Sometimes, common English words can be used in ways that are unexpected. In this lesson, you’ll learn the meaning of expressions like “mum’s the word”, “down a drink”, “foot the bill”, and more. Each one of these expressions contains common words used in uncommon ways to form slang or informal expressions that you will frequently hear in everyday life, and in movies. After watching, own this lesson by getting 10 out of 10 on the quiz at https://www.engvid.com/6-uncommon-uses-of-common-english-words/ If you liked this video, make sure to watch my new lesson: 11 common English words with slang meanings you can’t guess! https://youtu.be/e-SkWVml_pw Learn the slang meanings of “beef”, “crash”, “veg”, and more. TRANSCRIPT Hi. I’m Adam. Welcome to www.engvid.com. In today’s lesson, I want to talk to you about six words that all of you already know; they’re very common, very easy words, but I’m going to show you the uncommon uses for these words. Now, the reason you want to know uncommon uses of words is: A) to sound more like a native speaker who will use these words regularly, and B) they will actually help you get a better vocabulary range; more variety to your speech, to your writing, and when you read you’ll be able to understand these better. So, let’s look at these. “Down”. We’re going to start with the word “down”. Now, obviously everybody knows “down” is, you know, down there. Up, down. That’s the preposition. Do you know that “down” can also be a verb? For example, you can down a drink, you can down a plane. Now, what does that mean? “Down a drink” basically means have a drink; finish the drink. If you have a glass of beer, you down it before you leave the bar. “Down a plane” means: “Pew” or-sorry-I should say like this. Shoot down the plane and bring it down to Earth. So, in Canada, for example, I live in Toronto and the hockey team here is… You know, it’s starting to be a little bit better now. But if I want to go watch a hockey game, the drinks and the food at the… at the arena are very, very expensive. So what a lot of people do – we go to a bar, we down a few beers at the bar, and then we head to the arena and maybe have one beer over there. Don’t drink if you’re not into drinking; if you’re underage, you didn’t hear any of that. Plane. Now, in a lot of countries, you know, there’s wars and stuff like that, and in some countries, there… the rebels or the local army is a little bit underequipped, and for them a big victory is gotten simply by downing an enemy airplane. So if they’re able to down a plane from the enemy, they’re very happy about it, even though it doesn’t really help that much. So, “down”, bring down, or take down a drink. “Foot”. Now, the foot, you know the two things at the bottom of your body, here. Most people know them as a noun; the two things there, but we can also use “foot” as a verb. “To foot the bill”, or “to foot the cost”, or “to foot the expenses” means pay for or cover the expenses of something. So, if I go away on a business trip, I expect that my company will foot the expenses; hotel, flight, food, etc. “Foot it”. “To foot” basically means to walk. So, if you’re driving around and you… Your car breaks down and you’re in the middle of nowhere, and there’s nobody to call and there’s no, you know, a bus, or a taxi, or anything – you’re basically going to have to foot it to the next town to call a tow truck to go get your car. “To foot it” – to walk. “Break”. Now, “break” actually has many meanings. You know “break”, like break the glass, break… Break something. Anyways, shattered in pieces. Or “to brake” means to slow down in the car. I want to talk to you about other ones. “To be broke”. Now, notice that I’m using the past tense. I’m not using “break”; I’m using the past tense “broke”, but here, this is an adjective. What does it mean “to be broke”? It basically means to have no money. You open… Pull out your pockets, and lint falls out. No money. So, Bill who’s been out of… Out of work for, like, a year is broke and he can’t go out to have a drink with us or to watch the hockey game because he’s broke. Now, “to break the bank”… If something breaks the bank it means it’s overly expensive. If you actually spend the money on it or if you invest in it, you will become broke. So, a lot of companies, they want to invest in innovative, new things for their company-equipment or technology-but they don’t want this investment to break the bank; basically cost so much that the whole company falls apart. But at the same time, if you invest in something properly or not, the investment in that thing could make or break the company. “Make or break”. “Make” means you will become very successful; “break” means you will fail miserably and fall apart. “Make or break”, this is a common expression. Okay? It goes together. Something will make or break something else. Okay? […]