Hello, A to Z English podcast listeners.
Jack and social are back with another episode for you.
And today we are doing a vocabulary builder.
So we want to do words that have two different meanings and we're going to expound or explain
what these meanings are.
So Jack, what are our first ones?
Salty and salty.
Yeah, salty and salty.
Yeah, salty is an adjective, right?
Something is salty.
Usually we use it when we're talking about food.
So if they say this, oh, these French fries are too salty.
It means it just has or this soup is too salty.
There's like a lot of salt in it.
The salt level is too high.
Yeah, it's making you thirsty.
You're drinking a lot of water because you're not sucker.
Yeah, you're you could just you know when something has too much salt, you know, so or you
know what?
I'm not even going to say too much salt because pretzels are salty.
And I love pretzels because I have a I love salty food.
So you know, eating salty pretzels, it does make my mouth dry and kind of, you know, want
to drink water.
I do enjoy the taste of it.
I do enjoy it.
However, I would say be cautious.
If you like the salty flavor of the soup at someone's house, don't say, wow, the soup
is salty, you know, not a couple, it's usually negatively.
So just maybe this soup is delicious or something.
Yeah, just say this is delicious.
Don't say this is salty because if you say salty, it means that's just that's that's
a coded word for too salty.
Yeah, has too much salt.
Yeah.
So, Jack, what is the other meaning of the word salty?
Yeah, this one's a little more complicated.
This is when we a word we ascribe to people, right?
So when someone is salty, it means they're being standoffish prickly, can't tank wrists.
Yeah, I'm using all these words that no one's going to know.
So they're not helping you guys at all grumpy, you know, like, you know, what's that?
Like Squidward from SpongeBob.
Yeah.
He's like, he's not nice.
He's kind of, kind of, cranky grumpy, cranky grumpy.
Short, he's short tempered.
He's, you know, when you ask him a question, he snaps back at you.
It's not, you know, a person that you would just sit and have a fun casual conversation
with.
So when it's kind of salty, they're a little bit difficult to talk to, a little bit standoffish.
It doesn't mean they're not nice and it doesn't mean they're not helpful.
It's just their personality is they're, they're kind of like a porcupine or a cactus, you
know?
They're prickly.
They're prickly.
Yeah.
Again, this isn't, isn't really a neutral word.
So don't describe someone as salty if you mean well.
It's not like an endearing term.
It's kind, it's a negative term.
So keep that in mind.
But yeah, that is a negative term, right?
And when I'm, when I'm describing the pretzels that's fine, this popcorn is salty.
You know, when you're eating a movie theater popcorn, it should be salty, you know, but describing
the soup, it should not be described as salty.
If it has the right salt content, then you say it's delicious.
Yeah, I would say, um, when in doubt, don't call it salty.
You know, when in doubt, just don't call it salty.
Just say good.
This is good.
Yeah.
Good.
This is tasty.
This is delicious, you know, there's other adjectives, but salty just means something that's
highly salted and that can be positive, negative or neutral.
And when in reference to people, it's pretty much always a negative connotation.
So just keep that in mind.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
And so for next one, we have spicy spicy can mean something that is like a chili pepper,
where you take a bite out of it and your mouth is on fire, right?
Oh my god.
So spicy, um, a really spicy soup, you know, it has a lot of different peppers and, you
know, you take a bite and again, your mouth is on fire.
You got to tug down some cold water or some yogurt or something.
Um, that is one meaning of spicy and the other meaning of spicy is something that is
well spiced and that means it has a lot of condiments.
Um, but none of them are necessarily bringing your mouth on fire.
So like a, a Christmas cake, like a orange, a nice seed, cinnamon, um, clothes, nutmeg,
could all be in there and it could be a well spiced cake, a spicy cake.
But it's not spicy in the sense that your mouth is on fire.
It just has a lot of different flavor profiles together.
I would say calling something spicy in the sense that it has a lot of spices is an old
fashion term.
So people don't usually do that.
Um, you might say, oh, this cake is nicely spiced, but that would be something you probably
read in older literature.
Um, and not something that you hear colloquially meaning you don't hear like people speak
that very often.
I think flavorful would be a better one, you know, better adjective.
This is really flavorful because it's full of different flavors.
You know, and yeah, that's a more common one.
Yeah.
So if, but if you're reading, you know, uh, an old English literature, but can you see
someone call the Christmas cake spicy, they don't mean it has like hot peppers.
It doesn't mean there's 25, uh, you know, little time.
Billy Peppers in there, yeah, jalapenos or, uh, a Carolina Reaper or something like that,
you know, that's going to make your head.
Yeah.
Or like a, if you use your recipe for a spice cake online, um, that just means a cake that
has a lot of spices, cinnamon, clove, not Meg, all those things.
Right.
It doesn't, a cake that has jalapenos in it.
Um, so that's just a distinction.
Um, yeah, Jack, how about the next one hot?
Are the two meanings for hot?
Oh, yeah.
This is a good one too, because, um, hot can mean spicy like and by spicy, I mean, um, hot
pepper, hot pepper spicy, right?
You're mouth on fire, you know, um, spicy, yeah.
Um, but it also can mean temperature hot.
So, you know, oh, I, I burned my, I burned my mouth.
I burned my tongue because this soup is too hot, you know, temperature wise.
It's too hot.
Yeah.
Oh, this tea is so hot.
This hot chocolate is so hot.
I burn my mouth.
Whereas if someone says, ah, this soup is hot, you have to ask them before you try it.
If they mean temperature hot or they mean spicy hot.
Mm-hmm.
So remember, keep that in mind if you're a person who doesn't like spice or something,
because a lot of times in the US, we'll use hot interchangeably with temperature and
spiciness.
And they can mean both as well.
Like, oh, the soup is hot, temperature wise and spice level wise.
Um, yeah.
So hot sauce, you know, is going to mean spicy.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Because it's like, there's no, it's not like you're going to heat up a bag of sauce,
you know, like, uh, you know, you, you know, so thinking of like hot, rants, dressing,
or something.
Yeah, just straight out of the microwave.
Uh, yeah, no hot, um, hot sauce means spicy sauce, you know, so we say hot sauce.
That means spicy sauce, but hot soup.
Hot tea.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Hot tea is better.
Yeah.
You know, hot tea is going to be temperature wise hot because it's going to be very weird
for someone to put like jalapeno, their Thai chilies in a cup of tea, right?
So if you use context there, you'll realize people mean temperature hot soup as Jack was
saying that one can go either way.
So you have to ask, you know, the clarifying question, temperature hot or spicy hot and
that will kind of get you an answer, um, of neither or both or whatever.
So yeah.
All right, listeners.
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