Your English Five a Day #29.2

E272: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast with me, your host, Anna! Tune in to Week 29, Day 2 of Your English Five a Day, where we aim to enrich your vocabulary with five new words or phrases every weekday.

🏇🏽 First up, we delve into the idiom "to hedge your bets", Next, we unravel the adjective "independent" and then we delve into another idiom "to catch wind of something".  Moving on, we inspect the noun "contraband" and finally, we take a look at the noun "respect".

🚬 Join us for pronunciation practice and engaging memory exercises, as we reinforce these newfound linguistic treasures in your repertoire. Then make sure you stick around for today's riveting tale with Sandra, a seemingly ordinary building site manager turned international smuggler. Sandra's foray into the world of contraband began innocently, but soon spiraled into a risky venture fraught with legal repercussions.

⭐ ENGLISH LIKE A NATIVE PLUS ⭐

Join English Like A Native Plus - a membership allowing you to access the bonus episodes, plus live classes and all podcasts' transcripts & vocab lists. Become a Plus Member here: https://englishlikeanative.co.uk/elan-podcast/

If you enjoy this podcast, please leave a rating/review - it is a simple, free way to support us. 

Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 29, Day 2 of Your English Five a Day. This is the series that aims to expand your active vocabulary by focusing on five items every day of the working week from Monday to Friday. So let's start today's list with an idiom, and that is to hedge your bets. To hedge your bets. We spell this hedge, H E D G E. Your bets, B E T S. To hedge your bets. Now, to hedge your bets means to take precautions or have alternative options in order to reduce your risk of loss. So for example, if you were to go to the races, the horse races, and you have£100 that you're going to gamble with, and you decide to spread your money across a number of horses in order to hedge your bets. So you're reducing your risk of loss. If you put that£100 onto one horse, an outlier, it would pay out a lot because the odds aren't good for it to win. Then you're likely to lose all your money. But if you were to put some money on the horses that are predicted to win and a little bit of the money on the horses that are the outliers, the underdogs, the ones that aren't expected to perform very well, then you're spreading the risk. You're taking precautions. You're reducing the chances of losing everything. Of course, when you spread your bets like that, your wins may not be as big, but your losses will also not be as big. So you are hedging your bets. Here's an example,"I'm not sure which job offer to accept, so I'm going to hedge my bets and keep my options open." So in that scenario, most of us been there at some point, when we've been in a position of applying for roles or for places at college or university and you have more than one offer and you're like,"Oh, do I take this offer or do I wait to see if any other offers come through? Which offer should I accept? I don't know which one's going to be the best option." And so sometimes we try and delay accepting those offers because we're holding out for a better offer from another company. That can be tricky. Okay, so to hedge your bets, to spread and reduce your risk of loss. Next on the list is an adjective and it is independent. Independent. We spell this I N D E P E N D E N T. Independent. Independent. Independent. To be independent or described as independent means that you're not controlled or influenced by others. So I would describe my youngest son as quite an independent young man. He goes off and does his own thing. He doesn't listen to a word I say. He doesn't mind being on his own. He wanders off and doesn't look back. He's very independent. Whereas my eldest son doesn't even like to be in a room on his own. If you go upstairs and leave him downstairs, even for a second, he panics."Oh, mummy, where are you?" So he's not very independent. You could also describe someone who is a freelancer as an independent, whatever it is they are. So I am an independent creator. I don't work for an agency or as part of a big organisation. I run my own company. I steer my own ship. So I am independent. If you are a solicitor and you don't work for a law firm, you're kind of working independently, perhaps you're trying to set up your own law firm, then you are independent. Okay, so here's an example sentence,"Leanne is an independent woman who doesn't rely on anyone else for anything, she makes her own decisions." Alright, moving on to another idiom. Whoo hoo! Two idioms in one day. This one is to catch wind of something. To catch wind of something. We spell this catch, C A T C H. Wind, W I N D. To catch wind of something. If you catch wind of something, it means that you hear about something, or you learn about about something through other people. So through gossip or rumours, maybe someone has passed you in the street and said,"Oh, by the way, did you know that this was happening today?""No, I didn't know about that. I've only just caught wind of that." So to catch wind of something, it's not about learning something like in an educational setting. So you don't catch wind of verb tenses or phrasal verbs. You catch wind of something that's going on within a society or with an individual. So let's imagine that your neighbour, who you know quite well, is actually planning to move house because of a scandal. Something terrible's happened and she's planning to move out very quickly without telling anybody. But someone around the corner knows about this because they work in the estate agents and they've started spreading rumours about your neighbour who's about to run away. And you hear about it through gossip, through people talking. And so therefore you have caught wind of what's going on. Here's another example,"I caught wind of a new job opening at our rival company through a friend. It might not be right, but I'm going to apply." Okay, next on our list is a noun and it is contraband. Contraband. Contraband, we spell C O N T R A B A N D. Contraband. Contraband describes goods or items that are illegal or prohibited. So this is something you will hear about in, like, airport security. You might see the word contraband written somewhere on the walls. When the rules are being explained, what is contraband and what is not, contraband will be confiscated, taken away. Here's an example sentence,"My brother was recently caught at the airport with contraband items in his luggage. He's lucky they didn't charge him and just let him off with a warning." That reminds me, I have a confession to make. A very long time ago, I'm talking maybe 20 years ago, I was visiting Gibraltar and my partner at the time, my boyfriend at the time was a bit of a wheeler and a dealer. He was very savvy with money and was always looking for ways to make an extra buck or two. Not that we use that phrase very often. To make an extra pound, to put an extra pound in his pocket. And so, when we went to Gibraltar, his mother and a number of his friends, who were smokers, said, please can you get us some cheap ciggies, and we'll pay you for them. So we bought more cigarettes than we were allowed to personally have because he had all these orders from his family and friends. And I remember being sat in the back of the car and my boyfriend was like,"I'm going to put all the cigarettes in the back with you." I was like,"No!" So he shoved them under the seat and in the footwell and covered them with coats. And I remember being very nervous because we were actually stopped at security as we tried to cross the border. The security guard asked me to get out of the vehicle so we could have a look inside and have a proper look around. He kind of moved the coats around a little bit, but didn't lift them up. And so he didn't really notice our stash of contraband. I was amazed. They just let us go. They didn't find all those cigarettes. And you know, I was not the person who had decided to do it, but I was definitely complicit in the activity. So there we go. I am making my confession on this podcast as always. Please don't arrest me. Moving on. We finish with another noun and it is respect. Respect. I'm sure many of you are familiar with this. We spell it R E S P E C T. I just want to sing it! R E S P E C T. So respect, it's about having admiration and consideration for someone or something. Many of us respect the elders in our family, our mother, father, grandmother, grandfather. We tend to, in most cases, respect those who employ us, hopefully, unless they treat us badly. And we respect those that we look up to, that we feel we would like to be like them one day. They've achieved something that we would like to achieve or something we feel we could never achieve. So we look up to them and we respect them. We respect what they've done. Okay. So here's an example sentence,"As a new member of the team, I have to gain the respect of my colleagues. I just hope they aren't as tough as I've been told they are." Alright, so that's our five for today. Let's do a quick recap. We started with the idiom to hedge your bets, which is all about having alternative options in order to reduce your risk of loss. Then we had the adjective independent, which describes something that's not influenced or controlled by others. Then we had the idiom to catch wind of something, which is to hear or learn about something, often through rumours or gossip. Then we had the noun contraband, which describes illegal or prohibited goods or items. And we finished with the noun respect, which is having admiration and consideration for someone or something. So let's now do this for pronunciation. Please repeat after me. To hedge your bets. Hedge your bets. Independent. Independent. To catch wind of something. To catch wind of something. Contraband. Contraband. Respect. Respect. Fantastic. Okay, let me now test your memory. So you hear a rumour that I have been doing something that I shouldn't have been doing. What idiom could you use to describe hearing a rumour about someone or something? You've caught wind of a rumour that says that I've been doing something wrong. I have been smuggling illegal substances into Ireland. Now, what noun could I use to describe these illegal substances? Contraband. Yes. So you've caught wind of the fact that I am smuggling contraband into Ireland. Now, I actually am arrested following these rumours and investigated. And when the police investigate me, they find out that I've been working alone. I'm not being influenced or controlled by others. I'm working alone. What adjective could you use to describe me as working alone? I am an independent smuggler. Yes, I am not working for or with anyone else. I'm independent in this activity. Now, the police officer who's investigating me actually had a lot of admiration and consideration for me because they've known me all my life and they know that I've worked hard. And so they're quite shocked because they've always had this admiration for me. What noun could I use instead of saying he has always had admiration for me? Respect. Yes. He's always respected me. He's always had respect for me because I've, worked hard all my life, and so he's pretty shocked. So I say to the police officer,"Look, I've known you for a long time and I know you have to do your job, but let me, let me take you to the races. Let's go and see the horses and have a drink and talk about this and I'll tell you everything you need to know." And while we're at the races, I realise he's got a gambling addiction. And he takes out this huge wad of cash. And I'm shocked. I was like,"I never knew that you were a prolific gambler." And he said,"Yes, I've got a huge amount of debt. This is terrible." And then he goes to place his bet and he's going to put this whole wad of cash onto one horse, one horse that's not predicted to do very well. And so I say,"Look, why don't you spread your money across multiple horses and then you're going to reduce your risk of loss. At least you might win some back and not lose all of it." What idiom could I use here? Why don't you hedge your bets? Hedge your bets. And he said,"Oh, that's a good idea. I've never done that before. Yeah, I'll do that." And he hedges his bets doesn't lose as much as he normally does. And he's very happy. He asked me to keep my mouth shut about his gambling problem. And I asked him to stop investigating me for my contraband activity. And we make a deal and we carry on doing our devious deeds and nobody lives happily ever after. There we go. What a lovely story. Alright, so enough of the off-the-cuff storytelling. Let's revisit these items once again in a very well prepared storytime. As a building site manager for over a decade, I've seen it all the good, the bad, and the ugly. But one thing I never expected was to become an international smuggler. Yes, you heard that right. Me, Sandra, a law-abiding citizen from the UK, was now smuggling cigarettes overseas. It all started when my company sent me on a project to a developing country. The pay was good, but the cost of living was even higher. To hedge my bets and make some extra money, I started buying cigarettes from the local market and selling them to my colleagues at a higher price. It was easy money, and I thought I was being smart. But one day, I was caught red-handed. The local authorities had been tipped off, and they found a stash of cigarettes in my room. I was arrested on charges of smuggling contraband and faced a hefty fine and possible jail time. I was devastated and scared. My whole career and reputation were on the line. But then an independent solicitor came to my rescue. He struck a deal with the authorities, and I was let off with a warning. But I had learned my lesson. I promised myself never to get involved in such illegal activities again. However, fate had other plans. A few months later, I was sent on a project to a different country, and this time, I was more cautious. I made sure to cover my tracks and only sold cigarettes to trusted colleagues. And before I knew it, I was making a good profit. It was a risky business, but the money was too good to resist. But just when I thought I had it all figured out, the local authorities caught wind of my activities. This time, I was facing serious charges, and I knew I had to come up with a plan, and fast. I hired a local guide who showed me the ropes of the illegal cigarette trade. With his help, I was able to navigate the underground market and successfully smuggle my goods without getting caught. I even gained the respect of my colleagues, who saw me as a fearless and resourceful manager. But deep down, I knew I was living on borrowed time. I couldn't keep up with this dangerous lifestyle forever. So, I made a promise to myself to quit the illegal trade as soon as the project ended. And that's exactly what I did. I returned to the UK with a heavy heart, knowing the risks I took and the lessons I'd learned. I may have made some extra money, but it wasn't worth risking my career and reputation. From that day on, I vowed to always play by the rules, no matter how tempting the rewards may be. Oh, and if you do need a packet of cigarettes. I can give you some for a good price. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. If you found this episode useful, then please take a moment to give it a like, rating or review. And if you have any English-learning friends, then please, please, please, please recommend The English Like a Native Podcast. Until tomorrow, take very good care and goodbye.