Learn Australian English in this episode of Aussie English where I teach you how to use the common expression TO KEEP SOMEONE POSTED like a native speaker!

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AE 406 – Expression: To Keep Someone Posted

He can imitate the calls of at least 20 different species. He also, in his attempt to outsing his rivals, incorporates other sounds that he hears in the forest.

That was a camera shutter. And again. And that’s a car alarm. And now, the sounds of foresters and their chainsaws working nearby.

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G’day, guys! What’s going on? What’s the goss? What’s the gossip? How have you been? I hope you guys have been having an amazing week.

Welcome to the Aussie English Podcast. If this is you listening for the very first time, the Aussie English podcast is a podcast designed to teach you Australian English, to get you accustomed to the way that we speak, the language we use, the slang we use, the accent that we use, so it’s all about teaching you Aussie English, as you will have noticed in the name, and it is brought to you by the Aussie English Classroom, an online learning environment, an online classroom, where you get access to weekly courses that come out with every single one of these expression episodes.

So, there’s loads of stuff in there for teaching you pronunciation, to focus on vocab, phrasal verbs, all kinds of stuff in there. It’s used to reinforce what you learn in these episodes. Anyway, let’s get into it.

Intro Scene:

So, that opening scene, I hope you liked it, especially because David Attenborough was in it. I absolutely love David Attenborough. And I’ve seen him live. He’s absolutely amazing. But that was a very very unique Australian bird, and I wonder if you guys know what kind of bird that is. Have you ever seen that in any kind of doco? It could have been that exact doco from Planet Earth.

So, anyway, check out that documentary. Go buy it. Watch it on Netflix. Make sure that you check out Planet Earth and these amazing Australian birds, and I will cover at the end of today’s episode which bird of that was.

Aussie Joke:

Anyway, as usual, let’s dive in to today’s Aussie joke. Today’s Aussie joke is related to the expression, because it’s about a postman. Okay? So, a postman joke. This is probably, if not certainly, our first postman joke. So, here’s the joke, and it’s a pun. Hopefully you’ll like this one, guys.

My post man told me he’s going to travel to Spain, so I asked him if he’ll visit ‘Parcelona’. ‘Parcelona’.

You get that, guys? ‘A parcel’ is a package, not a letter, not a postcard, but a package. Something that’s wrapped up in packaging material. That’s a parcel. And the joke here is that it’s a play on words with ‘parcel’ and ‘Barcelona’. Okay? So, instead of ‘Barcelona’, we’ve said ‘Parcelona’.

My postman told me he is going to travel to Spain, so I asked him if he’ll visit ‘Parcelona’. ‘Parcelona’.

So, are you liking these jokes, guys. I love the play on word ones, the puns. I hope it gives you sort of an idea of, I guess, my sense of humour. I call his dad jokes. They kind of simple but funny. Anyway.

Expression:

Today’s expression, guys. Today’s expression is ‘to keep someone posted’, ‘to keep someone posted’.

I use this expression all the time, and that’s why I decided to use it today, because I think I noticed myself saying this either in one of the live classes on Facebook or with friends who are learning English as well or on one of these expression episodes. So, I decided it’s about time that I covered the expression ‘to keep someone posted’. You’ll definitely use this a lot, and you can use it everywhere in the English-speaking world.

Definitions:

So, before we get into the definition of this expression, let’s define the words in the expression.

So, the first one, ‘to keep’, the verb ‘to keep’. In this case it means to continue or cause to continue something to stay in a specified condition position or course. So, it’s effectively for something to continue the way it is. So, you might keep someone around. If you want someone to be near you at all times, you keep them around, you make sure they stay, they continue to be, around you.

If you want someone, instead of being around you, to be away from you, you keep them away. You continue them being away from you. You keep them away. So, that’s ‘to keep.

‘Someone’. ‘Someone’ is an unknown or unspecified person. So, some person. If an unknown person knocked on the door, I could say, someone knocked on the door. If an unknown person called me on the phone, I could say, someone’s called me on the phone.

The last word here is ‘posted’, and here ‘posted’ could be an adjective, in fact it is an adjective in this expression, but ‘posted’ can also be a verb, ‘to post’. So, for instance, the most common way you’ll hear this is to post a letter. You’ll put it in the post, ‘the post’, the noun there, and you will post it. You’ll post a letter. I posted a letter to my mother. I sent that letter in the mail.

It’s also used for placing a notice in public or displaying a notice in public. So, a warning notice was placed on the door, a warning notice was posted on the door. Those are synonyms. To be placed, to be put, to be posted.

And we can use it for publishing something online, so a piece of writing, an image, a video, once that’s published online, especially with regards to a blog or some kind of social media website or application, we can say that that thing has been posted. So, I posted a status on Facebook. I posted this new podcast episode on the Facebook page. ‘To post something’.

So, those are the different ways that this can be used, guys. Okay?

But in this case, it means for someone to be notified or kept up to date. Okay? To be notified or to be kept up to date. So, the idea I guess of posting something publicly so someone knows the news.

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Expression Definition:

Anyway, we’ll get into where this originated from in a bit and you’ll understand that better. But first let’s define this expression. So, if you keep someone posted, you know, “I’ll keep you posted guys”, “Guys, can you keep me posted?”, if you keep someone posted, it means to keep someone informed about something. So, you make sure they have the current information about something. The knowledge that they have is current. You keep someone up to date on an issue, you keep them posted.

So, some synonyms are ‘to keep someone in the know’, ‘to keep them up to date’, or you might just say, “Guys, can you let me know?”. And that’s the same sort of thing. “Keep me posted.

Expression Origin:

So, where did this expression originate from? There were several possible origins, and this is obviously pre-internet, pre-electronic era.

So, ‘post’ obviously can refer to mail. So, sending a letter in the mail. So, to keep someone informed refers to say sending them information, maybe originally by mail. So, it could have meant, “Keep me posted. Make sure you keep the information coming to me in the post.”.

It may also refer to the practice of accounting. So, when bookkeeping was still done by hand, instead of on say Excel on your computer, accountants would post the latest figures, for example, profits, losses, expenditures, on a daily basis. So, they would publish those on a daily basis. They would post them. They would keep everyone posted.

The last possible origin is that during the Colonial Era if someone wanted to share news or information with the community, the person would have to post a note on a large wooden post. So, the wooden post would usually be centralised. It’d be in a central area where people could gather around and discuss whatever was posted on that post, and this is where the saying ‘to keep someone posted’, I think, is probably originally from. So, if you kept someone posted, you would put the news up on a post, you would post that news on a post and as a result everyone would be kept posted.

So, those are the possible origins of ‘to keep someone posted.

Examples:

Let’s go through some examples, guys, of how I would use this expression.

1.

Alright. Example number one. Imagine that you are a keen surfer. You love to go for a surf. And it’s almost the end of work, it’s almost the end of your work day. It’s a beautiful day. You think, “Oh the sun’s out. The waves look like they’re going to be big at the beach. They’re probably breaking really cleanly.”. So, it’s a perfect day for a surf. There’s a nice offshore breeze. The waves will be perfect. The surf will be perfect. You want to hit the beach after work, but you don’t want to go alone. So, maybe you text a mate in you say, “Do you want to come with me? I’m thinking of going for a surf. Did you want to join me, mate?”. And he says, “Look, I’d love to, but I’ve got some housework that I have to do first.”. Maybe he’s repairing the air-con or… the air-conditioning, something like that. But he says, “Look, I’ll let you know. I’ll keep you up to date with how that goes. I’ll keep you posted. So, I need to get this housework done, but if that gets done in time, I’ll let you know, I’ll keep you posted, and we can go for a surf. I’ll keep you posted about it, mate.”.

2.

Example number two. Imagine you have a daughter or a son and they have had to go to hospital, because they have appendicitis. So, they’ve gone to hospital. They have to have their appendix removed because of having appendicitis. It’s a quick operation. You’re chatting to the doctor as your kid has gone under to get this operation, and the doctor says, “Don’t worry, mate. It’s going to be fine. It’ll take an hour or two, but will keep you informed. We’ll keep you up to date. We’ll keep you posted. We’ll let you know how the operation goes. We’ll let you know how your kid does. We will keep you posted.”.

3.

Example number three. So, you have a friend travelling around Australia. Imagine they’re doing a big road trip. They’ve travelled from Melbourne to Perth across to the west, then they’ve travelled north up the West Coast to Broome, and then across the north coast to Darwin, to Cairns, and now they’re travelling south along the east coast all the way down to Sydney, and it turns out that you’re going to be in Sydney at the same time that they arrive. So, you say to them, “Hey, guys! You’re going to be here the same time we will. Would you like to go see the Sydney Opera House? Would you like to go see the Sydney Harbour Bridge? And maybe we can go to Bondi Beach as well when you guys get there.”. If they don’t know exactly how long they’ll be until they arrive in Sydney, they might say, “Look, we would love to do that, but we don’t know exactly when we arrive, but we’ll let you know. We’ll keep you informed. We’ll keep you up to date. We’ll keep you posted.”. So, those guys will keep you posted with regards to their road trip and the timing of when they’ll arrive in Sydney. They’ll keep you posted.

So, that’s it, guys. That’s the expression ‘to keep someone posted’. Go and use that. That’s a challenge today. Go and say to someone, you know, “I’ll let you know, guys. I’ll keep you posted.”. And remember, it means to keep someone informed, to keep them up to date, to give them current information or knowledge about a certain thing.

So, let’s go through the listen and repeat exercise, guys. This is your chance to practice your Aussie pronunciation. So, listen and repeat exactly after me, and try and pronounce these words and these sentences in an Aussie accent. Let’s go.

Listen & Repeat:

To
To keep
To keep someone
To keep someone posted x 5

I’ll keep her posted.
You’ll keep her posted.
She’ll keep her posted.
He’ll keep her posted.
We’ll keep her posted.
They’ll keep her posted.
It’ll keep her posted.

Great job, guys! Great job. Make sure that you jump into the Aussie English Classroom. Give it a go. It’s $1 for 30 days. You can try it. You can cancel at any time. But get in there if you want to focus on your pronunciation, because to day I’ll be covering an exercise that will go over the connected speech and the pronunciation changes that happen there where I say things like, “to keep someone posted” instead of “to keep someone posted”, and as well as things like the Dark-L and the H-deletion in phrases like, “I’ll keep her posted”. Okay? So, there’s a few minor adjustments going on there that you can make, and you can learn to make, when you join the Aussie English classroom.

Anyway guys, will get into the Aussie fact and then we’ll finish up.

Aussie Facts:

So, today’s Aussie fact is all about birds, all about birds.

My dad’s a bit of a birdo. He loves his birds, he loves his bird photography, his birdwatching. And so, I know a little bit… probably a little bit more than the average Australian does with regards to birds, although, not enough I’m sure. But I love birds. Birds are cool. So, I thought I would go through my five favourite Australian birds and some interesting facts about them. So, Australia’s craziest five birds, most interesting five birds.

So, number one. Okay. Number one the emu. Do you guys know the emu? Do you know what the emu looks like and why it’s unique? The Emu is Australia’s biggest bird. It’s the second largest bird on the planet, the second largest bird in the world, and it grows up to two meters tall. It can be about two meters tall, and 60 kilograms. So, that’s the size of a small or average sized person. 60 kilos. So, these guys are ratites, emus are ratites, and they are related to ostriches, which live in Africa, as well as the tiny tiny Kiwi, the little bird, that lives in New Zealand. It prefers to live in woodlands, scrublands, grasslands, and forests. And a few unique features about this bird are that it is flightless, but they are amazing runners, and can reach speeds of up to 50 kilometres an hour. As a defense mechanism they kick, instead of necessarily pecking, though they probably peck as well. They can kick people. And they also have two sets of eyelids, one for blinking and the other one to keep dust out. So, that’s the emu.

Number two. The night parrot. The night parrot is a crazy bird. So, the night parrot is, as you would expect, a bird that is active at night. It’s nocturnal. The night parrot is a small parrot found in desert and arid regions in Australia, and it’s one of the world’s most elusive and mysterious birds. There were no confirmed sightings of this bird between 1912 and 1979 leading to the assumption that the species had gone extinct from predation from animals like foxes, cats, and other introduced pest species. The first photographic and video evidence of the bird found alive in the wild was only published in 2013, in July. So, four years ago. Pretty crazy. Sean Dooley of Birdlife Magazine described this find as “The bird watching equivalent of finding Elvis flipping burgers in an Outback roadhouse”. And the location where these birds are found today has been kept a secret to avoid them being poached. So, to protect them from poaching. So, that’s the night parrot.

Bird number three, and I know that one of my friends Laleh’s going to love this. Her favourite bird is the Little Penguin. So, bird number three is the little penguin. The little penguin is the world’s smallest penguin and they only grow to about 30 centimeters tall, about a kilogram, and they eat small fish like sardines. So, they hunt for fish in the water, but they nest on land. So, these guys are found along the southeast coast of Australia around Phillip Island and Port Phillip Bay as well as the coast of Tasmania, and they’re found in New Zealand as well. Some of these animals have been found as far away as Chile in South America, and they presumably got lost in storms or strong ocean currents that took them all the way out there. They formed small colonies of burrows where they raised their chicks on the land and they remain close to these locations their entire life and don’t migrate. So, that’s the Fairy Penguin or the Little Penguin.

Number four. The Gouldian finch. The Gouldian finch. So, this bird was named after John Gould who was a famous English ornithologist and bird artist and he actually discovered a lot of animals in Australia. But the Gouldian finch is easily the world’s most beautiful species of finch. It’s covered in striking colours, these beautiful colours. It has a green back, a purple chest, a yellow belly, a black chin, a red head, and a cyan-blue ring around its neck. You guys will be mind-blown when you see this thing. Check it out on Google. It’s a threatened species that has suffered from changes in fire regimes in the Kimberley and Northern Territory, and improved burning practices are helping the bird make a comeback. So, hopefully this bird recovers, hopefully its populations start booming again with larger numbers once these fire regimes are back to normal. So, the main issue here is that when indigenous people were removed from certain parts of these… the land in these areas, the fire regimes, where they were burning certain parts of the land periodically, stopped. And this this change actually affected animals that live in this area. So, the fact that these areas weren’t being burned by indigenous people as often has affected these animals.

The very last bird, and the bird that you will have heard at the start of this episode, is this Superb Lyrebird, bird number five, the Superb Lyrebird. This bird is also incredibly elusive, and it is considered to be the largest of all passerine birds. They’re featured on the reverse side of Australia’s 10 cent piece, or 10 cent coin. You can see them on the back side. The lyrebird. They build large mounds of dirt and foliage on the ground, and these act as platforms on which they perform and they display themselves to attract females. The male birds are polygamous where they have up to seven or eight females in a single breeding territory. So, one male will have seven or eight females with whom he will mate. The most striking thing about the lyrebird is their call, as you will have heard at the start of this episode. So, every male has a very unique call made up of him mimicking different sounds in the environment, in the forest that surrounds him. And these have been known to include things like bird calls, dogs barking, chainsaws, car alarms, explosions, camera shutters, rifle shots, crying babies, human voices, and even music. Absolutely incredible, guys. So, the male will build this impressive song that is made of a mixture of all the sounds that he hears and that he mimics, and he uses this song to attract females. So, that’s mind blowing, that’s crazy, and that is why I love the lyrebird.

Anyway, guys, I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. I hope that it has shown you that there are some pretty cool birds in Australia, and I hope you guys keep me posted in the future with regards to using the expression ‘to keep someone posted’. Let me know if you use it.

Anyway guys, that’s long enough for today. I hope you have a great weekend, and I’ll chat is soon to catch you guys.

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