This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2034.
Are you a self-proclaimed germaphobe?
How to talk about your cleaning habits in English.
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In today's episode, find out why you should be a stickler for this English vocabulary when it comes to discussing how you feel about being clean or messy.
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Aubrey, I have a question for you today.
Oh, let's hear it.
Are you a neat freak?
Oh, no, not at all.
I'm a clutter bug.
Have you heard that expression?
Oh, that's fantastic.
Neat freak, clutter bug.
I love the opposites.
That's good.
Exactly right.
My husband is a neat freak.
So I have to be careful not to leave my clutter everywhere because it drives him bonkers.
But my kids are all clutter bugs too.
I think every kid is, has a tendency to just leave stuff all over the house and not be super tidy.
Oh no no, kids are.
Yeah, it would be kind of weird right yeah, right young kid.
Every now and then there might be a kid that's really tidy, but they're none of mine.
None of mine have that interesting.
I try to be tidy.
I'm not a neat freak.
Um, i try to tidy up just because it helps me keep my mind clear, like if i'm in a chaotic place i don't feel good in my mind.
But i'm definitely not like a neat freak, You know.
That's another level, I think.
Yes, for sure.
These are interesting adjectives.
We had a great question today about these.
So we're going to dive into.
You know how to describe someone who's either a neat freak or just very.
You know, has cleanliness, is very clean and tidy.
Yes, as a value.
And yeah, we want to talk about to dive a little deeper, to talk about describing people according to their characteristics and sort of where you want to be careful there.
Yeah, I love this deep episode today.
So I'm going to go ahead and read the question and then we will get to the answer.
Awesome.
So hello, Lindsay.
I'm super happy that I found your podcast and started listening to them.
I do listen to your podcast every day when I commute to work and I really feel the difference in my English level before and after listening.
That's so good, Aubrey.
This listener has seen a real difference.
I love that.
It's so good to know.
In my daily life I have a problem with English words related to different characteristics of people and the right way to point to those characteristics.
For example I don't know what I should call a person who cares about cleanliness a lot, in a good way.
Can you please make a podcast about different characteristics?
Sincerely, Bahar.
Wow, I think this listener must be living in English.
Yes.
Right.
Probably in an English speaking country where you're hearing a lot.
And this is tricky.
I had to kind of think about this, because there aren't a lot of words that we use often to describe someone who cares about cleanliness that aren't a little bit negative, that don't have like a little bit of a negative connotation.
That's interesting.
It's interesting when there is not a word for something.
You wonder about like the values of a culture and a language, right?
If there's not a word, if it doesn't exist, it's probably not a value.
So does that mean that we don't care about cleanliness?
We don't know.
So before we start today yeah, before we get into this today, guys hit follow right now on All Ears English.
Aubrey, why should they do that?
Why should they hit follow?
Four episodes every week.
And they're so fun and interesting.
I love that Bahar was letting us know that this is making a real difference for their language level, because that's the key, right.
Yes, it's fun.
Yes, it's interesting.
But also, it will push you up to a higher fluency level.
So be sure to follow so you don't miss any of our episodes.
Yeah.
And the reason is that we care about something more than just the language.
We're not really here to talk about language.
Yes, we are.
But we're really here to talk about human connection, guys.
And that brings us all together.
We all want to feel connected.
So we're going to always show you how to connect with English, not how to be perfect.
Exactly.
Yes.
Right.
Along with the vocab, along with the grammar, we're sharing how to use that to connect in English.
That's the goal for sure.
That's the goal.
We got it.
Okay.
So let's try to answer this question the best we can.
Yeah.
Okay.
So here's what's interesting.
When I looked this up because of course I know neat freak, I know some of the words we're going to teach, but I was racking my brain, without checking the dictionary, for a word where we would describe someone in a positive way.
That's just very clean.
We do have a word, we just don't use it very often.
It's fastidious.
Do you use this word much, Lindsay?
I guess I didn't know what that meant.
Because we use it that seldom.
All right.
Now I know.
I'm going to learn something again with you, Aubrey.
So, okay.
So this is an adjective, I guess.
Yeah.
Okay.
I thought it meant something more about like habits, not so much about cleanliness, but I guess it does, based on the dictionary.
Yeah.
And I think you're right that.
I think natives often use it, maybe incorrectly, at least according to the dictionary.
Maybe it's evolving a little bit, because the dictionary definition is it just means keeping your clothes possession, property clean and tidy.
So for example, she's extremely fastidious, never goes to bed without tidying up her house.
Interesting.
Okay.
That's good to know.
It's really fascinating that we don't use it very often.
I think it does say a lot about our culture that we maybe don't care that much, or just that we don't collocate.
We don't associate being really clean as that positive of a value, because I feel like meat freak does have just a little bit of like criticism in it.
Yeah.
I mean something that comes to mind that doesn't exactly talk about cleanliness, is like type A or she's so type A And again a little critical sounding to me.
Critical.
It's not a compliment really for the most part.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Okay.
Let's keep going with what else we came up with here.
Yeah.
So another one that I will use is to call someone a stickler.
And you can say a stickler for anything, but definitely a stickler for cleanliness.
That means that you really care about it.
You prioritize it.
So you might say, he's always been a stickler for cleanliness.
So it drives him crazy that his roommate throws his clothes everywhere.
Yeah.
And yeah, exactly.
So if I go to the definition in the dictionary, it says a person who insists on a certain quality or type of behavior.
So you could be a stickler for honesty or being on time.
It means that you really try to do it yourself and you really want other people to do it too.
Yeah.
Would you say that you're a stickler for any.
I guess we've determined not for cleanliness necessarily.
Are you a stickler for anything?
Being on time, absolutely.
I'm a stickler for always being on time.
I feel really terrible if I'm late.
And I get really frustrated if someone else is making me be late.
I don't care as much if someone else is late.
I try to be patient with others.
But I feel terrible if I'm late.
So I'm a stickler for that.
Yeah, I'm similar about that.
I think there's definitely a certain disrespect.
I hate the idea.
Hate, hate, hate the idea of someone standing there waiting for me.
And like no, I know show is even worse.
It's like unthinkable for me.
But even to make them think like, is this person not going to show up?
Am I going to be stood up?
It breaks my heart to think that someone would ever think that about me.
Same, right.
If I am going to be late, you better believe there's going to be a lot of apologizing.
I'm going to be telling you why.
I'm probably going to let you know that it's someone else.
I'm going to throw someone under the bus and say like, because I would have been on time.
Because that really shows the value in American culture of punctuality being on time, time orientation, whereas other cultures it's completely different.
That's not necessarily a value being on time for different reasons, right?
Respect from the relationship of who you were with just before that.
Not cutting something off based on an exact time, but cutting something off when the connection ends.
And that's really the bottom line here is that if I am late, I feel like I'm disrespecting the person that I'm supposed to be on time for.
Right.
And I'm worried that they will feel like I value them less or I respect them less.
And that is worst case scenario.
Yeah, that's a good example.
A lot of people in this culture are definitely sticklers for being on time.
So guys, try to be on time, especially in work situations here in the States.
But I do feel like this is positive, right?
If I said, oh, he's a stickler for cleanliness, I don't feel like there's this underlying criticism.
That's a positive thing.
It's not too heavy.
It doesn't have a negative hook to it.
I agree.
I think that one's fine.
Okay, Aubrey, but we have a few... that are a little more, would you say negative?
Yeah, a little bit of more of a negative connotation.
The first one we used at the beginning of the episode neat freak, which means you are very tidy, you're very clean, you care about it a lot.
But if someone's calling you a neat freak, it's almost an insult.
It's maybe not that far, but it's not super positive.
It's not a compliment.
Yeah, it depends on the tone, depends on the context when they say that to you, but it can be...
A little rude to say that.
And this one, next one is worse.
A germaphobe.
So just for an example, I would say, my daughter is not exactly a neat freak.
So I'm constantly asking her to clean her room.
And this is a way where it doesn't feel as negative if you're saying like okay, she's not exactly a neat freak.
We're using that as the extreme instead of actually calling someone that.
And that would be actually a really cool topic for another episode.
I'll bring another day.
How to... characterize people based on what they're not in a way to be a little indirect.
Yes.
And this is a great phrase for that to say they're not exactly.
And then you share whatever adjective or noun is the extreme, because you're saying yeah, you're being indirect about it.
Right.
So you don't want to say my daughter's messy.
Right.
But that's what I'm saying indirectly.
Oh, cool episode idea.
Let's write that down.
Let's do that another day, guys.
Follow on the show to make sure you catch that episode.
It is coming up.
Okay.
Dermaphobe.
What do we think?
Right.
It's gotten from like polite and kind to progressively more critical, right?
So yeah, germaphobe is more someone who is really paranoid about germs, constantly washing their hands.
We might use this to exaggerate if someone's just neat and tidy and call them a germaphobe.
But I definitely know some germaphobes.
I get it, right?
Someone who would never, like if they drop food on the floor, they would never eat it.
Like that's going straight in the trash and they'd be horrified if you ate it.
But Lindsay, are you the type of person that would ever eat something that fell on the floor?
Oh, it depends on what floor.
At my house, maybe.
Like on the street in Cairo, never.
You know, definitely, I think, yeah, there are scales here, right?
There are scales of intensity.
Some people, or even like something like obsessive compulsive disorders.
Some people have an actual disorder where there's like a lot of hand washing going on.
And that's more of a medical condition for sure.
But There's a scale of how, to what extent people are.
I have a friend who's a doctor.
He's an ENT.
So an ear, nose and throat doctor.
And he is the least germaphobe of anyone I've ever met.
Like no matter where it drops, bathroom floor, he would pick it up and eat it.
And he has this expression.
He says, it builds up your immunities.
Yeah, I love it.
We had a barbecue out here last week for Memorial Day.
And now some of our friends have kids.
And our friends came over with their little baby daughter.
She's like, I think she's like nine months now.
And we noticed that they're very hands-off in their parenting style.
They had her just kind of crawling around the bricks and sort of like her watermelon fell.
She just picked it right back up.
They let her do it.
We're like, we like that.
That's how we'd like to parent one day because yeah, you do build up the immunity.
Yeah.
I remember with my first child, they would have a pacifier.
And if it fell on the floor, I was like, no, I was like washing it with soap.
And then by the last child, no, they drop it and pick it up, put it right back in their mouth.
That's so good.
Yeah.
You just learn just not to be so like uptight about things, right?
Yeah, exactly so.
One quick example here.
You could say i always use disinfectant spray on the counter, since i'm a bit of a germaphobe means we don't like germs.
Germs, we're afraid of germs, or we just don't like them.
I think we had a resurgence of this during the pandemic.
There was a solid three or four months where we were wiping down our groceries because we had heard on the news somewhere that it could travel on surfaces.
Eventually they proved that that wasn't the case.
Did you ever leave any bag that was delivered at my house?
I would leave it out in the sun all day long.
That'll kill anything.
Yeah, it's crazy how much we learned about the pandemic as we went on.
So there are times when a society can become more that way.
That's a norm.
Absolutely.
I want to share one quick tip here that's interesting for avoiding offense.
Because yeah, we want to talk a little bit about.
Whenever you're describing someone according to their personality, you can hurt someone's feelings.
You can offend them, right?
Because they may know it about themselves and they don't like that trait, or they may not realize it yet.
And maybe you don't want to be the one pointing this out to them.
But there's a great way that you can avoid offense by avoiding referring to someone as a self-proclaimed whatever.
So if they have called themselves a neat freak, you could say my friend is a self-proclaimed neat freak.
I love that.
What you're saying is they call themselves that.
That's fantastic.
This is such a pro tip, guys.
And it's so modern and relevant.
Right?
I mean, you could, you know, if you're talking about cleanliness and someone shares something about themselves, you know you could say oh, you know.
If they say I'm kind of a neat freak, you say oh, you're a self-proclaimed neat freak.
You're really...
Yeah.
It's a perfect way to be less direct, less offensive, but still let them use that term like.
Use the term they use.
I love it.
Yeah.
You're taking out all the accusation, anything that could be offensive by using it this way.
So you can either use it to talk about someone else, describe someone else or even to that person and be like so as a self-proclaimed germaphobe.
Is it difficult for you?
And you can ask them about it.
Exactly.
So you can use it for germaphobe, really any of Any of these.
A stickler.
It has to be a noun though, right?
Like you couldn't say a self-proclaimed fastidious.
No.
No, right?
Because that's an adjective.
Exactly.
Self-proclaimed.
And then these that are more like a title neat freak, germaphobe or stickler, you could say as a self-proclaimed stickler for cleanliness.
So that noun phrase also works.
Yeah.
Very advanced and super native and modern, relevant right now in 2023.
So good.
Aubrey, let's do a role play to show our listeners how it's done.
Awesome.
So in this roleplay, you and I are college friends discussing our new roommates.
Okay.
So maybe we have like a sweet situation, right?
You share a bathroom or something.
Exactly.
College days.
Okay.
All right.
I'll start us out.
I've never considered myself a neat freak, but it's driving me crazy how messy my roommate is.
Oh, no.
Mine is the opposite.
She's a self-proclaimed germaphobe.
So she cleans the bathroom multiple times a day.
It's great.
So lucky.
I'm turning into a real stickler for cleanliness.
I need to call my mom and apologize for how messy my room always was.
Oh, me too.
My mom tried to teach me to be fastidious, but I was like, you, my room was always a disaster.
Nice.
We even snuck in fastidious, which probably felt a little foreign to you, because we just don't use this adjective that often.
Yeah, but it's good.
It's good.
Higher level vocabulary.
All right.
What did we use here?
So you said, I've never considered myself a neat freak.
Yeah.
And this is, like you said, using it sort of the opposite to say I'm not exactly a neat freak, or I've never considered myself a neat freak, but and it's a good way to share like maybe I am because I'm realizing these other behaviors bother me.
Right, right.
I love it.
Yeah, we learn a lot about life and ourselves when we go to college, don't we?
It's true, right?
Things that we don't ever have to face, when we have our own space and things are taken care of for us, and then, all of a sudden,
And you see the whole spectrum of you know in your dorm or in your apartment after college, like roommates.
You see how people are so different on the spectrum.
It does increase your tolerance, right?
For all types of behaviors and people because you're going to see it all.
I see it all.
All right.
Then I said she's a self-proclaimed germaphobe.
So really good use of self-proclaimed.
So I'm not saying she's a germaphobe.
That would be kind of talking behind someone's back, criticizing them, kind of rude slandering a little bit.
Right.
Yeah.
This feels so much more kind and respectful to say she's a self-proclaimed germaphobe.
Like this means she has told you I'm a germaphobe.
So don't be weirded out if I'm cleaning the bathroom multiple times a day.
So then you can say she's a self-proclaimed germaphobe. without it being rude or disrespectful.
Yeah.
And I think in a culture where it's not necessarily encouraged to be really, really fastidious around being neat, it's good to proclaim that about yourself.
If you feel like you want to clean more often, that's totally fine.
But just share that fact with the people you live with.
Get it out in the open.
And so then there doesn't have to be a shame around it, right?
Absolutely.
Yes.
Right.
Let's remove the shame.
Remove the stigma.
And I love that you used fastidious there.
I feel like both of us, we've added this to our English vocabulary.
We're bringing it back.
We're bringing back fastidious.
I love it.
And then you said, Aubrey, you said, so lucky.
I'm turning into a real stickler for cleanliness.
So I'm jealous that your roommate is cleaning the bathroom multiple times a day.
And I'm saying well, I'm turning into a real stickler, meaning I'm starting to care more and more about it.
Oh my gosh.
Yes.
And then I said, me too.
My mom tried to teach me to be fastidious.
There's that word again, million dollar word.
But I was like you.
My room was always a disaster.
Yeah.
Nice.
Big topic.
I mean, if we live, especially in the, you know, that's the difference, right?
Between American culture and maybe some of our listeners.
You may be living at home with family that you've lived with your whole life.
Whereas in the US we do tend to move around.
Go to college somewhere new, live with roommates, then maybe move to a place like New York, where I know you were with your family in New York, Aubrey.
I had so many different roommates in New York and I saw everything.
I saw it all.
Yeah.
And that was me when I first went to college.
I didn't go with friends.
So I had five roommates.
There were six of us and I was meeting them all for the first time and they were all so different.
Six roommates?
Wow.
Yeah.
Big room.
Like, yeah.
It was like an apartment with three different rooms to... people per room.
So yeah, a lot of us.
Yeah.
So you see kind of where you fall in the world and sort of what your values are.
It's a good journey.
Self-discovery.
Yeah, for sure.
And I think just as a takeaway, This is really great vocabulary, right?
Yes, we can describe people according to their character traits.
And I love this question that was sent in that you're thinking about this Bahar, but it is a little bit tricky.
We want to avoid stereotyping or offending anyone, right?
We don't want to.
So there are ways around this, right?
I love this pro tip to say someone is a self-proclaimed meat freak or germaphobe.
It's really good.
Yeah, it's a ninja tip, right?
It's a ninja connection tip.
It's really good.
This is what you get on All Ears English, guys.
So if you like this kind of deeper level of looking at not just English, not just grammar vocabulary, but what it means for your connections and ultimately, your happiness in life and business, this is the place to be.
So hit follow on this show right now if you want more of what we do here.
Good stuff.
Yes.
Awesome.
Thanks, Lindsay.
All right.
All right.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye.
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