This is an all-year English episode. Boy is this a fun episode. Insight from Chandler on Friends.
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Today, we answer a listener question about something she heard on Friends.
Get a playful new way to switch up your grammar to make a funny comment or express nostalgia.
Hello, Michelle. How's it going? What's going on? Good, yeah. Lindsay, boy, did I have a lot of fun
over the weekend. I got to hang around in the park. I saw some friends, but boy, am I tired because,
you know, we had daylight savings and I'm still kind of adjusting to that. Have you adjusted yet?
I've adjusted. We had to get up super early to go skiing on Sunday, so I just kind of got right
into it, just ripped off the band-aid and did it. I'm feeling okay. I'm feeling okay. Yeah,
so much, Michelle. It's interesting how you just described your weekend. You said,
boy, did I have a lot of fun, right? Yes. This is very interesting what I did here. The reason
that I did this is because we had a listener, Dee, ask this great question. I'm really excited about
this question, not only because it's a great listener question, but because it was inspired by an
episode of Friends. Dee is a super listener. Thank you, Dee, for listening. Oh, amazing. Thank you
for being a super listener. As we're emailing more and more these days with our listeners, if you're
on our email list, there's lots of back and forth nowadays, guys, that we're having with you, but
I'm noticing I asked our students on our email list, what TV shows do you use to learn? So many people
said Friends, Michelle. Very common. Those are my kind of people. Yes. Yes. For sure. For sure.
Yeah. Good stuff. Do we have another episode for our listeners to check out today before we get
into it? Definitely. So here we have episode 2185 is a recent episode we did, which was, is that
idiom outdated? How to ask if vocabulary is relevant? We just did that when that was a lot of fun.
Such a good one. Okay. I'm going to just jump right into reading the beginning of Dee's question.
All right. So Dee says, Hey, Lindsay Michelle, Jessica, in Aubrey, what's shaken?
Dee here from the Philippines. I really appreciate you guys. Your podcast made me learn a lot.
It's helped me improve by speaking skills. There's a phrase from an episode of Friends and Chandler
said it. The conversation goes this way. Are you ready, Michelle? We're actually going to do the
conversation. All right. So listen up guys. Here we go. I bought a boat. You bought a boat?
Well, yeah, but it wasn't for me. It was for a friend. Boy, did we make friends with the wrong
sister? And you were Chandler in that case. It was my Chandler voice. May he rest in peace. Okay.
Yeah. So yes. So sorry. Continue. I got to start. No. So this is good. So that was what Dee wants
to highlight in the question. Now here's the question. So the phrase in which the word did is before
the pronoun is what I would like to ask for more examples of. In some cases, I also hear a phrase
like, Oh, boy, did I blank? In what conversation and what kinds of conversations can we use these?
Thank you so much, guys. I'm looking forward to listening to all the episodes of your other
podcasts. You guys rock super listener D. Wow, D. We so appreciate it was a super listener. You know,
we've been hearing lately from a lot of super listeners. Yeah. We definitely have. I've been getting
these reviews from you and these are beautiful reviews and people who have listened for years and
years and years. And so thank you so much. Thank you, Dee. Keep listening. We really appreciate you
and to all of our listeners. We appreciate you. Yeah. It's fantastic. There's one listener that
messages me or messages us all there's English in Instagram every time he completes another 100
episodes and he's going all the way back. I love it. That is so wonderful. It's so good. It's a
great question though. Michelle, isn't it? Oh, this is good. This is going to be fun. So Lindsay,
do you think this construction is pretty common? Boy, did I? Boy, did blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I
think for sure it is. It's another creative way of expressing yourself and we always look for
different ways to express ourselves with words. Right. Right. I think it's for saying something in a
zippy way. I know we love to say things are zippy. Lindsay, something with a little personality to it.
So think of Chandler on friends. Crude, he have said, wow, we made friends with the wrong
sister. Sure. He could have said that. Yeah. I've been fine. But it wouldn't have been as
funny. It added some humor personality. It's an exclamation. Yeah, I agree. And it's a connection
moment. It's a it's more of a commentary way of making a comment in a more creative way. So I want
our listeners to know about this today. So they have this option. Right. Right. Exactly. It connects
to you. This is frequently used with exclamations such as boy, wow, man, but yeah, planning this
episode, I felt like boy was the most common. Yeah. I guess I agree. Right. It is the most common.
Why not girl? Why not? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Someone came up with that, but we're just
showing you the English that exists. Right. Right. Right. So just to review the grammar a little bit,
Diaz Wright, we're just switching the order. Could Chandler could have said,
held on, I'm going back to this boy, we made friends with the wrong sister. Right. Right.
Right. Right. Right. So in this case, we're just switching the order of the grammatical order
of the pronoun and the verb, right, Michelle? Right. So we're going to go, we're going to we can
look at that a little bit closer in these upcoming examples. So Lindsay, you want to read the first
example. All right. We say boy, am I tired instead of boy, I am tired. Right. Right. Yeah.
Boy, I'm tired. Sure. That could that could work. Just feels a little less interesting for some
reason. Right. It's I can't quite put my finger on what it what it does, but I think it's just
a little bit more interesting, a little bit more personality. Yeah. Commentary on something. So
let's do another one. So boy, did we work hard on that time for a break? Okay. Interesting.
Or here's another boy. Did she lose her ring in a bad place? Oh, yes. I know someone who lost
their wedding ring down a pipe like a 200 year old pipe in the sink. Not good. Oh my gosh.
Did there's no way of getting that back? No, no, no, it's gone. Oh gosh. That's terrible.
Or so just to comment on those. So again, boy, did we work hard? We could have said boy, we
you wouldn't say boy, we did work hard. You could you could say boy, we did. We would say boy,
we worked hard. Right. Right. So you take out the did and go straight to the main verb in that case.
Right. But today we're talking about switching the order and just making it a little more interesting.
So what about man? Let's do an example of man. So man, did we have fun? There's a bit of a hint of
nistid, this can be used when we're, you know, we're a little nostalgic for the past. I think, you
know, like I think about the road trip I went on in 2016 where we created our course, the Connected
Communicator. Yeah. Think about who joined me on that trip. And I, if I saw like my friend Ali,
I'd say, oh boy, was that a great road trip? Instead of saying boy, that was a great road trip.
Boy, was that a great adventure? Okay. So that's another example. Yeah. Right. Yes. Exactly. Or man
have we been here a long time. Instead of man, we've been here a long time. So again, you're
just switching it around. Now you can't do this with every verb. But these ones, like am did have,
those are common ones where you can do that. Yeah. I love it. Okay. Michelle, what else?
What else? Where do we go from here? Okay. So you can also use it with other verbs or tenses. So
wow, what's she amazing? Wow. So this, we can do this in the past tense too. Interesting. I love that.
Yeah. So we're showing you some other examples. So in terms of the pronunciation,
when we go into the past tense, does this sound right to you? Michelle, wow, was she amazing?
That sounds amazing. What about another one? Boy was he mad. Yeah. So are you emphasizing boy?
In that, that's a thing. I do think you, when we've been doing these examples, I realized you
kind of have to punch that first word. Boy was he mad. Boy. Wow. Yeah. I think you're probably
right. Here's another one. Boy, do I have a story for you? That's fun. Good way to open a story,
right? Yeah. Yeah. Or wow, do you need to clean up here? Sounds like something you
did to your kid after a play date or something. Sounds like something my mom says to me when she
comes to visit. Oh, okay. I see. Does your mom listen to the podcast? Probably not, right?
Maybe. From time to time. Yeah. This is commentary. And again, we're switching verbs around. And
you could say these, if you switched them back around, you could do that as well. It's just adding
a little flavor to it. Keep things interesting. It's commentary on something. Yes. And then there
are other ways to do a commentary like this to add depth to what you're saying to make it fun.
In episode 1953, is all ears English amazing or what? Right? Yeah. So that was a while ago.
But I wanted to bring it up because that's something that could happen with this as well. So
you could say something such as, did he spend too much money or what? Oh my gosh. I love that.
And so you're just saying basically he spent too much money, right? Yeah. But it's a way of
engaging with the person instead of making a statement, right? You're not necessarily asking for
response. Am I right? No, you're making a statement, but it's a little more back and forth there.
Yeah. I think. Right. I definitely think so. So definitely listen to that episode 1953
way back a while ago, but a good one to listen to to get more examples of for what? But let's
see, we've already touched on this. Any any other comments on what you think this construction does?
Well, I think it does. I'm not surprised that D heard this on Friends because it is something that
a funny, it would be more likely to come out and kind of a funny commentary where people are
chiming in and boy, did we do this? Right? It's kind of a little bit comical. It's light, it's light
hearted, it's playful. It's not serious. Okay. Right. You're playing with the language.
So you're being playful and it's just another way to have variety. You can say he spent too
much money. You can say we've made friends with the wrong sister. You can say we had fun.
Yeah. It just makes things interesting. And that's why you guys are here. That's why you are at
this level listening to this podcast to get that variety to have your words flow in different ways.
You know, I have even just recently I met with a student who said she has trouble
expressing herself in the way that she wants. She knows the idea of what she wants to say.
Her English is quite advanced. I mean, you would say she's near native, if not completely native.
But to her, she feels that she doesn't know enough ways to get her thoughts across. So we're
giving you lots of different options and trying to help you with that.
I love that. Yeah, it's true. So it's kind of yeah. So these are different ways to do it. Let's
show our listeners now Michelle in a role play. Shall we do that? Let's do it. So here we are. And
Lindsay, this goes back to what you said about nostalgia. We are friends reminiscing about a party
that we went to. Yes, here we go. And all right, go for it. Okay. Boy, did we have fun that night?
Definitely. The food was amazing and the music was incredible. Oh, yes, man. Did our feet hurt
after that night? I couldn't walk for days. Yes. And remember when Francine accidentally spit out
her wine when she was laughing? Yeah. Did we crack up or what? Yes. But boy, the host was mad. It got
all over the white rug. Yeah. So kind of nostalgia, right? We're thinking back on something,
remembering it in a positive way. It brings us together just to do that. Yeah. Think back.
It does. And of course, we wouldn't say all of these things all at once. Boy, did we do that? Boy,
did we do that right in the same one? And but we wanted to give you the examples. Of course,
we could have just said, yes, the host was so mad. Oh, we had fun. Then I we couldn't mix it up.
That's probably a little bit more natural. But you got tons of tons of examples. Yeah, I love
that. So let's go. Let's break this down and show our listeners the constructions that we used
here. So first you said what Michelle? Boy, did we have fun that night? So instead of boy,
or just we had fun that night? Yeah, I love that. And then you and then you said and I agreed with
you. Is it definitely? And then you said, oh, yes, man, did our feet hurt after that night?
Right. So you could have said, man, our feet really hurt after that night. But it's just a little
punch here, a little punch here, a little more fun. Exactly. And then we were talking about our
friends spitting out wine all over a white rug. And he said, yes, did we crack up or what? And
what is crack up, Lindsay? Crack up is to laugh. That is a slang term for lavish guys. Right,
that one down. That's a great one. That'll be in the iOS Android app as a key phrase and
vocabulary that you could highlight tap, get the definition and save to your list. That's what we
do over on the app guys, all using lish.com slash app. All right. Yes. And then what did I say?
All right. You said, but boy, was the host mad.
So now that I see this in the role play, I think a lot about nostalgia.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, thinking back to your college days, maybe there's someone who's in your
life now who you went to college with. I remember during spring break in my senior year in college,
we rented a house in South Carolina. We had an ice cream eating contest. So we had like a two-point
challenge we called it. So we all got two points of Ben and Jerry's. That sounds like it's perfect
for you. Wild, right? Wild. You remember what kind? Do you remember what flavor?
For me, it must have been some kind of chocolate peanut buttery. But I dropped out early. And so my
friends kept going, you know, we could be reminiscing about that 20 years later and say, boy,
were we crazy to try two points of ice cream. So there is an aspect of nostalgia sometimes with
this, right? Right. I think that's a really good insight, Lindsay, of how this is used. It's
interesting because it wasn't how it was used on the episode of Friends. But this is a
team moment, guys, when you're trying to think about how you are going to use it, think of these
different kinds of context. And I would say, if you're going to give this a try, which I hope
you do, try it first like this. Just give that a go first in an nostalgic way. Think about something
with a friend that you used to do and you can reminisce with them about and try to use that
construction. Yeah, because I almost think that the nostalgic context is a little easier
than the way Chandler used it, which is just kind of being funny, making a comment self-reflection
in that way that he did, right? Yeah. So try it that way within nostalgic context, guys, you know,
talk to someone you went to school with or that you haven't experienced within the past,
distant past or recent past and use this construction here. Love it. That's good.
That's a good way. Okay. Well, this was so much fun. Thank you, Dee, for that question.
And guys, give this a try. Yeah, good stuff, Michelle. Guys, hit follow if you love all ears English.
I'll talk to you next time, Michelle. You have a good one. You too. Bye. Bye.
Thanks for listening to all ears English. Would you like to know your English level? Take our
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