Transcript of AE 986 - Expression: Cheat Death

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, you mob. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English, as well as get a fair dinkum, true blue Aussie dose of culture, history, news and current affairs from down under. All right. Anyway, intro aside, how are you guys going? I hope you're well. I hope you're well. I've got some interesting news.

I spent the morning at the Geelong Cardiac College or Cardiac hospital, whatever it's called, place getting set up for a monitor. So, it is an ECG, which I should probably look up what that actually stands for, electrocardiogram, E-C-G. Effectively, if I can show you here and hopefully you won't mind, I am getting my heart rate monitored for the next 24 hours. Don't panic, it's nothing serious.

But the doctors and nurses who are listening to this episode are probably going to know what's going on. I have some missing beats or skipping beats with my heart sometimes. So, it's one of these weird things that kind of happens every few months and sometimes it will happen for days. And I normally only notice it while I'm going to sleep. Anyway, I've always sort of just dealt with it.

But my wife was a little bit like, oh, Jesus, are you going to die? You know, you can't die. You can't leave me. Please, dear God, don't leave me with these children. So, I said I would go, and have it looked at and in order to check it out, they put this ECG monitor on. It's got like a little, I don't know if you can see it here. Where's the little- Here it is. If I can pull it out.

It's got this little battery and button here that I have to press if I notice anything happening. So, yeah, it'll be interesting. I have to go in tomorrow morning, take it off at about 8:00am and get the results back. They just run it through a computer and see how I've gone. Anyway, so that's my news. That's what I was up to this morning, at the early hours of the morning, lying down on a cold bed in a hospital, getting that put on my chest.

Besides that, welcome to the episode. Don't forget, guys, I should mention, before we get into the meat of the episode that if you want the transcripts and the downloads and the video lessons for all of these expression episodes that come out at the moment, make sure that you sign up for the premium podcast membership at AussieEnglish.com.au.

You'll be able to download 950 plus different podcast episodes, their transcripts so you can read and listen at the same time, everything like that. Okay, so go check that out. But now let's get into this week's news story. For months now, an urban legend about the so-called Gold Creek Rooster has been circulating the streets of Canberra's north.

Legend has it that a defiant rooster escaped almost certain death in the jaws of a Burmese python at the local Canberra Zoo back in 2017. Since that time, it's been living in a local McDonald's drive thru where it can still be found roaming the concrete today. The funny part is that reality turns out to not be that far from legend.

Back in the year 2017, the Canberra Reptile Zoo put out a message on social media asking for anyone with unwanted roosters to donate them to the zoo to be euthanized and then fed to the zoo's Burmese python. The ad received so much attention that the zoo got so many donated roosters, it had to remove the ad and ask for people to stop giving them their chickens.

Despite this, people often kept leaving their roosters at the zoo's front gates, and on one occasion, the members at the zoo opened a box and found only chicken feathers. Could that have been the origin of the Gold Creek Rooster? Since cheating death, the animal is now often seen strutting around the car park and drive through at the local Maccas, scavenging for food scraps often left over by restaurant goers. What a legend.

So, that was a pretty cool story, guys. I couldn't help but share that one. It popped up in the news today when I was writing this episode and I was just like, man, that is a keeper. That is a keeper. I have to share this. It's just awesome. So, anyway, guys, I thought I would include a joke about chickens. So, slap the bird, the Aussie chicken, the kookaburra, and let's get into it. Okay, you're going to hate me.

This is another dad joke, but I thought it was funny and it's tied in to today's theme. Okay, you know, the chicken there, in the previous story. Who tells the funniest jokes on the farm? Who tells the funniest jokes on the farm? The Comedi-hen. The comedian, right. The comedian, the comedi-hen. Hen being a female chicken. Oh, what a ripper.

Anyway, all right, let's get into today's expression to "cheat death". We'll go through the words in this expression, both of them. We'll then talk about what the expression means. I'll give you some examples of how I would use this expression in everyday English. We'll go through a pronunciation exercise and then we're going to talk about probably Australia's national dish, the chicken parma. So, stick around for that.

All right. So, there's only two words in this expression. The first one being "cheat", the verb to "cheat". So, this can be to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage. Right. You might "cheat" in a game in order to win. Right. You could also use to "cheat" as a phrasal verb, to "cheat on someone", which is to betray a partner that you're in a relationship with.

But here, if you "cheat someone or something", it means to avoid something undesirable by luck or skill. And usually that undesirable thing is death. "Death" is the state of being dead, no longer being alive. Right. In this case of this expression, to "cheat death", I'm not sure if "death" here refers to the state of being dead or if it refers to "death", who is the personification of the power that destroys life. Right.

It's often represented in art as that skeleton in the black coat holding a scythe that comes and, you know, either kills or collects people after they've died. So, I'm not sure if "death" refers to the act of or the state of being dead, no longer being alive, or if it refers to the man or the being, the person, the entity that comes and collects people when they die. Right. Let's go through the expression and what it means.

So, to "cheat death", if you "cheat death", you avoid being killed. Right. You succeed in staying alive in an extremely dangerous situation. So, the idea here, again, I'm not sure if it's that you've cheated the act of being dead or if it's that you've cheated death when he's meant to come and collect you and he can't find you. Right. You've cheated him out of being able to do his job.

Okay. So, I have just had a day pause. Sorry to interrupt the episode here. I thought I'd share this with you, guys, because it was rather amusing. As you would have heard in the background before, Joanna was kind of losing it, that's a good expression for you. So, becoming upset, agitated, annoyed, getting angry. And she was making quite a bit of noise in the background. So, I was like, you know what?

I'm going to have to pause, wait for her to stop crying and then get back to this episode. What happened was that, well, firstly, she didn't stop crying for a very long time. Then the light in the background's battery ran out, so I couldn't keep recording. And then my son woke up from his nap, and so everything sort of went off the rails and I had to come back, okay, you know, the next day.

So, I think this is going to be the first podcast episode that I have ever filmed over two days, recorded as well. Anyway, so, I believe that I had just finished telling you what the expression to "cheat death" means. So, now it's time to go through three daily examples of how I would use this expression. Okay. But before we do that.

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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. Example number one, imagine you're a thrill seeker travelling to South Australia to check out the great white shark cage diving experience. Right.

This is where people go out on a boat and then they put on a wetsuit and, you know, some diving apparatus so they can breathe underwater, and they get put inside this metal cage that is submerged below the surface of the water. And they can see great white sharks and other animals that are around, right, but they're safe inside the cage. So, imagine you're an adrenaline junkie, someone who loves these kinds of extreme sports or activities.

You've packed your wettie, you've got your underwater camera, all your other gear and paraphernalia for going on this trip. And, you know, you want to snap a few photos of one of Australia's most fearsome predators. So, the day arrives, you get on the boat, you head out to sea with a tour group. The people on the boat start chumming the water, so "to chum" is where you get dead fish and blood and other bait.

Throw it in the water to attract animals, to attract other fish and obviously to attract sharks. So, the sharks start circling and checking out the cage, you know, there's some tasty humans inside. And then it 'comes your turn to jump into the cage. As you go to get inside the cage, though, you drop your camera over the edge, outside the cage, and without thinking about it, you dive in after the camera.

And then all of a sudden, you're like, holy crap, there's man eating sharks in the water. I need to get out of here. So, you scramble up out of the water and managed to get on the boat before one of the sharks comes past and nearly takes a chunk out of your leg.

So, when you did this, you "cheated death". Right. You got away by the skin of your teeth, just, just, just missing out on being bitten by a shark. You survived. You "cheated death". Example number two, imagine that you're driving your car to work one day, you stop at your regular coffee drive through. There's a place in-

I guess it's all-around Australia, but it's a chain called Bean Squeeze where you can sort of pull over to the side of the road, buy a coffee and then keep walk- Keep walking? Keep driving to work. So, you've pulled over, you've gone through the drive through cafe, you bought your coffee, and then you've come back to the main road and you're getting ready to pull out.

As you pull out, you notice that a guy on a motorbike just comes out of nowhere and clips the front of your car. Right. So, "to clip the car" is to kind of brush it, to hit it lightly, just to sort of [taps something] like that, kind of clip it. Right. Fortunately, the bike rider, he keeps going, but he manages to keep control of the bike and then pull over to the side of the road.

You pull over behind him and you're like, wow, that was a close call. Are you okay? And the guy might say to you, yeah, Jesus, I just "cheated death". That was very close. I feel like a cat with nine lives. I have just "cheated death". Example number three, imagine you're planning a holiday with your family and, you know, you want to go to an island somewhere in the tropics, somewhere like Bali in Indonesia.

Stay at a nice hotel, travel around the island, go surfing, see the sights and, you know, soak up all of the local culture, language, food, everything like that. So, you buy your plane tickets, you book your hotels, and you pack everything for you and your family to get ready for this trip.

However, on the day that you're meant to leave, as you're carting all of your bags and luggage down the stairs of your house, you fall and end up busting your leg. Right. You break your leg because you tripped, you know, Dan Andrews style. He's our premier in Victoria who had a bad fall and really injured his back recently. You have a trip like Dan Andrews down the stairs and end up busting your leg. You broke your leg.

So, you go to the hospital, you get bandaged up, you get your legs set in place, and then you get a cast put on your leg. But unfortunately, you and the family all miss out on going to Bali. However, days later, whilst you're recouping, you're recovering at home, you know, maybe with your leg up on the sofa, on the couch.

You turn the news on and find out that one of the hotels in Bali that you were going to stay at has completely burnt to the ground, right, it has burnt down. It caught fire. It burnt down and everyone inside died. So, you know, obviously that's a tragic event if it happened. But I imagine that if you were there thinking we were meant to be at that hotel and everyone inside died, we've "cheated death". Right. We didn't go because I broke my leg.

We avoided dying in a dangerous situation. We "cheated death". All right, guys. So, now you should know the meaning of the expression to "cheat death". It means to avoid dying, right. Avoid being killed, succeed in staying alive in an extremely dangerous situation. So, as usual, now it's time to go through a little listen and repeat exercise to work on your pronunciation.

This is where I am going to say a few of the words in this expression, then the expression itself, and then some phrases using the expression, conjugating through different pronouns in a certain tense in English. And you can focus on your Australian pronunciation as well as listen to rhythm, intonation, everything like that. Okay, so are you ready? Let's go.

"To. To cheat. To cheat death. To cheat death. To cheat death. To cheat death. To cheat death. I've cheated death. You've cheated death. He's cheated death. She's cheated death. We've cheated death. They've cheated death. It's cheated death." Good work, guys. So, there's a few interesting things going on there, as always, you will notice that the word "to" at the start of "to cheat death" gets reduced.

The /ʉː/ vowel sound becomes a schwa /ə/ vowel sound. So, you're going to hear "to cheat death". The other interesting thing in this phrase is that the "T" at the end of "cheat", you can say it, you could say "to cheat death" where you're releasing the stop consonant T, "cheat, cheat". But you can also mute that "T" and then go straight into saying the "D" at the front of "death". So, you could say also, "to cheat death". Right.

So, the tongues going up into the T position. It's not releasing, it's not going "t-", it's going [wheeze] It's hard to do on its own. Instead of "cheat", it's going "chea-, to chea- death. To chea- death". So, there you go. Those are the sort of interesting pronunciation things going on there. Remember, if you want to improve your pronunciation skills, be sure to check out my Australian pronunciation course.

It will be linked below, or you can just go to AussieEnglish.com/APC. Inside you're going to get access to detailed tutorials showing you how to move your mouth, how to position your tongue, teeth, lips, everything like that. For all the different sounds in Australian English, the vowel sounds, the consonant sounds.

You'll learn how to use the international phonetic alphabet so you can train yourself, you can improve your pronunciation in the course, but then go away with those skills and use things like dictionaries or online resources to improve.

And then lastly, recently I added 25 advanced pronunciation lessons, all the things they never teach you this stuff in class that are going to help you sound much more like an advanced English speaker, or if you want a native English speaker. Things like the Australian R, how to link between different words, the syllabic N, the syllabic L, how there are assimilation that occurs between words, right.

If you say the word "truck", there's no "T" sound. It's t-ru, tru-, tru-. Anyway, go check out that course and see how you go. So, to finish up, guys, I was trying to think, what can I research today for today's Aussie fact that has to do with chickens or to cheat death? Instead of death, I thought, you know, the chicken parma, the quintessential Aussie chicken parma, is definitely worth a mention here in this episode.

So, some of you are probably thinking, what the hell is this? We'll get into that. So, if you had to choose a national dish for Australia, the chicken parma served up in every pub around Australia would definitely be a heavy contender.

For those of you who don't know, a chicken parma or parmi, a chicken parmigiana is a flattened chicken breast that's crumbed and baked and then served with ham, melted cheese, Nepali's sauce on top with a side of fries and green salad.

A quick way to get into an argument with Australians is to ask them whether they say a chicken parma or a chicken parmi or just parma or parmi. A survey that was done a few years ago found that 50% of Australians call it a parmi for short, a chicken parmigiana, and the other 50% called it parma. I guess they're thinking a chicken parma-giana, which is how we would probably normally say it, instead of parmigiani.

I grew up referring to it as a parma, so it's up to you. You can either flip a coin or just use parma like me. If you've been to any pub restaurant in Australia, you've almost certainly seen a chicken parma or parmi, and perhaps you've had the good fortune and taste of ordering one to chow into. Unfortunately, no one quite knows how the parma or parmi came to Australia.

There was never any mad scientist chef kind of, you know, mucking around in his kitchen who then ran out into the streets yelling, Eureka, I've discovered the parma. I'm going to make it Australia's most famous dish. However, according to Jan O'Connell, the author of 'A Timeline of Australian Food', she says that the origins of the Aussie parma are nested within Italy.

Originating from the country's southern region from a dish that originally comprised fried eggplant, tomato, cheese and basil. Apparently, an early version of the parma, including veal, arrived as early as the nineteen hundreds following the mass migration of Italians into the U.S. In Australia it wasn't until 1951, in a recipe in the Weekly Times that the parmigiana as we know it today was first shown.

Over the following decades the Aussie parma spread across the country like wildfire and now is the staple of any self-respecting pub restaurant. It's the main go to dish that I grab when I go to a pub, and you may even see some surprising variations. I remember when I used to go to the Napier Hotel in Fitzroy in Melbourne, they had a really cool variation, that was the smoked kangaroo parmigiana.

So, this was a chicken parma that was served with smoked kangaroo on top of it instead of ham. And it was the bomb. It was incredible. I absolutely loved it and definitely had my fair share of a kangaroo parmas, maybe we could say kanga-parmas, back when I was studying my PhD and the Napier Hotel was my frequent waterhole that I would go to to have a beer and hang out with my mates.

Anyway, that's enough from me today, guys. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to send me a message and let me know. Do you like parmas? Have you had them already? What do you reckon? And if you're Italian, do they look like anything that you have back at home that's a traditional dish? Anyway, thanks for joining me, guys, and I'll see you next time. Peace.