This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2097.
What is pawpaw fruit?
English vocabulary that is all the rage.
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Today we talk about a Canadian fruit with a cult following and share super modern slang you can use instead of saying popular or trendy.
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B-L-A-C-K-F-R-I-D-A-Y.
Hey, Aubrey, how's everything going today?
I'm great.
We found this really interesting article and I want to ask you Lindsay, have you ever heard of, or have you tried, pawpaw fruit?
Pawpaw fruit.
That sounds like such an exotic term.
I have never tried that before.
I don't even, I've never even heard of it.
Yeah, I hadn't either.
And I'm kind of shocked because I lived in Canada for a couple of years in Quebec.
But this is a Canadian fruit called papa.
It's all the rage right now.
And I was shocked that I hadn't heard of it.
It's all the rage right now.
I love that term.
I feel like that applies to so much more than just fruit.
Totally, right?
This is one of the phrases we're teaching today.
There was some great vocabulary in this article for something being really trendy and popular.
So we're going to share that today, because what a great way to connect, to ask someone about current trends.
Yeah.
I love to talk.
I love to comment on current trends, sometimes to make fun of them, to be honest.
Right.
Even language trends, like patterns of things that we tend to say.
It's fun to talk about them and comment on them and have good vocabulary to say what we think about those trends.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
It makes for such interesting conversation always like this.
We talk about this a lot at work, with friends, with family.
Things like this will come up because sometimes popular trends are crazy, just like bonkers and really weird.
And, like you said, with language, sometimes things are just really interesting and you find something really cool that you want to share with others.
Oh, for sure.
For sure.
Do you remember the ice bucket challenge back in like 2014?
Yeah.
I didn't do it.
Did you do it?
I didn't, but I saw a lot of friends on Facebook that did it and it was all the rage for sure.
And that's this type, totally the type of thing you would bring up in a conversation, because it's just interesting and crazy.
Yeah.
And that was, it was for a good cause, right?
It was to benefit, I think, ALS.
It was like a fundraiser.
A fundraiser.
People were pouring big buckets of ice on top of their head and filming it, putting it on Facebook and then Maybe, donating money.
I guess that's how it worked.
I don't remember.
I think so, right?
But they were really funny often, right?
So then it would come up because you'd be like, did you see the crazy one?
Like celebrities doing it.
Which reminds me, by the way, if you guys missed Monday's episode, you and Michelle talked about how to connect over laughter.
Things that are funny like this internet memes, funny things.
So if you guys missed it, scroll up.
That was episode 2094.
That was a really good one.
I love that.
We've been talking a lot about humor on the show.
We've brought in Seinfeld this fall.
A lot of ways to connect over just having a good belly laugh.
What about the app?
Where should our listeners go if they would like to check out our iOS Android app, by the way?
Yes, guys.
Go to allearsenglish.com slash app.
APP.
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And it's the best way to listen to this podcast really, because you can follow along with the transcripts while you hear the episode and add vocabulary to your personal list.
You see example sentences definitions, so that you can really have everything you're learning all in one place.
Yep.
Such a good way to consume the podcast.
So go over to allearsenglish.com app.
So let's get into this topic today, Aubrey, all the rage, how to talk about trends.
Where do we go?
Where do we start?
Yeah, we want to share this fun article.
Jessica on our team actually found it.
It's called Tropical and Native to Canada.
The papa fruit is all the rage for those in the know.
And this was by Samantha Edwards, published October 3rd, 2023.
And it was really fascinating just to find out.
There's this fruit that I had never heard of that supposedly is delicious, but it's pretty rare.
And there was even just in this title, there's really cool vocabulary, right?
Oh my gosh, for sure.
So it says the title is tropical and native to Canada.
The pop-off fruit is all the rage for those in the know.
So just in that title, like you said, there are two key phrases that we love.
Yes.
We're going to teach all the rage and two others that are talking about things that are very popular and also in the know right
What does this mean, Lindsay?
Well, you are, it's like you're in the inner circle.
You know you are getting updates about the cool new things that are happening and you feel like you are relevant, I guess.
Exactly, right?
This is like more rare information, inside information to be in the know.
It's like you know about something that not everybody knows.
Yeah, there's so many friends.
So, all right, where do we start?
So the first phrase, do we want to go ahead and teach that to our listeners then?
First, I thought it would be fun just to share a little bit about this pawpaw fruit because it is kind of fascinating.
There's a reason that neither you nor I had heard of it, right?
So it's indigenous to Canada, which means that it was here.
It's been here forever, like before Europeans came, but it's much harder to find now with colonization and clear cutting of forests.
So efforts are being made now to reintroduce pawpaw trees into the wild.
People are keeping the seeds and planting them in their own gardens and yards, but also in the wild.
So this is going to come up in this vocabulary because it has a cult following now.
People are really into trying to help this fruit come back and be more prevalent.
Do we know what the taste is or what the texture is or what it goes with?
Do we know any of that?
It looks a little bit like a small papaya.
And they compared it a little bit to a papaya, but that it tasted better, sweeter.
Because I don't know about you, but I don't love the taste of a papaya.
It sounded more a little bit like sweet or like a mango maybe.
And it looks so tropical.
It looks sort of like a mango.
Yeah.
And so that's very surprising to have this very tropical looking and tasting fruit.
In Canada, up north.
Canada is the last place I think of when I think about tropical.
Aubrey, what's your favorite kind of fruit?
I really do love mangoes.
We just got back from a trip to Mexico and there you can buy a fresh mango and they just like peel it and slice it and give it to you on a stick and you just eat it off a stick.
And we ate at least one a day, all of us.
It's so delicious.
Amazing.
That is so good.
I love fruit.
What about you?
What's your favorite fruit?
I'm a big fan of peaches and nectarines in the summer, but they're so specific to just August, really in the US.
August, maybe September.
But they're so good when they're ripe.
That's my favorite.
Yes.
That's the question is often I feel like when I eat a nectarine, it's so crunchy.
Do you like them to be soft and ripe?
Yeah, they should be ripe for sure.
All the ones I buy are just crunchy and kind of underripe and we're just like like oh, that's just how we're gonna eat them.
Yeah peaches, but I like mangoes too.
Um, I do eat a lot of fruit.
Do you eat a lot of fruit and vegetables in your diet, Aubrey?
Yeah, I do.
I probably should eat more, but yeah, we do eat a lot of fruit and vegetables.
And I mean, can you eat?
Can you ever eat enough fruits and vegetables?
Right, add more to your diet.
Everyone, it's true.
All right.
So fruit is trending, but especially the pawpaw is trending.
Yes, exactly.
So what's the first way we could talk about this kind of trend?
Yeah, the first one is straight out of that title.
And then they used it again in the article All the Rage, which means extremely popular currently, right now.
Very trendy.
And again, that title was tropical and native to Canada.
The pawpaw fruit is all the rage for those in the know.
Yeah.
It means everyone loves it.
It's very popular, right?
Everyone wants it right now.
So yeah.
Another example is like everyone's wearing neon.
80s fashions are all the rage.
And so it's very specific to like what's currently trendy and popular.
It sort of implies a little bit that it probably won't always be popular.
Like it's probably not something that's going to stay super popular.
So kind of like a flash in the pan type deal.
Yeah.
So that's a good idiom.
I haven't heard that in a while.
Yes.
Flash in the pan, meaning like a burst of popularity.
That's an old idiom for sure.
I'm wondering if Barbie costumes are going to be all the rage this year at Halloween.
Probably.
You know what I mean?
Probably.
Right.
But I feel like it's a little bit, okay, that's the summer thing.
We're done with it.
Let's move on.
Exactly.
Yes.
Okay.
Is something else that we need to know?
Yeah.
This next one is cult following.
Okay.
This one's really fun, too.
It means that there's a group of fans that are highly dedicated to something.
So I think of Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I don't know if you've ever gone to a showing of that, but people will dress up.
And there are a lot of films that have a cult following, where people love it and they create events around it.
Or Star Wars.
Absolutely.
Whenever there's a new one.
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan, but we went our first weekend here in Boston.
My dad was so excited to book tickets for the Boston Pops.
You know, the Boston Pops is like a really famous orchestra, right?
They played it when we were in Boston.
We went to the 4th of July fireworks and the Boston Pops played the music.
Keith Lockhart, famous composer.
Everyone loves him.
They did a like a soundtrack, because the original guy who wrote the soundtrack for Star Wars was from the Boston Pops.
Like he was the director of the soundtrack. composer of the Boston Pops, another composer, the whatever they call them, the person that runs the orchestra, the was Keith Lockhart is anyways, the guy that stands in the director, the director of the music.
Yeah.
So anyways, they did a kind of a soundtrack of Star Wars through the Boston Pops.
It was very cool.
But people showed up in their costumes.
I mean, that was a real call.
You weren't dressed up, Lindsay.
You didn't dress up.
Not do it.
No chewy for me.
No chewy costume for me.
It's true.
Star Wars for sure has a cult following.
And this is an interesting way to talk about like this, a popular fruit.
Right.
In the article it says it's developed a cult following among chefs and foodies, with the papa showing up on the menu of Canada's top restaurants.
So this is a great way to use that like just because it is extremely popular, popular and people are trying to reintroduce it in the wild.
You can say it has a cult following.
Yeah.
And then the Barbie movie.
Oh, here comes Barbie.
I figured that would be somewhere in today's episode.
The Barbie movie has a cult following.
Yeah.
And in addition to that, I would say it also has a mainstream following too.
It's not just a niche group of people.
Yeah, that's true.
That's a good point.
Because a cult following does imply a niche group of people, right?
It's not everybody.
It's not as popular.
There's a reason you and I didn't know about it because it's not as popular in the mainstream.
But if you know about it, then you really care.
You're obsessed.
Yeah.
Or I think of Comic-Con.
That conference, or just very specific conferences, is where you end up with cult followings that show up or conventions on certain things that people are just so excited about.
What's really fascinating about this vocabulary term, I think, is the word cult by itself has quite a negative connotation because historically there have been some religious cults that have had very problematic behavior and there have been some really crazy news stories.
But cult following is quite positive, right?
It's just like, this is fun.
It's exciting.
It's like a small group of people that gets really excited about something, and it all has a pretty positive connotation, wouldn't you say?
That's a really important point, Aubrey.
So the key word there is following.
It doesn't mean this is a cult.
That's totally different.
If someone's talking about a cult that formed in Wyoming or something.
That's a totally different thing.
A cult following of a particular media, a movie or a singer or some kind of media.
That's different.
That just means there are fans that are highly dedicated and excited about it and there's there's not that negative connotation of the cult by itself.
Oh my gosh.
Yes, very important to know that difference today.
Okay aubrey, what's next for our listeners today?
Yeah,
So next is just the word obsessed.
So when there's a cult following, when something's all the rage, we often use this adjective to describe how people feel about it.
Just means like extremely interested, often with something like this that's popular or trendy.
Yeah.
And I'm seeing a trend, just talking about trends of people saying, I'm obsessed.
Right.
People are saying that more and more, right?
So that would be a fun episode in itself.
It's true.
Because we love to exaggerate.
It just means I like it a lot.
I'm obsessed.
Yeah, I like it a lot.
And just a quote from the article.
Here it is, guys.
Those who know, know.
And they're obsessed.
They line up at the farmer's markets an hour before they open for the chance to snag one.
Wow.
That is definitely a cult following.
Right?
To line up an hour before a farmer's market opens because they probably sell out very quickly.
They're pretty rare.
Yeah.
So, yeah, but you could consider that obsessed if you're willing to wait in line.
Interesting.
Another example.
Oh, sorry.
Go ahead.
I was going to say you could argue that Apple at one point had or even has.
I don't know.
It's kind of gone mainstream now.
But when they were first coming out with the iPhone, people would line up and sneakers.
Sneakers are a big thing.
They get this cult following.
Absolutely.
Right.
Because everyone wants the specific one.
They're willing to wait in line.
They're willing to pay a lot.
And especially if it's something that's a little rare, like not everyone can get it.
Yeah, it's.
Anything that's a little rare, a little exclusive would tend to get people get obsessed with.
What else?
I have one more example here.
Just sort of the way you were saying where we say just I'm obsessed to mean I really love something.
I put I'm obsessed with the Wheel of Time series.
Have you seen this?
It's on Amazon.
The second season just wrapped.
It's based on a book series that I read when I was younger that I loved.
And it's so exciting to see Amazon putting some money behind it.
It's got great CGI, great effects, and it's just a fantastic story.
So not only am I watching the show and I've read all the books, but I'm listening to like three different podcasts about it.
So I think this qualifies as a little.
You are part of the cult following.
You are a cult following for this TV show and book series.
You're right in there.
I love that.
It's fun to be obsessed with something.
You know, it's fun to have something you you're a little weird in that way.
Right.
Everyone has something they're a little weird about.
And that's kind of fun.
It gives you something interesting to talk about.
Right.
Yeah, I love that.
That is super interesting.
All right.
Very good.
Okay, Aubrey, let's show our listeners how this all comes out in a nice little role play.
Shall we?
So in this role play, you and I are discussing a new restaurant in town.
Okay.
Have you heard of Café Bleu?
I spelled it like the French, Café Bleu.
I figured I would need to pronounce that properly for you, Aubrey.
It's a new French restaurant that has quite a cult following.
Yes, it's all the rage.
I went with some friends last weekend and it was amazing.
I can't wait to try it. order the halibut.
I'm obsessed.
See, there you go.
Okay.
That's a really good example because it just means like it was delicious.
I loved it.
Yep.
Yep.
And we use some key vocabulary here for our listeners.
I said, it's a new French restaurant that has quite a cult following.
And another day we can talk about adding quite there.
I'm pretty sure we may have done that before, but we'll do an updated one.
Quite this, quite that, right?
Mm-hmm.
That's really fun and native.
We do that all the time, right?
These role plays, I write them out and I'm just writing it the way I would say it.
I rarely am thinking, ooh, be sure to use quite.
No, like this is just how I would say it.
Oh, this is 100% real English.
That's why our listeners love All Ears English.
What else did we say here?
And then I said, yes, it's all the rage.
Just meaning like everyone's talking about it.
Everyone's excited about it.
Yeah.
And I said, I can't wait to try it out.
And then your recommendation was?
I said, order the halibut.
I'm obsessed, which is just a really fun way to mean like I say I loved it.
If I go back, that's what I would order again.
Oh, so good.
It's good to be excited about something.
What's our takeaway for our listeners?
I mean, how can we use today's skills to connect? right?
Talking about what's popular or trendy is such a great way to connect in English with anyone coworkers friends, family.
This vocabulary we're using today is perfect for sparking a conversation about new trends, about anything that you read in the news that's popular.
Like if you saw this article about pawpaw fruit, absolutely start that conversation.
Yes, I love that idea.
And you know, it's good to show the parts of yourself that are enthusiastic about something.
Because that's what people can grab onto in terms of seeing you as a real person.
You come to life when you talk about certain things.
That's what makes you an interesting person.
So try to bring up and especially try to find that other person that's also obsessed with that thing.
Right.
Because if they're not and you're going off on a tangent about this thing maybe that's not as connected or connection oriented.
Right, Aubrey?
For sure, right?
If you bring this up and they're clearly like, I don't care about this fruit.
Yeah.
Move on to something else that might happen, right?
It might happen.
But if you find that you have oh my God, this other person is also a big fan of Star Wars for example go down that track with them.
And now you have the vocab to do it.
All right.
Awesome.
So fun.
Thanks, Lindsay.
All right, Aubrey.
You have a good day.
I'll talk to you soon.
You too.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
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