This is the All Ears English podcast, mortifying moments that create connection.
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We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.
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Have you ever been embarrassed?
Of course you have.
It's a universal human emotion.
Today, Lindsay and Michelle share their most cringeworthy moments and you learn how to share your own for a great connection.
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Hey, Lindsay, how are you?
Really good.
Happy Saturday, Michelle, on a sassy Saturday.
Happy Saturday.
Happy sassy Saturday.
Yeah.
Michelle, has anything embarrassing happened to you either recently or maybe in the distant past?
I'm sure something embarrassing has happened to you.
Oh, yeah.
Of course.
Yeah.
You know I can't think of a recent, like very recent thing, but one of the most my most embarrassing moments was in, I guess, a sophomore year of college.
OK, I was trying to make macaroni and cheese and the easy version.
I mean it's easy anyway, but the version where it's just easy Mac and they put it in uh, the cup okay, and yeah right, sounds like college food.
Yeah yes, exactly right.
You just put it in the cup and you put water and you put in the microwave, that's it um, and i put it in and i walked away for a while and then, all of a sudden, i came back and the microwave was on fire.
Oh no,
And your dorm.
Oh, my.
Yeah.
And like the lounge.
And then there was smoke going through.
You know it wasn't, you know it.
I was able to get the fire out but, like the, the smoke was going all around.
And so the fire alarm went off.
And so then the fire departs, the fire department had to come and everyone had to get out of the dorm and everything.
I don't.
I don't think everybody had to get out for some reason.
I think they knew it was okay, but they were just coming to check.
I don't remember.
But i because i, because i remember i don't think everybody left, because i was there when the firemen were walking through the halls.
Oh my gosh, that's so bad.
Did they know it was you?
Did you tell them it was you?
I remember I was at the end of the hall in my room and I just heard them say, someone can't cook.
And And I remember I was like, I can, I can.
And so then, my friend Jen, she ended up taking the Easy Mac because it was just like burnt to a crisp inside the microwave.
And so she took it and she would hide it in different places.
Oh.
Just to tease me.
So I remember one time I was I pulled out like my desk drawer and I picked up some papers and it was just sitting under there.
Oh, my gosh.
She was harassing you.
That's so funny.
Yeah, that's pretty.
That's pretty bad.
I mean, the fire department came.
That's pretty embarrassing.
Yeah, embarrassing.
So today.
Today, we're going to talk about different ways to say something is embarrassing.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
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I love that.
I mean, how does it feel when you get embarrassed?
For me, it's like a sting.
It stings a little bit, you know, and it does kind of linger for me personally for a little while.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's for sure.
And then you think back to it like, oh, I can't believe I did that.
You know, the worst feeling.
I think everyone's going to be able to relate to this episode today.
So I'm excited to get into this.
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If you're not following Allers English, it means you're probably missing good stuff like bonus episodes.
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That's right.
Perfect.
All right.
So let's talk about some kind of generic things that are embarrassing in the world.
Lindsay, what's one?
Being overdressed or underdressed.
Oh my gosh, this has happened to me before and it was mortifying.
Yes, I was underdressed for an event and my partner and my partner and I were both underdressed and my partner got so angry at me.
It was so bad.
It was horrible, Michelle.
Oh no.
What was the event?
It was a wedding.
I'm so embarrassed to even say this.
My friend Guy was like, oh, this was recent.
Oh, no, no, not recent.
It was like, I don't know, maybe like seven years ago.
He's like, oh, we're getting married.
We're having a backyard barbecue.
It's super casual.
No big deal.
Just come.
We'll be in the backyard.
Have some beers.
Okay.
When I hear backyard barbecue, I think casual, right?
Yeah.
You know.
So we pull up and like, half the group is in jeans and like us, and half the group is in fancy dresses.
Oh, my gosh.
It was so embarrassing.
But you weren't the only ones.
I mean other people weren't the only ones for sure, because the way my friend portrayed it was like oh, it's no big deal.
Just a backyard barbecue.
Super casual.
Yeah.
I was like, okay, super casual, but it was a wedding.
So I should have, I still should have had better judgment.
You know, it's still a wedding.
Weddings are not, yeah.
I'm still in my partner's still angry at me about that.
I mean, it was we were like, OK, can we go to a store?
Can we go to a department store?
What can we get?
And there was nothing around.
It was it was panic.
Oh, no.
What did what did he say?
Was he was like, oh, no big deal.
I know I wasn't very clear.
Like you know, I said casual, casual.
He he kind of, like you know, he understood what happened.
So yeah yeah yeah yeah, that's so funny.
Oh my gosh see, there you go.
We got an embarrassing story from him.
Yeah um, Another one is forgetting someone's name.
That can be embarrassing or calling someone the wrong name.
Showing up late to a room full of people.
Maybe everyone's been waiting for you.
Also embarrassing.
Right?
Yep.
Yep.
Or having someone show a funny video of you to people.
Right?
So my brother-in-law.
Ugh.
So he has this thing with me to tease me.
So when I did stand up comedy, I guess he there was I don't know.
There was a video of it.
And so every once in a while, just as a joke, we'll be like having dinner with the family and all of a sudden it'll just come on the TV because he'll share it with you know the TV, and he'll just and I'm like no.
Oh, don't do that.
Oh, he's torturing you.
Yeah.
And it's always I never expecting it ever, because it's just, I mean, it's just the most random moments.
And then I'll look up and it's like, Oh, God, no.
That's so funny.
I love that.
Yeah.
Sometimes it can be inflicted by others and sometimes it's self-inflicted embarrassment, right?
Right.
Or it could be being completely wrong about something that you should have known, maybe something in your expertise that you were wrong about and you should have known, compared to other people.
What else, Michelle?
Right.
Or, I mean, at a certain age, you might think your parents are embarrassing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know if I ever fully got over this feeling this way, but especially as a teenager.
Right.
Everything is embarrassing about your parents when you're a teenager.
Yep.
Yep.
So, yeah, guys, and we all just have these embarrassing moments sometimes.
So.
Let's use the word embarrassing in a sentence.
And actually, how do we spell this?
Because I think this is a common word, embarrassing.
How many R's, how many S's?
I know.
And I find myself Googling this sometimes when I'm writing the word.
So guys, if you struggle with spelling this word, you're not alone.
A lot of native speakers do too, but it has a double R, double S.
Yep.
Double R, double S. So here's some examples.
So it was so embarrassing when my dad called my teacher to complain about my grades.
Or my most embarrassing moment was in college when I got locked out of my dorm in the middle of the night and woke everyone up.
Oh, horrible.
Oh.
Or I felt so bad for Nina when her dress ripped.
How embarrassing.
Yeah, that kind of thing can be embarrassing.
Or if you have like toilet paper on your shoe or something.
Or something in your teeth.
I think we did a whole episode about that once, right?
About is there something in my teeth?
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
So this is a versatile word and we use it frequently for big or small embarrassment.
So something as bad as the fire department coming to your dorm, even down to like the tiniest little thing?
It does work for the word embarrassing, right?
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
So but what can we say to avoid repeating this over and over?
So we're going to share some other words and we're going to talk about any differences that we might notice.
So the first one you actually used it to talk about your situation with the dresses, with the jeans at the wedding.
Um, it was mortifying mortifying, and so i feel so, still feel so ashamed.
Honestly, i feel ashamed of it too.
Um, but this feels more formal, like you said.
Um, it can be used if you want to add emphasis.
I want to tell you it was extremely embarrassing.
So So I say mortifying, or I was mortified.
Right.
So to me, public speaking is completely mortifying.
Or you could say spiders are mortifying.
I feel like mortifying.
For me is like a combination of like embarrassing and like like fearfully embarrassing.
True.
Yeah.
So maybe spiders are just, yeah.
Lindsay, are you afraid of spiders?
Oh, it really depends on the kind of spider, but yeah.
Yeah.
Like I don't want to see a tarantula walking, crawling on my pillow or anything for sure.
I have a healthy fear of spiders, let's say.
Yeah.
Actually, the other day we were at this book festival and I don't know it like, and it was, for there were kids things there too.
And don't ask me why, but there were.
There was a whole bug exhibit and I didn't know I was going to be there.
And my son and Dan ended up touching a tarantula.
And I was like, Ooh, gutsy.
Yeah.
Not my thing.
Not my thing either.
So I might say spiders are terrifying.
So.
I'm not sure if mortifying quite fits there, but yeah, mortifying is if you want to go go heavier than embarrassing.
It's just fearfully embarrassing.
Yeah.
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Do it the right way with Indeed cringe worthy is our next one, michelle.
This one's a little more modern.
Uh, people use this to describe something they say cringe oh cringe yeah yeah, um.
So i like it's just embarrassing in some way, makes you just feel right, it doesn't.
It doesn't always mean embarrassing, i guess, It just means like kind of right.
Like if someone makes a politically incorrect comment, you might say cringe.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you're just observing them speaking and you're just like cringe.
Yeah.
Or this could be used as a way to like if I was telling you my story about the wedding and the jeans.
You might support my embarrassment by saying oh cringe.
That sounds horrible.
You might say something like that, right?
Right, right, right, right.
Exactly.
So...
Here we go.
I met him yesterday and I totally forgot my name.
It was cringeworthy.
I forgot your name.
Whoa, that's bad.
Maybe it was somebody really good looking and you're saying, I'm right.
I've had a few cringeworthy moments I can tell you about from this summer.
Okay, I'll see what those are, right?
So cringeworthy is a modern thing to say if we want to use something different than embarrassing.
Humiliating.
Also great.
Don't forget about this one, guys.
Right?
Yeah.
Yep.
I dropped my food all over the floor in front of everyone.
It was completely humiliating.
And I'm sure everyone who's waited tables has had this experience.
Because when you wait tables, you have to put all the plates at the same time on that big tray.
I remember once when I waited tables I had like eight steak dinners on one tray just being held up by my fingers because you're not supposed to use your hand.
You're supposed to rotate your wrist.
Have you ever waited tables, Michelle?
I mean I have, but I was not a yeah, I was a waitress, but I um they, we had like separate bus, like Oh, you didn't run the food to table.
Oh, okay.
That's nice.
Yeah.
That was nice.
I mean, it was a sports bar.
I don't know, you know, but for some reason we have that.
Interesting.
Okay.
Fancy.
Um, so humiliating is a good one, right?
Um, what else, Michelle?
And then one other one I wanted to introduce is facepalm.
Lindsay, do you ever hear this?
I like this one.
Yeah.
This is more for emojis, right?
You might say it, but it's just this idea of, oh, no, and it's where you smack your forehead.
Like, oh, no.
I can't believe I did that.
We're demonstrating this on YouTube right now, guys.
Yeah.
That's actually my favorite emoji.
Fun one.
I love that one.
I don't even know that one.
I have to find it in my, I'm not an emoji person.
I'll send it to you later.
Okay.
Okay.
Um, yeah.
So maybe you said the wrong thing or you did the wrong thing or you forgot something.
You're embarrassed physically, whatever it is.
So you do a face palm.
Hmm.
Right.
Like I forgot her number again, facepalm.
So you could, yeah, you could say it.
You could actually say this or you could text it.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
So anyway, but why is this good for connection, Lindsay?
I mean, I think embarrassment is one of those core like um, evolutionary you know, it's actually kind of a very high level emotion.
If you think about it like shame and embarrassment, because dogs don't, i don't think, i don't think.
Well, although my dog looks ashamed, sometimes he looks ashamed.
I'm not sure if he looks embarrassed.
There's slight differences there, but I feel like humans are probably the only species that can truly be embarrassed.
Yeah, I think you're right.
So it's kind of a high level sophisticated emotion, but we all humans feel it at some point in life multiple times right?
So we all go through this.
So if we can articulate the feeling, that's instant connection, Michelle.
Instant connection.
Yeah.
Yes.
Absolutely.
So let's do a role play.
Here we are friends catching up.
Okay, here we go.
All right.
So Lindsay, the most embarrassing thing happened to me last week.
Oh, Michelle, what happened?
I accidentally said I love you to my boss when we were getting off the phone.
What?
I know.
I used to do that to my teachers, but that was in elementary school.
That's so cringeworthy.
I'm sorry.
Yes, it was a real facepalm moment.
It was mortifying.
What did she say?
She laughed, but it was super awkward.
Oh dear.
Yeah, that kind of thing can happen, because maybe you're thinking you're not being present mentally and you're just getting off the phone and with your family.
You might be just like oh, I love you.
Right.
Yeah.
Your family, your partner or something.
For sure.
It can happen.
I'm sure it has.
Yeah.
Right.
It's also like, did you ever call a teacher mom?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's another thing that is pretty common.
You know, you're just Yeah, so interesting.
Yeah, I love it.
I love it.
So all right, let's go through what we used here.
So you said so Lindsay, the most embarrassing thing happened to me last week.
And it's unique here how you're starting the conversation.
You're not just right away going into it.
You're waiting to see for me to ask what happened.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yep.
So I like that skill.
Yep.
And then I so you're commenting on what happened to me.
You said I used to do that to my teachers, but that was an elementary school.
That's so cringeworthy.
Oh, that's a great one.
That's the modern one.
And then you said, yes, it was a real facepalm moment.
And here we're using it a little bit differently as an adjective describing the moment.
And I like that too.
Right.
Yep.
And I said it was mortifying.
Yes.
Yes.
I love it.
And so you're reemphasizing how embarrassing it was.
And that's okay to do that.
You emphasize again, yeah, it was completely mortifying, right?
And I just want to point out something about the word cringe.
So like, what does it mean physically to cringe?
It's like, oh, yeah, guys, you have to be watching on YouTube.
Today is a YouTube day.
Face palms and cringes and all sorts of things.
Yeah, it's that moment of like.
Yeah, I think even when because we have the mirror neurons as human beings I feel like when I, when I see someone getting hurt, like getting like attacked or something on TV, or like there's an injury.
I feel that.
I feel like I cringe.
Don't you think?
Like you have a physical, does your body, your body like radiates a little, a little strike of pain.
Mine does at least.
And we have those mirror neurons as humans.
We can actually experience what someone else is experiencing.
It's so crazy.
Yeah, that is that is wild.
So that's kind of cringing a little bit, isn't it?
Wouldn't that be the word for that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, guys, if you haven't already, check out All Ears English.
This episode is do phrasal verbs wind you up.
Very good episode there.
Good one.
That was another sassy Saturday.
So go check that out.
And I think the takeaway here is very clear.
This is such a human emotion.
It runs across all cultures, all languages, all parts of the world.
So if you can invest in learning how to talk about embarrassing moments, respond to someone else's embarrassing moments, you'll get that connection.
Right.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Lindsay, this was fun.
And yeah.
Oh, God, I'm still so embarrassed about my story.
I'm embarrassed now that I shared that story on the podcast.
Oh, I shared about my mac and cheese.
It's fun.
It makes us human.
Yeah.
You're good.
Yeah.
All right.
Good stuff, Michelle.
I'll talk to you very soon.
You have a good day.
All right.
Bye.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
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