Natural English Phrases for Strong Emotions [518]

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In this episode, you’ll learn natural English phrases that use temperature words to describe emotion, conflict, and relationships. Expressions like icy stare, heated debate, and anger boils are common in real conversations and news reports. I explain what they mean, when they are appropriate, and how to use them without sounding unnatural. This lesson will help you describe reactions and feelings more clearly and confidently.

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Transcript

0:09

Hi there, this is Harry. Welcome back to Advanced English Lessons with Harry, where I try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language, to help you with your conversational skills, your business English skills, interview skills, whatever your goals are, we're here to help. And for those of you and your friends or family who want one-to-one lessons, well, you know what to do. Just get in touch, www.englishlessonviaskype.com and you can apply for a free trial lesson and we'll be very happy to hear from you and very happy to help you. So in this particular lesson, this advanced English lesson, we're talking about people's reactions to certain situations. So it's advanced English lessons, useful co-locations, advanced co-locations, hot and cold reactions. Okay, so I've got 10, as always. I've got 10 in this particular list. So I'll go through them. I'll give you an indication of what they mean and hopefully give you an example that you can play around with and get to understand it better. Okay, let's go. An icy stare. So if somebody says something to you and you don't like it, you look at them with an icy stare. And it's a cold stare because it's icy and they get the impression that there's something they said that you didn't really like. So you're met with an icy stare. Or perhaps you're trying to talk to somebody in a friendly way, but they don't want to be so friendly and they just look back at you with a cold, icy stare. Okay, so it's not warm, it's icy. It's not friendly, it's unfriendly. It's an icy stare. Second one, look-warm response. Well, a little bit warmer than an icy stare, but a look-warm response is something not so interesting. Okay, so perhaps you've made a suggestion to your manager, or perhaps you've made a suggestion to the management team, something that you put a lot of work into and a lot of effort, and you think it's really a good idea. But when you bring it up and you present it to your manager or the management team, all you get is a look warm response. And a lukewarm response is less than warm, less than interesting, and something that they don't really care so much about. So when something is lukewarm, it's not so good. It's like food. You know, if you go into a restaurant and the plate of soup arrives and when you taste it, that's not warm at all. It's lukewarm. So it's not so good to taste. So a look warm response from anybody is something not so satisfying, not so spectacular and not so interesting. Look warm. A heated debate, well now the temperature is rising. A heated debate. A heated debate is almost an argument, okay? People don't want to call it an argument because then they think people are shouting and screaming at each other, but a heated debate is not far off. A debate between two people where either one isn't listening to the other or neither of them is listening to each other, then it becomes a little bit heated. But I said that, no, you said that, but what? And it becomes heated and argumentative and people then lose their temper. So a heated debate, often you get that in political debates. Before a presidential election in France or a presidential election in America or the election for a new government in the UK, they often have these televised debates between the candidates for presidency or for the leader of certain parties. And this is when the debates can get a little bit heated because policies are put on air, one party agrees, the other party doesn't, etc., etc. And therefore you get heated debates. So a heated debate is something where the temperature rises, they're just about in control, but not quite totally in control, so we can call it a heated debate. A frosty reception, well, we talked at the beginning about an icy stare, so a frosty reception is very similar. A frosty reception is something cold and not welcoming. Okay, so perhaps you had an argument with your nearest and dearest. Perhaps you had an argument with your parents. Perhaps you had an argument with somebody in the office. Whoever you had the argument with, there's almost guaranteed that the next time you meet, you're going to get a bit of a frosty reception. So it's going to be quite cold. Good morning. How are you today? All right. What did you do at the weekend? Nothing much. So the reception you get from that person is very frosty because they're still feeling hurt from the argument or whatever happened the day or the week before. And perhaps you didn't have time yet to apologize or you haven't cleared the air with the person. But it's guaranteed that the reception you get is going to be cold, unwelcoming, not warm, and therefore we call it a frosty reception. Next, we've got a hot temper. When somebody has a hot temper, it means they boil over or get excited or annoyed or angry very, very quickly. Be very careful with that guy there. He's got a hot temper. You say the wrong thing to him, he's likely to jump all over you, jump up and down and scream. Or if you're the coach of a football team and you know that one of the players on the other side has a hot temper, you tell your guy, annoy him, give him a few little pushes or kicks, he'll soon lose patience. He has a hot temper and the referee might book him or indeed might even give him a red card. Not a great tactic, but it happens, okay? So he's got a hot temper. He's likely to lose it very quickly and therefore you can exploit that in certain situations. Tempers flared. This is a great expression, particularly at the end of a football match or in the middle of a football match. And so the game was really tight. It was end to end. Both teams going for the victory. One of the teams slightly better than the other. Somebody does something a little bit naughty. They trip somebody, they push somebody, and then tempers flared and the referee and the referee's assistants had to come in and break it up and a few yellow cards were dished out. Tempers can flare in all situations, in heated moments of debate, as we mentioned before, in the schoolyard. Somebody trips another kid and then they square up to each other and then the other boys are egging them on, go on, go on, hit him, hit him. So tempers flared. Next, blistering attack. Well, a blistering attack is a really fierce attack. If you get blisters, it's usually from very hard work or if you're walking long distances in the hot, sticky weather, then you'll get blisters on your feet. So a blistering attack is a really strong, angry attack. In political debates, one leader of one party can carry out a blistering attack on the other leader, showing up all of his faults. You did this. You've done that. Your tax returns weren't submitted correctly. You gave money to some colleague that you knew going back many years and this broke the rules. So a blistering attack as to the performance of this particular party when they were in power. Or indeed, there could be a blistering attack by the parents on the school because of the overall performance of the school, that they have slipped down in the league about exam results and they're really worried that their kids are not getting the best education. So the teachers are there under attack from the parents who have come together and one or two particular spokespeople for the parents carry out a blistering attack on the performance of the school and some individual teachers. Anger boils. Well, water boils when you put it on the stove and you switch on the electric kettle, the water boils. So when people get annoyed with each other and it's protracted over a long period of time, then like water, eventually it will boil over. So anger boils like water in a pan. It begins to bubble and bubble and more bubbles and then suddenly, whoosh, there's a large explosion and people start shouting and screaming. So anger boils. In a crowd, when the crowd are very angry with the government because of the cost of living increases, with the government because of the higher costs of energy, whatever the reason why, when the crowd gets together, they start shouting and then the crowd senses and picks up on the atmosphere and then the anger of the crowd begins to boil and then somebody starts shouting and screaming and some things are thrown and then the police have to come in and break up the crowd. So that usually how it starts. So the anger boils and perhaps it even boils over and they end up with a full-scale riot. Hotly denied. Well again, when we talk about the word denied, to deny something is to say you didn't do it. You denied that you were there. You denied that you took the last piece of cake. You denied that you said something that somebody feels you insulted them. So when you hotly deny something, it means you really strongly deny it. So it's not just, no, I didn't. No, I didn't do that. Or I didn't take the cake or the biscuit. I didn't say that. When you hotly deny it, I absolutely, absolutely 100% can guarantee that I never said that. So you really get angry and annoyed that somebody would accuse you of something. So you hotly deny it. You often see this as a headline in a newspaper or on a radio program or on the internet. So the government has hotly denied that they mismanaged the tax revenues or the government's budget position. They hotly deny that there's been any misuse of funds. Or a company could hotly deny the rumors going around that they're about to be taken over or that they're about to go bankrupt. So and then of course a week later they do. They take somebody over or they go bankrupt. And of course then everybody says, well, I told you so. So to hotly deny something is to really, really, really refuse to accept that something happened or that you did something. And then finally, relations have thawed. Ha! So when something thaws, it turns from ice into water. It melts. Okay, so when relations thaw, they melt a little bit, they improve. Okay, so perhaps those people who were having the argument before and we talked about a frosty reception, well, somebody apologized and said, oh, come on, we can't go on like this. If I said something that offended you, I'm really sorry. I've forgotten it now. So the other person says, okay, look, let's just get on with life. So relations may not be back to what they were, but they've improved. So we can say that the relations between the people have thawed. They have improved. Not perfectly, but given time, it will probably get back there. So when something thaws, it becomes easier. When the snow falls and turns to ice, it's very, very difficult for several days or weeks or months. And then as the temperature rises, the ice begins to melt and we can say it will thaw and a thaw has set in. So it's th a w pronunciation as th th thaw. Okay, now, so that's our 10 particular co-locations related and advanced co-locations about hot and cold. Okay, so there we have it. Useful co-locations, advanced co-locations, all about hot and cold, hot and cold, different degrees, like everything, hot and cold. Okay, thanks for listening. If you need to contact me, www.englishlessonviaskype.com, very happy to hear from you. Always happy when you listen and watch. And if I can be of any further help, you know where I am. So join me for the next lesson.