This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2270.
Are you book smart or street smart?
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It's Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.
And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish .com forward slash subscribe.
Today, our listener asks about the phrase you can't judge a book by its cover.
Learn five expressions with the word book in English and how to use each one in natural English conversations.
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Hey there, Michelle.
How's it going today?
How you feeling? I'm feeling good.
How are you? Good. I'm excited to talk about reading and books.
I am, too. Do you read a lot?
You know, I read a lot of news on my phone, but I just started a new book, a new novel.
Oh, it's actually it's it's good.
It's a really good.
It's called What's What is the What?
It's about the war in Sudan, a boy in Sudan.
It's sad, but it's really good.
It's really well written.
So I've been getting back into novels, you know, before bed, that kind of thing.
So right. Aren't you starting to put your phone out of your room?
Yeah. Oh, yes. Still doing that.
And it's it's really good.
It feels great to not just it's like in my mind, phones and bed do not mix anymore.
So good for you. That is that is quite an accomplishment.
I have. It's actually not as hard as I thought since I got it.
The problem was when I was using my alarm clock on the phone, that was hard.
Right. Because then you need your phone for the alarm.
But if you use another new alarm clock, right, it all works together.
So I'm super excited, Michelle, to talk about books today.
Yeah, because today we are doing part one of a mini series.
And this is started because a listener asked us a really great question about a very popular expression.
So, guys, this is part one of the series.
Now, the second part is not going to be on the All There's English podcast.
Lindsay, where is it going to be?
The second part is going to be over on Business English, our other podcast, guys.
It's going to be on there later in the week.
So if you want to complete the series, close the loop, right?
Go over, open in your search bar, Business English podcast, you will see the yellow and you can go and hit that follow button so you can get the second episode in the series later this week.
All right. Yeah, exactly.
All right. So this question today comes to us.
This was from YouTube, guys.
You can ask your questions over there.
So this is from Hina 3155.
Would you like to read the question, Lindsay?
Yes, here's the question.
I definitely would like you to share some classic expressions with us.
One of the expressions I learned before is you can't judge a book by its cover.
Oh, yes, it's a good one, Michelle.
It's a very good one.
Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this today.
Lindsay, what does that mean?
I mean, it basically means if you think about books or many things in life, you can't judge them in their quality or substance based on what you see on the superficial level on the surface.
Yeah, based on the cover.
Yeah, yes, exactly, exactly.
So, yeah, it's your perception from the beginning.
Lindsay, do you try and live by this philosophy?
Of course, yeah. And many times you learn.
I think I think that it is very human to judge.
I mean, it comes back to our evolutionary brains, right?
When we were protecting ourselves from the tiger in caves, we made snap judgments as this person is this animal safe, right?
But now we live normal lives.
And it actually I still see my mind doing this, right?
Everyone does, of course.
But then life always corrects me.
It's never what I imagined at the beginning.
The person or the situation.
Yeah, right. Right.
It's fascinating. It is true.
I mean, can you I mean, I'm sure we've all done this, where we have judged something by its cover and then actually realized we were wrong.
But I think, yeah, as as I've gotten older, I have learned to take my time with how I perceive things.
I don't want to be harsh to judge or harsh to react.
I try to be a little just breathe a little bit.
I think I talked about this recently, you know, with with moving.
Just you don't know who is going to be your next best friend.
And maybe you meet someone and you want to even think or realize and then all of a sudden you realize, wait a second, this person is we got pretty close.
So, you know, for so many things in life, it's so true.
And imagine if we do judge and then we cut off opportunities to know people or to try things that how much we would lose of the richness of life.
Right. So it's just a great saying and it still continues to be true.
Right. And and more in the book sense, right.
It comes from this idea of do you ever see a book and you're just looking and you think it has a beautiful cover?
Some books, their covers are really beautiful and then you want to read them and then they might not always be that good or maybe it has a boring cover.
And you've ever read.
So do you when you are deciding to read an actual book, we're talking more literally now, do you judge a book by its cover?
Do you let the cover guide you?
No, I try to get title ideas from smart people, people that have similar interests, recommendations, their entire podcast that just do book recommendations.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Get there from any newspapers you read.
But, yeah, I mean, I think, like I said, the human mind judges, even just colors.
Yeah, we create an association with a color.
I mean, yellow is the color of energy, at least in the U .S.
But this could be cultural to yellow.
Our color is the color of energy, enthusiasm, excitement.
And that actually reflects who we are.
Right. Which is great.
But other, you know, other people might have different colors associated with their brand that might be attracting or detracting people.
Right. Right. Oh, fascinating.
Yeah, it is interesting.
I do think I am a little bit guilty of with with an actual book looking for the best cover.
There was this book I never ended up having time to read it, but I remember it had the most beautiful cover I had ever seen.
And I just, you know, you get excited.
Sometimes I have books at home and then I see a pretty cover outside at a bookstore.
And I think, oh, I want to read that.
But I have these books at home.
So that's hilarious.
I love that. Yeah. Anyway, today, though, we are going to share some more idioms dealing with books.
So I'm excited for this one.
And like we said, there's going to be part two of these because there's a lot of good ones that you can use in business.
So definitely listen out for that.
I'm curious what comes out in the business episode, too.
Very interesting. Exactly.
All right. So, Lindsay, what's the first one today?
All right. So this one is good.
This one is modern.
I hear this a lot. An open book.
This is basically someone who's comfortable expressing themselves.
They are open to sharing things that maybe not everyone would share.
I feel like usually people will say this about themselves.
Yes. Right. Yes. Right.
So somebody might say something like, ask me all about it.
I'm an open book. Yeah.
It's so true. I think I feel like you wouldn't ask.
Are you an open book?
No, no, no, no, no.
Well, I'm about to ask you that.
Oh, you were going to ask me now.
That's fine. Literally, that's what I have.
Weird conversations over here.
You wouldn't. It is true.
You want to ask somebody this, but I am curious.
Unless you're an English teacher, you wouldn't.
Yeah, exactly. Do you consider yourself?
Are you someone who likes to share things or do you keep on a?
Yeah, I think I'm pretty sherry.
I'm pretty sherry. I do.
I don't really have that much shame in things like different circumstances that are going on.
And I like to connect and well, obviously, you can't be tone deaf in the sense that you need to make sure you're sharing the right thing with the right person.
Right. At the right time.
Yeah. But I think if we share a little something that's going on in our lives, we can get closer to people, which is great.
Yeah, absolutely. I don't think that we could be we could be in our jobs if we were open books.
Right. And I think maybe that's one of the things I hope people like about the show is that we're not just teaching, we're sharing about ourselves, we're sharing your thoughts, right?
We're open books. Well, it's true.
I mean, when we first launched our podcast back in 2013, I felt like looking at all the other ESL podcasts, it was the opposite.
Everyone was kind of just very professional and buttoned up and serious, but this is not a serious thing, right?
Of course, we want to improve, but we want to have fun and we want to connect because that's what conversation and communication is about.
So we decided to do things a bit differently here.
Yes, I love it. And speaking of open books, we are going to be asking you guys a question on our Spotify poll today.
So stay tuned till the end because we've been doing these really fun polls, right, Lindsay, where we ask a question and then we're able to interact with our listeners on Spotify.
So please listen till the end because we're going to be sharing that poll.
All right. So cool.
Is there another phrase regarding books, Michelle, that we need to do it?
Yes, this is in my book.
Oh, yeah, this one's really good.
Yeah, in my book. So that's how you see things.
It's almost as if we all have our own books that are not real, but it's your set of rules, how you see things, how you perceive things.
What's OK? What's not OK?
Yes, Lindsay. So what's an example here?
OK, so here's a sample sentence.
In my book, it's wrong to ask someone for a favor when you have no intention of returning it.
So this is a really useful phrase to kind of assert your values.
Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
To show to show what you believe in who you are and share what interject a little bit about what you think is maybe right or wrong.
One hundred percent, one hundred percent.
And it's good to there are moments when we need to be able to do that.
We kind of want to own what we believe.
And so this is useful.
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Now let's go to the university halls.
The college dormitories hit the books, hit the books, the books.
All right. So, yeah, to hit the books, it doesn't mean you're physically going up to the books and smacking them.
You might be who knows it may be.
I mean, maybe if you're really frustrated.
Hit the books is to mean means to study to do your work.
Yeah, it doesn't matter how tired we are.
We have to hit the books.
The exam is in three days.
Rachelle, do you remember in college you had what they call it like reading week or something like that, where you had a time to prepare for your exams?
Did you not get that?
Was it just in my school?
We called it rereading week.
I think we just oh, oh, that does sound familiar.
I don't know if it wasn't called reading week.
But yeah, I don't know about that exam prep week.
Maybe it was exam prep week.
Yeah, I think they might have called that that in my school because my school is a little bit traditional Southern.
So maybe that's what they used to call it back in the day.
I like that week. Yeah, I remember everyone.
You just get a full week or three or four days to just study and prepare for that.
And then the exams start to come.
Right. And it really helps for exams if you're book smart, right?
Yeah, it for sure helps.
Not necessarily in life, but but in but in exams.
So being book smart is the opposite of street smart, right?
So she's very book smart, but she's not very savvy when it comes to getting around town and learning about the culture of a new place.
Yeah, and this is going to be linked to our poll for today.
It is, it is, Lindsay.
So yeah, this idea of book smart or street smart, I think ideally people have some of both, but sometimes people are very and want more in one or the other.
I think it more so happens that somebody may be very book smart, but not very street smart.
Right. For sure. For sure.
So what do you think about yourself?
Not brilliant either way, but I have a little bit of both enough to get.
Let's just say enough to get by on both sides.
You're so funny. Oh my gosh.
Thanks, Michelle. What about you?
What are where do you lean?
Which direction do you lean in?
I would say I'm more street smart, but I'm enough book smart also to get by.
I was able to able to graduate from school of my programs and do well, but I wouldn't say I would.
There are some people that they are able to do well with not even putting in that much work because they are they have this natural sense of being book smart.
I route that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
For sure. I understand that I studied a lot in college too, but no, it's true.
I mean, I think in adult life you learn.
I think when you're in school, you think it's all about grades and it is when you're in school, of course, but then you hit adult life and you realize you only need a certain amount of natural intelligence.
Then you can fill in the gaps, right?
Just learning on your own.
And then it's really all about navigating life, which is street smart.
How do you talk to people?
How do you navigate a city?
Like, how do you adapt to cultures, right?
This is more street smarts in a way.
Yep, yep, exactly. So, well, this leads us to our Spotify poll.
So guys listen in. So the question is, are you more book smart or street smart?
So you have to choose one.
We could put in a little bit of both, but that's too easy.
You got to choose one.
It's not fair that we didn't choose one and we're asking our listeners, but that's okay.
We'll see what our listeners have to say.
For me, if I had to answer the call, I would say street smart.
Street smart. What would you say?
It's really hard. I guess, I guess, I guess street smart too, Michelle.
I guess that's the same.
Yeah, more of like a wisdom about life, I guess, is probably, yeah.
So now that we've answered, you have to answer two and pick one.
Yeah, I love it. Let's go into a role play and then our listeners can go and do that poll and we will announce the results in a few episodes.
Here we go. Here we go.
What's happening here, Michelle?
Okay. So here we are study partners at school.
All right. So, all right.
Okay. So are you ready to hit the books?
Yeah, I guess. I don't love studying.
I'm not very book smart, naturally.
Like you can do it.
In my book, anyone can get good grades with a proper studying.
I'll help you. Oh, thanks.
And really, you can ask my help or my advice anytime I'm an open book.
Oh, I appreciate that.
I know I seem like a partier, but you can't judge a book by its cover.
I'm really just into studying and getting good grades.
Oh, is that true? All right, here we go.
So what did I say here, Michelle, first?
You said, okay, so are you ready to hit the books?
And you could have said, are you ready to study?
But instead, you chose this.
Right. And again, we're not physically hitting any books.
So we're just going to hitting that.
We're not being violent here.
Yes. We're going hard on studying, going.
All books were harmed in the making of that.
Idiom. Don't harm the books.
Yes. And then you said, yes, I don't love studying.
I'm not very book smart, naturally.
And you are now being very excited to motivate me.
And he said, you can do it.
In my book, anyone can get good grades with the proper studying.
So it's basically in your philosophy, in your mind, in my opinion, in my way of seeing the world, this is a really good one, guys.
I feel like if you take away anything from today's episode, take away this one, because this could bring your connection moments to another level.
If you can state your opinion in a unique way like this in my book, X, Y, Z.
It shares a lot about who you are, right?
And when you use this, you're giving someone a little bit of an insight into how you think, and you could use this to talk about politics, right?
And the politics season is heating up right now.
You can talk about politics, you can talk about what's happening in family dynamics, your opinions about so many things, Michelle, it could be used for.
All right. Right. And then you said you can ask my help or advice any time I'm an open book.
Yes, I'm an open book.
That means I'm totally up for talking about what's going on in my life.
OK, that's right. And then you said, I know, oh, yeah, I said, I know I seem like a partier, but you can't judge a book by its cover.
OK, yeah, right. So, guys, of course, we might not use all of these in one conversation like this, but this gives you a pretty good idea of how they're all used.
Yeah, 100 percent, 100 percent.
So, Michelle, any final takeaways for our listeners today?
Anything they should keep in mind?
Yeah, well, this is a it was a great question, and that's why we are going to do the second part of this series on the Business English podcast.
So again, remember to follow that so you get that episode when it comes out.
Overall, I just think these expressions are great for connection, especially things like in my book, I'm an open book.
These are it's interesting how all of them use how we've used this word book to mean so much about ourselves, actually.
Yeah, it is really interesting.
So, guys, try one of these on your own in your next conversation with a native speaker and go open your search bar, find Business English podcast, hit follow.
We'll see you over there.
All right. Good stuff, Michelle.
You take care. All right.
All right. Bye. Bye.
Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
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