Transcript of AE 1400 - Expression: What Goes Around Comes Around

You ever noticed how karma seems to have excellent timing? Maybe your mate steals the last Tim Tam, and later drops his brand new phone in the dunny?

Or someone at work takes credit for your idea, only to spill coffee all over their shirt before the big meeting. Or maybe you ignored your car's weird clunking noise for weeks, and now it's making more sounds than a kookaburra choir.

Life has a funny way of swinging back around like a boomerang and giving people exactly what they gave out, good or bad. Well, there's an expression for all of that, and today we're going to learn it.

G'day, you mob! Welcome to Aussie English! I'm your host, Pete. And my objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken Down Under. So whether you want to sound like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flippin' hell we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So sit back, grab a cuppa and enjoy Aussie English. Let's go!

G'day, you mob! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. I'm your host, Pete, and this is the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. I hope you guys are doing well. I hope you guys are living it up. My kid, my kid. I was about to say kids, but I'm home alone today, which is good. Considering it's the school holidays and my wife's off work as well.

My daughter's gone to Day-care. That was a bit of a rough start to the day. She did not want to go because she found out that my son and his best friend were going to go with my wife to Legoland, in Melbourne.

So at the moment, my son and his best mate, they're both six, are living it up, living their dreams, living their best lives in Melbourne, going to Legoland. So I'm just hoping that my wife doesn't spend too much money on Lego, But who knows. I expect that they will return shortly with bags full of Lego, and this will be the kind of thing that I'll be spending the next few days working on with my son. So yeah, that's what I've been up to today, and I hope you guys have been having a good day as well!

Today we're going to cover the expression "what goes around comes around". This is a classic saying about karma, consequences and the idea that your actions eventually return to you.

So here's what we're going to cover today. Here's the structure of today's episode. I'm going to give you a joke. These are always absolutely hilarious. And you feel free to steal them. You can take these. Use them at work. You know, get a laugh out of everyone else. They're a bit silly.

We'll go through a word by word breakdown. We'll go through the meaning and origin of the expression. We'll then talk about some real life examples of how to use this expression.

We'll go through a pronunciation and speaking exercise, and then I'll go through an Aussie fact of the day, and we'll finish up!

Before we get into it, don't forget that there is a free PDF you can download where you'll get the example words, definitions, the speaking exercise, everything like that in there. So just click on the link in the description or go to the website and grab that free PDF.

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So if you want to join the Premium Podcast membership, you can sign up for that at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast and help me keep the lights on here at, at my base at Aussie English headquarters. Okay, so without any further ado, guys, slap the bird, get the kookaburra to laugh, and let's get into today's joke!

I actually like today's joke. I think it's pretty funny. All right. Are you ready?

Did you hear the creator of fairy bread passed away? Hundreds and thousands went to his funeral.

You get it? It's probably a bit complicated if you're not in Australia and you don't know what fairy bread is. So "fairy bread" is this dish that is usually made for like kids parties, where you get white bread, you put butter on top, and then you get what we call "hundreds and thousands".

Those small coloured balls that you can put on like cakes, tiny, tiny little balls, we call them "hundreds and thousands". I think they're just sugar, right. We get those and we put them on the bread, so we eat them as a treat. So that's fairy bread.

So, "Did you hear the creator of fairy bread passed away? Hundreds and thousands went to his funeral." So the joke is that hundreds and thousands of people went to his funeral. But the pun there is obviously also that hundreds and thousands are the things that you put on top of fairy bread.

So, so that's the joke. I don't know if you tell that to an Aussie, I think they're gonna laugh. Okay, so steal that joke. Take it. Make it your own. Go use it on someone. And yeah, let me know if they wet their pants laughing.

[That was good, wasn't it? It was good for a bit of a giggle, anyway.].

Okay, let's get into the words in the expression today. So "what goes around comes around". "What", "goes", "around", "comes". And then we obviously don't really have to repeat "around" again.

So, "what", this is a pronoun. It's used to talk about a thing an action or a situation. "What did you say?" "What did you say?" You're asking a question. Wanting to know what you said or what the person said.

"Goes", this is the verb to go, meaning move, travel or happen. "The ball goes far when you throw it." "The ball goes far when you throw it."

"Around". This is an adverb or preposition. Here it means in a circular path to different places back toward the start. So for instance, "The earth moves around the sun." "The moon moves around the earth."

"Comes" or "to come". This is a verb as well. To return, to move closer or back again. "The bus comes every 20 minutes."

And obviously "around" we've done this. We don't need to go over it again.

So the expression "what goes around comes around". "What goes around comes around".

The literal image would be like throwing a boomerang. It flies away, it loops around and returns right back to you. The figurative image here is that your actions, kindness, cruelty, good deeds or dodgy behaviour, eventually come back to you in some form.

That's karma, baby! So "what goes around comes around", the way you treat others will eventually come back to you, whether good or bad. Actions have consequences, even if it takes time. Karma always finds a way. "What goes around comes around".

We use this in casual conversation, storytelling, humour or gentle warnings. It's not rude, but it can sound slightly smug depending on context, right? Kind of like ha ha ha ha ha. What goes around comes around.

So common alternatives are the things you can say are "karma will get you", "you reap what you sow". "You reap what you sow." Meaning like what it is that the farmer sows in the field. The different seeds he puts out there, will be what he reaps when they are ripe. It'll be what you get out of the field later on.

The other one that's really good is "play stupid games, win stupid prizes", and that's usually when something negative happens, right? So like when you do something, it's not going to be for good things. It's for dumb things or bad things. If you do something stupid, you'll probably have a stupid result or consequence, right.

"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes." I really like that one. I think I probably have to do an episode on that.

All right, so the origin of this one, I think it goes back, you know, I did some searching and there's no real obvious origin, but it's associated with those ancient ideas of karma, cause and effect, moral balance, you know, concepts found in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, ancient Greek philosophy, even medieval Christian proverbs.

So the modern English phrase appeared widely in the 20th century, especially in self-help literature, gospel music and pop culture. And perhaps you've heard that Justin Timberlake's song literally called What Goes Around Comes Around.

You know that "what goes around comes around comes"- I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. But, yeah, I've had too much coffee, guys, so forgive me. I've had too much coffee.

"What goes around comes around". It became a common saying in Australia, the US and the UK, especially from the 1960s onwards, thanks to songs, movies and everyday moral storytelling.

So in short, the expression "what goes around comes around" means your actions return to you.

All right, let's dig into some examples, some everyday English examples of how to use the expression "what goes around comes around".

Example number one: the dodgy mate. So you've got a dodgy mate, an untrustworthy friend. Your mate always borrows things and he never returns them. One day his favourite jumper goes missing. Maybe someone flogged it, they nicked it, they stole it. Maybe it just went walkabout and he lost it. You know, it's under his couch. It's under his sofa. Either way, you might say, "Mate, what goes around comes around." You know? His behaviour circled back and got him. He wasn't returning other people's stuff and his stuff went missing.

Example number two: workplace karma. So a co-worker lies to get out of a shift and the manager finds out. And later she gets rostered on every public holiday, right? So she was trying to do the dodgy, she was trying to get out of her shift. She lied.

"Oh, I'm really sick. I can't do it. My mum died." "You said your mum died last year. How many mums have you got?" And the manager finds out and later is like, "Nah, screw this. I'm going to put this chick on every single public holiday until she learns from her mistakes." So "what goes around comes around". Should have just told the truth. Consequences? Return.

Example number three: acts of kindness. So imagine you've come out of your house one morning. You heard all this ruckus or racket next door. And it turns out that your neighbour's moving house. You know, they're trying to get the sofa down the stairs, so you're like, "Oh, mate, don't do that on your own. I'll help you out! I'll give you a hand." "No stress. I'll help you put all this stuff in the truck."

So you give them a hand, they get all sorted out. You know, it's a lot easier for them. It's a lot quicker for them. Months later, they surprise you with baked goods. Or maybe they offered a babysit, you know, or maybe they buy you dinner. See? "What goes around, comes around." Kindness comes back. What you put out there, you usually get back. Positive karma counts.

And lastly, a fourth example today, a little extra one for you guys. The parking space thief. Okay, so imagine someone cuts you off when you're trying to find a parking spot in the car park at Woollies or, you know, going to the mall, whatever it is.

Minutes later, a bird drops the mother of all poos on the windshield of this, uh, this car. And you think, "Ha! Sucked in! What goes around comes around. Karma just kicked you in the ass, baby." Like you stole the spot from me. All right, you saw me there I was waiting, I was indicating, and you just zoomed in front of me to steal the spot. And then a bird came past and pooped on your windscreen with the mother of all poos. The biggest poo ever. The universe has a sense of humour. "What goes around comes around".

All right, so hopefully now you understand the meaning of the expression "what goes around comes around". This idiom works in funny, serious, moral, and everyday situations. Any time actions backfire or reward someone later on.

[Would you like a cardo-nay, Kylie? Kim. It's not hard. No, the correct pronunciation is chardonnay. Mum! It's French! The H is silent! Back me up here, Kylie!].

Okay, so it's time for the pronunciation and speaking exercise.

This is your chance to work on your English pronunciation. Find somewhere away from other people where you will feel confident speaking out loud and practising your pronunciation.

I'm going to conjugate through the phrase, "I know what goes around comes around". I'll use different pronouns so that you get used to doing that.

And I want you to focus on not just the pronunciation of the different words and sounds and everything, but also rhythm, stress, linking those sorts of things as well. And you can always repeat this exercise multiple times. Anyway, okay. Find somewhere quiet and listen and repeat after me. Let's go.

I know what goes around, comes around.

You know what goes around comes around.

He knows what goes around comes around.

She knows what goes around comes around.

We know what goes around comes around.

They know what goes around comes around.

It knows what goes around comes around.

Good job. So how did you find that one? Was that easy to link together?

There's two little things here that I want to cover in the pronunciation tip. Firstly, I want to talk about the glottal T, or a glottal stop.

So this is where, instead of pronouncing a T as a hard T, in the case of "what goes", you will hear my throat mute the T. So this happens because after the T, we have another consonant, the G sound. /woʔ ɡaez/ /woʔ ɡaez/.

And instead of muting the T in my mouth with my tongue, I'm actually doing it in my throat with, I think, my vocal cords. So with my glottis. I guess that's why it's called a glottal stop.

Okay, we're getting technical, but effectively when you say, when you try and laugh, when you go ah ah ah ah right, you're laughing like a vampire. That is you using your glottis to open and close, to let the air effectively out, at bursts, from your throat.

We use that same position to mute that T, so instead of saying "what goes" and releasing the T as a full T, we say /woʔ ɡaez/ /woʔ ɡaez/. So you'll hear the air stop. /woʔ/ /woʔ/ /woʔ/.

I'm using my throat to stop the air. /woʔ ɡaez/ /woʔ ɡaez/ /woʔ ɡaez/.

Now the second point that I want to mention in today's sentences, you will hear linking happen twice.

With the Z sound at the end of the word "goes" and "comes", even though it's spelt with an S, you'll hear a Z /ɡaez/ /kʌmz/. It links to the next word "around", because the word "around" starts with a vowel.

So you hear it twice. /ɡaez əˈɹaʉnd/, /kʌmz əˈɹaʉnd/, /ɡaez əˈɹaʉnd/, /kʌmz əˈɹaʉnd. /ɡaez əˈɹaʉnd/, /kʌmz əˈɹaʉnd/. So that happens all the time.

If a word within a sentence starts with a vowel sound. Usually it'll either take a linking sound if the previous sound is a vowel, like a "yuh", "wuh" or "ruh" sound to link those vowels together.

Or if it's a consonant, like in this case /ɡaez/, we've got the Z sound, which is a consonant. It'll steal that Z sound to start the word "around", or the syllable /a/ in the word "around".

"I know what goes around comes around." "You know what goes around comes around." So again, that glottal T is there, /woʔ ɡaez/.

And the Z sound at the end of the word "goes" and "comes" links to "around". /woʔ ɡaez əˈɹaʉnd kʌmz əˈɹaʉnd/. So hopefully that helps.

And again, shameless plug. If you want to work on your Aussie pronunciation, check out my Australian Pronunciation Course. You'll get 100 bucks off at AussieEnglish.com.au/apc100 the link will be in the description.

Alright, so let's get into today's Aussie fact and it seemed like a no brainer. It seemed very obvious that today I needed to talk about boomerangs, right?

"What goes around comes around". It's the idea of something going out and returning back to you. I thought, how do I attach this to Australian culture, history or whatever it is? And I'm like, boomerangs! Of course, boomerangs.

So "boomerangs" are one of the most iconic Aboriginal technologies and a perfect symbol for today's expression "what goes around comes around".

Did you know: not all boomerangs are designed to return? Many are hunting boomerangs built for long, straight throws. Returning boomerangs were traditionally used for sport, training, ceremony, and teaching aerodynamics thousands of years before Western science described it.

The oldest boomerang ever found in Australia is over 10,000 years old, made from mulga wood.

So how do they come back? It's all about aerodynamics. Each wing on the boomerang. On either side. There's two wings. Generates lift. The boomerang tilts and precesses. This means wobbles slightly, creating a curved flight path. The thrower adds spin like a gyroscope, which stabilises its return.

So what's the cultural significance of boomerangs? Returning boomerangs were used in dances and ceremonies. Many Aboriginal nations have unique designs representing their country, and they were also tools for teaching physics, direction and wind reading.

And just like a boomerang, today's expression reminds us what you send out into the world often returns back to you. "What goes around comes around".

So I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. Guys, don't forget to grab the free PDF so that you can check out the examples, pronunciation, and vocab from today's episode. If you want to support the podcast and get the full transcript of today's episode to study, sign up to the Premium Podcast at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast.

And besides that, thanks for tuning in, legends! And I'll see you in the next one. Tooroo!

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