AEE: Jeopardize, Endanger, Compromise…Oh My!

This is an All Ears English podcast. Jeopardize, endanger, compromise. Oh my! 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 lindsey mcmahon the english adventurer and michelle kaplan the new york radio girl

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

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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, Michelle. How is your day going? Going pretty well, pretty normal, not taking too many risks so far today.

How about you? Are you, Lindsay, are you a risk taker? Yeah. I mean, that's a hard, interesting one to answer. Physically, no. Like I don't, you know, I don't, I'm a skier, but I don't love skiing the trees and I don't do crazy things.

I don't go out of bounds like some people do, but I would say like in business, maybe a little bit, maybe a Right. I was going to say, right, exactly.

Just doing it at all is a risk. So, okay. Interesting. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I guess I would consider myself a risk taker in some ways. I mean, I'm, I'm pretty, I like to be spontaneous.

That counts for anything. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I think I've done, you know, I've lived in different places, um, done, you know, so I would say that somewhat, but certainly also not physically.

Okay. Not, yeah, not, I, I, you know, there are people that by the time they're 30, they've broken like three different bones, right? That is not either of us, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Um, Stop saying that. Oh, my God. Don't you remember that I'm so superstitious? Oh, my gosh. Did you hear? Did you see just a few weeks ago? We're recording this in February, guys.

So it's way back. But there was, you know, Alex Honnold, the guy that does the free solo stuff. Did you ever see the movie Free Solo? No, I didn't. Okay.

Okay. He is a rock climber, but he climbs without ropes. And he just was in Taipei and he climbed Taipei 101, which a lot of our listeners are going to know that building. They know exactly what I'm talking about.

It was featured live on Netflix. He climbed the tallest building in the world or one of them to the top with no ropes. I got like a chill. Yes. And I'm not even, you know what I mean?

Like that feeling of adrenaline. It's insane. It's amazing. He's trained fear. I think he says that he still experiences fear. There was a theory that he didn't experience fear, but that's not true.

I think he's trained himself to live constantly on the edge of fear because of what he does. He rock climbs without ropes. So he knows he'll die if he falls. He just knows it.

But he works with that. It's incredible. But why is my question? I don't know. He's married. He has kids now. It's, I don't know. Oh my God. It's just what he loves to do.

He's such an interesting person. Anyways, I can go on forever about this guy. This is getting into the theme of today's episode, right? Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

So today we're answering a listener question about vocabulary. And this is a really advanced question. But they all involve some sort of risk. So that's kind of the theme of today.

But yeah, these words, these are... These are for the big times, you know? Yeah. But they're also very human and very important because we're having a really interesting conversation now about someone we know that takes big risks and any of these words could be incorporated into our conversation.

So I'm going to go ahead and read the question. This comes from YouTube. Guys, don't forget that we are over on YouTube five days a week. So if you prefer to watch us on video, you can do that.

You can subscribe to our YouTube channel. Just type in All Ears English Podcast and And we'll come up. But this is from Joran Lee. Joran says, hello, I've been listening to your business podcast for a long time and I really appreciate it.

What's the difference between jeopardize and peril and danger and compromise? How can we use these words in different situations? Maybe you can help me master these usages. Thank you very much.

Nice. Really good question. I mean, yeah, these are advanced words because even though they all involve risk, the type of risk is different. So we're really going to dive into this today.

But before we get into that, guys, we want to ask you... please leave us a review. Yes, guys, review our show. We will do our best to announce your name out loud if we see your review, maybe on an Apple podcast cast box, Spotify, maybe over on even on YouTube.

We'll do our best to announce your name. All right, guys. Good. that's right all right so let's go for it jeopardize yes oh my gosh okay so this is putting something valuable at risk this makes me think of the game jeopardy jeopardy yep of course you can't hear jeopardize yeah and not think of jeopardy jeopardy i know what was being i'm trying to remember how that game works though i hope you do uh like what was being put on the line like what was um

They were like wagering kind of like risking money. What's going on? I can't remember. I don't know. I never really watched it. So I don't know. What is it?

Okay. No. Jeopardy. No, I mean, yeah, they're wagering. They're, you know, saying how much money that they – Well, first of all, they choose questions based on how much money they can get for it.

And they give the answer and you ask the question. And then at the end, there's well, there's other times where you can say how much like. Um, if you, yeah. Um, if you get a daily double, then you say you, you, before you even hear the question and for final jeopardy, you say how much you wager.

Um, but you don't even know what the question is. You know, the topic, but not the question, you know, the topic. Okay. So you are wagering, you're risking and it's, it's the one where they're like, what is this?

What is that? That's what it is. Cause you're asking the question, right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I could say like, oh, like the answer is Jeopardy!

And the question would be, what is a show that Lindsay really should know more about? Yeah. So that was an example. Love it. Good example, Michelle. So Jeopardy!

So we get a verb out of that, right? We get a verb that we can actually use in everyday English. So talking about professional opportunities. So Michelle, are you late to work again?

Watching Jeopardy probably. That's what I'm doing. Yes. It's terrible. I'm worried it'll jeopardize my chances of getting promoted. That'd be a funny pun.

I feel like you can make a pun out of that or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. What about relationships? Yeah. So why don't you just lie? I don't want to.

It could jeopardize our relationship and we're already on shaky ground. Yeah. Probably never a good, good advice to just lie. Yeah. yeah yeah maybe you should fire that friend yes exactly fire the friend um so then we have in danger um so this is this has the word in danger so it's to put someone or something in danger usually in some sort of physical danger um yes yes so

this would be used for serious situations. I don't think that we would use it too much in everyday conversations, but you may see it in things like safety warnings.

Yeah. So for example, speeding endangers lives or the storm is endangering coastal areas. Yeah. Right. Or you hear, you know, sometimes maybe on a warning label of like an alcohol bottle, right?

Alcohol endangers your health. You might see that. There's also the concept of child endangerment where people end up like in jail or something if they've put their child in danger in some way, right? That sort of thing is a term.

Okay. So in danger. Right. endangered. Kind of a high level word, kind of a fancier word though, Michelle, wouldn't you say? Yeah, absolutely. And then the next one is imperil.

So this is spelled I-M-P-E-R-I-L. Tell us about this one. Well, this isn't used too, too much, but I love that our listeners are going to have it now in their back pocket after today. So we don't really use it in daily conversation. We think you're going to see it more in formal writing, articles, legal documents, literature, high level newspapers,

Right. Right. Yeah. And this means the same things essentially as in danger or jeopardize. It's just more dramatic, more formal used in those certain contexts.

So, for example, the reckless driver imperiled everyone on the road. Yeah. It's not something I would really say. Maybe this you would see it written.

Right. This word is not really in my everyday vocabulary. Right. Yeah, I agree. Or my every month of vocabulary. But you know it when you read. When you read it, you know it, of course.

Right, of course. It's good to know. Yeah. Or the CEO was committing fraud. Now his poor choices could imperil the entire company or in some cases entire markets.

You know what I mean? When one company makes a mistake like that, it can have ripple effects, which we've talked about on the show lately. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And then we have the last word is compromise. This one is more common. It's interesting, but there's different meanings. Yeah. There's different meanings because normally I would say, oh, this doesn't belong in here, but it actually does if you use the right meaning, right?

So this is, again, you said it's not about immediate danger, but it's when something is going to work, but not quite as well. So let's see what that means in an example, right? Okay. When you share passwords, you compromise security.

So it's like you put it at risk. You put it in danger. And of course, maybe our listeners know the other definition of compromise. It's like to come to an agreement.

I give a little, you give a little. Right. And that's the one that wouldn't belong in today's episode. That one wouldn't belong. Not one wouldn't belong, but we have multiple meanings.

So fun. At the B2C1 level, our listeners get to start to discover this and start to use this. And we can also talk about it in terms of losing credibility, right? So did you catch her in a lie?

Yeah. Yeah. And it feels terrible. Now the trust is compromised. Oh, no. So the trust has been risked or lost in a sense. Yeah. It's not as strong as it was.

Right. But again, not the same as saying, you know, I want to go to the movies. You want to go to dinner. Let's make a compromise, right? Totally different.

Good. Awesome. Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you. All right. So we said before, these are fancier words. So when do you think we'll hear them, Michelle?

Well, as we said, you probably won't use in danger or in peril in everyday conversation. More likely you're going to use compromise or jeopardize more, but you'd use them for more serious discussions. Yes. Yeah.

So for example, talking about future opportunities, should I speak up more in meetings? Absolutely. Staying quiet could jeopardize a potential promotion or about relationships. Do you think I should tell them the truth?

Yeah. Lying would just compromise the relationship. You've worked so hard to earn his trust. Yes. And Lindsay and I are both big proponents of telling the truth.

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like lying has been coming up a lot in our episodes today. I know. But yeah, tell the truth. It's just the – honestly, it's the easier thing to do in a way.

It's hard in the moment. But then there are people that lie a lot. I feel like they get in these like loops of – we have to remember what they – It's true.

That seems very stressful to me. Why don't you just tell the truth and then just own up to it, right? It's so true. It just clears your conscience so much better.

Yeah, definitely. Oh, yeah. So let's do a role play and put them together. Well, we're going to put a couple of them together. Yeah, these are heavy words.

So we're friends and I'm asking you, Michelle, about a project at work. Okay. All right. So I hear you're in charge of the website launch. Is it happening?

It's happening soon, right? Yes, but everything feels so last minute. Are you going to meet the deadline? Oh, I better or I'll jeopardize my job. Is there a way to cut corners to go faster?

I really don't want to. It would compromise quality and I really want to deliver a top-notch product. Nice. Nice. Okay. So here we use jeopardize. So I said, are you going to meet the deadline?

And you said, I said, I better or I'll jeopardize my job. So I'll be putting it in danger or risking it. In danger, at risk. You may lose your job. Right.

And then I said, is there a way to cut corners to go faster? And you said... I really don't want to. It would compromise quality. So bring down the quality basically.

Yeah, exactly. So we use jeopardize and compromise. Remember guys, it's that different meaning that you maybe haven't heard about before today of compromise. Guys, go over to 2565.

What was that episode all about, Michelle? That was, is English all Greek to you? I think you did that one with Aubrey. Really good episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love that title too. We talked about the use of, you know, this is all Greek to me. It's so fun to throw that into your English sometimes, guys. Michelle, where should we leave our listeners?

We've tackled some, you know, very high level words today, but important words. Yeah, I mean, yeah, so we really talked about four of these that we talked about how compromise and jeopardize are going to be the more common ones you hear and imperil and endanger, not quite as common to use just in conversation. But it's good to know these, you might read them, you might hear them on the news, you know, so it's good to know all this variety. But this was such a good question.

Yeah. It was a great question. We love your questions, guys. Make sure to send them in to support at allersenglish.com. Or you can also write your question right in wherever you leave your review and your rating.

You can write your question and we will see that because we do check our reviews frequently. All right. Great. So Michelle, you have a good rest of your day and I wish you all the best for the rest of the day.

All right. Go watch Jeopardy. Bye. I got to beat up on that right now. All right. Take care. Bye. Bye. See you next time.