This is an all ears English podcast episode 2465 one word to describe your rare taste in English Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times.
Are you feeling stuck with your English? 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.
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Do you have obscure taste in something? Maybe you like unusual books or movies that no one knows about.
Today, find out how to talk about your obscure taste in your conversations.
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Hey, Michelle, how's it going today? Good, Lindsay.
How are you? Good. I have a question for you.
You ready? Okay. So do you have obscure taste in things?
Ooh, um, I guess in some things, of course, uh, I think everybody has a some obscure taste, right?
Like I don't think that everybody likes everything completely mainstream.
What do you think? But I can't think of anything off the top of my head.
I know. I guess. Yeah. I mean, I think when I think of to answer that question, I think about like something like I really like matcha matcha tea. like Japanese matcha.
And I think a lot of people don't like that.
That's maybe what I would say, like random things that I've tried when I've traveled. that are not mainstream.
They're not Doritos in our culture. So whatever is obscure.
It's just a matter of whatever is common in the culture, right?
So it's your taste, right? Right, right, right, right.
Exactly. So today we're going to answer a listener question about the word obscure.
This is a really good one. This is very high level. this word, in my opinion.
This question comes to us from YouTube. So guys, you can also submit your questions on there.
And we are on YouTube. So Go ahead and watch us if that's the way that you prefer to consume the podcast.
Yes. But this question is from Ardalan Bookart24.
This listener says, can you talk about all the meanings of obscure in different situations?
Really direct, really good question. We love good direct questions.
Is this a common word, Michelle? I mean, do we hear this a lot? do we use this in English?
I mean I wouldn't say that it comes up every day but I also wouldn't say that it's Yeah.
But the word obscure is obscure? You wouldn't say obscure, obscure?
I don't know. Now it's going to lose all meaning.
Right. Yes. That's funny. But I do think it's fairly common.
I think it sounds kind of hip, kind of cool, kind of high level.
What do you think? Yeah, I see what you're saying there.
I think you're right. I think it's kind of it would be a great IELTS band nine vocabulary word.
For sure. Because the whole point on IELTS is using different words than everyone else is using.
So you don't get pulled down to the six like everyone else. right yeah I do I agree I think it's kind of rare but it's but we all we also know it's So if you use it with a native speaker, they're not going to look at you like you have five heads.
No. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And to make sure we don't look at you like you have five heads, please hit the follow button because.
I don't understand why you wouldn't, right?
Maybe. Yes. That's it, Michelle. You got it.
Why wouldn't you be following All Ears English if you believe in connection, not perfection?
That's our whole thing. So go ahead and hit follow if that's how you want to learn based on human connection.
Exactly. All right, so let's get into this word.
So what does obscure mean? Basically, it can mean that something is not well known.
It might be unusual. It might be hard to comprehend.
You might hear the term obscure reference.
Michelle. We hear that sometimes, right?
I feel like I hear that a lot with the word obscure.
Well, that was an obscure reference. I'm proud of myself for understanding it, right?
Somebody might make a reference. I mean, I'm always... throwing out something from friends or it could be from anything.
It could be a random 90s reference. And if somebody understands it, they could say, oh, well, that was obscure, right?
Yeah. Often you hear people in the dating world saying, oh, I found my match.
This person gets me because maybe this person uses very obscure references.
And their date does too. And they feel like they've met their match because, you know, that kind of thing.
Right. Right. You identify with that person's taste and you know, you get them.
What's another example of this word? You could say this.
You could say their teacher's lessons were perfect.
Lesson plans were pretty obscure, so the students began to complain.
Oh, that's not good. So maybe they were hard to get.
It was... A little strange. I mean, I feel like I don't hear it as much in this way, but it can be used.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, kind of the negative way of labeling something instead of using the word obscure, people would just say weird.
Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
But weird has like a negative connotation to it, right?
Yeah, yeah. Or you could say, some people say my taste in music is obscure.
I take that as a compliment, right? Yeah, exactly.
You could kind of put the word weird in there.
Weird. It's the same idea, right? But it's much better if you're trying to build a connection to say, oh, these are some really obscure references you're making instead of these are weird things you're saying, right?
Right. Weird could. Well, it's funny because some people take weird as a compliment.
I mean, there's always we've talked about this, like keep Austin weird and things like that.
Weird is cool. Right. But still, if you say that was a weird reference and you don't know the person that well...
It could sound more, it sounds a little bit more offensive than obscure, which just kind of means unusual not putting a judgment on it.
Totally. 100% agree. Here's another example.
We found this obscure book in this old bookshop.
So that's what I'm reading now. Yeah. So obscure book.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, Lindsay, is there something that you like that some may say is obscure?
Yeah. I mean, like I said, like I really like Japanese matcha.
I like, um, Or even, what is it, Mate? It's the Argentine... tradition of sipping mate.
It's another kind of tea. Have you ever heard of it?
It's very obscure, Michelle. It's very obscure.
Very obscure. But that's a perfect example, right?
Have you heard of it? Oh, it's kind of up to, right.
I mean, again, it may not, it goes back to what you were saying about the culture.
It could be obscure one place and not in another.
If you live in Argentina or Uruguay or maybe Brazil, it's not obscure to you at all.
But in the U.S., it's kind of obscure, the mate, the mate tradition.
Yeah, I would say so. Yes, exactly. Exactly.
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Hiring Indeed is all you need. Okay, Michelle.
Well, what about you? You didn't tell me.
Are there any things that you're into that you want to ask?
Oh, come on. You got something. You got something.
I know it. I mean, I'm sure I do. Ooh, this is a really good question.
Oh, my gosh. This is going to bother me.
Okay, well, keep thinking. Keep thinking about it throughout the episode.
I'm going to keep on thinking. but I do want to bring up a, um, another way that obscure can be used.
Another time definition. And this can mean it can mean to block something.
Right. You can't see it, actually. So you could say the car obscured his line of sight.
So he honked his horn. So that's a totally different one.
Interesting. Yeah, that's totally different, but it, Is it really even related to the other meaning?
Something that is more rare? I guess I can see the link.
You can kind of link it. I guess you can kind of link it, but on the surface, not.
It sounds totally different, but if you want to try and make a link, you could, you know?
Yeah, you could, you could. So I hinted that weird would be another way to say this, but there are a few other things you could say. right unusual unusual is like a politically correct thing to say unusual so my taste can be a little unusual So not everyone understands me.
Yeah, that's the politically correct form of weird, right?
Instead of saying weird, it's politically correct to say unusual. vague.
I like vague. The way you present your opinion is pretty vague.
I'm a little unclear on what you mean. Yeah, I could see how these are interrelated.
They don't mean exactly the same thing, but they're interrelated for sure.
Right. vague is more the idea of being unclear rather than right.
I mean, but yeah, again, you can link. You can really link everything together if you try.
Yeah, actually. And the other one would be rare, right?
Rare, right for the first definition. Oh, it's such a rare kinds of wine that you're into.
How did you learn about them, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
And then, of course, there's the second way.
I mean, I guess we kind of talked about three ways, actually.
But the other way about... blocking something right so you could just say block Right?
The sun was blocked by the clouds. Yes. Or what's the other one you could use?
The hat obscured his face. Oh, mask. I meant mask.
Whoops. To mask as a verb, right? So this is the second definition we talked about, guys, meaning something covers or makes something hard to see.
Right. To obscure. So again, the hat masked his face.
So the teacher asked him to remove it. It's really hard to say the word mask.
Because I end up replacing the K with a T. The hat masked his face.
Because it's really hard to say masked. or something yeah um so but yeah these these are um really useful words, all of them.
So let's do a role play. We're not going to use every single one, but we'll use most of them.
In this role play, you are driving me to our book club.
Oh, we have a book club. Fun. Okay. Yeah.
Here we go. All right. I'm excited for tonight they are getting wine and cheese.
That's good. Do you even read the book? Oh no, it was so obscure.
I didn't really like it. Yeah. Oh gosh. Do you need sunglasses?
Yes, please. The sun is super bright. It's blocking my vision.
Here. Yeah, I thought some of the chapters of the book were kind of vague.
Yeah. And you know, this is very typical in conversation.
And this is what I want our listeners to be ready to do.
And I'm sure they do this in their languages, which is move in and out of topics.
Right? We're talking about the book and how obscure it is.
And then you're blocked with your vision and you're getting sunglasses.
So it's important to be able to do this.
Weave in and out of ideas and come back to them. pick them up seamlessly.
Right. That's the thing is that happens when you're driving.
Do you ever when you're driving, you get the sun in your eyes and you just need to take a second.
I mean, there's always these little adjustments we're making.
Oh, my, you know, my bag fell this, you know.
It's some sort of physical adjustment a lot of the times that we're making.
We need to just take one second and then jump right back into the conversation like nothing ever happened.
So that's a real challenge. scale. Yeah.
I mean, I think in the car situation, anything physical is a good example, but some people talk like this, even just if you're sitting talking to someone in a coffee shop, they'll run three topics in parallel, right?
It happens. It happens. And we want to be able to keep up and connect, right?
Well, we should come back to that topic another time, Michelle.
Guys, hit the follow button and we will try to address that.
I have a feeling that's a pain point for some of our listeners.
Yeah, for sure. So guys, also check out episode 2457 was can you relate how to speak up with confidence in a meeting?
All right. So today, guys, for the takeaway, we've gotten a lot of interesting ways, especially the word obscure, but then we had some other ideas. to talk about maybe your interests and the things you like. being different, being interesting.
So throw that in to build the connections and we'll come back to the parallel topics idea another time.
Yeah. Love it. All right, Lindsay, this was fun.
Thank you to our listener for this question and keep them coming.
All right, Michelle, talk soon. Bye. Bye.
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