This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2046.
No complaints.
Vocabulary for pet peeves in English.
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What is your pet peeve?
Today, find out how to share the thing that annoys you most and learn why.
This can be a great way to get to know someone through a vibrant English conversation.
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Lindsay, how are you?
Excellent.
I'm psyched to be in the microphone with you, Aubrey.
It's the best part of the week.
So no complaints.
No complaints.
No complaints.
I have a question for you that's related to a listener question we got.
Do you have any pet peeves, Lindsay?
Oh my gosh.
Oh, I wish I had taken a second to think about this before we hit record.
I do.
I know I do.
And I'm drawing a blank.
You asked me.
This happened just yesterday.
I'm going to share one of mine.
And it's probably one of yours, but you haven't thought about it before.
When you're on hold and there's like music, but then there'll be a voice that says thank you for continuing to hold.
And every time I think it's the real person answering the call.
So that I'm like ready to talk.
And then, oh, nope.
And then it goes back to hold music.
Like, why can't it just be hold music?
So that as soon as I hear a voice, I know the call has been answered.
So I don't have to pay such close attention.
You're almost talking to a robot, but you're like, hi.
Oh, yeah.
Just a machine.
And I get fooled so often.
It's frustrating.
That's hilarious.
Well, on that same note of making calls into customer service, a pet peeve of mine is when I do make that call.
And let's say, someone answers at the top level, the most general level, and they take my information, my name, my phone number, and then they transfer me.
And then that information hasn't been passed through their system.
So I have to say it again.
And then maybe again, I'm like, why can't you guys sync up on that information?
Right.
Or even worse, if it's not even just your information but you're kind of sharing the whole problem, the whole story.
And then they say, okay, let me transfer you to someone who can help you.
I need to start pivoting around, right?
Because I'll go right into my whole story.
Like we just had.
We just got contacted by an insurance company in California for my aunt's house that they're trying to discontinue her insurance.
California is going to have a major issue with insurance in the next few years, by the way, and so I told my story to like three levels of customer service.
Right, I went into the whole thing three times until I got to the person who actually needed to hear the story, which is funny, I'm just thinking I bet that customer service person is like.
My pet peeve is when someone tells me their whole story without bothering to find out if I'm the person that can help them, True.
I know because sometimes I feel very socially unaware when they're like, let me transfer you.
I should have asked if you're the person that can help me.
My bad.
We need to pivot around these things.
Oh my gosh.
We love this.
This is going to be such a fun episode.
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Yes, absolutely.
And if you're not following, you've missed some amazing episodes recently, including the first part of the answer to this question.
One of our listeners, Carol, sent in a question.
She was asking about passing the bar and pet peeves.
So we talked about that one in episode 2042.
Check it out if you missed it.
And her question was actually inspired by another episode, 1908.
So there are just so many great episodes you're missing if you're not following.
So hit follow right now.
Yes.
Hit that follow button.
So let's get into what pet peeve actually means.
First of all, just lay out the groundwork here.
Right.
So this is just something that you find a little bit irritating.
You can have pet peeves about yourself.
Right.
Something that you find you do.
You're like, oh, it's my pet peeve when I am late all the time, maybe.
Or it can be something irritating about some someone else.
Yeah.
I wonder where it comes from though.
Pet peeves.
Why pet?
Like there's really nothing about my dog that bothers me.
I think he's perfect.
So why?
That's a good point.
Why does it have to do with pets?
No one's bothered by their pets.
Maybe if their dog's like, really like, barking all the time at people or something, maybe it came from that originally.
Because the word peeve is.
We sometimes use it as a verb to say that peeved me, meaning that irritated me.
I feel like it's getting a little less common, the verb by itself, but we definitely use pet peeve all the time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That verb might be going out of style a little bit, right?
I don't hear it, but I do sometimes hear it.
So that's interesting.
So why do we add pet?
We don't know, but we do guys.
So write it down.
Yes.
Right.
And that's just such a good way to connect.
Write down this whole question just to say what's one of your pet.
I feel like it's a great first date question.
It's a great get to know you question.
Right.
And it doesn't have to be like, OK, let me tell you 20 minutes how many things I find annoying.
Right.
You can keep it light.
Just share like a fun one like we did at the beginning of the episode.
It's kind of a similar question to like, what's your sign?
You know what I mean?
It is.
It's a good first date question.
Just getting to know someone.
And it's one of those questions.
We've been talking about this a lot on All Ears English.
There are certain questions you can ask or topics which will allow someone to share a lot about themselves, right?
A lot more than just their answer.
It's true.
You get a lot of insight into like you're saying their values, what matters to them.
Are they close to their family?
All they have to share is a few sentences about their pet peeve, and you're going to have learned a lot about them.
A lot.
A really cool connection scale today, guys.
Now, Aubrey, what about on IELTS?
You and Jessica host an amazing podcast over there, right?
And I wanted to share an episode that we did not too long ago, episode 803.
It was called Don't Get Irked.
By IELTS, this verb to get irked is so high level and interesting.
We shared quite a bit of vocabulary for different levels of anger, right?
And phrases that go along with them.
So pet peeve is more the irritation level.
Then there's like annoyance, rage.
And so we shared vocabulary for each of those.
So definitely go check that out.
If you're not following IELTS Energy, we have two episodes every week.
It's a really great podcast, whether you're studying for IELTS or not, for just great vocabulary.
Yeah, good stuff.
So guys, go on over there and check out the IELTS Energy podcast.
Okay, Aubrey, let's get into the second word expression that we want to share for our listeners.
What is it?
Yeah, there's lots of other ways to talk about pet peeves, this type, this idea.
And the first one is just a complaint, the noun complaint.
So this is, you know, anything that is something you would complain about.
And it's always negative, right?
You're never going to have a complaint about something positive, something you like.
That's true.
That's true.
Yeah, this is a very straightforward noun.
So some examples, right?
Do you have any complaints about the service? right?
Now you might hear that at a restaurant, right?
If they're asking you to fill out a comment card or at a retail shop, if maybe there's been a problem, the manager might ask you this do you have any complaints about the service?
It's a little more formal, a little more procedural.
And I love the second example because it's so natural.
It's what I used at the top of the show.
You said, you know, how are you?
And I said, no complaints.
All good.
Right.
Life is good.
All the time as just a response to how are you doing?
It's so much more fun than just I'm fine.
It's such a native, natural way to respond to say no complaints.
Yes, I love that guy.
So write that one down, especially today, right?
Make sure that you kind of remember that and try that out in a conversation to connect.
To answer how are you?
Instead of I'm fine.
Let's get away from I'm fine, right?
And it doesn't have to be literally true, right?
You may actually have complaints about something, but just like I'm fine.
We say just to mean like Yes.
Everything's fine.
I'm not going to give you all the details of everything going.
It doesn't have to be exactly true that you don't have any complaints.
It just means like, I'm great.
I'm great.
How are you?
Yeah.
I mean, we've talked about in the past how, you know, how are you?
It's not really a question, right?
It's more of a greeting.
It's more of an opener.
And so we need to respond, know how to respond properly.
There could be some cultural things we want to think about here.
Maybe in your language, it's actually a question, right?
That depends on your culture.
So very interesting.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So this you can know that nobody's going to expect that your life is perfect and nothing's going wrong in your life.
If you say no complaints, it just means like, I'm fine.
Yeah.
Good stuff.
All right.
So number three, Aubrey, is grievance.
This is a noun.
It has two meanings.
Yeah.
So the first one is a feeling of resentment over something that is wrong or unfair, or it's believed to be unfair.
Right.
And we often collocate with this, this with the verb grievance to nurse, which means to almost like encourage for yourself.
Like an example is she's nursing a grievance about how she was treated by the staff.
So this sort of means you're dwelling on it, right?
You have this complaint, you have this grievance, and you're not just letting it go really quickly.
Maybe you're telling everyone you know about it.
You're really upset.
We would say you're nursing a grievance.
And the idea here is to express that it's too much, right?
Aubrey's, just like you, should kind of move on, take action and then move on.
Right yeah, that's definitely implied here.
Right, we might say this about someone else.
If we feel like they they do it's too too much complaining, like they kind of need to forgive and forget and move on yeah, then we might say that they're nursing a grievance.
Yep, and the second way we would use it would be in an official statement of a complaint over something believed to be wrong or unfair I'm thinking about maybe like an HOA or something would be a grievance to a neighbor.
Do you have an HOA, a homeowners association?
I do have an HOA and I definitely have a list of grievances that I have with my HOA because they're very they're kind of busy bodies.
A couple of the people on the board will like come to your back door and like look over your yard to see if you have any infractions.
Like my business.
Oh, that's so annoying.
Okay.
It is.
Our neighbors have a chicken coop, which is actually against the HOA's regulations.
And one of the board members is always like looking to see if they've gotten rid of their chickens, because they keep fining them for having chickens.
Oh, my gosh.
Wow.
They mean business.
They're pretty strict with the HOA here.
So you should submit a list of grievances to the HOA.
I recommend it.
I think I should.
I agree.
Yeah, this is a little more, again, procedural, right?
You might submit a list of grievances to a boss or to maybe in court.
You might have a list of grievances if you're suing someone or making more of a formal complaint about something.
Yes.
Yes, for sure.
So this does because it goes through some kind of an institution usually is kind of an institution.
I suppose that would qualify as an institution.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Though I do think that we use I use this to exaggerate in sort of a playful way.
Right.
If someone does something I don't like my children, for example, if they haven't done the laundry for a couple of days, I might say like, all right, I've got a list of grievances.
Kids like to get on them about doing their chores.
Right.
And it's, of course, not official like that.
We sort of use it to be playful and exaggerate.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, guys, it's all about being playful, right?
Connecting.
Many of the more serious words that we teach you on this show can be turned around and used in a fun way to actually connect and play right.
We're playing through language.
Yes.
Someone might say this to you just like oh, like I have a grievance of whatever it is something you've done.
And maybe you're playing a game and you win or you break a rule or something.
They might say this, shake their fist in the air and say, all right, I have a grievance here.
Yeah.
Just like to make a joke.
I love it.
So good.
So let's show our listeners how we do it in a role play.
Perfect.
In this role play.
You and I work at a government agency and we're looking through a list of complaints.
All right, here we go.
So we need to divide these into serious grievances and complaints that are kind of petty.
Oh, it's tricky because it's kind of subjective.
Yeah, we need a basis to judge by.
Perhaps anything with legal repercussions we'll consider more serious.
Great idea.
Awesome.
So we are right there in the beginning.
Serious grievances.
We're talking about something that maybe would have a legal repercussion.
So often, if someone's working at a government agency or for an HOA, they're going to be receiving lots of complaints and grievances.
And some of them might be very important and have to be taken seriously.
And others might be, like we say in the role play here, petty.
That's a good bonus word.
That's a great bonus word for today.
I'm sure that will be in the app.
The iOS Android app is a key word that our listeners.
Guys, if you do use the app, you could tap on that and add it to your power list.
But what does it mean, petty?
Yeah, I mean it's unimportant or insignificant and often in almost a spiteful way, like maybe a complaint that is intentionally trying to get someone in trouble or have a consequence for them that is unjustified or unfair right.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
And we get this feeling when you get into an exchange with someone and they're acting petty, right?
It's not a good feeling.
You just... It's not good.
Exactly, right?
It is very... There's a very negative connotation here.
You would never want to call someone...
If you're not wanting to either hurt their feelings, offend them or really get them to change their behavior, because this is a very negative way to act.
It's very much frowned upon where you're acting, where you're taking things less seriously than they should be.
Or maybe you're being unkind or mean or spiteful over something that is not important, that is not a big deal.
Right.
Or maybe you're holding a grudge.
That would be an example of something that's kind of petty.
And then maybe someone's done something to you.
And then a petty thing to do would be to hold a grudge and then take it out the next time somehow.
Right.
Yeah.
It often comes down to that you know forgive and forget any sort of small infractions, small offenses.
If we can just forgive, move on, move past it, then we're going to avoid that petty behavior that might come up if we're holding those grudges.
Oh my gosh.
And that really pulls you down, right?
If you remember those things and you, oh gosh, awful way to live.
I'm going to move on.
Absolutely.
Yes.
All right.
What's the takeaway for today, Aubrey?
Yeah.
I think you know though, we often seek to be positive and always just sharing positive things.
Sometimes a great way to build connection is to talk about something a little more negative, like the pet peeves that you might have.
Something that has come up as far as adversity in someone's life.
If someone has a grievance or a complaint, often they'll need to vent about that.
And that is also a great way to connect.
Oh, yeah.
And again, sharing a pet peeve.
We've shown you guys how to keep it light at the beginning of the episode and then we got a little deeper towards the end of the episode.
So you can see how this concept can... go across many different types of conversations, right?
But just asking someone about their pet peeves is a really nice way to kind of start, when you know someone, getting to know them.
It's fun to know those things, right?
So prepare your answer if you do get into that kind of situation, conversation.
Yeah.
Be ready with a fun or a funny pet peeve to share and definitely use this phrase, no complaints.
Next time somebody asks, how are you doing?
This is a great way to respond.
Definitely.
That would be a way to level up and move to that 99% fluency level.
All right, Aubrey, you have a good day and I'll see you next time on the show.
Awesome.
See you next time.
All right.
Bye.
Bye.
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