have one where I was wearing like a bolo tie and one with like a brooch at my neck. It's so painful and it's so painful to look at photos or even honestly looking back on any of your, if you have a body of work, right? For example, this podcast, like maybe it would be painful to go back and listen to episode one of Allers English, right? Because before we found our voice,

audio quality, awkwardness. I know when we started recording, we were recording live and there was like a humming refrigerator in the background of every episode for the first like 20 episodes. I'm curious if you listeners have thought this. If you go back into the archives and listen, you're like, wow, this is painful compared to the current episodes.

It was pretty ugly, pretty painful. So all right, let's move on to the next one, Aubrey. Brutal. Yes, of course, the familiar meaning is violent or cruel.

You might say the scenes in the film depicted brutal military tactics. But we also use this as slang just to mean unpleasant or difficult that something was brutal. Yes, exactly. And then in this more slang meaning that hike was brutal.

I say this every time I go for a hike, right? I didn't realize how steep it would be. Or we say this a lot in Arizona. We'll say, oh, the heat today is brutal or the heat was brutal yesterday.

So it's interesting because some of these are definitely collocated more often with specific things. You could say, oh, this heat is painful or ugly, but we don't really. We're much more likely to say that it's brutal. So as you're listening to English, pay attention to when do you hear this used as slang?

What types of things is it being collocated with? Exactly. Exactly. I think the brutal is about often collocated with physical experiences, right? Where the heat is a great experience, the physical hike.

But you're right. It's not always just choose a random thing to use one of these adjectives for. It is collocated with certain types of topics. That's interesting.

Good to know. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever listened to native speakers and thought, I understand the words, but I still feel slightly lost. That's because real English conversations include more than vocabulary.

There's speed. There's connected speech. There are cultural references and casual phrases. Your brain has to process all of this in real time. If conversations sometimes feel overwhelming, it may simply mean you're ready for the next level of training.

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All right. We're back from break. And the last one is no joke. Yes. Okay. Yes. And this is interesting. We do this more literally to mean I'm not exaggerating.

You might say like, I waited in line for three hours. No joke. And what I mean is just like, I'm not exaggerating. I actually waited for three hours. Yeah, this episode, this could be its own episode, just the phrase, no joke, honestly.

But in the slang sense, let's flip over to the slang sense, unpleasant or difficult or also kind of to be taken seriously, I think, is another thing. Yeah. That's interesting. So we use it synonymously with these, right?

Painful, ugly, brutal, and to say some things, no joke. But this one's a little more flexible. We'll also use it with other things as well. So a couple examples.

As soon as I saw the prices on the menu, I knew the bill was going to be no joke. And this, you could say, was going to be ugly, painful, brutal. It was going to be no joke. And that's that meaning of just like, it was not going to be good.

Wow. Yeah. So I feel like these days when I go out for dinner, it's all like exciting and fun in the beginning. And then as you get closer to when the bill's coming, I feel like the mood kind of gets lower.

Yeah, I feel like it's worth it. Or airports, right? Getting through airport security was no joke. I couldn't believe how long the line was. And then I have another example.

I have a friend. So I live in Colorado, but I had a friend who I used to hike with in Boston. And she came out to Colorado when we were both still living there to hike Mount Evans or one of the big hikes, big famous hikes. And the difference between a New Hampshire hike and a Colorado hike is substantial.

Yeah. right? 14,000 feet versus 4,000. So she would always say, you know, that hike is no joke, right? Let's prepare for it, train for it. Yeah. And like you said, it's more like, yes, difficult, but like to be taken seriously.

To be taken seriously. Interesting. So yeah, that is a little more flexible. Let's do a role play here and use a few of these. I am asking my friend Lindsay here about a recent vacation.

I'll start us out. Okay. Okay. How was your trip to the mountains? Honestly, it was kind of brutal. It was so much hotter than we expected. Oh no, that's always painful when you want to spend time outdoors and the weather doesn't cooperate.

Yeah, we tried to go hiking, but the heat was no joke. We had to turn back after less than a mile. What a bummer. Well, at least you missed the rain here.

It was ugly. Rained all weekend. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Okay. So these are good. And we mentioned hiking again. That's so funny. Yeah. These plans are very synced up with who we are here, right?

Right. No, I try to be creative with the role plays, but sometimes I'm like, this is just something I would say. This is a conversation I would have. Oh, for sure.

All right. So the first thing that you said was, how was your trip to the mountains? I said, honestly, it was kind of brutal, right? It was much hotter than expected, than we expected.

Yeah. And this is interesting, too. It would be strange if you just said, honestly, it was kind of brutal, full stop. Yeah. Because when we use these words, we're sort of intentionally building drama for whatever we're going to share was difficult or tough.

So we're going to say this like, ugh, it was brutal. And then we're going to immediately share why, right? You wouldn't want to just wait for them to be like, oh, what was so terrible? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, in this case, it could have been anything else. It could have been, I could have said, oh, you know, we were in a small cabin. We had no childcare.

My in-laws were there. Like, you know. Could be anything. Lost our keys. Right, right. It could have been any situation. So you got to give some details.

Yeah, for sure. And then what did you say, Aubrey, after that? And I said, oh, that's always painful when you want to spend time outside and the weather doesn't cooperate. So this is a fun way to use that, too.

Here I could have said, it's interesting. We probably wouldn't say that's always ugly when you want to spend time outdoors. If we're talking about an experience that was frustrating, we would use brutal and painful. Be like, oh, that's always brutal when or that's painful when.

Yeah. Or an experience is frustrating is the word. I think something is like dangled in front of you, but you can't do it right in a way. So that's an interesting note here that we wouldn't really use ugly for something that's frustrating, but we would use brutal and painful.

Right. And then I said, yeah, we tried to go hiking, but the heat was no joke. And again, that's to be taken seriously. Right. Yeah. And we definitely could also say the heat was brutal, painful, no joke works perfectly.

Mm hmm. And then you said, what a bummer. Well, at least you missed the rain here. It was ugly. Rained all weekend. Yeah. So this is more ugly is used more for like disappointing.

Right. Yes. So because you likely had plans to do fun things outside on the weekends and be like, oh, it was so ugly. It rained all weekend. Mm hmm. Yes.

It makes me think this weekend my friend is coming out to meet our son from New Hampshire and it never, ever rains in Colorado. Like we've been having the hottest – like you, we've been having a crazy hot summer in the hundreds every day and then it's supposed to rain like all weekend. Yeah. Just the weekend that she's coming out.

That sounds like Murphy's Law, right? The percentage of likelihood that it'll rain is directly proportionate to how much your friends visiting like to spend time outside hiking in the sun. And she is an outdoorsy hiker person. Yes, exactly.

If she's a person that loves rain, then it wouldn't be raining. Of course, it'd be sunny. That's life for you. You got to just roll with it, Aubrey, right?

What can we do? What can we do? So guys, go over to 2671, splash into summer part four. That is our summer series. How's your summer going? Right? Yes, that was such a fun series.

If you missed any of those episodes, scroll up, check them out. These are so great for having conversations about what someone's doing over the summer or what they did. Yes. And for a takeaway, I mean, this is the hallmark of a high B2C1 level speaker when we're able to take terms, not just use them literally.

We know the literal definitions, most of you do, of all of these words, but how can we use that in a more figurative way, right? Exactly. How are they being used as slang? How are they being used idiomatically?

This is the more fun meaning. So practice using these. Yeah, this is where we get into great connection because we're describing the moments of our life, whether they're good or bad, in a more interesting way, right? Exactly.

Don't be afraid to connect about things going badly as well. Not everything's going to be sunshine and roses. And that's a great way to bond is when things go poorly. Oh, yes, for sure.

And then bring your stories, right? There you go. All right, good stuff. Aubrey, you have a good weekend, a good week, and I'll talk to you soon. All right.

You too. See you next time. All right, bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English. Would you like to know your English level? Take our two minute quiz.

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