In this episode, Ep058: Expressions – To Laugh One’s Head Off & At Each Other’s Throats you learn two of the idioms used in the previous Walking With Pete episode, “To laugh one’s head off” and “At each other’s throats”.

Ep058: Expressions – To Laugh One’s Head Off & At Each Other’s Throats

G’day guys. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English.

Today I’m going to do an episode here on two expressions. So, we’re going to call this episode “a two for one”, two for one. That’s where you get two things for the price of one as we say in English. So, you go to the shops. You buy one banana, you get one free, that’s getting two for the price of one, or a two for one deal. Two for one.

So, today I thought I would do two of the expressions that I used in the previous Walking With Pete episode, and those phrases are going to be “To laugh one’s head off” or “To laugh your head off”, and the phrase, “At each other’s throats”. So, “To be at each other’s throats” or “To go at each other’s throats.”

So, I’m really trying to work this new sort of pattern where I go over things that we’ve already used, or that I’ve already highlighted in previous episodes. So, in the previous Walking With Pete episode I’ve written up a manuscript and then I’ve highlighted all of the phases, or words that I’ve used that may be a little more complicated, may be a little more idiomatic. So, at the bottom of the PDF on the website for that episode you’ll find a breakdown of all those phrases, and a definition, but I also thought I would do an expression episode where I can talk about both of these expressions.

So, let’s start. The first one, “To laugh one’s head off.” “To laugh one’s head off”. This just to means to laugh uncontrollably. So, “John told a joke that was so funny he nearly laughed his head off” for example.

So, “To laugh”, guys, I’m sure all of you know the verb to laugh, you know, “Hahaha”. To laugh.

Um… “A head”. The head is the upper part of the human body. So you’re skull, cranium. Your brain is inside your head. Your eyes, nose, ears and mouth are around your head.

So, “To laugh one’s head off”, when we say “off” at the end there that means to laugh so hard that it comes off or falls off, you know, to laugh your head off of your body effectively. So, an example could be someone’s told a really hilarious joke, as a result they’re laughing uncontrollably, and you could say that that person was laughing their head off.

We also say this phrase quite often where we’ll imply that we’ve “almost” laughed our heads off, or our head off. So, you could say “I almost laughed my head off”, “I nearly laughed my head off”, “I practically laughed my head off”, “I just about laughed my head off”. And all of these phrases just mean that you… they infer the same thing, but you know, it’s just that you “almost” did that as opposed to completely laughed your head off. So, there’s that idea of exaggeration where no one really laughs so hard that their head falls off. And obviously you can just say it as normal, “I totally laughed my head off”. “It was so funny I laughed my head off”.

So, let’s go over a little pronunciation for this one guys.

To laugh

Your head off

To laugh your head off

And now we’ll conjugate through the past tense of “I was laughing my head off.”

I was laughing my head off

You were laughing your head off

He was laughing his head off

She was laughing her head off

You were laughing your heads off

We were laughing our heads off

They were laughing their heads off

So, now we’ll jump over to the other phrase, guys. We’ll do the second one in this episode of two for one phrases. And the second phrase is “To be at each other’s throats” or “To go at each other’s throats”. So, “At each other’s throats”, what does this mean?

It means to quarrel or to fight consistently. So, to keep fighting all the time, again and again and again. You could say that brothers and sisters, or brothers and other brothers, or sisters and other sisters, so siblings can be at each other’s throats quite often where they’re fighting over something, say, a toy.

So, what do these words mean? “To be at” or “To go at” is used to sort of suggest that you’re going for something, you’re going after something, that you’re attacking. And so an example of how to use “To be at” or “To go at”, a few examples could be, “The lion went at the hunter and nearly killed him.” ”I was so hungry I went at my dinner like there was no tomorrow”. So that means, like, I was so hungry that I ate my dinner, I attacked my dinner, I went for my dinner, so sort of vigorously, so intensely, like there was no tomorrow, which kind of suggests that I ate that meal as if I was going to die before tomorrow. So, it was like it was my last meal. I really really wanted to eat that meal. So, I went at it. And you could also say, “he never stops pestering me, or asking me for things, he’s at me constantly.” So, it’s like he’s constantly attacking me, he’s constantly pestering me, he’s constantly asking me for things. “He’s at me constantly”.

So, the next word “Throat”, “Throat”. “A throat” is the front part of your neck. So, you could also call this your gullet, your esophagus, windpipe, trachea. So, you can get food caught in your throat. If you’re sick you might have a sore throat. On Game of Thrones, ah… there are a lot of people who have their throats cut.

And we’ll go over the phrase or the words “Each other’s”, “Each other’s”. “Each other’s” means one another’s. It’s the same as one another’s. So, for example if you’re at each other’s throats, one of you is at the other person’s throat and you are at their throat. So, it’s that kind of, I’m doing something to you, you’re doing something to me. At each other’s. Um… We’re playing with each other’s toys. This would mean that I was playing with your toy, and you were playing with my toy. Um… “They’re driving each other’s cars” that would mean that one person is driving someone else’s car and that someone else is driving the other person’s car. So, they’re driving each other’s car.

So, now let’s do an exercise for that.

To be at

Each other’s

To be at each other’s throats

And now we’ll go through this a few times following the sentence, “We were at each other’s throats”.

We were at each other’s throats

They were at each other’s throats

You were at each other’s throats

Anyway, guys, that’s probably enough for today’s episode. I hope you liked this episode. I hope you liked me going over phrases that I’ve touched on, that I’ve mentioned in previous episodes, and I hope that allows you guys to hear these phrases more than say, one time only in one episode, and then practice them obviously even if you’re just listening to these episodes. So, we’ll keep this one under ten minutes, and I’ll see you soon guys! See ya!

Vocabulary List:

To do something like there is/was no tomorrow

To do something hastily, in large amounts, without thinking carefully, as if the end of the world will be tomorrow and you’ll never get another chance to do that thing.

E.g. He wrote the answers to the exam questions like there was no tomorrow.