Hey English learners, welcome to another phrasal verb episode.
I hope you're doing great and that you're ready to learn a couple new phrasal verbs today.
In today's episode, we're going to look at two phrasal verbs.
The first one is call out and the second one is cancel out.
So first, let's define these phrasal verbs and see an example of each one.
Call out means cancel out to draw attention to and criticize someone's unacceptable actions or behavior.
For example, I could say, people called him out on his hypocrisy.
What I'm saying here is that this person was being a hypocrite and so other people called him out, meaning they pointed out to his hypocrisy and criticized it and talked about it publicly and showed that he was being a hypocrite.
So, they drew attention to his hypocrisy and criticized it.
So, they called him out on his hypocrisy.
The other phrasal verb is cancel out, and this means to remove the effect of one thing by doing another thing that has the opposite effect.
So for example, I could say the additional costs cancel out whatever money you think you might save.
So here in this example I'm saying that because you have to pay some other costs, it cancels out the money that you save on this deal or whatever.
So because you have to pay in other areas, this negates or removes the savings that you have in the other area.
So the two things cancel each other out.
So the costs cancel out the savings.
All right, now let me talk about a couple different things.
And while I'm talking, I'm going to use these phrasal verbs again and again so that you can hear them in different sentences.
And hopefully by the end of this episode you're able to understand them well and know how they're used, and maybe even use them in your own sentences.
So first let me talk about political campaigns and debates, particularly when people are running for office, as we say, that means that they're trying to become someone with political power, like they're running for mayor, they're running for governor, they're running for president.
It means that they're trying to be elected.
As for that office,
So let's talk about these campaigns and debates.
Usually, when there is some election, there are different candidates who are running against each other.
They're competing against each other and trying to get more votes.
And of course, they have to try to show why they are a better candidate than the other people.
And so politicians often call each other out on their negatives.
So if there's some kind of debate, then of course a lot of the debate will be spent on attacking the other candidates.
So when one person the chance to speak, they might call out the other candidates on their negatives right.
They might call out their opponents for voting on certain things in the past.
That's a big one.
In the US.
People bring up the voting record of different politicians.
You can see what they supported in the past.
They voted for this, they voted for that, and so often politicians will call out other politicians for voting for certain things in the past because they view those things as negatives.
For example, they can also call out their opponents on past comments that they've made.
So maybe They said things in the past that were unacceptable now, or maybe they said things they shouldn't have said, or they said really politically incorrect things or negative things.
And so they might call out their opponents on their past comments, also on their past actions.
Perhaps even just in their personal life or their professional life, they did things that people don't approve of.
So maybe they can call out the other politicians on their actions.
And maybe there were scandals in the past.
With politicians, there are often scandals.
And so maybe they call out their opponents on the scandals that they had in the past.
There are all kinds of things that they can call their opponents out on.
And they can call out their opponents on their hypocrisy as well.
That's a big one.
I remember in a famous debate this was many, many years ago one politician called out another politician because that other politician was really big into war and wanted the country to be at war and to send troops to these different countries.
And then one politician called him out on his hypocrisy, because that other politician actually didn't go to war when he was supposed to in the past.
So he was being a hypocrite, and so the other politician called him out on that.
So that's something that politicians might call their opponents out on.
They might be hypocritical in different ways.
And then also news reporters when they report on these debates, these campaigns, they call out all the candidates on their lies, their hypocrisy uh, the things that they say.
Or maybe they really don't like the politician uh, and even though they can't really criticize them for much uh, They have to try to criticize them.
So they call them out on things that aren't that important, or sometimes they even just lie about these politicians.
So news reporters are not always the most honest people nowadays.
So, when it comes to political campaigns and political debates, there are many things that people can call out.
They can call their opponents out on many different things actions comments, voting records hypocrisy scandals, lies.
So usually there is a lot to call out when it comes to political campaigns and debates.
So that's something that you will see a lot of during election season, and the other thing I wanted to talk about is things that cancel each other out.
So of course, I'm using this new phrasal verb, so let me talk about a few things that cancel each other out, meaning they have the opposite effect and so they go against each other and they cancel each other out.
So one example of something canceling out something else is when you try to have good habits, like you go to the gym, you walk a lot, you run, you exercise in different ways, but you eat terribly.
So eating terribly can cancel out other good habits and unfortunately this can prevent people from losing weight or getting healthy or achieving their goals, because if they eat terribly they cancel out the other benefits that they get from the other things they do.
I'm sure some of you have had this experience before.
You might find it easy to exercise and work out, but you find it difficult to actually eat a healthy diet.
And so your actions cancel each other out in this regard.
I've had this happen to me before.
There have been periods of my life where I was pretty active and I was pretty healthy in terms of exercising and not sitting in a chair all day, but I did not eat well.
And so that canceled out most of the benefits that I was getting from the other things I was doing.
People often talk about how important your diet is, how important your diet eating is when it comes to gaining muscle and getting in shape and losing body fat.
When people have these goals but they can't change the way they eat, they often have a lot of trouble achieving those goals, because what you eat is sometimes even more important than what what you do at the gym or when you're exercising.
So eating terribly can cancel out other good habits, unfortunately.
And another thing, another example of something canceling out something else is that in people's minds, mistakes can often cancel out successes.
I'm not saying that this is true but in people's minds it's true.
So when people think about their past or their present, when they think about their successes that they've had, they often discount them, meaning they don't value them for what they are, because they also had failures in their past and in their mind their successes are canceled out by their failures.
So they can't just appreciate the good things that they've accomplished, because they constantly dwell on the negative things, the failures.
When you dwell on something, this means that you continue to think about it and can't forget it and get over it.
So because they dwell on their mistakes and their failures, it cancels out the successes in their mind.
I've also felt like this at times, and it's something that I need to try to avoid.
Of course, I've felt like the failures in my past are more than my successes, and my wife will have to remind me of the things I accomplished and have done well, because I often feel like the negatives cancel out the positives, and that's not the best mindset in every case, because you will constantly be dissatisfied and feel regret if you only focus on the failures and the mistakes and feel like they cancel out the good things you've done.
That can make it hard to appreciate what you've accomplished, right?
And one other situation in which things cancel each other out is when you are running a business and And the costs of running that business cancel out the revenue from that business.
This is very common.
You might hear about a company that makes a certain amount of money in revenue, but their operating costs are really high, so those costs cancel out a lot of the revenue and sometimes they are even more than the revenue.
And so the company goes bankrupt and has to close.
When you run a business, you have to be aware of these things.
This is one of the most important things to be aware of.
People focus on how much money their business makes, but if they don't focus on keeping the costs down, then the costs can cancel out the profits.
And that's not good, of course.
We don't want the costs of running a business to cancel out all the revenue, all the profits, because then that is not a functional business.
The costs cancel out the profit, and so there's no money to be made at the end of the day.
Alright, I hope that as I was talking, you were able to get a good feel for these phrasal verbs and hopefully you know how they're used now and maybe you can use them in your own sentences.
And I want to encourage you to check out my advanced podcast episodes and use those to help you reach the next level in your English listening comprehension, because in those episodes I speak English fast, not slow like in these episodes.
So the link to sign up for those is down below.
And check out my US Conversations podcast as well, in which I talk to different English teachers from all over the US.
It's a lot of fun.
It's great practice for your listening.
And it's a great place to find an English teacher.
So check that out as well.
That link is down below.
All right.
Thank you so much for listening to this phrasal verb episode, and I'll talk to you in the next one.
