This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2166, Good and Bad in Everyday English, part two.
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Last week on our Business English podcast, we showed you replacement words for good and bad.
Today we show you better ways to express positive and negative feelings in your everyday life and your social life.
Listen in today to show the strength of your opinions in English.
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Hello, Michelle.
How's it going today?
Hi, Lindsay.
I'm good.
I'm good.
How are you?
Did you have a good morning?
Did you have a bad morning?
I had a rough morning because my dog had to go to the bathroom at 2 a.m.
And so, yes, it was not so good, Michelle.
And so he's on this kind of medication because he had a rash and it makes him have to pee a lot all the time, in massive quantities.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, I was up taking him out at 2 a.m.
So that was fun.
Not so good.
What about you, Michelle?
Did you have a good morning, a bad morning?
How was it?
I had I had a I had a pretty good morning.
I was telling you before we started that I did get a chance to exercise this morning and it's hard to put that focus or feel like I can spend that time on myself.
I always feel that I should be doing something, you know, work related or laundry or something like that for.
But I decided today that I was going to do a bike ride and I'm really glad I did, because Feels nice to do it in the morning.
Gives you a different outlook for the day.
Yes, I love it, I love it.
Exercise can really make our outlook good, positive, right?
It can really change the way we see the rest of the day.
I think that's what you figured out this morning.
I figured it out, so that was great.
And you know, it gave me a more optimistic view for the day, I think.
And actually, speaking of optimism, we have some poll results to share.
Guys, if you haven't heard, we've been doing key polls on Spotify.
So if you're listening on Spotify, you can interact with us for polls and answer.
And we get to hear, uh, how, how we got to learn a little bit about you.
So Lindsay, what was the poll on episode 2130?
Yes.
We asked you guys, I love this question.
We can learn about our audience really well.
Are you an optimist or a pessimist?
And boom, drum roll, Michelle results.
Um well, we have quite a few optimists.
So 74 of you said you were optimist, only 26 said pessimist.
I love that.
I love those numbers.
So it's like three and four, more or less.
Three and four are optimistic.
That feels like that vibes well with our show.
All ears English love it right?
Yep, I love it too.
So today I i'm excited to get into this episode because this is a series.
Guys, this is part two of a series.
Um, last week we did the first episode, but that one was over on the business english podcast.
Guys, if you haven't listened to the business english podcast, go on over there hit follow, really get in on that.
So, but this was inspired by a listener question.
That episode on the business english podcast was Business English 228 good and bad in business, part one.
I love it.
And today we're going to show you guys good and bad, right?
Other ways to say these words in your everyday life, right?
Whereas part one was in business.
Now we're going to take a similar, we're going to answer the same question, but talk about it for our social lives, our everyday lives right, Michelle?
Exactly.
So the question was from elena and she had asked about finding different ways to say good and bad.
So the first part we did really good.
Uh, business ones that could also, even if you're not necessarily learning english for the business world, these could be good for you too.
So head on over there to that.
These ones today are very conversational, so this is more of a part two.
So you will get, if you listen to the whole series, you're gonna just really increase your vocabulary for these words.
Yeah yeah absolutely, absolutely.
So again, i think these would still work in business as well.
We'll take a look at what we have today and so they're obviously guys, there is crossover right, there's crossover.
There's formal informal, semi-formal ways of speaking in business and life, and we show it all to you here in this series.
So should we get into it?
Michelle, starting with our first category, do it?
So we're going to start.
Well, Lindsay, do you want the good news or the bad news?
No.
Do you want to start with the good or the bad?
Let's start with the good.
All right.
Okay.
So here we go.
The first one is for good is great.
And a lot of this is about degrees.
Sometimes, when we use a different word, it's just about maybe the word is amplified a little bit more.
It's more emphatic, whatever it is, but it still means the basic things.
So great.
The sandwich is great.
Yes.
The sandwich is great.
What's your favorite kind of sandwich, Michelle?
What do you love?
What's your go-to?
What's my go-to?
I do like.
Oh well, recently I don't know if this counts as a sandwich or more of a toast, but recently I've been having cottage cheese and tomato on an open-faced piece of sourdough bread.
Oh, sourdough is great bread for sandwiches, isn't it?
Yes.
Yeah.
So I'm going to say that that's my favorite now, but usually it might be Turkey or something with avocado.
How about you?
I see.
I see.
Oh, I like a lot of things, but I love a good new England style chicken salad.
A lot of people have issues with the whole, like chicken salad, tuna salad, because it's basically when you say salad in a sandwich, you mean the thing covered in Mayo, right?
And a lot of people out here aren't used to so much Mayo. being used.
There's not as much mayonnaise used in the Southwestern United States.
It's more like hot sauce.
And so they look at like the.
You know, my mom used to make a really nice chicken salad with grapes and walnuts.
I love that.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
Now I'm hungry.
It was great.
Yes, I love chicken salad and tuna salad.
I would put that also.
But who doesn't love grilled cheese?
There's so many good sandwiches.
Oh my gosh, grilled cheese.
Yes, that was my favorite.
I should have said.
Anyways, let's move on to number two.
So guys, here is the next way to say good.
Wonderful, right?
Wonderful.
Yeah.
This has a slightly more formal tone.
What do you think?
I agree.
I think this is a little, but it's okay to be a little more formal, even in our daily lives.
Maybe we're going to do some kind of official like transaction, going to the bank or doing something like I don't know, something where you're applying for, like daycare for your child.
They got the spot.
Wonderful.
Right.
Or you did a wonderful job.
Right.
Maybe you see your friends performance.
You know, so that's a good it's a good word for complimenting people, I think, as well.
I love this next one.
Fantastic.
I use this a lot.
Do you use this one a lot?
Fantastic.
I think so.
Yeah, I think so.
It's a good one.
It's it's fun to say.
And it's interesting how all of these I think this is used very frequently.
Yeah, I agree.
So for example, this museum is fantastic.
And guys, we can have some fun here with this by stretching out that second syllable.
Fantastic.
Fantastic.
Yes, absolutely.
You can have a little bit of fun with this one.
Lindsay, any museums that you really love?
Let's see.
At the moment, I'm not into any particular museums, but my partner went to Meow Wolf.
And have you heard of Meow Wolf?
No.
Oh, it's a strange, all immersive museum environment in Denver and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
And I think there's one in San Francisco or LA or something.
Anyways.
It was off the wall.
Off the wall.
Well, that's actually another good way to – That's a great one.
Yeah.
Expression to you.
I agree.
Yeah.
I love in Washington, D.C., they moved it, or I don't even think it exists anymore.
I'm not sure, but they had the Newseum, all about news, broadcast journalism.
I loved that.
I love that museum.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I've been to it.
I've been to it once and it closed down.
I was so sad.
I love the Newseum.
It's amazing.
You walk in there and they bring you through like the eras of time.
You experience the events through the newspaper, through the news coverage.
And it's very important to just our democracy, I guess.
The Newseum, I feel like.
Yes.
And you can even do your own little broadcast.
Did you do that?
I don't remember if I did that or not.
I remember they called out newspapers for not covering certain super important world events at the museum or just sort of hiding things in back pages that were devastating.
It was a great museum.
I hope another one crops up somewhere.
Yes, I agree.
It was incredible, which happens to be our next word.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What do you think of this one?
Yeah, I like it.
I like it just as much as fantastic.
Incredible guys.
These things show personality, right?
In our, you know, we can show personality at work.
We can also show it in our daily lives.
So these are four really great ways instead of saying good, which is quite boring.
Say any of these four, right, Michelle?
Absolutely.
All right.
We're moving on to the bad.
All right.
Okay.
All right.
So the first one is awful.
So do you think that's worse than bad?
I think it's worse than bad.
So you're right.
So what you said at the top of the show, Michelle, is true.
A lot of these are variations of extremes.
It's not exactly the same thing as saying bad.
Awful is worse than bad.
I agree.
I think all of these are worse than bad.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
But I love this next one.
Abysmal.
Yeah.
The soup is abysmal.
This one, I know the word, of course, but I don't use it that much.
Tell me, do you use it a lot?
I know because this is for if something is just. really terrible.
It's abysmal.
The soup is abysmal.
But I don't think that it's used all the time in regular conversations, but it's a good one to know for when you really need to say something's really, really bad.
Really bad.
Yeah.
Interesting.
So that's a good one.
I'm going to add that to my vocab and start using that along with our listeners this week here.
I love it.
And then a more like normal level one, a mid-level one, terrible.
The parking in town is terrible, right?
Yes.
Love it.
Yes.
And then the last one is atrocious.
Okay.
So the service at this restaurant is atrocious.
I like this one.
This one's being quite descriptive, isn't it?
Yes.
Yes, it makes me think of, remember that song, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?
Yes, of course.
Yes, from Mary Poppins, guys, and they use the word atrocious.
I forgot that they use that word in that.
Interesting.
Yep.
Okay, atrocious.
I won't sing it, but yeah.
I kind of feel like you need to say this word with some attitude, right?
The service at this restaurant is atrocious.
I'm leaving, right?
You need some kind of attitude there.
Right, right.
This is definitely a word that packs a punch.
I love it.
So any questions for me here or where should we go from here?
Well, yeah, I want to talk about, find out, try and use these words, Lindsay.
So how are your swimming skills?
My swimming skills are actually pretty great, Michelle.
Pretty great.
Wait, really?
Yeah, I'm a swimmer.
I mean, I'm not like an Olympic swimmer.
I'm not going to challenge Michael Phelps or anything here in this live time.
But no, I took swimming lessons as a kid and I know how to swim.
And it's exhausting.
That's all I have to say about swimming.
What about you?
How are your swimming skills?
How are my swimming skills?
They...
Actually, I want to use an expression from the other one from our other episode.
I would say they leave something to be desired.
Guys, again, remember, listen to that other episode.
I believe that was one of the expressions there.
I would I mean, I can do it, but I'm not I'm not swimming laps.
Yes.
Yeah.
And again, guys, go over to Business English Podcast 228.
So you'll have to open the search bar, search for Business English and then find episode 228, where we covered the business versions of good and bad.
You can do it, but you... So you're not going to drown, but what?
Maybe some strokes could be improved?
But I'm not going to win the race.
I'm not going to win the race.
I see.
It's not easy swimming, right?
That's why I think triathletes are amazing, because they have to do run bike.
It's just incredible what they have to do.
Yeah yeah, definitely.
And we were just talking about this Lindsay, what's the last movie you saw in theaters and how was it?
Mmm, I just saw the movie American Fiction and it it was let's see, let's see if I could grab a word that it was actually a kind of fantastic, especially because, as I was watching, I realized that the primary shooting location for the movie was my parents' neighborhood, like exactly where they live, like their next door neighbors.
And I asked my dad, I said, dad, did you know they were shooting a movie in your neighborhood?
He said, yeah, yeah.
I went over and I said, I saw the guys with the big cameras and I said, what are you doing?
But he never told me there was a big Hollywood flick coming out in our neighborhood.
So that's kind of fun.
Yeah.
That's funny that he knew about it and he never said anything.
And then you just happened to watch the movie.
So should we do a role play, Michelle?
Let's do it here.
We are friends and we're we're not going to use all of them, cause that would be a lot but um, let's go through it and get started.
All right.
So did you watch the documentary I told you about?
I did.
It was terrible.
Oh, I know.
I was hoping you'd agree.
I mean, it was so weird.
The producer is one of my favorites.
Such an incredible producer, but this was not his finest work.
It was really abysmal.
I agree.
I mean, his last movie was fantastic.
Yeah, too bad.
I think we might have screwed up the rules.
I know.
That's all right.
That's all right.
I don't think our listeners noticed.
We're good.
So, yeah, we we used a bunch of these words.
So I said it was terrible.
And it's almost like you were looking.
Do you ever know something isn't good, or you think it's not good but you don't want to ruin it for somebody else?
So then you're excited when they didn't like it either.
Yes, it's like the thing you don't want to say.
It's the underlying thing that you're waiting for a sign from the other person yes, and then you can start to say yeah i, i hated it too.
And then you can basically unleash you know, unleash your opinion and that's a bonus word for today for our listeners, guys.
Something is a little bit um, like cooped up inside you, but you really want to express it, and then, once you get that sign, you can unleash your thoughts And let it go.
So, yes.
So I said it was terrible.
And then you said, I said, yeah, it was really just abysmal.
Right.
Yeah.
And then I also said such an incredible producer, but this was not his finest work.
Sometimes that happens.
You know, you have a great producer and then they just have an off off project.
Yeah.
Definitely.
It can happen.
Nobody's perfect.
Because I said, I agree, his last movie was fantastic.
Can you imagine if we just used good and bad in this role play?
I did.
It was bad.
Such a good producer.
It was really just bad.
His last movie was good.
It just feels monotone.
It feels uncreative.
Want you guys to be creative with your english.
I think that's the takeaway for today, michelle.
We want to give you the tools to express your personality and put some, put some intonation when you say fantastic or atrocious.
Just have like express feeling right, definitely.
Yeah know when is a good opportunity to change up the word right?
Sometimes, good or bad actually just may be the best for that situation.
We don't want to just get rid of those words completely.
Sometimes they're really fitting.
And don't feel like you have to change it just because you feel, oh, there has to be a better word.
But when it feels right now you have some options.
When you feel like you need a little something more.
You need a little passion yes, into what you're expressing.
Obviously, be careful who's around when you're saying these things.
For example, how is the meal if the chef's right behind you and it wasn't good?
Be careful with the word atrocious or something like that.
But um, i think people want to connect with you because they want to hear energy and passion from you, so maybe they can express a similar feeling.
If we're not expressing what we really think, other people maybe don't feel like they can either.
Does that make sense?
Uh-huh.
Really, really.
So, yeah, I think we should leave it at that.
Guys, remember to head on over to the Business English podcast so you can listen to that first part and get really, really amp up your vocab from these episodes, from this series.
All right.
Love it.
Michelle, thanks for hanging out with me today.
I'll talk to you soon.
Bye.
Bye.
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