So, before we get into today's lesson, I wanted
to take a quick moment just to let you know that if you are sensitive to more vulgar topics like
we were talking about today, then this might not be the episode for you. We do not condone really
using language like this. However, the reason that we're doing a topic on this word is because it
is one that you'll find natives use all the time in different media, in your favorite TV series,
movies, songs, and so on. So, we do believe that it's important that you're able to understand,
able to comprehend when you come across different uses of this word. So we'll be jumping all
into that, and we hope that you find it useful. I'm joined here in the global studio by the one,
the only Axl Pose, aka Thiago. How's it going? Hey, Ethan, I'm doing well.
I couldn't help but notice that you are sporting a very appropriate
garb there. Or we could say a nice t-shirt Ooh, garb. (Garb) Is that T-shirt? Garb.
It's a piece of clothing. Yeah. Oh, nice.
And forpeople who maybe aren't familiar with that, I think like you'd have to be living in a cave to
not be familiar with that image, but just in case someone is listening to us from the comfort of
a cave, what is that, that image on your shirt? Oh yeah. I have here Walter White - Heisenberg
from Breaking Bed and his famous line: "I'm the one who knocks."
I am the one who knocks. Yes. And the reason why that's a very appropriate
piece of garb, piece of clothing is because today we're talking all about the word Bitch.
So get used to listening to that word, because we're going to be saying a lot
throughout today's lesson. Uh, again, it's not a word that we condone using
a lot. There's obviously like a lot of, um, political implications. It's not
a word that's so nice, uh, in the, in the way that it's been used in the past to
refer to, especially to women, for example. However, it's been evolving and stuff with the,
the language. There's many ways to use it that don't actually refer to women and so on. And we'll
be exploring some of those different uses of the word today, so that if you do encounter it when
you're, you know, listening to a TV series or watching a series like Breaking Bad, which is, I
completely went on a tangent there. The reason we brought up Breaking Bad is because the king of the
word bitch, perhaps Aaron Paul, who plays Jesse Pinkman on the show Breaking Bad, was just so
famous for his iconic different uses of the word bitch. So that's, that's why. So later in today's
episode, we will be taking a look at some of Jesse Pinkman's uses of this word, because you know
who better to learn from than the king himself. And, uh, you know, we're going to be exploring all
of these diverse uses, these diverse ways that we, natives and native-like speakers might use this
word. So that said, if you are new here every single week, we make lessons like this that help
you to go beyond the classroom, learn different things that help you to better understand and use
your English in real life, so that you can go from being a frustrated, insecure English learner and
become a confident natural English speaker. So if that sounds like something that you want for your
English, be sure to hit that subscribe button and the button and below, and that way you won't
miss a single new podcast lesson like this one. All right. So this very powerful word can be
used as a noun, as a verb, as an adjective in different expressions. And one of the problems
with it is that oftentimes it's misunderstood by non-natives. Uh, in fact, one of the things
that I tend to see a lot of learners' mistakes, especially Spanish speakers, Portuguese speakers,
right, is that they, they tend to translate it literally from their language, which is equivalent
word might be puta, but I think a more appropriate translation of that word is prostitute. Or we
might use like a word like whore, or something like that to refer to, um, obviously a sex worker,
a female sex worker. And bitch - it can mean that, but it's very rare. It's like in 95% of cases
it actually means something else, right? Yeah, that's true. And it's really interesting
that you pointed that out because it's true. As a Brazilian, uh, we do tend to, to think of
this word as that meaning that you just gave, yeah? It's referred to a, a prostitute.
But actually it's not quite that, as you said in English. And there are so many
other applications for this word that it can even be positive. There's even a positive way to use
this word. We're gonna be covering that today. So. Most definitely. So, uh, first we should recognize
the literal meaning of this word. So people tend to think of it as an insult, like first and
foremost, but actually it comes from the word, the technical word for a female dog, which even I
as a native speaker, it took me like a long time to learn this. And the reason I learned it was
because, uh, we are, family dog was pregnant, actually, my, my dad wanted to have puppies for
a really long time, and so he decided to breed our family dog. And I was about maybe 12, 13 or
so. And I remember I was just like cracking up to myself. I was laughing a lot and I was reading
some different articles about what you have to do when the, the puppy, uh, sorry, when the,
the dog is having the puppies and everything, and different things that you can encounter,
different things you should be prepared for, but it didn't say, you know, the dog, the dog,
the dog. What it was saying over and over again was the bitch, which is actually the correct
term to use when you're referring to a female dog. And you can find this actually commonly
used in the, uh, in the theme of dog breeding. Ethan, you used a nice word there,
you said breed, right? I mean, what does it mean in that context to breed a dog?
Yeah. So it means to reproduce, and if you're breeding, it's usually used with animals. Uh,
it would sound kind of vulgar if you used it with humans, and it's with animals that usually
you'll be combining, you know, two animals to have puppies or to have, uh, other sorts of baby
animals. So in most cases, you're not actually going to hear this word being used to refer to
female dogs unless you actually are in something like breeding. But there's all sorts of colloquial
terms and so on. And something that's kind of fun is that we'll even play with this word. Like
you might hear people say "beach", which is, if you wanted to use this word, but use it in a
softer way, the same way that we have words like, um, damn, we might say, dang, instead of saying
that, or instead of saying fuck, you could say like, freaking or frick or something like that,
which is a softer, not vulgar alternative. I, I think I even heard in a movie instead of
son of a bitch, the character says, son of a gun. Son of a gun. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, a really great
common alternative. A lot of learners might say, for example, that learning grammar is a bitch.
So what do you think about that, Thiago? Honestly, I don't understand why people think
that learning grammar is a bitch. I mean, I love it so much. You know, it's so much
fun for me. Yeah. As a matter of fact, we have recently done an episode where I actually
share my feelings and my thoughts towards grammar, and I explain better why I love grammar and, and
why studying grammar was beneficial to me. So you guys can check it out. We're gonna leave the
link to that episode in the description. But guys, come on. Learning grammar is not a bitch, but
you gotta make grammar your bitch. All right. So there's a couple expressions there, but we
should first explain what does it mean if you say that something is a bitch? Like here, learning
grammar is a bitch. If someone has those feelings. Something is complicated. It's not easy.
Uh, it's difficult, you know, it's just, yeah, it's hard. It's even annoying. Like, yeah,
you can use that to express frustration. Like, oh, learning grammar is a bitch. I'm like, oh,
it's so hard. It's so, you know, boring. Yeah. You could even hear, uh, hear it's
used to show sympathy, right? If say you were on your way to record the podcast
and your car broke down, you could say, oh, man, that's a bitch. Like, it's something really
difficult. I, I'm sympathizing with that difficult situation that you went through
having your car break down, right? So. I've heard life's a bitch also. Yeah.
With that (Life's a bitch) idea. That's a common, a common phrase to say if
something bad happened, right? So that you just say, oh man, life's a bitch. So changing
here to a different expression, you said you gotta make grammar your bitch. What does it mean
if you make something or someone, your bitch? Yeah. I'm gonna talk about something first.
So, when you make something your bitch, like in this case, you make grammar your bitch,
you own it, you master it, you, you don't, you are not controlled by it. You control it.
So making grammar your bitch in this context means you own it, you master it. Uh, grammar is
not this thing that you fear so much, you know. I think using bitch in that way, it's not so
vulgar, right? If you say make someone your bitch, that is quite vulgar, it's quite insulting. If you
say that you're going to make someone your bitch, or you say someone is your bitch, it's, it's quite
insulting. And it means that you are, if, if you are making someone your bitch, you're making that
person subservient to you. Which in other words could be, you're making that person, they're in
your control, they have to listen to what you say, they're like your slave or your servant or
something like that. So as you can, you can see it's, it's not something nice to say to someone.
Again, the memory from series. Right. I remember a clip just now from Friends. I dunno if
you remember that clip. I mean, uh, uh, the girls, Rachel and Monica, they're fighting.
And then, uh, Phoebe, you know, stops the fight, you know, by, I, I, I guess, you know, I don't
know, uh, pinching them or something. And then they (I think grabbing their ears) stop
and then... Grabbing their ears. Exactly. And then Phoebe says, oh, if, if we were in
prison, you guys would be like my bitches. There we go. You know what? If we were in
prison, you guys would be like my bitches. It's in prison is something that happens,
right, is there's like a hierarchical power system. Sometimes that can happen. So that's
a, uh, an ambit, uh, it's a, an area where you could hear this word used. So obviously you
have to be careful with the word bitch though, right? Because oftentimes, like with make
someone your bitch, it can be insulting. And we actually have a nice clip here that
you brought up, uh, this week, right, Ethan, to illustrate how offensive it can be. Right?
Exactly. Yeah. One that is very memorable for me in the sense of it being something strong.
And there can be rare occasions where, you know, it can be, uh, tasteful use of the word or, or,
uh, correct use of the word in the sense that, the example that I was gonna give that came
to mind for me is actually from Harry Potter of all places, which I remember very clearly in
the, the last book of, and the last movie, uh, of the series that, uh, believe her name is Molly
Weasley, so Ron's mother. Uh, Bellatrix Lestrange, who's one of the, the bad guys in this movie
is trying to attack her daughter. And so she very appropriately says, "Not my daughter,
you bitch", and in all the other movies, you know, is you see it as this sweet motherly
woman and everything. So it's just shocking moment where she's using this word and it's someone's
trying to kill her daughter, so it's like perfect, perfect moment to, to use that word.
Not my daughter, you bitch. And we can also use it in the, like, if we use
it in the continuous, right? If we say like, someone's being a bitch, it's slightly less
offensive either way, it's very offensive. So be careful if you do use this. But if someone's being
a bitch, instead of saying that, that person, we actually haven't even defined if we use
it in the first way, like in Harry Potter, you're obviously saying that person is a, is a bad
person, or they're evil or something, something along those lines. But if you say someone's
being a bitch, usually it's more because they're, they're in that moment, they're being annoying.
You're not saying they're always a bad person, it's just in that moment, they're doing
something that's, that's, that's annoying. I love these little nuances, you know, like there
is a clear difference. Yeah. Like between saying you are a bitch versus you are being a bitch.
It's so interesting, uh, these nuances, right? It's, yeah, those subtleties of the language
that can, it's something so small, but it can really change how the perceived comprehension is,
right? So people tend to generally think of this for a woman, like a, a bitch as a woman, and you
shouldn't, you should not call a woman a bitch. We do not condone that. It's not a good thing.
Sometimes though, you could even hear this used to refer to a man, I remember a really great
clip from The Simpsons where they're watching, I think it's like an award ceremony or something,
and there's a man who's in the, who they're interviewing and he's talking badly about, you
know, uh, another famous person, an actress, and Bart that's watching, he says, he's such a
bitch, like, you know, saying that because he's gossiping, he's talking badly about this other
person, to everyone who's, who's watching that award ceremony and everything. And so it's,
it's a, a very tactful use of the word there. He's such a bitch.
Did you say tactful? Tactful means if you do something with tact,
you're doing it, uh, with taste. You're doing it in a way that's, you know, spot on.
However, if you're referring to a man, it's more common than using bitch. You might
use the word bastard, or you might hear that use more commonly to refer to a man. Something
really important to be aware of with this is that if you are using any sort of
cursing in a foreign language, you know, we grew up in our mother tongue in
general hearing our mothers hearing, our fathers tell us, you shouldn't say this word. That's a bad
word. So we have all this emotional and all these memories attached to those words that for most of
us, will act as a sort of filter of when it's okay to use this word and when it's not okay. And for
the most part, it's not okay to use these words. Of course, it depends your background, it depends
on your education, it depends on even what part of a country you live in. People might use these
words more or less. Uh, just, I was telling Thiago earlier that there's like a dog mom, like, you
know, I take Phoebe my dog out in the mornings, and sometimes there's a woman who also takes her
dog out at the same time, and she's from the south of the UK and I guess they must curse more in
the south of the UK because she sometimes calls her dog bitch. And I don't think she's using it in
the sense of like, the technical term for a female dog. I think it's more like when her dog is doing
something kind of, uh, you know, kind of naughty or something like that, something she shouldn't
be doing. And so she uses to insult her dog. There's another good word that naughty. What does
(Naughty) it mean when a person is being naughty? We'll often use this for children, for example, if
a child is doing something that they know they're not supposed to do, but they're doing it because
maybe they want to, you know, grabbing, like, I know my nephew, for example, he'll, he'll grab
like the, they, they have a pantry where they, and they keep all the things they don't want the kids
to have, like candies and chocolates and stuff up on a high shelf. And so he'll grab like the
little step stool, a little ladder and take it, carry it into there when no one's looking and grab
like, the candies that he wants off at the top shelf. So that's a great example of being naughty,
doing something he knows he's not supposed to do. And you were talking earlier about, uh, an
example you had like this about a student, right? Who doesn't have so much of an emotional
attachment with a cursing in, in English. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, I remember
the student of mine many years ago, he spoke amazing English. His
English was awesome, you know. And he loved American standup comedians, so he will
watch a lot of, um, standup comedians, American, but there is a problem there, there was a problem
because, you know, these comedians, they usually curse a lot or they swear a lot on stage. So
because this student of mine was a big fan of these guys, I mean, he would speak cursing a lot
himself. Like, you know, for every sentence he would say, or he would speak, there was at least
one curse word there. Yeah. And I don't know, maybe he didn't realize this, that he was cursing
too much, or maybe he thought that he was being cool and funny, like those American comedians that
he loved watching, but maybe he didn't realize that if a native speaker heard him speak, maybe
that person will find him maybe, maybe offensive because, you know, he just cursed too much.
You could say he had a sailor's mouth or a potty mouth.
What does that mean? Apparently sailors must curse a lot because
we have this expression. If someone curses all the time, like your student, we can say they
have a sailor's mouth and potty mouth, I mean, potty refers to the toilet. So when we say potty
mouth, we'll usually use it more with children. And like, maybe your mom might threaten you -
I'm going to wash, I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap. You know, if you keep up with
that potty mouth. So you have to be careful, right? Who is your influences in a language
that you're learning. Because maybe too, if your main source of English is coming from
Breaking Bad, then you might think, oh, these natives they use bitch all the time. So I can
just use it. I can call my friends bitch, I can call these people that I'm mad at son of a bitch
and stuff. And you, you need to, as we, I brought up the word before - tact, you need to have a
tactful use of cursing. If you choose to curse, then you know, you don't really need to. I don't
curse very often. Do you, is this like something that you would ever use in your English, Thiago?
Not quite, you know, I was never a big fan of cursing myself. Youknow, while I understand
those words, when I watch something where somebody uses them personally, I don't, I'm not
a fan of using them. Um, I think it's okay to, to curse in certain situations, you know, only
in extreme situations like, uh, I don't know. Somebody's trying to hurt my family. Okay. I
see that as a justification to curse or some, I don't know. I wake up in the middle of the
night and then I stub my pinky toe. You know, the, I see myself cursing at that time.
I could go son of a bitch. Ow, you know. What does it mean if you stub your pinky toe?
You know, like, it's like when you kick, uh, you know, your pinky toe is the smallest toe that you
have on your foot, okay? When you stub it, you, uh, kind of kick a wall or a piece of furniture
with it accidentally, and it really hurts, you know, when that happens in the middle of
the night. So, you know, if that happens to you, I think it's okay to curse. So you are expressing
that anger or frustration in the moment. Because, you know, I do believe that sometimes it is
actually healthy for us to express maybe, or to vent, you know, uh, some anger or
frustration that we are feeling. Yeah, we are humans after all, but these are situations
that don't happen often. They tend to be rare. So in those moments, okay, I, I, I think that it's
okay to curse, But you know, what I don't like is, uh, people who curse all the time just for
the sake of cursing. I don't know. Just because they're trying to be cool or funny. You don't
have to curse a lot all the time to be cool. And when you do that all the time,
those words really lose their, their power in a sense. Because (Exactly.) if
you only do it when you really hurt yourself, or someone does something to your daughter
while you're at the playground, or you know, something like that, that is really deserving of
some strong language, then if you're just using it all the time, you have a sailor's mouth and
you're, you're using it in every other sentence, then when you actually want to use it in a strong
way, people won't really take it that way. So, and you know, people might not wanna spend so
much time around you if you're cursing all the time anyway, depending on what crowds you, what
crowds you roll with. You, you, me, you mentioned son of a bitch, which I imagine most people have
heard that at some point I thought that this was a really important one to point out because of
the connected speech, because we won't, natives will almost never say son of a bitch - we'll say
son of a bitch. So we have a couple schwas there, and the of, and the A turns to an uh, and we sort
of link it all together, right? Son of a bitch, son of a bitch. And you can find it even more
connected into dropping oftentime OF, right? We just turn into schwa together, like uh, so it
can become Son uh uh bitch, son of a bitch - with a double schwa sound there in the middle.
Oh my, lemme try that. Son uh uh, son uh uh bitch. Son uh uh bitch.
Exactly. Yeah. I even heard it in the plural in some movies, you
know, in some movies. I think I remember listening in the plural form, like Sons of bitches, you (Oh,
that'sgreat.) sons of bitches like that, you know. You could even say son, sons of bitches, sons
of bitches. If you wanted to reduce it even more Sons uh, right?
Mm-hmm. So sometimes you'll even, like I mentioned, the woman who's from the south
of England uses this word a lot more than I would, for example. And you might find some people
that even use this term to refer to friends. I think nowadays maybe it's not so common. We
could actually share, uh, I remember a clip from Predator where Arnold Schwartzenegger, you
know, calls the guy, he hasn't seen his friend in a long time. He says, oh, you son of a bitch.
And it's used an endearing way, right? A a caring way. So there's some people who might use it
this way, but that movie is from the 80s. So maybe nowadays it's become a, a less common - got
tongue tied over there - a less common practice. Dylan, you son of a bitch.
Another interesting use of the word bitch is that maybe you stub your toe, or
it could be even something lighter that happens, right? It's like maybe you, you miss your bus
and you, you start bitching about it, that you had to wait, it's another 10 minutes to catch the
next bus, for example. What does it mean if you, so it's a verb, obviously. What does
it mean if you bitch about something? Yeah. Now as a verb, when you bitch about
something, you complain about it. That actually reminds me of a, a song from Elton John
called, uh, Bitch is Back, or The Bitch is Back. And uh, I think in that song, if I remember
correctly, uh, the chorus goes something like, I Can Bitch Better Than You. Something like
that, you know? So, you know, he's using the word bitch there as a verb.
I can bitch, I can bitch, 'cause I'm better than you.
He uses it, I think, several different ways in that song even. I think he calls himself a bitch,
which I'm not sure exactly what his intentions are there, but, but I think it's used in a, in an
empowering way, which even nowadays, you can find women that have sort of repurposed this word
for an empowering sense. Like you can say that she's a, she's a badass bitch. Like she's a really
empowered, strong, powerful woman. I remember too, uh, from The Simpsons, there's a really great
scene that stuck with me since I was a teenager, that the grandfather, uh, Homer Simpson's
father does something, like he loses the kids or something and Homer's complaining about
it and stuff. And he just says, oh, bitch, bitch, bitch. Like, you know, stop your complaining.
We leave you the kids for three hours and the county takes 'em away. Oh bitch, bitch, bitch.
I think this is also if you use it, uh, as a verb or you use it to say that
someone's complaining in that way, uh, that it's not quite as, you know, it's obviously
not as strong as if you call someone a bitch in an insulting way. So we recently did an all about
values, and Thiago said that one of his biggest values is resilience, which you might also say
is to not be bitching about something, right? Yeah, yeah. That's true. Yeah. So if you are
resilient, you tend not to complain so much. You just, you know, you take responsibility for your
life and the problems and obstacles you face and you just roll with it. By the way, if you guys
wanna listen to that full episode, we're gonna link it in the description below, and it's a very
nice conversation that Ethan and I have about our values. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, um, not bitching.
Yeah. I mean, uh, this is important to me. I try not to do it. Yeah, of course. Sometimes I do
it a little bit because, you know, I'm human. Yeah. Uh, but you know, overall I try not to do
it. And if I catch myself bitching about something too much, I immediately stop it. Hey Thiago,
stop the whining, stop whining, stop bitching, you know, come on man. Get a grip, right?
Might say like, uh, even if you wanna be more emphatic, stop your bitching and moaning. So
we'll saythese two together, bitching and moaning. Bitching and moaning. Nice.
Like a moan is like a, like a, Ahh, like, you know, you're making those kind of drawn out sounds
that show your dissatisfaction with something that's happened, right? You could, even, if you're
not comfortable with using bitching and stuff, you might want to use a non vulgar alternative, like
whining. I think you, you already mentioned that, right? Stop your whining. Or maybe if you're
learning British English, you could say stop your winging. So we've talked about, uh, bitch
as a noun. We've talked about it as a verb. We've talked about as a, as an expression like son of
a bitch. But we also mentioned that you could use it as an adjective. So one way we might do this is
if someone is complaining a lot, um, or someone is saying bad things, right? About like a comment or
a behavior or something like that, then you could say that that person's being bitchy.
Right. Being bitchy. Nice. Very similar to the example before from The
Simpsons with the, the guy talking about the, the celebrity and stuff. You could also
say, not just that he was being a bitch, you could say he's, he's being bitchy. He's
not being very nice. He's saying bad things. That sounds very similar to bitching.
So bitchy (Yeah) and bitching, right? But we shouldn't confuse the two because bitching
actually has almost the opposite meaning it's, uh, it's, it's positive, right? So what does
it mean if you say something's bitching? It's cool. Like, oh, this is such a bitching
movie. Like, it's cool, it's awesome. Bitching ride man.
Yeah, there's a great example from Friends again, as far as we're mentioning
series where I think it's the first time, right, where Ross plays the keyboards. It's
like something he did when he was young and then he wants to come back to making music and
stuff. And so he plays for the other friends and it's, maybe we can just like show a short
part of that, but it's really bad. It's really bad. So none, they don't want to be mean to him
or anything, and they don't, they're just aghast, right? They don't know what to say. They're,
they're left without words. And so I think Chandler, right, his response is just "Bitching."
Really bitching. And something important to notice here, uh,
you might have heard that both Thiago and I said bitchin', not bitching. Cuz if we say with
the -G at the end, it's only if we're saying like bitching and moaning, like complaining,
right? But if we say it as an adjective, we always drop that -G, we always say bitchin'.
That also reminds me of another clip from Two and a Half Men where the kid walks in Charlie's
house and he goes, bitchin' house, man, you should rent it to MTV. You know,
oh yeah, that's a cool house you have. A bitchin' house man. You should rent it to MTV.
You know, what else is bitchin'? What else is bitchin'?
The RealLife app, of course is probably the most bitchin' place to practice your English,
because it's the only place where anytime, anywhere you are, as long as you have an internet
connection, of course you can certainly press a button and connect to another English speaker,
another part of the world for an illuminating, interesting conversation. Don't curse too much.
You know, you don't wanna be the, the person with a sailor's mouth that's going around talking to
different people. We don't condone that. But, you know, maybe bitching could be a good one
to teach someone else. You know, if something's really awesome, you can say, oh, that's bitchin',
you know, sound like the, the cool kid on the block. So we wanted to share a shout out, say some
special words to a very special app user, right?
All right, and finally, as we mentioned, we
could not do this episode without talking about the bitch king himself - Jesse Pinkman from
Breaking Bad. So let's roll a clip from that. And for those of you who are listening
to the audio version of the podcast, let me give you some context. This is a very short
clip with many random phrases that Jasse says during the series Breaking Bad. He's famous for
speaking or saying the word bitch a lot throughout the series. So there is this funny compilation
here of random phrases where he uses this word. Whatever little bitch. Have at it, bitches cuz
I love hot dogs. Cue ball son of a bitch laughed in my face. I'm not your bitch to order around.
Bitches are bleeding us enough already. Yeah, this is gonna help big time with that bitch.
That's hilarious. So one, one thing I think that we
could start by talking about is, is the way that he says this word is so
emphatic because how he puts so much emphasis, he puts so much energy into the
B part of it, like the bitch, like really strong, B at the beginning, right?
It's very peculiar. Yeah. I mean, he has a very special way of saying
this word. It's hard to emulate. What does it mean to emulate something?
To imitate, to do it like he's doing in this case. Exactly. It's so natural for him. I think it's
actually they've done interviews with the actor and this is actually something that comes out
of maybe his, his own lingo, his own language that he uses when he speaks. So it's probably
just came out so, so natural for him, right? Yeah. Probably yes, right?
So there's some interesting different expressions he uses it uses here. So he says "have
at it, bitches", which I think there's actually some nice connected speech there: have at it. Have
at it, with the American T there in the middle. Have at it, bitches.
Have at it bitches. What does it mean, like, have at it?
So like, you know, keep doing whatever it is you're doing. Yeah. Uh, in this
context here, he's talking about hot dogs, how hot dogs are disgusting, like the
way they are made. But he loves hot dogs, so he says, have at it, bitches, because I
love hotdogs, so keep making hotdogs, you know, uh, this way because you know, they're good.
Yeah. I think you could also use this if you're, for example, there's a lot of food on the table
you could say have at it, like, eat whatever you want. And then he says, and there's another
one, he is on a payphone actually, and he said, "Cue ball, son of a bitch, laughed in my face."
Cue ball, son of a bitch, laughed in my face. So what does it mean if...cue
ball, what does that mean? Uh, that's a, you can call a bald person
that, someone who doesn't have hair. Cue ball. Right. And this actually comes from, uh, I believe
it's in, you know, in billiards or in pool, like a pool table. Uh, we call, I believe it's
the white ball. The one that you use to shoot the other balls is called the cue ball. So maybe
becausethe, you know, someone whose bald has like a shiny head - this is obviously not a compliment,
it's insulting to call someone a cue ball. It's not a compliment. Yeah.
And he might be referring to Heisenberg, right? Who is bald (Yeah.) or,
or Hank - another character who's bald. Uh, and son of a bitch, as we talked about, the,
the connected speech laughed in my face. What does it mean if you laugh in someone's face?
I think it's the literal sense here. Yeah. Like, uh, you make fun of that person. You maybe even
humiliate that person in public by laughing at that person. You're not laughing with the
person, you're laughing at that person. The person is the subject of mockery.
So what's the difference there between laughing at someone and laughing with someone?
I guess. Here on the podcast, we always laugh with each other, right? I mean, when (right)
we have fun together, uh, somebody makes a funny comment and then we laugh, we laugh
together. Yeah? This is us laughing with each other. But if you laugh at someone,
you are making fun of that person. You are publicly or deliberately putting that person down.
So he used another, another use of bitch here, right? That we saw before, which is like the
one if you're wanting to make someone your inferior, for example, you're wanting to make them
subservient to you, like you're servant or you're, you're their master or something in that sense.
He says, I'm not your bitch to order around. I'm not your bitch to order around.
So what does it mean to order someone around? Imagine a person who is very bossy and likes to
always tell people what to do all the time. This person is very controlling. We can say
that this person likes to order around. And you used the nice word there. You said bossy.
Bossy is someone who does this, right? They order people around and we can also use the phrasal
verb to boss around, which is it means the same thing. (Nice) And then maybe just take one
more of the examples from here. So, uh, he says, this is going to help big time with that bitch.
Yeah, this is gonna help big time with that bitch. So howis he using bitch here?
As an insult. Yeah? And I think he's even talking to his mother, you (Is he? ) know, in
that clip, if I remember correctly. Yeah. Because, you know, uh, yeah. Uh, his mother is kind
of kicking him out of the house because, you know, he has a drug problem. So, (Right)
uh, he's actually insulting his mom there. Yeah. It's gonna help big time with his addiction or
something like that being kicked out of his house. Exactly. Yeah.
I imagine. Yeah. Don't call your mother a bitch. It's not. That's (No) not good. And what does
it mean big time? It's going to help big time. Like it's gonna help a lot. Yeah.
So it's a informal way, cool way to say a lot. It's an intensifier. Yeah.
Yeah. And he's so interesting because he, he'll even use bitch as like a, as an endearing
term. We talked earlier that you can use son of a bitch for this and, you know, Jesse Pinkman
even will use this to refer to people in a, in a way that's supposed to be, not, not as
an insult, but you know, as a way to refer to friends or colleagues or so on.
I think he calls his friends in the show bitches. Yo, bitches.
Yeah. And the tone's so important too, right? If you say like, yo bitches, like,
it's a friendly way of saying, but if you're calling someone like bitch, then it's a downward
tone, right? It's, it's insulting the person. So let's jump in today's big challenge. Alright. So we shared a lot of clips and memories
that Thiago and I have with different places. We've heard the word used in different ways.
So we're really curious, dear learner about, you know, where you've heard this word used,
if you have any memories attached to series or movies or songs, or maybe when you heard that
you're not quite sure even how it was used, what did it mean in that context? So, you
know, if you want to comment that down below, we might even be able to help you out to better
understand. And we'd love to, love to hear your memories, your, your bitchy memories, or if you
are just listening to the audio, of course you can email us at hello@reallifeglobal.com.
Alright, so before we wrap up, was there any final words you wanted to say, Thiago?
About this topic, just be careful, guys, you know, I think, uh, you know, it is nice for you to
know these different uses of this word bitch, but you know, it doesn't necessarily mean we are
not telling you to go out there and start using this word freely. Yeah. Uh, but you know, it is
important from an educational standpoint for us to teach you this stuff so that you know, uh, what
they mean, yeah, in those different situations. Even if you're against using this word, other
people are not, they are going to use it. So, you know, it is important that you
can understand them if they do. But I think before we wrap up, we wanted to give
a final thanks to some of our recent commenters, some of the recent participants
in another big challenge, right? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we've recently
done an episode about accent, and it was a great conversation Ethan and I had, and, and
at the end of that episode, we asked you guys, is it important for you to sound like a native?
Has your mind changed after listening to this episode? And some of you have responded. Joyce,
for example, said, "I don't wanna sound like a native. I just wanna speak clearly. I wanna
be understood". Thai says, "I always improve my accent every day because I wanna speak like a
native speaker. Improving accent helps me a lot in my life". Antonio said, I think you don't need
to speak like a native. The most important thing is that you speak and the people understand what
you said. Hello, from Brazil!" Hello Antonio. And Pablo says, "I wanna sound like a native to be
more confident when I'm talking to someone and to allow the other person to feel more confident
talking to me." Okay. And finally, Drago says, "Hi, after this video, I'm not interested in
sounding like a native speaker anymore because you have changed my mind. I wanna, I want other
people around me to be able to understand me." Nice comments, guys. Thank you.
That was fantastic. So again, we look forward to seeing your guys' comments down below
and maybe we'll feature it on a future episode. That said, thanks so much for joining us
today, and we hope that this has been an enlightening real-life experience and
we look forward to seeing you hearing from you on the next episode of The RealLife
English Podcast. 1, 2, 3. Aww (Aww yeah.) yeah!
