AEE: Is Everything Peachy in Your Neck of the Woods?

This is an All Ears English podcast. Is everything peachy in your neck of the woods? 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, Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, coming to you from Arizona and New York City, USA.

And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe. On part two of this series, Aubrey and Michelle dive into the words peachy and nutty. What are the idiomatic meanings of these words and how can you use them to connect? Listen in to find out.

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Hello, Michelle. How are you today? I'm good, Aubrey. I'm excited to be recording with you. Happy Saturday, everyone. Yes, happy Saturday, everyone. Yeah.

So, Aubrey, I have a question for you. Okay. Has anything nutty happened to you recently? Ooh, good question. We're talking about this adjective nutty today.

And this is part two of a two-part series. Stay to the end. We'll share part one if you missed it. You can definitely listen to these out of order. But in part one, I shared a little bit of information about something that happened to my son at school.

Which was nutty. The whole experience was nutty. And part of it I didn't share in part one. And that was that my son had come home. He had ridden his bike to school and he had gotten to the bike rack and then immediately turned around and came home, even though this was going to make him late for school.

to take his medicine. He had forgotten to take his ADHD medication. So he came home to take his medicine. And then he was really upset because he knew he was going to be late and he felt bad because now I had to give him a ride to school and I had a call that was starting soon.

So he knew that was hard for me and he felt terrible. And I just said, why didn't you just let the office know to call me and I could bring you your medicine? He was like, I don't ever want to do that again. And I was like, why?

And he said, because when I asked to do that, the teacher says, I guess you can go take your ADHD medicine again, leaving class to be the... And he told me this and I was horrified. I said, is she saying this in front of the whole...

He said, yes. I was like, I am so sorry, son. That is terrible. And I'm sorry for how that made you feel. And we had a long conversation. And that's when what I shared on part one, when he shared these other details about how she is saying that the other class is her favorite because his classes misbehaves.

It was nutty. The whole thing was nutty. I was like, so then I had to call the principal and have a whole long conversation. And the principal met with that teacher and...

Yeah. Crazy. That's terrible. I'm so sorry. Thank you. That is very nutty. Handling it so that it can stop. And I'm glad this teacher now realizes that that is not okay.

Not okay. We'll see what happens. The teacher should have realized that before that happened. Long ago. You're right. She's not a young teacher. She's been teaching for some time.

And it's shocking to me. I'm... I worry that this has happened to other children and the parents just never knew because kids don't usually come home and tell you're, you know, they don't realize that it's something they should report.

Right. Aw. Crazy. Well, I'm glad that you spoke up and, you know, spoke up for your son and that's, yeah, you're a good mom, Aubrey. Thank you. But yeah, we're talking about this word nutty today.

So as I said, follow for part one, which was about cheesy and fishy. We talked about how we use those words to describe foods, yes, or smells. Something could smell fishy or taste fishy. Something could taste cheesy.

But we also use them idiomatically to describe things that have very different meanings. So stay to the end. We'll share part one. If you missed it, you can go check that out.

And then today we have two more words like this that are... about foods, but we use them, or at least the word is related to a food, but we use them idiomatically as well. We could say nutty to describe like Nutella or something that a sauce that has a nutty flavor.

But we use it more often idiomatically like this to describe something as, what does that mean, Michelle? Something's nutty. Yeah, yeah. Well, it means kind of crazy, strange or a little eccentric, right?

So yeah, a person could be nutty and you mean they're kind of eccentric. Totally. Yeah. So I mean, this is also usually lighthearted, not really offensive.

I mean, I suppose it could be right if you're being very serious and not lighthearted. But it generally it describes ideas, behaviors or someone's personality. as Aubrey was mentioning. This is really interesting because we can use it in a much more lighthearted way.

Someone just says, you know, they ran into someone from high school and you're like, whoa, that's nutty. And it just means like, that's surprising. That's crazy, strange. Or you could use it the way I did.

And I do it sometimes. I'd be like, it was nutty. And what I mean is it was crazy, but like not in a good way. Right. It really does depend. So let's do a couple mini role plays.

Here we go. All right. I'll start us. You're thinking about driving across the country this weekend? I know it sounds nutty, but I'm craving an adventure.

Yes. And that would be nutty if it's like spur of the moment, super spontaneous, right? And also if it's out of your character, if you're not the type of person to go on road trips out of the blue, that would be a bit nutty. Or here's another one.

Or how about this one? Oh, go ahead. Yes, you start us. Oh, did you hear Dan wants to start a llama farm? Oh, that's a little nutty, but I could totally see him doing that.

It's funny because your husband's name's Dan. Yeah, exactly. That's what I was thinking. Imagine him starting a llama farm. Can't see it. Couldn't be me.

Couldn't be us. Not for my family. Okay, here's another one. Did you see the speech he gave? Not what I was expecting. Yeah, he's a little nutty, but I love it.

This is a great... I use this word sometimes to lighten the mood if someone is telling me about something horrifying that maybe a political leader did. And that was not horrifying, but just really surprising. Like maybe they post a picture...

where they have photoshopped them as Jesus, for example. I might just be like, that's nutty. Are you sure? Maybe that's fake news. And then you look and you're like, no, it looks like that really happened.

Oh, that's really nutty. Especially if I'm talking to someone who might not think that's as strange as i think it is because you never know when things are political like i don't always know what someone's leanings are so nutty is a good word that doesn't have right uh necessarily a positive or a negative value judgment you just be like oh it's almost like saying that's interesting and it's hard to know if they mean like positive or negative that's a good point that's a bit nutty a little negative a little bit like that's strange that's yeah it's true it's true

Okay, so now let's talk about peachy. So I love this word. But what's interesting about it is we don't really use it to describe something that tastes like peaches. I mean, we might, but it's not very common.

Like if you're having a peach pie or something, you're not going to say, oh, this tastes peachy. Yeah, and we don't use it to describe things that are that color either. You wouldn't be like, this peachy dress. Like we just don't use that word.

We would say a peach... dress to use the color. But yeah, really the only way you use, the only way I'm familiar with using peachy is the way we are talking about today. Idiomatically to describe that everything is great.

Things are going really well. However, I could see if like I gave you, I said, we're going to do a taste test. Can you tell what this flavor is? And I give you a piece of gum and you might say like, oh, it tastes kind of peachy, you know?

So it's not that it's never used. It's just not that common. Why? to be like, this tastes salty, sweetie, peachy. But I think even then I would be like, it tastes like peach.

It's kind of peach flavored. Right. It'd be rare to be like, it tastes peachy. Yeah. And because I also would realize that could be a misunderstanding.

If I say this tastes peachy, I might think they think I mean this. Good. Yeah. Right. So again, this is not quite as common as the other expressions. It may sound a little old-fashioned, but it's still used.

I like it. It is a little cheesy sounding, but it's not fishy, guys. We are using the other expressions from the other episode. But it sounds very enthusiastic and nice.

So let's do a couple role plays to show you how this sounds. Okay. How's everything going with your new apartment? Peachy so far. I'm really loving the neighborhood.

Yes. And you can see how some people would see this as a bit cheesy. It depends on someone's personality. For some people, this would be a very normal word to use, very expected.

Other people would never, right? So it depends on your own personality and the words you choose to use. I like this word. I would like a person who's like peachy.

Everything's going peachy. I think it's fun. It's very positive. Yeah. Or are things better now that busy season is over? Oh, yeah. Everything's peachy now.

And this is sort of a less cheesy way of using this, I feel like. This is more common. We would say this at work. It just means like, yep, everything's better.

Everything's going well. Yeah. But it can also sound sarcastic, depending on the tone. So let's show how that might sound. That client is so demanding.

How'd the meeting go with him? Oh, just peachy, as usual. Yeah. And so if we know it went bad, I'm using my tone to share that like it did not go well.

And often with sarcasm, we do this. We're saying the opposite meaning and using our tone to show that. Right. So I use this. I use peachy this way a lot.

Also, everything's peachy today. And really, I mean, everything's horrible. Right. Then also, do you ever use or hear peachy keen? Oh, yeah. Definitely.

I wonder where that comes from. Peachy keen. Peachy keen. We said that a lot growing up. How are things going? Peachy keen. Peachy keen. Peach means it really well.

That's a fun way to respond. I don't use it that much. I haven't heard it in a while, but I like it. It's fun. Yes, I like it too. This is your last chance to join our new course, Active Vocabulary.

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All right, let's do a role play. Michelle, you and I are friends here and we are planning a road trip. I think that we are manifesting this into reality. Let's go on a road trip.

Okay. In a big caravan van. Sounds great. Go across the country. Sounds here we go. All right. So are we still doing that road trip this weekend? Yeah, but the rental car deal I found online seems a little fishy.

Ooh, how so? The price is super low, but they barely have any reviews. That is a little strange. Let's go with another company then. Agreed. And I also think we should break up the driving.

I know you wanted to drive 10 hours in one day, but that's just nutty. Okay, you're probably right. But you have to promise me that you won't bring those cheesy road trip playlists again. Ha ha ha.

Deal. All right. Now that those things are sorted, this trip should be peachy. I know. I'm so excited. Yay. Sounds so fun. I love this. And you'll notice we used a couple of the words from part one of this series.

So let's go through this. The first one. So we said, oh, I found this deal online, but it seems a little fishy because like low prices... but not very many reviews.

This will happen sometimes. You're like checking reviews. Oh, we don't have a lot of reviews. You would think that this would be well known if it's a good price.

Lots of people are liking it. So same spishy. Yep, exactly. And then I said, I know you wanted to drive 10 hours in one day, but that's just nutty. So I'm like, that's just crazy.

Yeah, that's just crazy. Ridiculous. It's not a good idea, but it's a more playful way to say that. I like nutty better than crazy. Nutty. That's just nutty, meaning like, I don't think we should do that, but in a lighthearted way.

Right. And then the next one is, promise me you won't bring those cheesy road trip playlists, right? So I had brought cheesy or you had cheesy like...

mixtapes burned cds or actually i guess these days i'm really showing my age there it would be like a playlist on spotify or apple music where you've and if it's cheesy music then you know i'm not i'm not here for it yes exactly and then you said now that those things are sorted the trip should be peachy so the trip should be great

Yes, exactly. I love all of these words. I'm excited for you to be able to use them all. You can check out part one if you scroll up. It was 2653, when fishy and cheesy aren't about food.

And today you learned about when peachy and nutty aren't about food. What a fun episode. Yes, definitely. Yeah. So takeaway for today is that words aren't always what they seem, right?

Sometimes they have a double meaning. And these are just really fun words to give a try in your vocabulary and use them to connect. Yes. And I hope you have a peachy rest of your day, Michelle.

Thanks for joining me today. Thanks. Thank you, Aubrey. Have a great day. You too. Bye. Bye. See you next time.