Transcript of AE 941 - Expression: Make Your Skin Crawl

G'day, you mob, and welcome to Aussie English. I am 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 flipping 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, guys. What's going on? Pete here, from Aussie English. I hope you are well. Welcome to this expression episode where as always, I teach you an expression that is used in Australian English and generally in English all over the world. So, this is the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English.

I try and fill these episodes chock a block full of Australian slang culture, history, news and current affairs, everything like that. So, remember, guys, if you would like the transcripts for this episode and for the other 900 plus episodes that are out on the podcast because you want to read and listen at the same time, make sure to check out the premium podcast at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast.

Go and check out my courses for pronunciation, phrasal verbs, and spoken English on the Aussie English website and keep your eye after the Academy, which will open up again soon for new students. Anyway, how's my week been? My week has been a little tumultuous, a little up and down, a lot has been happening, a lot has been going on, mainly with the kids.

I'm sure a lot of you guys listening to this will know how I feel, as I'm sure you're in a similar situation. You're probably in the same boat with young children in your family and in your life. So, Noah has been a massive handful this last few week- Few weeks. We've been taking him to day care, but he hasn't been getting enough shuteye, he hasn't been sleeping long enough.

And so, when he comes home after day care, he spent pretty much the entire day up and about playing with kids, running around, running amok. And then he's just spent, he's wrecked and, you know, he's too tired to have dinner, he gets upset. And so, it's just been- He's been raucous. It has been full on this week. But that's all part and parcel of being a parent. Right.

You just have to kind of suck it up, deal with it, take the good with the bad and just keep moving. All right. So, as usual, I've picked a little news story here for you guys, so let's get into it. Angelina Jolie has shocked the world this week after appearing in a living portrait for National Geographic whilst covered in bees.

Jolie became the new queen bee after she was doused in pheromones in front of a camera in order to attract them and calm them down whilst they perched all over her body. The photograph was taken in order to highlight the importance of bee conservation, as well as to support female beekeepers. And a beekeeper is known as an apiarist.

Jolie said that quote, "It just felt lovely to be connected to these beautiful creatures. There's certainly a hum. You have to be really still and in your body, in the moment, which is not easy for me." End of quote. She said, you also have to put a few things up your nose and in your ears to prevent the little bees from getting into any holes in your body.

Whilst the photo may be considered the bee's knees by many, for me, it definitely makes my skin crawl. We'll find out what that means shortly. All right. So, back to it, guys. As usual, I try and tie in a little joke here so that you can learn a little bit about humour in English, humour in Australia, and also understand a bit more about these puns. Right. Plays on words, word jokes.

All right, guys, time for an Aussie joke. Slap the kookaburra and let's get into it. What is small, black and yellow and drops things? What's small, black and yellow and drops things? A fumblebee. A fumblebee. Do you get it? If you fumble with something, it's that you're trying to hold it and you end up dropping it. Right. You might also fumble with your words, if you're trying to say something and you stutter and you can't get the words out.

Obviously it is a play on the words bumble as in a bumblebee. Right. I don't know. Let's have a quick look, actually. What is the definition of the word, bumble? I never use this, besides with the word bumblebee. Right. So, let's have a gander. So, bumble is a verb, move or act in an awkward or confused manner or to speak in a confused or indistinct way.

So, these poor bees got hit with this verb that effectively means, well, sort of the same thing as fumble. Right. To be clumsy. Okay, so the expression today is going to be "to make your skin crawl, to make your skin crawl". I wonder if you've heard this one before. But before we get into that and what it means, let's go through the different words in this expression. So, the first one here is the verb "make". Right. "Make".

Obviously, we can use this to mean to create something or to do something, but in this sense, "make" means to cause something to do something, to force someone to do something, right. My parents might "make" me go to school. Working out, might "make" my legs tired. So, it's to cause to be something or to do something or to force to do something. I'm sure you'll know the word "your", it is the possessive pronoun for "you". Right.

It's "your" turn. This is "your" house. Is that "your" dad. "Skin". Now "skin", I'm sure you'll know this too, is the thin layer of tissue forming the natural outer covering of a person or animal. Right. So, you can obviously see my "skin" in the video here. My "skin" is all over my body. Did you know that your "skin" is the largest organ in your body? The word to "crawl". Right.

If you are "crawling", you're moving forward on your hands and knees by sort of dragging your body. Right. Close to the ground. So, my daughter at the moment, she doesn't "crawl" yet. But in a few months, Joanna's going to be "crawling" all around the house.

If you walk inside the kitchen one day and you see an insect on the floor, maybe a cockroach that's scurried out from under the fridge, it's probably "crawling" because it's walking or running very close to the ground. But in this sense, we can also use this verb to mean to be covered or crowded with insects or people, usually to an extent that is objectionable. So, something you don't like. Right.

You may hear that the ground is "crawling" with ants. There are ants "crawling" all over the ground. The ground is "crawling" with ants. You might go to the mall to go shopping and you see it is "crawling" with people. There are people everywhere. Right. So, the place is covered with people or crowded with people. It's "crawling" with people.

So, in this sense, if something "makes your skin crawl", it causes you to feel an unpleasant sensation resembling something moving over your skin. Right. It's kind of related to feeling fear or to feeling disgust. And it's been used figuratively in the form of to make your flesh creep since the seventeen hundreds.

This version of the expression first appeared in Gulliver's Travels, which was written by Jonathan Swift, what, 300 years ago in the year 1727 where he wrote quote, "We all entered the gate of the palace between two rows of guards armed and dressed after a very antique manner, and something in their countenances that made my flesh creep with a horror I cannot express."

"Countenance" here, the word "countenance" means appearance or features, I think like their face. Right. And we use this a lot in English, but way back in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, we don't use it anymore. His "countenance" was very handsome. More recently, in the eighteen hundreds the expression turned into "to make one skin crawl".

Now, let's go through some examples of how I would use the expression "to make your skin crawl" in everyday life, but before we do that. Did you know that reading whilst listening to English is the best way to learn new vocabulary? Research shows that this is much more effective than just reading material or just listening to material in English.

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So, if your goal is to learn and remember more vocabulary, to expand your vocab in English, make sure that you sign up to become a premium podcast member today at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. Let's get back to the episode. All right. So, I'm going to give you three examples of how to use this expression.

Example number one, imagine that you've got a new job working for a company in Brisbane. You have your first day where you have to go into the job after you've received it and it's sort of a meet and greet, right. You get to meet everyone on the team, all the other colleagues that you're going to have, and you have to greet them and say hello, obviously, as well. So, everyone seems really awesome, everyone seems lovely.

But there's one woman who's just really creepy, right. She gives you a bad vibe. There's something that's just not quite right about this woman. She seems a bit off. So, she seems strange, weird and you're a little fearful of her, you don't know what to make of her. So, when you get home, you might chat to your husband or your wife and say, everyone was great at work. But there was one woman there who really "made my skin crawl", kind of like...

She just gave me the creeps. I was afraid of her or maybe she was disgusting, you could also use it for that. Example number two, imagine that you suddenly decide with your family one day that you want to go to a foreign restaurant, so, you know, you get a craving for seafood. You want to go out and get some seafood from this foreign restaurant in Melbourne. The food looks great.

You get the menu out, but it's in a foreign language and you're not 100% sure what you're ordering. Anyway, you kind of wing it and you see this thing looks interesting and you say, you know what, I'll have that. They end up bringing the food out and it turns out to be octopus, you know, not the worst thing in the world. Nothing wrong with a bit of calamari. The issue is the octopus is still moving. It seems to still be alive. This disgusts you.

It makes you feel a bit weird. It makes you feel a bit, you know, freaked out. It "makes your skin crawl". You're not used to eating, you know, living octopus. It "makes your skin crawl". Number three, imagine that you go to the movies to see a scary movie, right. You're a huge fan of horror films and you love being frightened. You've gone with your boyfriend or your girlfriend who actually hate scary movies but wants to go with you, nonetheless.

So, it gets to sort of the climax of the movie, the height of the movie, where there are a bunch of people being killed by aliens or zombies. And your partner screams out in horror when, you know, a zombie comes around the corner and eats the face off the main character. So, he or she is absolutely terrified, hates aliens, hates zombies because they "make her or his skin crawl". Right. They are disgusting. They're very, very fearful.

Your partner is afraid of them. They "make his or her skin crawl". So, there you go, guys, hopefully now you understand the meaning of the expression "to make your skin crawl". If something "makes your skin crawl", it causes you to feel an unpleasant sensation resembling something moving over your skin, right. Like there's bugs on you or something and it's sort of scary or disgusting. "Makes my skin crawl".

So, as usual, guys, let's go through a pronunciation exercise. This is your chance to work on your pronunciation. If you're working on your Australian pronunciation, obviously pay attention to what I'm saying and how I say it. If you're working on American English, British English, South African English, New Zealand English, whatever it is, just say the words after me, but with the pronunciation that you're working on.

Okay, let's go. "To. To make. To make your. To make your skin. To make your skin crawl. To make your skin crawl. To make your skin crawl. To make your skin crawl. To make your skin crawl. It makes my skin crawl. It makes your skin crawl. It makes his skin crawl. It makes her skin crawl. It makes our skin crawl. It makes their skin crawl. It makes its skin crawl." Good job, guys.

Now, remember, if you want to improve your pronunciation, the best way I can help you to do that is to suggest signing up for the Australian pronunciation course that you can find at AussieEnglish.com.au/apc, I'm sure you'll find it if you get on the website. Some of the interesting things going on here would include the word, "to", as I always say, in this case, becoming reduced.

And so, the /u/ vowel sound becomes the schwa sound. "To make your skin crawl". T-, T-, T- instead of "to make your skin crawl". The other thing there in the expression, when I say it, is that the word "your", the /ɔ/ vowel sound as well will become a schwa. So, you'll also hear "ya", "t- make ya skin crawl". "To make your skin crawl, to make your skin crawl." And you'll hear the emphasis there "to make your skin crawl".

I'm emphasising the important words, like the verbs and the nouns, "to make your skin crawl". And I'm also bringing down the unimportant words, like the pronouns and the prepositions. All right, guys. So, today, in the Aussie fact I want to talk to you quickly about myriapods. So, myriapods, are types of arthropod, which are similar to insects, but they're not. They're also invertebrates.

Myriapod comes from the ancient Greek "myriad" meaning ten thousand and "pod" meaning foot. So, if you think of an insect like animal, an arthropod that has, well, not ten thousand feet, but many feet, I'm sure you're going to think of centipedes and millipedes. So, they're all terrestrial animals with segmented bodies and a pair of antennae at the front and holes called spiracles.

Centipedes and millipedes aren't insects, as I said, although myriapods and insects both belong to the largest group of animals on earth, arthropods. These are animals with hard exoskeletons and jointed limbs, things like insects, centipedes and millipedes, crabs. They are all in that group, arthropods. Insects have 6 legs, crabs have 10 legs, myriapods have many more than 6 legs, and usually many more than 10 legs as well.

Centipede means, 100 legs and millipede means 1,000 legs, but it's a little misleading. Centipedes have anywhere between 15 to 191 pairs of legs and millipedes can have up to 375 pairs of legs. Australia's home to 128 species of centipede, which can range from as small as one centimetre to 14 centimetres, in the case of the giant centipede, which is the largest Australian centipede.

In comparison, there are somewhere in the order of 2,000 species of millipedes in Australia. Both of these groups are nocturnal, and they live under rocks and logs or in leaf litter or soil or under the bark of trees. Centipedes are venomous carnivores that hunt down other insects, snails and worms. Whereas millipedes are the cuter, cuddlier herbivores that only eat decomposing organic matter on the forest floor.

So, there you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you learned a little bit about Australia whilst also levelling your English up. Don't forget to check out all of my content on AussieEnglish.com.au, and besides that, thank you for joining me and I'll see you next time. Peace.