This is an All Ears English Podcast Episode 2267.
How to be graceful in English.
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In today's episode, a listener asks us about the word grace.
Not only is the name popular right now, but we see the word all over the English language.
Find out how to use it in many different ways today.
Hey Michelle, what's shaking?
Not too much, Lindsay.
How are you? Great.
Do you have a question for me to start off today?
Sure. Yeah. Do you have any friends named Grace?
I don't have any close friends named Grace, but I do know people.
I know a few people named Grace.
It is a popular name.
What about you, Michelle?
Any friends named Grace?
I don't have any friends named Grace, but I have heard people naming their kids.
Grace or Gracie is a nickname, which is very cute.
I think of the show Will and Grace.
Did you watch that?
Of course. Yeah. That's such a good show.
Great show. That show won, I think it won awards or just became like a real cultural phenomenon.
You know? Will and Grace.
Yeah. So the word grace is definitely in the English language.
It's in media. It is everywhere.
So we were excited, Michelle, when we got a question from a listener from Angel Bermejo, she says, hi, Michelle and Lindsay, he or she, I love you both.
I hope you can share different uses of the word grace.
Good one, Michelle.
Definitely. Definitely.
And we have talked about this really great expression before.
What was that expression?
Yeah. Give yourself some grace.
And in that episode, episode 2052, we really got into the idea of allowing yourself some some leeway.
And I think that's going to be a word we're going to get into today.
Right. But allowing yourself just being patient with yourself a little bit.
Right. Right. Right.
Right. Right. Exactly.
And sometimes I think with language learning, we need to give ourselves some grace.
And that goes for our listeners, too.
Right, Lindsay? Because I think sometimes people might listen to the podcast and they hear it's pretty pretty fast.
We don't adjust our language.
We don't adjust our speed.
Right. That's the one thing that's different about us compared to other podcasts.
And I think ultimately our listeners love it.
But a lot of other podcasts that teach English will slow down.
They will give you kind of a teacher talk English.
But we don't do that at all because we get bored.
We would get. And so we want to enjoy our conversations, too.
And so what you can do, though, is a way to give yourself grace.
We have just released an update to our iOS Android app.
And we have come up with a way that you guys can give yourself some grace and actually slow down the episodes to very specific speeds like what Michelle, like what, for example, like point eight X and point nine X.
Guys, that is really going to help you if you want to listen a little bit slower, because you still get everything.
You still get our intonation.
And, you know, it just might be just that little bit that you need to catch everything we say.
And that's fine. Give yourself some grace.
You don't have to feel that you need to listen to it exactly the way it's published.
Give yourself some grace.
You got it. You got it.
That's a perfect use of that expression.
And listeners have asked us for this.
You guys have been asking us for this.
And we don't think, as far as we know, we can't do this on Spotify or Apple.
So it's a very unique feature if you consume all there's English over in our app.
And yes, that. But there are a few other very cool things available for premium users.
Right. Michelle, what are they?
What do we get out there?
Yeah, the app is incredible.
There's really a lot over there.
One thing you get is real time human made transcripts.
Right. Because we've seen we've seen transcripts that are not human made and they're not they're not there yet.
Right. Because here we have you're going to get our natural utterances, the little things that aren't going to be picked up by the robots.
You got it. You got it.
You also get tappable keywords.
So we have selected seven keywords in every episode that we believe will move your fluency level higher.
So you can tap on those.
You can see the definition.
You can save them to your personal power list.
Right. So Michelle, all of this stuff comes over only over on the app, right?
You can't get it anywhere else.
So where should they go to get the app?
Guys, head on over to all ears, English .com slash app.
P P two bags. It's a good time to start, you know, learning with the app.
It is, we're into the fall now and it's a good time to set new habits.
All right. Definitely.
So that was an example of grace getting into the concept of grace.
Right. Right. Exactly.
Give ourselves some grace.
So now let's talk about, um, some other ways that you can use this word and other words that are going to be helpful in, um, this idea.
Um, so grace, so Cambridge, first of all, there are a lot of definitions, but we have Cambridge dictionary mentioned elegance when I looked it up, right?
This idea of being classy.
So you can use grace as a noun or graceful as an adjective, but it could also just be a nice personality trait.
So that's interesting.
So let's, let's give some examples.
So number one is the ballerina made a very graceful entrance.
So what does that mean?
Lindsay? Yeah, it's always nice to see dancers or ballerina the way they move very graceful, light, and every move of the arm or the leg is very intentional.
Um, it's kind of the opposite of clumsy intentional is beautiful.
Just a beautiful way of moving physically.
It's smooth. It's kind of flowing.
Um, it's not choppy.
So it's really beautiful.
But if we use it like this, so her grace and compassion is what made her so beloved in the community.
So here we're not, are we talking about how she moves?
No, here we're not, we're going away from the physical piece.
We're going to the personality, right?
So when you talk about grace as a kind of personality trait, it becomes, imagine the translation of that smooth and respectful way of moving into a person's character, right?
Something, something.
I don't know why on my Instagram, I keep on getting different, you know, things popping up about, um, oh my gosh, why can't they think of this word?
You know, like, uh, how to, how to do things in a graceful way.
You're, oh my gosh, why can't I like where people go to school sometimes to like, learn about how to manners, like finishing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, manners.
Yeah, but what's the word?
Okay, well, what attentional, respectful manners is fine.
Manors have thought of the word probably.
Yes, I can't, I'm having one of those moments, but I keep on getting things about that.
And, and one popped up the other day and it was about how to put your purse and look in your purse in a graceful way.
And this is something that I am not.
Wow, wow, wow. Yeah.
Well, it's interesting, right?
Because over the generations in the decades, I feel like probably, you know, in the early 1900s or in the 1800s, the Victorian era, women had to learn these things, right?
You got to, you went to school and you learn, you were taught and you had to be physically, at least physically graceful, if not character wise, but that's, you know, women are busy and at work and it's not necessarily a priority for families to teach us.
Etiquette, etiquette, etiquette is the word.
Yes. Etiquette, etiquette, but there still is something really nice when you see someone that has that etiquette knows exactly what to do in every social scenario, physically and socially.
It's kind of amazing mesmerizing in a way.
Yeah. Yeah, that's true.
So I wanted to teach this.
This is not the word grace, but I think Lindsay, you, you said this word as well.
It's really good here.
So the word is leeway.
Yeah. Yeah. What does leeway mean?
Yeah. Giving, kind of giving extra time or also giving extra space in a way.
So you just heard this recently at a doctor's appointment, I guess.
Right. For example, they give you a 15 minute grace period, but then they cancel your appointment.
So right. So this is a meaning of grace.
A grace period means leeway.
So sorry, I got that a little bit jumbled here, but a great, a grace period is this idea of having some leeway.
So yes, what happened was I had to go to a doctor's appointment.
The only time they had was right at the second I dropped my daughter off at camp.
That's not gonna work.
Yeah. Yeah. But I looked it up and it said 10 minutes away.
And I explained the situation and they said exactly this.
They give you a 15 minute grace period, but then they cancel your appointment.
I was, I was, that was the day then we were recording Lindsay.
I know I had to remember.
I didn't want to give up the, I didn't want to give up the appointment.
So it's this idea of leeway, right?
Like they, you get some, you get some extra grace.
You get a grace period, some extra time.
And I think you can find the meaning in this too.
The concept of having grace, giving grace, having a grace period is like a light touch kind of forgiving someone or going through the world with sort of a light touch that it allows you that light touch of room to breathe.
Exactly. And then there's the term good graces.
This is good, right?
To be in someone's good graces means someone has a positive opinion of you, right?
So give us a sample sentence, Michelle.
Okay. I think it's okay that you made the mistake.
You're usually in her good graces.
So I wouldn't worry about it.
Yeah. I mean, everyone usually, you know, you build up goodwill and then, you know, over time, then if you make a mistake, you're not going to all of a sudden, most people are still going to give you that, give you that grace of the doubt, give you grace.
Right. Exactly. Exactly.
Love that. Yeah. Okay.
And then, Michelle, we also see this in religion or in prayer, right?
Right. So whether you are religious or not, just a good word to know is something before a meal, sometimes certain religions may say something that they call grace, right?
A little prayer before the meal.
Exactly. You might be more likely to see this in the movies.
I don't know. I haven't been to a lot of homes where this has been done, like, but you might show up at someone's home and they might say, let's take a minute to say grace.
Maybe. I don't know.
So just don't be surprised if you hear it, but more likely you'd see that in a movie, I think.
Yeah. You do see it in a lot of movies.
For sure. Yes. But there are even more ways it is used, but these are the ones we're going to focus on.
Lindsey, are there any of these that you feel you use the most?
Let me see. So yeah, I think grace period.
I've also used recently.
Yeah. You know, like, for example, if your lice, if some kind of, I'm not talking about your driver's license, I don't think there's a grace period.
If you have some kind of license to operate something and it expires, do you have to stop operating the next day?
And maybe it depends on the industry.
That sort of thing has come up recently in my life.
So yeah, I think grace period is really common.
You see it around policies, around, you know, working policies out in the world, for sure.
Even for something as simple as going to a restaurant.
So, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I went somewhere and they didn't know exactly when our table would be ready.
So we just said, we'll put our name down.
They take your phone number.
And then they were very strict about it.
And they said, once we contact you, there's a 10 minute grace period.
Right. So this idea of, I think, making appointments wherever it is.
Yeah. That's the most, I think that's when you're going to see it the most for sure.
And yeah, that's so young reservations when you're waiting for your name to be called or appointments, that's where we're going to see it the most in our daily lives, for sure.
So Michelle, should we go into a role play?
Let's do it. So here we are.
Well, last role play, we were sisters and now our cousins.
Wow. All right. Good.
So here we're at a family reunion.
Ooh. Do you do a lot of family reunions, Michelle?
No, not with my side of the family, really.
But with Dan's side, they, I mean, actually, it was like 10 years ago.
So I think there will be a while ago soon, but it was a formal actual family reunion.
Wow. Wow. Interesting.
All right. Well, let's get started.
So here we go. This place is so great.
Can you believe how cute little Nellie is?
She's adorable and she's so graceful the way she speaks.
I love her. I'll say here.
She's definitely in my good graces as far as little kids go.
Yeah. Oh no. We're late to say grace.
It's okay. They have a five minute grace period at the restaurant so we can start a bit later.
Okay. Interesting. Yeah.
I don't think we're going to say grace this many times.
You fit it in. You fit it in.
I figured it out. Okay.
So let's go through it.
So I said, she's adorable and she's so graceful.
So maybe this little girl is four years old or something.
She's very sweet and she just has, you know, she has a good disposition, right?
Yeah. Maybe she's respectful of other kids.
She's aware of her physical space.
It could mean any of those things, right?
Yes. Exactly. Right.
She's not like walking through, knocking things over and sounds like my kids.
Right. That's the way I still am now.
It's me too. And then same here.
She's definitely in my good graces as far as little kids go.
So what am I saying there?
You're saying that you like her, right?
Yeah. She's favorite.
You have a favorable opinion of her.
Right. Exactly. Exactly.
And then you said Michelle, oh no, we're late to say grace.
So I guess we're a little bit of a religious family.
Right. Right. And so I wonder if you're saying like, we're late to sit down to dinner, essentially is what you're actually saying there, right?
Right. Yes. Right. And then I said, Oh, it's okay.
They have a five minute grace period at the restaurant.
So maybe our name got called and we didn't, we would like to say that.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Oh, wow. So lots of things here.
But of course, you probably aren't going to say grace that many times.
Yeah. But this is good.
I mean, this is such a good question, guys.
We want to remind you before we go that it's really great.
Give yourself some grace.
Get our app, all ears, english .com slash app a P P.
Um, give yourself some grace.
Slow us down a little bit.
Slow it down. Pay attention.
You know, you have that opportunity.
We haven't seen that ability anywhere else.
Those very granular speeds.
So check it out on the app.
And then broadly, as the takeaway about grace, I think that name is trending, as we said at the top of the show, Michelle, that name is trending.
And when something starts to trend, you may hear it in other places in the language and the culture.
Right. And so that's interesting to think about it.
As you hear more people naming their kid grace, you'll see the use of the word grace and the meanings around it.
So it's a very timely episode today.
Yeah, definitely. Absolutely.
All right. Well, this has been a fun one.
Thank you to our listener for that question.
And guys, remember to check out our app at all ears, english .com slash app.
All right, Michelle, thanks for listening to all ears English.
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