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Hello and welcome to another Daily Dose of English. Today's Daily Dose of English is about...
RATS
Rats are rodents. They are like mice, only bigger and not as cute. They also spread disease and are one of the least liked animals in the world. They do figure in many expressions in English, though.
Take rat race for instance. Perhaps you are part of the rat race? The rat race is that never-ending struggle for advancement and success in business and career that seems to define the lives of so many people in our "privileged" society.
Not for me, the rat race. I escaped the rat race years ago and adopted an altogether more relaxed approach to life. No longer am I persuaded by the advertisers that I need material possessions to be happy. No longer do I pursue money so that I can buy things I don't need.
Indeed, I very rarely go to the shops, except to buy food, and when I do, I always say to myself, Look at all these things that I don't need.
More and more people are escaping from the rat race. In fact, you could say that we're like rats abandoning a sinking ship, the sinking ship being the materialistic society infested with the disease of affluenza.
Unlike bubonic plague, affluenza is not spread by rats, but it certainly is at the root of the rat race. Affluenza has been defined as a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the stubborn pursuit of more material things.
Well, I have escaped the rat race and have abandoned the sinking ship of consumerism. I no longer suffer the bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that comes from trying to keep up with the Joneses.
Keeping up with the Joneses is when you see your neighbour in his new car and you just have to have one yourself. Your colleague at work is going on an expensive holiday to somewhere nice, and you feel the need to follow in their footsteps, regardless of the fact that you don't have the money to pay for it.
So you borrow the money to buy the car and the expensive holiday and you find yourself deeper than ever in debt. And because debt is the slavery of the free, you are forced to work in a job you hate for fear of losing your home.
Of course, when I deserted the sinking ship, I did so metaphorically. I didn't physically leap into the sea like a rat. When ships are sinking, the rats certainly do leap into the water. Many of them drown, of course, lacking the strength to swim to the shore. I think it is this fear of ending up like a drowned rat that keeps so many otherwise sensible people trapped in the world of stress, overwork and indebtedness that typifies the rat race.
Anyone who has been caught in heavy rain can end up looking like a drowned rat. Picture a rat drowned at sea, and you'll get the picture.
Now, when I was young, I did subscribe to the materialistic world in which I found myself. I had property, cars, and all the other things that the advertisers told me I should have if I wanted to be happy. The problem was, after many years of not being happy, despite having all the things that were supposed to make me happy, I began to smell a rat. Something was rotten in the state of England.
We use the term to smell a rat to say that we think something is not right. It comes from Shakespeare's Hamlet. I smelt a rat and realised that the lie they were telling me was just that; a downright lie. If I didn't want to own all those things I didn't need, I wouldn't have to pay for them and would be free to do the things I wanted to do - such as making this Daily Dose of English.
Like so many others in Britain, I was so unhappy with my life in the rat race that I often got rat-arsed after work. Most of my friends did, too, as they were equally miserable trapped in a rat race from which there seemed no possibility of escape.
Rat-arsed is a particularly British informal expression that means to be drunk. Just ask yourself why so many people seek temporary oblivion from their "privileged" lives by getting rat-arsed every night. It can hardly be because they are blissfully happy with their lives now, can it?
Well, these days I don't get rat-arsed because I'm very happy with my life. I am no longer interested in acquiring stuff that I neither want or need. And when advertisers try to convince me that I need material possessions to feel happy, I'm inclined to say: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a rat's ass about what you think I need to be happy. I already am.
I hope you enjoyed that Daily Dose of English and I'll see you again soon for another one.
Goodbye for now.
You might also like to visit http://irregularenglishverbs.com for irregular English verbs, and http://speakbritishenglish.com for some great readings of British English literature, history and culture.
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To be honest, Your videos were far more interesting when you were appearing on them. Please, Show yourself in ur next videos so that we can concentrate more.
MuhammadEgypt 7 months ago 2
@MuhammadEgypt Thanks for watching and for your comments. It's all a matter of time, I'm afraid. I have a lot of online private students and am working on some other projects too, so I do not have so much time to spend on these FREE videos as I used to have. However, I think that with the typescripts and podcasts they are as didactic as ever they were.
DailyDoseOfEnglish 7 months ago