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Episode: AEE 2316: Learn This English Vocabulary to the Nth Degree

Author: Lindsay McMahon and Michelle Kaplan
Duration: 00:14:40

Episode Shownotes

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Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_00
This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2316. Learn this English vocabulary to the nth degree.

00:00:10 Speaker_02
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English?

00:00:18 Speaker_02
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection with your American hosts, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer. coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.

00:00:40 Speaker_02
And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe. Are you listening to All Ears English again today for the nth time? If so, that is amazing.

00:00:57 Speaker_02
And today you'll get one key way to exaggerate in American English.

00:01:06 Speaker_01
Can you understand everything we say on this podcast? That's a fantastic first step. Your next step is to understand natives out there in the real world and to connect to them with utter, complete confidence.

00:01:20 Speaker_01
Take our free English fluency quiz and find out what you can do to finally reach your English goals. Check it out now, allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's one word. That's allearsenglish.com slash fluency score.

00:01:51 Speaker_02
Oh my gosh. So you've been fixing it quite a bit, quite frequently, yeah? Yes.

00:01:56 Speaker_00
This has happened so many times. We probably just need to buy her a new bike at this point.

00:01:59 Speaker_02
Maybe Christmas. Yeah, Christmas. A good Christmas gift idea. There you go. So what are we talking about today? This term nth time, I'm not sure if it's even a word, right?

00:02:10 Speaker_00
I mean, what is it? It's so weird to see it spelled, right? It came up in a recent episode, 2306. You and Michelle were talking about the word attagirl in English. And one of you said, for the nth time, and I saw it written in the transcripts.

00:02:24 Speaker_00
And I was like, I've never, I don't think I've ever seen it written. I hear people say it. But to have it written just n-t-h, I'm like, I guess that is how you spell it. It's kind of slang, right? Interesting. Okay. It's interesting.

00:02:35 Speaker_00
So, we're talking about it today because we use it two different ways in English that actually have different meanings. So, that could be sort of confusing.

00:02:42 Speaker_02
Yes. Guys, we're going to get into this today. Make sure it's clear because this is very high-level English, right? This is approaching the B2C1 level, which is where we're all headed.

00:02:51 Speaker_02
So, guys, hit the follow button now to make sure you get five episodes a week of All Ears English. We'll drop right into your queue. Just hit that follow button. All right.

00:03:01 Speaker_00
Yeah, let's dive in here. The first way we use this is the nth time will often say for the nth time.

00:03:09 Speaker_00
So this means like the most recent time something has happened in a long series, it definitely implies that something has happened many times, like me having to replace the chain on my daughter's bike for the nth time.

00:03:21 Speaker_02
Oh, that's the worst because then your hands get all greasy, right? And maybe you get grease on your jeans or something. It's the worst.

00:03:27 Speaker_00
It is the worst. I hate doing it. And it's especially tricky because it'll come off when she's like by the school or like she won't be home. So then I have to go get her, load up the bike or fix it there. It's the worst. Jeez, so much work. So much work.

00:03:44 Speaker_02
Alright, so let's give our listeners some examples so they can really wrap their heads around this. So here's the first one. For the nth time, please stop leaving your dirty socks on the floor.

00:03:56 Speaker_00
This I think is so typical, right? It's when you've asked someone to do something a bunch of times and you might say this, for the nth time, please stop doing this.

00:04:07 Speaker_02
Yeah, and I think we can all help ourselves remember the meaning here by envisioning people we live with and what we would say to them.

00:04:13 Speaker_00
Yes, right.

00:04:14 Speaker_02
What is that thing we're always saying to them? We can start using this in that context right away.

00:04:18 Speaker_00
Yes, for sure. Or this is the nth time I've burned dinner this month. I need to start setting timers. This happens to me quite a bit because if I walk away from whatever I'm cooking, I burn toast and like grilled cheese sandwiches all the time.

00:04:35 Speaker_00
It's crazy.

00:04:36 Speaker_02
Bummer. Grilled cheese is so good. I don't know about... Maybe it could be good burnt. Who knows? No, it's not.

00:04:41 Speaker_00
Depends on how burnt it is.

00:04:41 Speaker_02
You have to scrape the black into the trash.

00:04:44 Speaker_00
Oh, no.

00:04:44 Speaker_02
It's terrible. Not good. Not good. Anything else we need to know about this one, Aubrey?

00:04:49 Speaker_00
Yeah. So, we have a lot of things in English that mean the same thing. And this will help you remember what it means, right? To say the thousandth time or for the millionth time means the same thing. And that's where we're getting it from, right?

00:05:03 Speaker_00
The end of those words is... So, we're sort of removing thousand and million and just saying for the nth time. And we exaggerate by... Maybe it was the 20th time you did this.

00:05:15 Speaker_00
We'll say, for the millionth time, please stop leaving dirty laundry on the floor.

00:05:21 Speaker_02
Right. It just becomes more interesting. Instead of saying the millionth time, we just say the nth time, right? It just becomes more high level.

00:05:27 Speaker_00
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, all of these are options. You don't have to say for the nth time all the time. We love to exaggerate. You can say this for the thousandth time, for the millionth time. And there are some other interesting options in English.

00:05:41 Speaker_00
The bajillionth time, the umpteenth time. We actually taught this on a previous episode, so stay until the end and we'll share what episode that was so you can get some more options.

00:05:50 Speaker_02
Yeah, there's lots of ways because I think in English we, especially American English, we are big exaggerators. We like to exaggerate. We like to say things in a big way. So this fits in really well in American English, I think.

00:06:05 Speaker_00
Exactly. I agree. It just makes it more interesting what we're saying. We love to exaggerate. I don't want to say for the 10th time. That doesn't sound very exciting. That's so boring.

00:06:12 Speaker_02
It's a boring understatement for the millionth time. Yes, yes. But I think I wonder how that, you know, I think a lot of different countries that speak English might be less into that kind of those big statements.

00:06:23 Speaker_02
Understatement is a little more praised, I think, for example, in British English, from what I've heard.

00:06:28 Speaker_00
That's a good point, right? It is pretty cultural. This is very common in the U.S., but in other English-speaking countries, that might not be the case as much.

00:06:35 Speaker_02
Right. Okay. There's a second way that we use this, Aubrey, and it is to the nth degree. So, when would we use this?

00:06:42 Speaker_00
Yeah. So, this means as much as possible or to an extreme level. So, we're still using that word nth, but it has a little bit of a different meaning.

00:06:52 Speaker_02
So for example, I'm training to the nth degree for a marathon. I ran 25 miles today. Wow.

00:06:58 Speaker_00
Yes, it means the same as as much as possible, right? I'm being very extreme about this. And it's this whole chunk to the nth degree.

00:07:07 Speaker_02
Mm hmm.

00:07:07 Speaker_00
And then what's another sample sentence? I might say my friend customized his car to the nth degree custom rims, vinyl wrapping the works. Nice. Excellent.

00:07:18 Speaker_02
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00:07:32 Speaker_02
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00:07:53 Speaker_02
Okay, Aubrey, we are back for a role play here. So here we're discussing our friend's car. All right. Let's do it.

00:08:00 Speaker_00
I'll start us. Okay. Wow. Jordan really customized his car to the nth degree. Yeah, I saw that. It looks amazing.

00:08:09 Speaker_02
I think he put some kind of turbo boosters on it too.

00:08:13 Speaker_00
That might not have been the best idea, actually. Oh no, what happened? He got a speeding ticket last night for the nth time.

00:08:22 Speaker_02
Ah, that's actually, that's definitely, I've heard that red cars tend to get stopped the most for speeding. Whether they are, maybe they speed more or maybe they just get stopped more, right?

00:08:31 Speaker_00
Right. That makes sense. And it's interesting because, you know, when someone's putting these custom, like to put turbo boosters, something that's going to make your car go so much faster, like what is your goal here?

00:08:43 Speaker_00
Like there are speed limits for a reason.

00:08:46 Speaker_02
Whenever in high school, it was so trendy. All the kids had these big subwoofers in the back of their... Did you have this in high school?

00:08:54 Speaker_02
Kids would always install subwoofers and I would be at my friend's house and my brother would come home and he'd be driving down the street and the house was far away from the road. Okay, kind of far off, set back, a colonial house.

00:09:06 Speaker_02
And you could see my friend's shelves moving when my brother drove down the road.

00:09:11 Speaker_00
That's extreme, right? The sound, the music was so loud. The bass was making the car vibrate to that point. Music to the nth degree. Yes. Love it. Okay. What did we do here, Aubrey? So first I said, wow, Jordan really customized his car to the nth degree.

00:09:30 Speaker_00
And this has the same meaning as, or a couple of phrases in English, to the max and to the utmost are other ways that we say that. And it just means to the most extreme level possible. I think to the utmost is really interesting language, you know.

00:09:45 Speaker_00
Yeah, I agree. I hear that one as well. That might be a little more sophisticated sounding. Maybe you would use that at work. Yeah, to do something to the utmost.

00:09:53 Speaker_00
And I also feel like when we use this to compliment someone, to say someone does something to the utmost sounds very complimentary, very positive.

00:10:01 Speaker_02
Yeah, for sure. Very high skills or the person does a really good job at what they do.

00:10:06 Speaker_00
Yeah, exactly.

00:10:07 Speaker_02
All right. And then, you know, I said, Oh, no, what happened? He said he got a speeding ticket last night for the nth time. Right. So it's not the first time. It's not the second time. It's we don't know, but it's been many times.

00:10:19 Speaker_00
All we know is he's gotten a bunch of speeding tickets. So I could have said for the millionth time, the thousandth time. Often we'll use nth or these other ways not only to exaggerate, but because we don't know the number. Right.

00:10:30 Speaker_00
We know he's gotten a bunch of tickets. We don't know how many. And it would be kind of weird to be like, For what, three times, four times, suddenly the conversation has become boring.

00:10:40 Speaker_00
Instead, we just use these phrases to exaggerate, like a bunch of times.

00:10:45 Speaker_02
Yeah, the key is to know in English, when is the conversation likely to become boring and pivot away from that, right? That's an art to know that.

00:10:54 Speaker_00
Absolutely. Right. These subtle things we do to exaggerate, to use general phrases instead of trying to get too much into the nitty gritty details that nobody cares about.

00:11:04 Speaker_02
Yes. Details are where you can get into trouble. Right. Right. Good. All right. So, Aubrey, what is another episode? What is that other episode we mentioned before?

00:11:14 Speaker_00
We promised this was a little while ago. It's 1282. It was called Don't Say a Lot, Say Bajillion. And we answered a great question about the phrase for the umpteenth time.

00:11:24 Speaker_00
And it's all about how we exaggerate numbers and really interesting vocabulary for that. So the best place to find this is to go to our blog, allthere'senglish.com and search that episode number.

00:11:35 Speaker_00
Otherwise, you would be scrolling back quite a ways in your podcast.

00:11:38 Speaker_02
It might be impossible to get that far down our feed. So yeah, definitely come back to alloursenglish.com, type it 1282 into the search bar in the top right corner, and we should be able to get you to that episode.

00:11:48 Speaker_02
Aubrey, where should we leave our listeners today? I mean, exaggeration is a big part of American English, first of all.

00:11:55 Speaker_00
Yes, right. If you work or live or have friends in the US, you should be exaggerating, right? It makes conversation fun. You're going to fit in more with the people you're chatting with. We love to use extremes to exaggerate in English.

00:12:08 Speaker_00
But I love what you pointed out, Lindsay, that this may be different if you live in Australia, New Zealand, the UK. So, you want to listen to how people are talking where you live. And if they love to exaggerate, then you should too.

00:12:21 Speaker_02
Yeah. And I don't mean that they, they may exaggerate about this particular topic, right?

00:12:26 Speaker_02
If you're trying to capture something's happened a lot, maybe they do, maybe they don't, but there could be other contexts in which they prefer to be understated, right. To downplay things. And so just look out for that because that is out there.

00:12:39 Speaker_02
There are those real differences and they're super linked to culture, history, society. It's fascinating.

00:12:45 Speaker_00
It is fascinating. It's just interesting to be observant, right? Be curious about the world.

00:12:49 Speaker_00
Be observant about language and culture because the more you start realizing about wherever you live or maybe where you're immigrating to, I think you're going to get a bigger love for the people and the language if you're more observant. I love that.

00:13:05 Speaker_02
The importance of understanding people in context. Right. Not from our lenses, but from their lenses. I love that idea. I think that's a great way to finish today, Aubrey. That's the source of connection. That's where it comes from.

00:13:18 Speaker_00
I agree. Love it, Lindsay. Thanks. This was a fun one. All right. Talk soon, Aubrey. Take care. Bye. Bye.

00:13:28 Speaker_02
Thanks for listening to All Ears English. Would you like to know your English level? Take our two minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score.

00:13:39 Speaker_02
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