AEE 2718: Dicey English Vocabulary for Precarious Situations

This is an All Ears English Podcast, Episode 2718, Dicey English Vocabulary for Precarious Situations. 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 hosts, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer.

coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe.

Have you recently been in a sketchy situation? Want to share your story in English? Today, find out the difference between five English terms that spell danger.

Hello, Lindsay. How are you today? Hey there, Aubrey. How's it going today? How's everything? I am great. I have a question. All right. When's the last time you were in a situation that was dicey?

Oh my God. Just this past weekend, I was in a pretty dicey situation. And I feel like all the dicey situations tend to start when I didn't charge my phone the night before.

Right. And that's what happened. What did we ever do without phones? How do you survive? I know. So we like to travel with our five-month-old baby, and we've got him going around the US soon abroad.

But we took him to San Francisco, and we were down by the touristy area, the Fisherman's Wharf, I think they call it Pier 39 or something. And we both didn't have phone. Our phone batteries were both almost down to zero, which We – the train car we were trying to get into had broken down.

We couldn't get an Uber because in San Francisco, you can't just go with a baby on your front. You have to have a car seat. We didn't bring a car seat to San Francisco.

And we were staring down a two-mile walk into the sun back to our Airbnb with the baby and he was already hungry and crying. So it was getting a little dicey. And then finally, luckily, the train car activated and we were able to hold on somehow get into the crowded train car and get home and everything was okay. But it was such a perfect example.

I do feel like we get into dicey situations more often as parents because like if this were just me on my own, I'd be fine. But I have little ones to deal with. Oh, yeah. No, I could walk two miles.

No problem at all. But with the baby, it's a different story. Yes, exactly. Oh, I'm excited to get into this vocabulary. We use a lot of different really interesting adjectives to describe dicey situations.

And this is such an amazing way to connect. It's the most interesting conversations I have, I think, is when someone shares with me a situation they were in that was a little scary, a little dangerous. Those make for the best stories. Yes.

Exactly. Exactly. And we love when our listeners send in questions. So again, this question comes from Saddam Mode. So shall I go ahead and read the question, Aubrey?

Yes, absolutely. All right. Hi, Lindsay and Michelle. And Aubrey, you made the nuance between these similar terms so clear and easy to understand. What about these adjectives?

Sketchy, risky, fraught with danger, dicey, and precarious. Can they be used interchangeably or does it depend on the situation? Yeah. All right. Good question.

So interesting. I am excited about this because yeah, these are really similar. A lot of these are interchangeable, but they do have sort of different levels of seriousness, sort of a formality, right?

That story you just told me, would you say it felt fraught with danger? Yeah. No, that's a little too heavy, I think. It's a little heavy, but dicey is perfect.

Yeah. Yeah. Dicey. I might say sketchy. Some of these other words could work, but fraught with danger, I would say is a little too formal for me for that situation.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm excited to dive into this and give you examples for all of these. Because it does matter when you're telling a story. If you do use adjectives that are like too intense or not intense enough, that can really make a difference with your storytelling.

It'll pull people out of it if the vocabulary is not accurate. Right. Or if your adjectives are too bland and soft, that's what I find I get in chat GPT when I ask it to write me something. It's just kind of soft and general and boring, right?

That's another problem for another day. But let's go into the first one that Saddam asked about, which is sketchy. So what are some examples of sketchy? How's it different from the others?

Yeah, this is great. I feel like we use this most often to describe sketchy. people that are acting strangely or places, situations that feel a little dangerous. So for example, I might say that guy at the party was acting really sketchy.

So we decided to leave. And this could be, there's an umbrella here. Who knows what he was doing? Maybe he was drunk and he was, you know, whatever. Who knows what it could be.

Sketchy is a very flexible term. We don't need to go into specifics when we're telling. So I just felt uncomfortable. He was acting sketchy. He could be making passes at women.

He could be like stumbling around drunk. He could be looking like he's trying to pickpocket someone, right? It could be anything. It's broad. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. Or we could say this, we could also call the situation sketchy, right? You can call the person that or the situation, the place if it feels a little dangerous. For example, going to a stranger's house alone after meeting them online sounds sketchy.

Yeah. We hear this a lot now with people using the apps and dating online that you can get into sketchy situations means like a little bit dangerous. Yeah. So sketchy is frequently used when it comes to like physical safety, personal safety, but it's not just that.

Let's say that, right? It can expand out like we've said. Yeah. Yes. I would often call it an area sketchy, right? If it's like a dark alley at night, it'd be like, Ooh, that looks sketchy.

I'm not going down there. Right, right. Although Dicey could work there too for a particular area. So the plot thickens, Aubrey. What about risky? Risky.

So for example, it's risky to share your personal information with someone you just met. So this one is a little different. It's not so much about dangerous as far as personal danger. It's more about the risk you are creating for yourself.

Exactly. It's about an action that you're taking. I also wouldn't say a neighborhood is risky, right? I would say a neighborhood is sketchy or dicey, but it's not risky because it's more about something you're doing.

It's not about a place or like a feeling. Does that make sense? An investment can be risky. An action could be risky if you are creating more risk, for example.

Yeah. You might say it was risky to confront him in front of everyone, right? If someone is already like emotional and then if you want to have a conversation with them in private, okay, that should be fine, right? But it could be risky if you're going to embarrass them in front of a group.

Right. So it's about that action you might take. If it entails risk, it's risky. What about fraught with danger? I mean, it is formal. This is... going to show up in different kinds of conversations, maybe in writing.

What do you think, Aubrey? Yeah, I agree. It sounds a little more literary, quite a bit more formal. You might read it. You might hear it in the news and reports, but it is going to be a little less in just daily conversations, right?

Yes. Yeah. So for example, walking home alone through that neighborhood late at night can be fraught with danger. Yeah, I could see this being like in a PSA, right?

There's like a public service announcement about crime in a certain area. And so then they might say, you know, we recommend you don't walk in that area at night. It can be fraught with danger. And they're sort of up leveling, you know, making their vocabulary a little more professional.

Yeah, I like what you said, literary. I think that's true. I think you might see this more in books, maybe I wouldn't say poems, it doesn't feel very poetic to me, but in the written word, I think. Yeah, I agree, right?

Often, we'll take conversational words like risky or dicey, and then make it a little more formal for whatever we're writing, whether this is an academic paper or a novel, when something a relationship could be fraught with danger, if you're trying to make it sound more literary. I think it could be great for IELTS speaking part three, right? Guys, if you're taking the IELTS exam, go and check out our other podcast, the IELTS Energy Podcast. Just open your search bar, hit follow.

I mean, that's exactly what you're doing in speaking part three, Aubrey, right? You're elevating your speech, talking about society, things like that. Exactly. This is band nine vocabulary for sure.

I don't often hear a student say that something's fraught with danger. But on part three, when you're asked about issues that societies and governments are facing, that would be a perfect phrase. That would be perfect. Perfect.

Very good way, quick way to impress the examiner. Okay, let's get into dicey. My example at the top of the show was a good one, but there's other scenarios. It got dicey when two groups of people started arguing at the party.

So danger is near. Like there might be an explosion of fighting, right? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, this is interesting. Dicey is a great word. This also would be amazing for IELTS.

It's a little less common. It's definitely not as serious on the scale of some of these. Your example was perfect. People arguing at a party is perfect, where something just feels like it potentially could be dangerous, depending on how things go.

Right. Or asking her about the breakup in front of everyone seemed dicey. So I waited until we were alone. Now this isn't about physical danger, right?

But it's about emotional danger in a sense. Exactly. Right. You might create an uncomfortable situation. It's like, oh, that felt dicey. It just kind of means it felt like it could go badly.

Right. Yeah. And then precarious, I feel like for me, 50% of the battle here with precarious is about learning the chunk precarious situation. If you can deploy that chunk, learn that chunk, that's a great rule for when to use it.

It's not the only time you can use the word precarious, but it's a common chunk. That is a great chunk. Yes. We'll often say that we were in a precarious situation.

And it has a similar meaning. It felt dicey, right? Something felt potentially dangerous or scary if it was precarious. A good example for that is their friendship was in a precarious situation after the argument.

So it's like where things just aren't perfect, right? Something kind of went wrong. It could be lots of different situations. And then we also use this when we're talking about something dangerous like a hike, for example, on a cliff, right?

Yeah. The hikers move slowly because the narrow path along the cliff was precarious and slippery. Yeah. Now, would you say the friendship was in a precarious place?

Hmm. Interesting. It was in a precarious place. Yeah, I guess both could work. You could. You could. I think you could totally. There's no rule against it.

It's just that we usually hear that chunk together, precarious situation. So guys, don't reinvent the wheel, right? Just go with what you hear as chunks. It's the fastest way to fluency.

Love it. Okay. Role play, Aubrey. We're hiking. Oh, boy. All right. We won't end up like in the desert somewhere and, you know, Arizona with no water.

That's my feeling of what would happen if we hiked. I know you guys, if you've been listening for a while, you heard about when I was in Escalante and we all almost died in the desert. We ran out of water. That was all of these.

It was fraught with danger. Yeah. Everything applied. It's very hot. And like, if you drive through Escalante, it's like my favorite place in the whole world.

It's beautiful. It's just so deserted. There's no one out there. I mean, it's so hot and dry that like the moisture just gets sucked from your skin. Like it was crazy how fast we got dehydrated.

Oh, gosh. All right. Let's see what's going on here today on our hike. Okay. Wait, stop. The trail is getting really sketchy. We're right on the edge of the cliff.

Ah, you're right, and look at that section ahead. The rocks are loose and it looks like there's ice on the trail. This whole path is fraught with danger. Plus it's getting dark, and that's always dicey.

One wrong step and you could slide right off the edge. Exactly. The trail is especially precarious right here. We should turn around before it gets worse.

I agree. I think it's too risky to finish the hike right now. Let's turn back. Oh, we're being sensible here. I like it. Yeah. And I can imagine I've been in situation.

I remember when we were hiking in Grand Canyon once we were doing, I think it's called Angel's Landing. It's like this where there's no railing and the cliff is just right there. And the path is really narrow in some places. And I remember it was middle of the day, really well lit.

I remember thinking, I hope no one ever tries to climb this at night. because you couldn't see how narrow the path was. Oh, that would be really precarious. No, that's terrifying.

I think some people, there was just some flooding in the Grand Canyon recently. Yeah, I thought I saw that on the news. Anyways, let's go back through this role play. So you said, wait, stop.

The trail's getting sketchy. Right. Okay. Great use of sketchy. Clearly it's broad. It's casual. We like that word. Trendy right now. Definitely. Just kind of dangerous.

It works really well here. And then this one's the one we wouldn't use as often in regular conversations, but I could see it maybe here with this situation where it's like, okay, this feels really dangerous. You're wanting to add some weight to that. So you'd be like, this whole path feels really fraught with danger.

Yeah, you're kind of making like a final statement. Like we have to take this more seriously because I'm going to get more serious with my word choice. Exactly. Yes.

And then I say it's getting dark. That's always dicey. So I'm sort of speaking in general. Like I don't really like hiking in the dark. It's always dicey if we can't see the trail.

Right. And then I said the trail is especially precarious right here. So here we don't need to use the word precarious situation. We're just using this word in isolation.

It's precarious, just dangerous, likely to have problems, right? Unstable. Exactly. It's a great synonym for dangerous, especially for something like this.

I feel like we use it most often for something like a hike where the danger is really physical and present. For sure. And then what's the last thing you said, Aubrey? I said, I think it's too risky to finish the hike right now.

So this, like we would be increasing the risk for something negative to happen. So that's one would use risky. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, just to kind of sum up what we've talked about, a lot of these are very, very similar, right?

I feel like a lot of them can be used interchangeably, especially dicey, sketchy. We talked about how risky is often based on your personal actions, right? Take a risky action.

Fraught with danger, Aubrey, we said that one is more formal, literary. So there are some differences, but they're pretty similar. Yeah, this is interesting. A lot of vocabulary like this, we have lots of ways to say this in order to be able to just spice up our vocabulary.

You're going to be pretty safe using these interchangeably. Anytime you want to say that a situation feels a little bit dangerous, like potentially something bad could happen, you could pretty easily say sketchy, dicey, or precarious.

Exactly. Guys, go over and check out episode 2717. Are these English phrases condescending? Go check out what that is all about. And Aubrey, any other final takeaway?

I mean, it's important to be able to call out danger when we see it, right? Yeah, for sure. And like we were saying at the top of the episode, one of the best ways to connect is to share. A time you were in a little bit of a sketchy, risky situation, right?

It makes for really interesting stories and makes it easier to be a good storyteller when you're telling something that is a little bit scary or interesting, you're really going to be able to pull people in. Yeah. It makes you very human in their eyes and it makes them think of, wow, how close were you to danger?

It's kind of exciting for people to hear that. So good stuff today, Aubrey. Thank you to Saddam for the question and we'll be back very soon. All right.

Awesome. Yep. See you next time. All right. Bye. Bye. See you next time.