AEE 2721: Fancy Schmancy Phrases with Ben Grossblatt from Everybody ESL

This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2721. Fancy schmancy phrases with Ben Grossblatt from Everybody ESL. Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English?

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Have you heard English speakers say work shmerk or practical shmactical? Today, language expert Ben Grossblatt joins us to show how you can get creative with this fun and playful construction.

You can be technically correct in English and still not sound natural. Maybe your sentences are grammatically right, but something feels stiff, a little robotic, not quite how a native speaker would say it. That's nuance. Fluency lives in collocations, phrasal verbs, and word choice, not just grammar rules.

If you keep using the same safe phrases, it may be time to stretch. Find out your level and what vocabulary skills you're missing in our free two-minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e.

hello everyone welcome we are so excited to welcome a very special guest ben grossblatt welcome to the podcast hello thank you i'm happy to be here with you yes this is exciting i want to briefly intro introduce you first of all ben is a language lover living in seattle um the united states he has two degrees in linguistics and he has been volunteering with english language learners for more than 10 years His podcast is called Everybody ESL. You may have heard it before. If not, you should definitely be following.

They're very short episodes where you learn idioms, phrases, very useful for expanding your vocabulary. Welcome to the show, Ben. Thank you. And I did see online that you are also an author.

Isn't that right? Have you written books as well? I have written lots of books, mostly for kids. Yes. Mostly I'm an editor. Mostly I edit novels. Now, does one of them have to do with Klingon?

The language Klingon? Yes. I saw this, and I was interested because I think I've mentioned this on the podcast that over the summer, I required my kids to learn a language on Duolingo, and my son, who's 11, chose Klingon. So he was running around the house saying, like, Duox...

You know, like all these sounds. I'm like, okay, you've got the Klingon going on. I am not a Klingon speaker. I was the editor and the author of the book, but I didn't write the Klingon parts.

I wrote all of the English. You had to collaborate with someone who speaks Klingon. Well, we worked with someone from the Klingon Language Institute. Oh.

Oh, interesting. So for everyone out there listening, if you're not a Trekkie, not a fan of Star Trek, you might not know what we're talking about. This is a made up language for this TV show that some people have learned. You can learn it on Duolingo.

So I was just curious about that fun fact about you. But we're excited to dive in today. Ben is going to share this really fun thing we do in English where we have some alliteration with the schmuh sound.

And I do this a lot. I hear this a lot. So let's dive in, Ben. What are the phrases that you're going to share with us today? Well, first, I think we need to talk about what this construction is and how it works.

This is a strange and informal construction. And the way it works is we remove all of the consonants at the beginning of one word. And then we replace them with the schmuh sound, which sounds a little strange in English, I think. It is a little strange.

It's very fun. It's very playful. But we say it at work. We say it's like, yes, it's informal, but it's interesting how I'll hear it everywhere. I hear it on TV shows, podcasts.

It's pretty common, right? It is. You will probably not see it in writing very often. Correct. Yeah, maybe in a text. Yeah. Maybe, sure. In a book, not an academic paper.

Not in a textbook, I don't think. Right. Not in a scientific journal. Which, that's our bread and butter here, right? We're wanting to teach you listeners what you aren't going to find in a textbook, right?

There's no way a language class is going to... Okay, and now we talk about this interesting slang... Yeah, it's true. But it's very playful. It's a fun way to be creative with language.

We have these fun things that we do where you're not limited to just a few phrases with what you're going to learn today. You could take lots of different things and be creative. That's true. You can you can use this with really almost any noun or adjective.

Yeah. So interesting. Even if you are the first person who has ever used this construction with that noun or adjective, everybody, at least the native speakers, will understand what you are trying to express. It won't be wrong.

It'll be right. And you might get a giggle out of somebody like, OK, that's fun. OK, so which is the first example? What is one that you use, Ben? Well, one that I the only one that I use as a set phrase, I think you might have mentioned this, too, is fancy schmancy.

Yes. So that's the only one I use regularly. Well, not all the time, but that's that's something you will hear people say. Right. Yeah. If someone's wearing a fancy jewelry or dress, you should be like, ooh, fancy schmancy.

And that, I think, is the one that'll be most common forever, most familiar. Or you go to a restaurant and maybe it's a little fancier than you expected, maybe a little more expensive than you expected. And you might look at the menu and say, oh, well, this place is fancy schmancy.

Or maybe to warn someone of how they should dress about how they should dress. We say this place is a bit fancy schmancy. So maybe wear a jacket. Right.

And so there you can see that you've you create this form by taking off the beginning of fancy. Take off that F sound and then replace it with schma. So you have fancy schmancy. Exactly.

And you have the rhyme of the end of the word, right? Yeah. But we don't just use this for fancy schmancy. I think that is the most familiar. You're going to hear that one everywhere.

But the one that I use the most, I think if I'm trying to make plans with someone and I invite them to go somewhere and they say, oh, I got to work, I'll say work schmark. Like I'm trying to convince them to blow off work and come with me. Right. It's sort of like saying work.

Work is not important. Who cares about work? Exactly. Work shmirk. Have you ever used that? Do you hear that one? It's not just me, right? Well, maybe it is just you.

I'm not sure. I don't think I've ever said it. But if you said it to me, I would understand it right away. Exactly. That's what's interesting about this construction.

You can be creative. And even if it's something no one has ever heard, it's unique to you, they will understand you. And they'll probably be impressed with how creative you're being with language. Could be.

Yeah. Who are you in your native language? Confident, funny, opinionated. Now, who are you in English? If you feel smaller, quieter, or less expressive, that's not because you're bad at English.

It's because fluency is tied to identity. When you're unsure, you hold back. And when you hold back, people don't see the real you. You don't need perfect grammar.

You need clarity about what is holding you back. In just two minutes, you can discover your English level and what's slowing your progress for free. Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E.

Well, I have a good example of my own. So my example, we have to imagine a little scenario. There's one guy who is looking to buy a new car. And he goes out with his friend to look at a bunch of different cars.

Now, they're all different. Some are good for one thing. Some are good for another thing. And he is immediately attracted to this fast sports car, this small, fast sports car.

That's the car. He just cannot keep his eyes off of this car. And he says to his friend, well, what do you think about this one? I think maybe I'm going to get this car.

And his friend says, well, I mean, yeah, it's great. But don't you think maybe you should get a car that's a little bit more sensible, a car that's more practical, you know, get better gas mileage and maybe a little safer? Maybe you should get a car that's sensible.

And he says to his friend, sensible schmenceable. I want the fast car. Yes, that's such a great example, because it often is about that, about contradicting someone or disagreeing with someone that we will do this. You might even, I would maybe in that situation, even say like, practical, shmactical, sensible, schmanceable, like pile on a little bit with all of the things they're telling me to be.

Safety, schmafty. I don't care about that. Exactly. Budget, schmudget. Yeah. I don't want to save money. And your meaning is entirely like, don't tell me what to do.

I'm disagreeing with you, but in a very fun, playful way. What a great way to save a connection because when we disagree with someone, that is a chance where we could create awkwardness. We could hurt the connection depending on how we do it if we're awkward and formal with sharing our own opinion or with disagreeing.

This is not that. This is so fun and playful and informal. They're not going to be offended. They're just going to chuckle and be like, all right, you do you.

Exactly. And so this is just a way to playfully and informally express your disagreement or your doubt about something or your lack of concern with something. Yeah, exactly. I love that.

To help you listeners out there think of ways you can do this. This is so great. If ever you're sharing something or someone's sharing with you something they think you should do or they're inviting you somewhere and you're going to disagree, you're going to say you're not interested, you don't want to do it, just take one of the nouns and And then remove that first letter.

Like maybe they're inviting you to go to a movie that you know is quite loud. Like the Odyssey is a good example. The Odyssey came out not that long ago and it had this reputation for being a loud movie, right? And maybe you invite a friend to go and they say, I'm not interested.

I've heard it so loud. Bam. Loud, schmoud, right? You just take that adjective loud, remove the first letter. Who cares? Who cares if it's loud? That's not important.

Exactly. And sure, you could say that you could be like, why do you care? What's the big deal? Who cares if it's loud? But this is more fun and less judgmental, less critical, because it's so so playful.

Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, what a fun construction. I'm excited for listeners to use this immediately. I could really see everyone out there thinking like, okay, I've heard this, right?

I've heard fancy schmancy. I know this exists, but it is a little bit scary. It's a This is really an exception to that. Sometimes that does happen where when we're like a holic is a good example, right?

We have alcoholic, chocoholic. And some words, it would sort of be strange to add that to. We don't say phone-a-holic. You know, we know there are a lot of things where maybe someone would be like, interesting.

I feel like this isn't that. You can add this to any noun or adjective and it makes sense. It works. Yeah, I think you're right. I think we can, the word that we might use for this kind of construction or ending or something is productive.

We can use it often and easily. A holic, you can't really use it everywhere. Often it will just sound a little weird. Yeah, it's not as flexible. There are specific chunks, specific words that we would add it to.

I know we covered that not long on the podcast and we shared like, these are the ones we do most commonly. And unfortunately, it doesn't always work. Like you could do it. No one's going to be angry, but it would sound a little strange, a little off.

Whereas this is a fun way to be creative where you can't really get it wrong. Like no matter, like you, Workshmark, you've never heard that before, but it's not weird to you. you if I say that. You know what I mean?

And it's fun. I understand right away what attitude you are expressing to me. Exactly. Yes. I love it. I'm so excited. Everyone come to YouTube. If you're watching the podcast there, leave a comment in the example of one of these that you have used before or one that you'd like to use.

I love that idea. And Ben, share a little bit more about Everybody ESL so listeners can check it out. Well, I started Everybody ESL about nine years ago. Now, you're up to episode 2,700-something.

Yes, we've been going since 2014, I think. 2014, okay. So I'm only up to 480-something. Episodes of my podcast are very short. They really teach one- small, simple thing in each episode.

It could be a bit of grammar or new vocabulary or slang or idioms or something like this schm construction. Right. Yes. We call that a quick win, right?

These really mini episodes where you learn something, then you can immediately go and use it to connect in English. We believe in that here. Our episodes are quite short as well. You learn something.

The goal is to go and use it now. Podcasts more and more. I'm seeing episodes that are hours long. That can that has its place. Right. But for language learning, this is so helpful to learn something quick.

And then the goal is not to just, you know, get lists and lists and lists of vocabulary, but to take that and go use it right away. Exactly. That's how that's really how you're going to learn and how you're going to make things stick is by using it. That's what language is for.

Exactly. That's how we take all of this passive vocabulary and make it active vocabulary, right? Go use this today. Find an adjective or a noun, replace that first letter with schma practice, use it, right?

Whether it's out loud to yourself with a speaking partner or in a conversation, this it's going to work, right? It's going to be fun. You should do it. You're going to start noticing it now that it's one of those things where once it's pointed out to you, you see it everywhere.

I guarantee you're going to start hearing this. Awesome. Ben, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. This was really fun. Good. Yeah. Awesome.

Hopefully we'll see you again sometime. Bye. Bye. See you next time.