Learn Australia English in this Expression episode of Aussie English where you learn how to use the expressions TO HAVE A BITCH and TO BITCH like a native.

Expression: To Have A Bitch/To Bitch

G’day guys. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. And today’s another Expression episode. We’re going to be covering the expression TO HAVE A BITCH or TO BITCH.

So, today I’m sitting in my room at the moment. It’s early afternoon, (it’s) probably about 2:30/2:40ish and I’m looking out the window and there are a lot of grey clouds coming over. So, if a storm starts, if you suddenly hear thunder or see flashes of lightning it’s because a thunderstorm is about to come over Melbourne. So, (it’s) something to keep an eye out for. Hopefully, it’s not too loud.

But, yeah, so it’s been good. I’ve had Christmas. I’m back at my place now in Melbourne, and the weather is just ridiculous. At the moment, it’s a bit of a heat wave so we’ve had at least two days where it’s been close to 40C. I don’t think it’s quite cracked 40C yet, I don’t think it’s passed 40C in temperature yet, but it’s been close. I think yesterday it was 38C, the day before that it might have been in the mid-30s and today I think, again, it’s about 36 or so degrees here. And the worst part, I can handle heat. Head doesn’t really bother me. It’s humidity that bothers me. And that’s probably why my head is a little shinier than usual, because I’m sweating and because of the humidity, the amount of water or moisture in the air, the sweat isn’t drying off my skin. So, even inside it’s just so sticky, it’s muggy, it’s just humid and I’m not a massive fan. I find it very hard to sleep in humid weather. I can handle heat but I don’t really like humidity at all.

Anyway, that’s enough for an intro. We should probably dive in and do this expression. So, this one comes from Thibault, and Thibault’s been helping me quite a bit with the podcast recently. He’s been writing out some really cool excel spreadsheets for the different expressions, and different expressions that I use in those 1-Minute Expression videos. So, (this is) a little shout-out to Thibault. I really appreciate your help and just company. We’re always chatting away. So, cheers dude!

So, I was chatting to Thibault and I think I dropped this expression, I said this expression while I was chatting to him and he was like, “What? What is TO HAVE A BITCH or TO BITCH?”.

Definition:

So, the definition of TO HAVE A BITCH, so the noun, A BITCH, A BITCH, is (to have) a complain, a grumble, a whinge, a whine, a moan or a groan. And TO BITCH, which is obviously the verb, so, if I want TO BITCH, if I’m going TO BITCH, it means that I want to complain, to grumble, to whine, to whinge, to moan or to groan. So, those are all different synonyms for the same thing.

But TO HAVE A BITCH or TO BITCH, because it’s kind of a rude word, I mean it’s not the most offensive thing that you could say to someone, it’s informal. This is the kind of phrasing that I would never say in any kind of formal situations unless I knew the people incredibly well and I knew that they were ok with that kind of language being used. So, that’s something to think about. If you want to use this make sure it’s in very informal situations where you’re chatting with really good friends or something.

So, you can HAVE A BITCH ABOUT something. So, if you complain about something, you grumble about something, whinge, whine, moan or grown about something it means, yeah, you are complaining about that thing. And again, like with the verb, you can say TO BITCH ABOUT something or TO HAVE A BITCH ABOUT something. You can HAVE A BITCH TO someone or you can BITCH TO someone. And in both those cases it means you’re complaining TO that person. So, you’re not complaining ABOUT that person, it’s not them that is the problem, you’re not, “Oh! This person’s so annoying!”. It’s (that) you’re talking to this person about something that’s really annoying, that you’re complaining about. So, TO HAVE A BITCH TO someone or TO BITCH TO someone. You’d HAVE A BITCH ABOUT something or someone TO someone or something, although you probably wouldn’t really talk to an inanimate object. So, it would be SOMEONE. Or you can BITCH ABOUT something (or someone) TO someone.

Anyway, maybe I’ll just cover too a few other definitions of the word BITCH just so that you guys have a bit of context. In this context, obviously, A BITCH is a complain or TO BITCH is to complain, but A BITCH, the noun, can also be used for several different things.

Other meanings:

Firstly, and this is probably one of the most common ways of using it, it is a female dog that is pregnant or may have even given birth. So, it may have to be a mother dog that has had a litter of puppies. So, a female dog you could say, “Our BITCH gave birth to five puppies.”. And I might add in that case it’s not rude. If you’re talking about a female dog that’s actually the correct term to use when I think, I think, that they have given birth and they have had puppies. I’m not sure if you use it prior to a dog that given birth, but a female dog, just think of a female dog as being A BITCH. You can use that, it’s not rude, it’s not offensive.

However, the next two ways of using it are relatively less formal and they could be rude depending on how you use it.

So, it can be used to talk about something difficult. So, “Getting stuck in traffic’s A real BITCH.” That just means, “Oh, it’s such a pain to get stuck in traffic.”. It’s a really problem, it’s an issue, it’s a pain in the butt. And that again is a very informal way of talking about that situation. So, yeah, “It’s A total BITCH”, that just means it’s really difficult, it’s annoying, it’s not fun to endure.

And the last example, and probably the most rude example, obviously, is A BITCH meaning a nasty woman. So, if you use this to refer to a woman it is considered relatively rude. It’s not the worst thing you could say, but it is by no means polite or nice. So, “She’s so mean to her boyfriend people say she’s A real BITCH.”. You could say that about a woman if she’s a horrible person, she’s A BITCH. But yeah, again, be careful how you use that. I wouldn’t refer to anyone that I was talking to, whether it was true or not, as being A BITCH unless I was specifically trying to offend that person.

So, those are just some of the other definitions for the noun, A BITCH.

Now, we can dive into some examples guys.

Examples:

So, imagine that a girlfriend has had a fight with her boyfriend. So, he’s really messy, he never does the dishes, he gets home late, he just wants food on the table, he doesn’t want to cook, and then he leaves his stuff everywhere around the house. So, he’s a bit useless, he’s not very helpful, he doesn’t like helping his girlfriend with the chores around the house, etc. So, if she was having an issue with this and wanted to complain about it, she wanted to have a moan, have a groan, she could call up her friend and HAVE A BITCH on the phone. So, she could be like, “My boyfriend’s useless. He said this, he’s done this, he’s not cleaning up after himself. He’s so messy. He never does the dishes.” You know, “I just wanted to call you up TO HAVE A BITCH. I wanted TO BITCH TO you ABOUT my boyfriend. I wanted TO BITCH. I wanted TO HAVE A BITCH.”.

A second example could be that say you are an employee. So, you work for a company and your boss is really demanding. So, he may not necessarily be a nasty person, he may not necessarily have even done anything wrong, but he expects a lot from you, he’s hounding you quite a bit, which means he’s harassing you to get things done, he’s always on your back and expecting a lot, he’s expecting a lot from you. So, if this was a bit of an issue and it was stressing you out, and you wanted to complain about this to someone, you could talk to your colleagues, the other people you work with, and you could complain about your boss to the colleagues, which means that you could say informally that you ARE HAVING A BITCH ABOUT your boss TO your colleagues or you ARE BITCHING ABOUT your boss TO your colleagues. So, TO HAVE A BITCH ABOUT your boss TO your colleagues or TO BITCH ABOUT your boss TO your colleagues.

One last example might be that, say, you have an older person in the family, say, an older uncle or an older aunty or aunt that is always complaining about something. So, maybe they’re complaining about the hot weather, like I just did at the start of this, I HAD a bit of A BITCH ABOUT the hot weather. Maybe they’re complaining about having a sore leg, maybe they’re complaining about their food being too hot, too cold. They’re just always complaining. And so, you could say that that person IS always BITCHING, always BITCHING ABOUT something, you know, “My great-aunt Agatha IS always BITCHING ABOUT this. She’S always HAVING A BITCH ABOUT THAT. She’s always complaining, she’s always moaning, she’s always groaning.”.

So, hopefully by now you get the idea of what TO HAVE A BITCH is, so using it as a noun, TO HAVE A BITCH, or what BITCHING is, or TO BITCH, the verb. So, to complain, to groan, to whine, to moan, to whinge, etc.

And so, I’ve set up two substitution exercises for you here today, guys, where we’ll treat BITCH as both the verb, where we’ll substitute it in for a bunch of other synonyms, which will be also verbs, and then after that we’ll do it as the noun, so HAVING A BITCH. And, again, we’ll use the same sentences and it’ll be good. Hopefully you guys will associate all of these other synonyms, all these other ways to say TO BITCH or TO HAVE A BITCH with that context of complaining, moaning, groaning, bitching.

Anyway, in the first substitution exercise, guys, I’m going to get you to substitute the verb that I use for BITCHING. So, it’s going to be in that present tense continuous “-ing” tense.

So, let’s go.

Substitution Exercise 1:

I’m complaining about my dad.

I’m bitching about my dad.

You’re whining about the hot weather.

You’re bitching about the hot weather.

She’s moaning to her best friend about her boyfriend.

She’s bitching to her best friend about her boyfriend.

He’s groaning about doing his chores.

He’s bitching about doing his chores.

We’re whinging about the footy match results.

We’re bitching about the footy match results.

They’re grumbling to the waiter about the food.

They’re bitching to the waiter about the food.

So, that was the first one. We’re going to repeat those same sentences except this time I’ve changed them into HAVING A COMPLAIN or HAVING A BITCH. And so, the substitution exercise will be the same thing but this time it will be TO HAVE A BITCH in the present continuous tense, HAVING A BITCH getting substituted in for things like HAVING A COMPLAIN. Let’s go!

Substitution Exercise 2:

I’m having a complain about my dad.

I’m having a bitch about my dad.

You’re having a whine about the hot weather.

You’re having a bitch about the hot weather.

She’s having a moan to her best friend about her boyfriend.

She’s having a bitch to her best friend about her boyfriend.

He’s having a groan about doing his chores.

He’s having a bitch about doing his chores.

We’re having a whinge about the footy match results.

We’re having a bitch about the footy match results.

They’re having a grumble to the waiter about the food.

They’re having a bitch to the waiter about the food.

So, hopefully you’ve enjoyed that episode, guys. I’m trying to do a lot more of these exercises where I tie in multiple things, where I try and use synonyms so that you guys practice a whole range of vocabulary at the same time as learning, say, the definition of an expression and how to use that expression. So, let me know what you think, guys. Send me a comment below and make sure you subscribe to the channel if you haven’t already!

Anyway, see you in the next episode guys and enjoy your day!

So, about that rainstorm that I was talking about. It’s absolutely pissing down now. (It’s) heavy, heavy, heavy rain.