This is an All-Ears English Podcast episode 2177.
Are you behind the times?
English idioms inspired by dinosaurs.
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Aubrey Carter, the Isles Wiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English Adventure.
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Are you always up on the trends and latest changes in the world
or are you sometimes a little late to the game?
Today, find out how to build connection by saying that you are sometimes behind the times in English.
Hey there, Aubrey. How's everything today?
I'm great, Lindsay. How are you?
I'm fantastic. What are we talking about today on All-Ears English?
I have a question for you.
What is something that you think is going the way of the dinosaur?
Probably the traditional 9-5, where you're in the office all day,
you have a long commute, that style.
I think I might be going the way of the dinosaurs.
It's not totally gone, but it's being changed.
Do you agree?
Absolutely.
Oh, it's much more rare.
I can't actually think of a single person I know that goes to an office 9-5 every day.
It's either some type of hybrid situation or they're working remote.
That's very common now.
Yeah, and imagine saying that even in 2018-2019, you wouldn't have said that.
Never.
Right.
No, incredible.
It's so rare to work remotely back then.
It's fascinating how much has changed in just a few short years.
Oh my God, so much has changed.
So today, we're here to answer a question.
Eddie Valdo Galisa asked us a question about what, Aubrey?
About dinosaurs in English.
Yeah.
And it's funny because I saw this question,
and it made me think immediately of an episode that you and Michelle just recorded recently.
It was 2159.
What goats, dinosaurs, and snakes have in common.
And you talked about this a little bit, how we use dinosaur to refer to something as old, right?
Right.
Right.
And today, we're going to kind of follow up on that idea.
Right.
We're going to show our listeners.
What are we going to show our listeners in today's episode?
That's not the only way that we use dinosaur in English, right?
There's this awesome idiom that I used to ask you that question right at the top,
what's something that's going the way of the dinosaur.
And there are a few idioms in English that are related that we used to talk about how the world
is changing, which is such a great thing to connect about.
I love conversations about just like what has changed in the last few years.
And we're really in an era where things kind of changed on a steady pace.
And then all of a sudden with the pandemic, things rapidly changed.
It's amazing.
It's probably the fastest period of change in our lives, right?
No.
And so this is a very interesting topic for everyone,
because more than any time in our lives,
there's been a lot of change recently.
So there's a lot to talk about when you ask someone like,
well, what do you think has changed since the pandemic?
Or what has changed recently?
Yeah.
So definitely guys, scroll back and get that episode 2159 if you missed it.
Hit follow if you missed it.
That means you're probably missing some of our amazing episodes.
And yeah, let's follow up today with some great idioms.
Yeah, let's do it.
All right.
So let's start with the first one where we go to the dinosaur.
So what is the first expression?
Again, we used it at the top of the show, right?
Yes.
Well, go the way of the dinosaur, right?
What does this mean?
It just means that something is becoming obsolete.
Obsolete is a great word, right?
This is what this means, right?
To fall out of being commonly used or out of practice.
Just something that starts to feel old or old-fashioned.
Exactly.
So for example, what we were talking about,
working at an office seems to be going the way of the dinosaur.
And then you could ask someone,
what do you think?
Do you know a lot of people who work remotely?
What a great way to spark a conversation
about how the business world is changing?
Yeah, this is a great conversation starter right here.
Or here's another one, does your town recycle?
Where I live, it seems to be going the way of the dinosaur.
That's interesting.
Is that happening in your town? Recycling is at S.
Yeah, recently stopped recycling glass.
I guess it's too expensive for the city to recycle glass.
And I've heard from others, this is happening a lot
and a lot of businesses aren't recycling
just because it costs them too much.
So unfortunately, in a lot of places in the United States,
recycling is going the way of the dinosaur,
which is unfortunate should be the opposite trend,
where it should be increasing.
I know, we're going to have to find out.
It doesn't exist anymore.
Yeah, but it's super cool because around here, where I live,
apparently there's lots of dinosaur prints and things like that.
Are there a few here and there?
So there are parks where people go and you can see it.
I haven't gone yet, but I want to go.
It sounds just fascinating.
How close you can get to history with that kind of stuff.
Right?
Yeah.
Okay, Aubrey, what would be number two?
What's our second phrase?
Yes, I love this idiom.
It's behind the times.
Means you're not updated on something.
So sort of as the world is changing,
this is something we might say about ourselves,
if we find something out and say,
oh, I'm behind the times here.
Right.
Yeah, for example, did you hear that the Rojas family is moving?
I feel like I'm always behind the times.
So what am I saying here, Aubrey?
Yeah, exactly.
I hadn't heard everybody else knew this news.
And you know, it's news to me.
I didn't know.
So you're admitting that you're not keeping up on some kind of information.
Yeah, I feel like this happens to me a lot when I hear about
some cultural phenomenon or some meme that's out there.
And I hear about it like six months later.
And everyone knows about it.
This happens a lot to me.
Does that happen to you?
Yes, that happens to me too, right?
Somebody's like, oh, yeah, you saw that TikTok rate or some meme.
Someone like, no, you know what I might say?
Okay, I must be behind the times.
I had not heard that.
I had not seen that.
What if on idiom too?
It's a little self-deprecating, a little like teasing yourself,
admitting, you know, I'm not keeping up with all of these social trends.
Yeah, that's so good.
So another really, really good connection phrase,
guys, you have two good choices and we're going to give you a third.
So next one is yesterday's news.
Oh, yeah, also lots of personality here, Aubrey.
What does it mean?
Absolutely, right?
So this, if you are behind the times,
you realize what you have missed,
we use this idiom yesterday's news, right?
Something that everyone else already knows.
Maybe you also are aware of it or not.
You know, and I'll use this sometimes when I go to share something
that I realize maybe people have already heard.
I might say, maybe this is yesterday's news,
but I just heard about your new car.
Okay, so yeah, very self-deprecating, right?
You're recognizing that you probably are a little
way to get to the last one to know.
Yeah.
Do you use this one, Lindsay?
It is.
It's kind of fun to like hurt it.
For sure.
I do.
Because like I said, I tend to struggle with these things.
This is my area of weakness.
Finding out about things and knowing,
being up on the new trends, things like that,
I miss them for some reason.
And so here's another one.
I was excited to tell everyone I won the tournament,
but apparently it's yesterday's news.
So that was apparently everyone knew.
Everyone knew.
This happened to me recently where I had won a softball tournament.
And the next time I saw this group of friends,
I was excited to tell everyone,
but then I found out my partner had already told them.
I was all excited.
They're like, oh yeah, we know someone already told us.
Okay, yesterday's news.
Oh, that's funny.
Took the wind out of my sales a little bit.
I wanted to tell everyone.
So I got myself a little bit.
Right, right, right, right.
And then there's one caveat we want to warn our listeners about here.
What is it, Aubrey?
What should we be careful of?
Yes.
So we want to avoid using these,
especially these last two,
to describe a person or the news they're sharing.
We use a lot about ourselves to poke fun at ourselves,
right, to make something later.
But if you call someone else behind the times,
or if they tell you something and you're like,
oh, that's yesterday's news.
This could be offensive or hurt someone's feelings.
It's just not kind.
So I would avoid that.
Oh, for sure, I would avoid that.
For sure.
This is good stuff.
Let's go into a role play here to show our listeners.
Because this episode in particular is one of those super useful ones for connection.
Okay, I think our listeners are going to.
So let's see how it works.
So here we are chatting before a PTO meeting,
which is what?
A POTE teacher organization meeting.
Okay.
I thought I was going to say,
Time-Off.
Oh, that would be more fun.
Meeting about our PTO.
Hey, Time-Off.
Love it.
All right.
PTO.
The difference between someone who works all day,
someone who's dealing with children all day,
what we think of when we hear PTO.
Yeah, that would be a fun episode.
If we throw up some random acronyms
and you tell me what it means and I tell you what it means.
I love that actually because there were some acronyms like this
where they stand for two different things,
depending on the context.
That would actually make a great episode
if we could put that together.
We'll see.
We'll see.
All right.
Here we go.
So, hey, these screens are nice.
I much prefer them to the smart boards
the schools used for a while.
I forgot about those.
They were really difficult to use.
I'm glad they went the way of the dinosaur.
I remember when I found out about the change.
I was so excited and then realized
they'd been replaced over a year ago
and it was yesterday's news.
The same thing happened to me.
Oh, well, I'm used to being behind the times.
Very self-deprecating, but connecting.
Well, actually here we're connecting
the fact that we both are behind the times.
Right, Abri?
Absolutely, which is even better.
If you share with me that you found out something
and realized it was yesterday's news,
this would be a great opportunity to share if
that's also happened to me.
If ever someone admits a fault,
this is just a great way to connect.
If you can be like, oh, the same thing happened to me.
Right.
It's a little less connective
when one person is behind, the other's really up on the trends
and they're making fun of you
or you're making fun of yourself.
There's not the same level of connection
when that happens.
That would be really awkward if I were like,
really, I found out about it the day that it happened.
There's no connection there.
Right.
For sure.
For sure.
All right, so what did you say here first?
Who used our first idiom?
Yeah, I said, we're talking about these screens.
They stopped using that were terrible.
And I said, I'm glad they went the way of the dinosaur.
And that's just a way of saying, I'm glad they don't use those anymore.
Yes.
Right.
And then I said, oh, yesterday's news, right?
I was so excited.
And then I realized they'd been replaced over a year ago.
And it was yesterday's news.
Everyone already knew.
Okay.
This is really, I love this self-deprecation.
We were like, I thought I was so up on the trends.
I was excited.
And then I realized, oh, everybody already knows about this.
Except me.
Yeah.
Yesterday's news.
Right.
And then you, great.
And this is the connection moment, right?
You said the same thing happened to me.
Now you have something in common.
And you say, oh, well, I'm used to being behind the times.
And I think that, anything if I hadn't had that exact same situation,
I could still use this and say something like,
that happens to me all the time.
I'm always behind the times.
Because there are definitely times for all of us
where we're not up on the latest news or trends.
Like, this is a common experience.
Yeah, it's nice to be able to say that.
And even if it's not true, maybe it's not the worst thing to say,
just to throw in there, sometimes I'm behind the times, right?
I get caught not knowing what's going on.
You could decide how much connection
you want to build in and what ways, right?
For sure.
OK, it was a takeaway today, operator.
Yeah, I think this is such a great topic for connection,
discussing how the world is changing on big levels or smaller,
like in this meeting.
We're just talking about some screens that are different.
It's still a way to connect.
Just talking about how something has changed.
Yeah, and I feel like the truth is,
everyone is probably behind the times on something.
Absolutely.
So if you throw that in, you're probably not making up a story.
You're probably behind the times in some area, right?
I mean, I feel like I'm already behind the times
when it comes to AI.
Right?
For sure, right?
Whether it's media, maybe you don't have time
to watch the newest shows or you don't have
to read books like you used to or articles.
There's a lot.
There's so much like you said, there's something
that you and I are behind the times on.
Oh, for sure.
For me, it's TV TV series.
I came late to Handmaid's Tale.
So many of them, I came like eight years too late,
but it's fine.
It's fine.
You're a little behind the times.
It's fine.
So are we all.
I love it.
And that is the point of today's episode, guys.
If you love this connection episode, go ahead
and hit the follow button to get our future
amazing episodes on all our English five days a week.
Good stuff, Aubrey.
Thanks for being on the show today.
Awesome.
Thanks for the next time.
All right.
