Hi everybody, this is Kirsten from China and you are listening to Everybody ESL.
Welcome to episode 397 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English.
My name is Ben and I have a mini episode for you today where I am going to teach you about one English topic.
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Okay, let's get on with this mini -episode.
In this episode, I want to tell you about an interesting word.
I don't think this word is very common, but the reason I want to talk about it is because the meaning of this word has changed in interesting ways.
The word I am thinking of is chops.
Chops. C -H -O -P -S. Chops.
The chops that I am thinking of is a noun.
Not the verb chops but the noun.
The original meaning of the noun chops was your jaws, or your mouth, or the area around your mouth.
I guess this meaning comes from the idea that you chop or cut things with your teeth by biting things using your jaws, using your mouth.
You can chop things.
So this part of your body is your chops.
People don't use chops to mean this very often anymore, but you will hear people sometimes say something like, that dog is licking his chops.
Licking his chops. In other words, licking the area around his mouth.
Maybe the dog just had something to eat and now the dog is cleaning up a little bit.
Licking his chops. And now that I think about it, we also use licking his chops or licking your chops to refer to people who are waiting for something with great hunger or waiting for something with a greedy feeling.
This comes from the idea of a dog or a wolf or something like that waiting for something to happen and just licking its lips, waiting.
Maybe the animal is so excited that it is drooling, its mouth is watering, and so it is licking its chops.
We can describe people this way.
If somebody is licking his chops, waiting for something, that means he is waiting with great hunger and great anticipation for this good thing to happen.
You will also hear people say something like, don't bust my chops.
Don't bust my chops.
In this phrase, bust means break.
What they are saying is, don't criticize me or don't give me a hard time.
Literally, it means don't hit me in the mouth.
Don't hit me in the jaw, in my chops.
The first way that this word changed meaning had to do with musicians, especially musicians who play their instruments with their mouths.
In other words, musicians like trumpet players or saxophone players.
When people talked about a musician who was really good, a musician who had a lot of skill, they would say that musician had chops.
In other words, that musician had a good mouth for making music.
That person was able to use his mouth in a good way to make music, to make music with something like a trumpet or a saxophone.
So, if a musician had chops, he or she was really good.
That trumpet player really has chops.
He has great musical skill.
He's very good at playing the trumpet, for example.
Next, the meaning of the word changed to refer to all kinds of other skills.
If somebody has chops, that means they are very good at something.
They have a lot of skill.
They can do something very well.
I think often we use the word chops this way when we are talking about musicians or actors or people with similar kinds of skills.
Maybe you could even talk about a doctor having chops.
If a surgeon has special skill, maybe we say the surgeon has chops or has surgical chops.
I think the way you will most often see the noun chops these days is to mean special skill.
Especially special skill when you are talking about a musician or an actor.
But I think sometimes you will hear chops used to refer to other kinds of special skills also.
I just think this is very interesting because chops started out with a kind of literal meaning.
Your chops were the part that chopped things, the part that could cut things, your teeth, your jaws, your mouth.
But then the word changed meaning over the years.
Of course, this kind of thing happens in English and other languages all the time.
The meanings of words change and shift into new areas, new parts of human existence.
This is just something that languages do.
And this example, chops, is an interesting word that I think you should know.
This is the end of Episode 397 of Everybody ESL.
Remember, if you have questions about English, or if you have comments for me, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes the same way Kirsten recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode, send an email to everybodyesl at gmail .com.
I'll be back soon with a new episode, and until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning.
I'll see you soon. Goodbye!
I'll see you next time.
