hello. welcome back to www.engvid.com. today, we'regoing to be dealing with: "idioms of colour". okay? there are really beautiful ways ofdescribing things in the english language, and they will add a degree of richness andvariety to your spoken and written english. i'm going to be telling a story today aboutmy friend, bob, and what happened to him, and you're going to be learning 12 idiomsusing colour, or 10-12 colour idioms. first
best carpet colors for bedrooms, thing i wanted to point out was here in theuk, we spell "colour" with a "u". we like our u's in uk style english, original english.but in the america... well, in the usa, they tend to forget about our worthy u's.so, you know, make your own mind up. my friend, bob, he got beaten up until hewas "black and blue". okay? he got beaten
up. okay? so, "black and blue", it describesthe colour of his skin because he has bruises. okay? he gets beaten up. he was in a fight.he got in a fight until he was... until he was beaten black and blue. itmeans he got badly beaten up. the police said that the matter was "blackand white". okay? so, my friend, he's got beaten up, so i ask the policeman: "what'shappened, here? my friend, he got beaten up." and they said to me that the matter, thatthis whole topic, this subject, this event, it was "black and white". okay? it was clear.okay? it was clear what had happened. there was no questions: what had happened? my friend,bob, had been drunk, so he got attacked, he got beaten up. okay?
so, what did i do? well, i asked bob's mom:"why? what's happened? what's happened to bob? he got drunk. he got beaten black andblue. what's going on, mrs. bob?" and mrs. bob said: "well, bob, he's alwaysbeen a bit of a 'black sheep'. " that's a red sheep. what's a black sheep? ma-a-a. a black sheep is onethat goes a different way. so, we got lots of sheep. okay? here's a big family of sheep,and here's bob. here's bob being a black sheep. well, what does a "black sheep" mean? well,a "black sheep" means he's gone a different way. okay? because most of the time, sheep arewhat colour? yes, they're white. but bob, he's a black sheep, he's a bit different.he's taken a wrong turning. you are going
the wrong direction. okay? so, i'm still talking to mrs. bob, and i'm like:"yes, but he was 'born with a silver spoon'. " okay? if i'm born with a... woo, it'ssilver, the spoon. with a silver spoon in his mouth, it means the gods are giving riches.okay? caliban in the tempest, shakespeare: "me dreamed that the clouds opened and showedriches ready to drop upon me." okay? sorry. a bit over your head. he's born with a silverspoon, bob. okay? what...? what the...? what does that mean? it means he was born intoa good family. yeah? he's born into a big house, there's a car, there's food. but bob'sbeen a black sheep, okay? and he's gone to... he's gone to hull instead of to new york,maybe. sorry, people in hull. it's a glorious
city. i love it very much. okay, so he was born with a silver spoon.he was given-okay?-gold, silver; valuable. okay? lots of money for gold and silver. hewas given "a golden opportunity", a great, a fantastic, a magnificent, a brilliant opportunity.yeah? to... to go to a good school. okay? and so bob went to the good school, but hethought... okay? past tense of the verb: "to think", he thought that "the grass was alwaysgreener on the other side". okay? so here's bob, he's at his school. he's got his silverspoon, and he thinks that it's always better to be... well, a... someone swimming in thesea, under water. he thought it was always greener to be a deep sea diver. okay? a deep seadiver. so "deep" means far under the water,
right down. so bob thought it was greener to beunder water, to be doing something completely different. okay? so here's bob, to think it'sgreener on the other side, he always thinks it's better over there. so if i'm in a bluecar, i think it's better to be in a red car; if i'm in a red car, i think it's better tobe in a blue car. bob thought it was better to be a deep sea diver. uh-oh. so, he soon was "in the dark" about things.okay? so he's swimming, he's in the water. he's in the dark, it means: don't know what'sgoing on. yeah? i don't know. so, you could... you could say... if someone asked you a question,you could say: "sorry, mate. i'm a bit in the dark about that." it means: "idon't know. no one has told me." yeah?
because he was a bit in the dark with hisfinances, he didn't know what was going in and out of his bank, he soon came "into thered". yeah? "into the red", yeah? pound sign going down, down, down, down, down. or dollar,if you prefer the dollar. i don't. okay, he's going into the red until he's minus.yeah? so he has no money at all. what bob really wanted was for people to "rollout the red carpet" for him, to treat him as an important person. okay? you see moviestars, they have the red carpet. bob so wants to have the red carpet rolled out for him, buthe's being a deep sea diver, and he doesn't have any money. i'm not saying that deep seadivers don't have money. don't get me wrong. it's just bob's a bit in the dark about whatto do with his money, and so it all goes to
the wrong places. now, bob would have been "tickled pink"... okay?you know what tickle is? tickle. [laughs] that looked a bit like a chimpanzee, but tickleis like, you know, we have an itchy bit here, an itchy bit here. [laughs]. yeah? that's to betickled. okay. a bit weird. sorry. inappropriate. to be "tickled pink", it means really happy.yeah? pink, you know, it's kind of... it's a happy colour, a bit of a gay colour, butit's happy. yeah? tickled pink. he would have been... he would have been. so we can use ourtenses with... because it's "to be tickled pink", so he wanted to be... no. we wouldn'tsay: "he wanted to be". he was tickled pink. so normally, we would use it in the past orin the present. i am tickled pink that you're
watching my video right now. so, we never really saw his "true colours",dee, dee, dee. yeah? you know the song? his true colours. we never really saw bob'strue colours. it was such a shame. and he didn't really "pass life with flyingcolours". but, you guys, on the other hand, are going to pass my quiz with flying colours.aren't you? you're going to know exactly what "black and blue", when you beat him black andblue. to see things in "black and white", yeah, crystal clear. the "black sheep" ofthe family, the one who does things a bit different. "born with a silver spoon", bornwith everything they could want. "given a golden opportunity". "the grass is alwaysgreener on the other side" or not.
"in the dark", when you don't know aboutsomething. "in the red", when you're in the minus. "roll out the red carpet", to be treated importantly.and "tickled pink" when you're so happy with everything. you want to see the "true colours". so "truecolours", what is this? it's if my colour is red, and grey, and black, and blue, it'slike saying my person. these are my colours. inside my mind, you see all the beautifulcolours. okay? it's seeing my heart, seeing the colours that are in me, benjamin. okay?to see someone's true colours, you see the best of that person. okay? so... you couldsee... "to see someone's", okay? the true colours of someone. to see someone's truecolours. to see the very best of that person.
okay? "to pass with flying colours". flying,yeah? i'm doing pretty well because i'm flying, so the colours... so we're flying colours.what do you think "flying colours" are? sort of red, yellow, green, blue, pink, purple, idon't know. "with flying colours" just means that you do exceptionallywell, like 100% distinction. that is what i want you to do now. do the quiz:www.engvid.com, quiz on "idioms of colour".
if you really want to, subscribe to my youtubechannel, and i've got some more things going on at exquisite english. so if you want tocontinue the relationship and, well, get out of the dark in terms of your english,then maybe go there as well. thanks a lot for watching my video.see ya next time.
