Hello everyone and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
And today we are taking a trip back in time and no time machine is needed.
We are going to explore how people spoke in different time periods and how English has changed over the years.
This is a super cool topic and I really hope that you will enjoy.
So, have you ever read an old book and thought, what on earth are they saying?
Or watched an old movie and wondered why people sounded so formal?
Well, today we are going to break it all down.
We're going to travel to three different time periods.
The Victorian era, the roaring 20s, so 1920s, and the totally radical 1980s.
So by the end of this episode, you're going to know how to talk like a true time travel.
And you'll have learned a little bit about how English has changed over the years.
So stay tuned, stay listening and get ready to learn something new.
Let's get started.
Before we get started, a quick reminder.
If you want more advanced episodes, bonus episodes and more advanced content, check out the Patreon link below.
You can join with a one week free trial to see if you like it and then stay and support and join our community.
Let's continue.
So, the Victorian era to start with.
The Victorian era was the time period from the years 1837 to 1901.
And we're looking more at the UK, so England specifically.
So we're going to start in this Victorian era.
It was a time of fancy tea parties, horse-drawn carriages and people who were very polite.
If you've ever read books by Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, you might have noticed that the conversations were very formal compared to today, to 2025.
Here's a little example.
So imagine you're back in, let's say, 1850, the year 1850, and you want to greet someone.
I mean, today we would simply say, hey, how's it going?
Or, hey, how are you?
But back then you would say, good day to you, sir.
How do you do?
Wow, it sounds quite formal and very different.
People in this time spoke with a lot of politeness and formality, even with their close friends and family.
Instead of saying yeah or sure, most of them would say indeed or most certainly.
And if they were surprised, well, you wouldn't hear people say phrases like OMG.
Instead, they would probably say something like I am utterly astonished.
Oh, and also, if someone was being rude, you wouldn't say something like that's not cool or stop that.
You would say something like, sir, your conduct is most unbecoming.
Very fancy, right?
Well, the Victorians in general loved long and elegant sentences.
If they wanted to insult someone, so to say something bad about someone or criticize them, they often did it very politely, so in a way that still insults them but is very polite, a nice, polite process.
But a little fun fact is that instead of saying someone was lazy back in these times, they would have said, or they might have said not everyone probably said this, but the phrase they would have used was he is afflicted with a considerable want of industry.
Well, that sounds so much fancier than just calling someone lazy.
Also a side note.
Don't worry about trying to learn any of these phrases, because no one uses them anymore.
I think it's just interesting to see how times have changed and how English has changed across these times.
Some of these phrases seem so long and unnecessary, and today English is much shorter.
It's much quicker and a lot more simple compared to the 1850s.
Enquanto você toma seu café e se atualiza com as notícias do dia, tem novidade chegando por aqui também.
O Geely EX2 100% elétrico, o carro mais vendido da China, já está disponível no Brasil.
Compacto, ágil e com autonomia para a sua rotina.
Ele chega com um diferencial curioso um fronta-malas de 70 litros, perfeito para quem precisa de mais espaço.
So you can be thankful, very thankful that English has gotten easier.
Imagine trying to learn this complicated Victorian era English.
Oh, I can't even imagine learning it myself and I'm a native speaker.
It's crazy.
Another point just before we go to the next era, the next time period.
I want to mention that not everyone spoke like this back in the 1850s.
In general, the proper use of language at this time tended to be used more by the upper classes, the wealthy people.
So the working classes.
They had completely different dialects, different accents and different vocabulary.
And they wouldn't have talked exactly like this.
But if you ever watched any of these classic British shows like Downton Abbey or I don't know, maybe Bridgerton or something like that,
They are based around this Victorian era English, when they talked more formal and kind of, in my view, pretty crazy compared to today.
But now it's time to get back in our time machine.
Because we are jumping forward in time from the 1850s.
And we are going to the roaring 1920s America.
And we're going to look at the time of jazz music.
Flapper dresses.
If you don't know what that is, you can Google it.
And gangsters.
And of course, English.
It got a whole lot more fun.
People in this era, particularly in America, loved slang.
This time period saw such a huge growth of the use of slang.
And here are some cool phrases that I've found from the 1920s.
And you might have heard some of them.
I think they sound quite fun.
So let's have a read.
The first one, instead of saying that's amazing, you might be able to say that's the bee's knees.
So it's just kind of a rhyming phrase to say something is amazing.
That's the bee's knees.
And I've actually heard this one used sometimes, even in 2025.
So sometimes people do use it.
It sounds a little bit maybe old and cheesy, we would say.
A little bit old-fashioned, not so modern.
But let's go to the next phrase.
If something was great or stylish.
So if you really like it, you like how it looks, it's quite stylish.
You might have said back then that's the cat's pyjamas.
Yes, pyjamas are something that you wear when you go to sleep at nighttime, but they might have said that's the cat's pyjamas.
Just means that's amazing, it's great, I love it.
And if you were having fun at a party, instead of saying this party is great, this party is crazy, you might say this joint is jumping.
Now, I have never heard someone say this before, so I'm guessing that this phrase has died.
It has finished, but I thought it sounded quite interesting.
A joint, I guess, in the 1920s meant the place, so like where the party is.
And jumping is like, wow, it's so full of life.
There we go.
And instead of saying that someone was drunk at a party, so if they've drank too much alcohol, they had some pretty creative ways to say it.
Like, for example, he's splificated.
I don't even think that the subtitles are going to get the spelling right on this, so don't look at them too much.
Or another phrase, she's zozzled.
Funny enough, in the UK we also have a lot of phrases like this for describing someone being drunk or, more formally, intoxicated.
There are so many words in English slang which can describe this, like sloshed, pissed, hammered.
You can almost just create them.
There's so many, it's crazy.
But back then, they might have said, splificated or zozzled.
So here's a little tiny 1920s style conversation for you.
You might have said, hey, I heard you went to the big party last night.
And they would reply, oh yeah, it was the bee's knees.
The music was jumping and everyone was zozzled.
See how fun that sounds?
It sounds almost like a cartoon kids show or something.
But I guess the 1920s had quite a playful energy to it.
But now it's time to step back into our time machine again.
And we're going forward again in time, a little bit closer to present day.
And this is the 1980s. ah the 1980s this was a time of big hair arcade games and so much neon lighting English in this era, in general, started to become way more casual, and pop culture, so the movies and the music, was having a really big influence.
This happened especially in the United States, but American culture became huge and this time period really started to impact the UK as well and British English.
So a lot of these phrases.
Although to me they sound very American, they started to get used in the UK as well.
So I would say this time period was one of the biggest for making English the more casual language that it is today.
So you can thank the 1980s for making English a lot more simple, a lot more casual and less formal.
So people started using a lot of new words.
Like, for example, they would say totally instead of like, yes, I agree.
Or instead, and it's short for like, that's totally awesome.
They might use rad or radical, and that means cool or amazing.
Or they started using words like dude and man as well, just to refer to people.
And other phrases, people started also using the word like.
So we call these parasite words.
So when you add in lots of words into your speech that are unnecessary, we don't need them.
And people started using this word like all the time.
So like, oh my goodness, like I don't even know what this is like.
They use the word all the time, even when they don't need to.
Okay, so it was a very expressive time period, full of exaggerated words.
And let's be honest, it still really influences how people speak today.
A lot of those words from that time period are still used.
So it's quite crazy the difference and how much the 1980s still affects English today.
So do you want to sound like an 80s teenager?
Maybe you can try some speech like this.
Dude, that new band is totally rad.
No way, that movie was like so bogus.
See how relaxed and fun that sounds?
The 1980s, I think to summarize, were all about being expressive and also quite dramatic.
So making everything seem intense and crazy.
So now we've come back to present day.
We're back in the time machine and we're coming back to 2025.
What have we learned after traveling through time?
Number one, that English keeps evolving.
Back in Victorian times, it sounded so much more formal.
And now if we used speech like that, it sounds too much.
It sounds really strange and formal.
And what was cool in the 1920s, sounds quite silly today.
And what was rad in the 1980s, what was cool in the 1980s?
Well, some of it still sticks around today, in 2025, but a lot of it seems outdated, quite strange to us.
The next point, I guess, is that slang is always changing.
You know, words from slang become cool and then they go out of style.
But the idea of politeness in English is always around.
It just changes in style.
So how we are polite.
And I had other episodes on this on the channel on Easy English, talking about politeness, especially in the UK.
And it's something that still exists in 2025.
It has just taken a different form.
It doesn't sound like the 1850s, but it still is there.
So we can basically to summarize, English language is always changing, sometimes very, very fast.
Even within 10, 20 years, there are some very big changes.
But most important of all, we can see that language is fun.
Don't be afraid to experiment with different styles and expressions.
Even if some of these words they go out of fashion or words that you're learning today no longer are used, learning them really helps you to understand history culture movies, music and even old jokes a lot better.
So it's always worth learning a word, even if you're not going to use it, because you never know when it might come in handy.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
I think it was a really, really fun one.
So there you have it.
That was a tour through the English language over the last 150 years.
Now I want you to tell me, What time period do you like the best?
Would you rather sound like a Victorian gentleman or a Victorian lady?
A jazzy 1920s party goer or a very cool radical 1980s teenager?
Let me know which time of English you like the best.
And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to follow or subscribe and leave a review.
It really helps if you rate this podcast and share it with other English learners or friends.
And I will see you for another time in another episode.
And if you want more advanced episodes, more complicated topics like this one, check out the Patreon link in the description.
There's a free trial.
And if you want to support, that's great.
I really appreciate it.
Have a wonderful rest of your day.
Goodbye.
