 From VOA Learning English, this is Talk To Us. I'm Avi Ardidi in Washington. Welcome to this week's Google Plus Hangout, and we're trying something a little different this week. We're doing a game show type format, and for that we have a very special guest with us joining us from Los Angeles, Slangman David Burke. Hi, good morning David. Good morning Avi. It's good seeing you after all these years. David used to be a regular contributor on our old Wordmaster series, and was always very popular, so thank you for coming back. David, why don't you introduce yourself to our audience? Well, thanks Avi. I'm known as Slangman, and I've written 60 books on how to speak every day Slang and Idioms, and also every day Business Slang and Idioms. As Avi mentioned, I was on Voice of America for about six years helping the audiences learn how Americans really speak, because what you learn in school typically is academic English, which is fine, but we don't speak like that. So in this segment, we're going to be doing a game show where we're going to be testing our two guests on their knowledge of Slang and Idioms. I think you're going to want to. Well, great. And as David just said, we have two guests with us. We have Hamid and Navid. So Hamid, why don't I pull you up here, and why don't you introduce yourself? Well, first of all, we take several people. I'm glad to see myself here. So tell us about yourself. You told me you were from Afghanistan, but that's not where you're living right now. Hamid, are you there? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, Hamid, you're from Afghanistan originally. Is that correct? Yeah, I'm from Afghanistan originally, living in Saudi Arabia, in Jalal City. What do you do in Saudi Arabia? I'm a programmer for Motorola products, radio communication here. Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us. And our other participant is Navid, and Navid is joining us on Skype, the voice of Navid. Hi, Navid. Can you hear me? Whoops, actually. We are trying to get Navid back here. I see our Skype call dropped, and it says it's connecting, and hopefully we'll have him back in just a moment or two. But okay, so we're going to proceed with the game. And David, hi. So what do you call the game you're going to play today? I think we're going to call it the Wheel of Slang. So what I'm going to do is this. I'll explain the game, which is a game we've been doing for the longest time. I invented it last night. So Hamid, you're going to be our guinea pig, and that is a slang expression. A guinea pig is a little animal, but when you say you're the guinea pig, it means you're the person we are going to experiment on. So you are our guinea pig for this new game. So in the Wheel of Slang, what we're going to do is I'm going to spin the wheel, and then it's going to stop in a certain category. Animals, insects, sounds, colors, etc. And then I'm going to ask you a question in that category. A slang question, I'm going to test your knowledge. If you don't know the answer, you'll learn some more slang in idiots. The person whom you're trying is currently unavailable. Please leave a message off to the beat. Oh, live TV. We could have left him, yes, we could have left him a prank message. We should have left him a message. I could have left a slang message. You could have left a slang message. Well, we've got the wheel up on the video here. Hamid, are you seeing the video? Hamid. You see the wheel, Hamid? Yeah. And so David, you know, right down below me, right? It's kind of interference coming. Eight toes. What we'll do is, David, why don't you go ahead and spin it. Okay. It's all right, it's all right. Okay, go ahead and spin the wheel. Here we go, spinning. And here it goes, spinning, spinning. And let's see where it stops. Okay, it stopped on, what's stopped on? Colors. Okay, so the expression we're going to give you, having to do with colors. In American slang, we have hundreds of expressions that have colors in them. So, Hamid, what is the answer to this? If someone tells you that something happened out of the blue, does it mean, I'll give you A, B, or C. So something happened out of the blue. Does that mean it happened without warning? Does it mean that it happened very often? Or does it mean that it never happens? So, happened without warning? It happens often, or it never happens? To happen out of the blue, or to come out of the blue? Well, it's a warning, I think. What's that? A warning. It's happening, it's happening, exact. Actually, to happen or to come out of the blue means to happen without warning. For example, you might say, the car crashed into my house and it came out of the blue. It came without warning. So, to come out of the blue? It's happening already. No, it actually means to happen without warning. So when something happens out of the blue, it means that the sky was blue, and all of a sudden, something happened and the sky went from blue to gray, like in the storm. So when something happens out of the blue, it means it happened without warning. A very popular expression that we use. By the way, David, just to cut in for one second here, I think we've got Navid back. I think so. Navid, hi, are you there? Okay, we've got Navid back, but it looks like we've lost the wheel. But hey, listen, this is fun. Okay, Navid, why don't you introduce... As it happened, natural disaster, natural, natural, scientific. Out of the blue, we just lost the wheel on the... Unexpectedly, unexpectedly. You're right, unexpectedly. All right, very good. That's a good way to use it. Something... We dropped him out of the blue. It happened out of the blue without warning. Well, Navid, so now we've got you back on Skype. Tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm Navid Josh from Pakistan, and I'm a student of electronic engineering. I'm in third year. Electronic is my passion. I want to invent something. Connect it to my field in the future. And most probably, I'm a very special worker with that. I love my country. I'm a very patriotic person. I do my best in the future for my country. Well, great, so great. We're really happy to have you, and I want you to know we have so many engineers who call in to talk to us and who write to us that it's really great. And so thank you so much for joining us and a lot of electrical engineers and computer engineers and engineers of specialties I'd never heard of before. So it's great to know we seem to be popular with engineers. Okay, so Navid, we have the wheel back. I'm going to pull the... I know you can't see this, but you'll be able to watch this later on YouTube. David is going to spin this electronic wheel, which has different categories on it of questions. And then what it lands on, he'll ask you, he'll tell you the category, and then read you a question. So, David, go ahead and spin the wheel. Okay, Navid, welcome back. And by the way, it's nice that you are into computers and you're into communications. You may need your help. You dropped another call. Okay, Navid, you can't see this, but as Avi said, you will soon. We're going to spin a wheel for you. So right now the wheel is spinning. The wheel of slang and the wheel will stop the category of business slang and idioms. For anybody who ever comes to America, you need to know your business slang. If you don't, you can get yourself in a lot of trouble. So I'm going to give you, Navid, an expression from the business slang. Okay? So this expression is... Okay, here's a good one for you. To be called on the carpet. To be called on the carpet. A sentence. My boss called me on the carpet for being late. So to be called on the carpet, does that mean A, to be reprimanded, to be yelled at, or does it mean to be celebrated? To be reprimanded or celebrated? What does that mean? To be called on the carpet. Which one? A or B? This is very difficult for me. I never came across with the business English. Right. But in context, if I say to my boss, what's that? I said I never came across with the business English, but I can just give my guess. By the context. In a second. Okay, so let me give you the context again. My boss called me on the carpet for being late. So do you think that means reprimanded or celebrated? It means he yelled. Exactly. To be called on the carpet. And you can say that, not just in business English, you can also use that in everyday American slang. So yes, to be called on the carpet is a very popular expression, meaning to be reprimanded, to be yelled at. So good guess. Wait, I just saw a Hummied waving. Hummied, do you have a comment about to be called on the carpet? Well, that's recommended. First of all, I want to say sorry about my microphone. There was YouTube working. So I got interfering both sides. And now I'm alright, just alright. Let's start again. Okay, so great, you're back. So to be called on the carpet, it's interesting because I'm trying to think when there's another expression, when you say that you roll out the red carpet for someone, that's basically completely the opposite of getting called on the carpet. To have the red carpet rolled out for you is what you do for stars and kings and queens and royalty, you roll out the red carpet for them. And that's also used in a slang sense. Is it not? That's right, in fact... Red carpet many times. You heard that expression. You also say a red carpet event. So if you have a red carpet event, you have an event with lots of very important people there. In fact, I think Academy Awards that you have every year, you'll see the red carpet and the big movie stars will be walking down the red carpet and then afterwards a red carpet event, a big dinner or a big party. Okay, so Naveed, so the question there was about getting called on the carpet. And I think now, so we're going to go back to Hamid for the next question. David, or do you have rules for Wheel of Slang? How does it work? What I'm going to do is this. So Hamid, we're going to see who gets up to a thousand points first. So Hamid, you just got a hundred points for getting the answer right. Okay, now, who answered last? So Naveed answered the last question. So do you want to go back to Hamid now for the last one? Okay, we're going to spin the wheel. Okay, spin the wheel and the wheel is spinning and it's going to land on sounds. This is a really fun one. I'm going to make a sound that is slang. And Hamid, I want you to tell me what you think I'm saying and the sound I'm going to make is a sound that every American understands. All right, you ready? What does this mean? Uh-huh. How do you spell that, David? Yeah, U-U-H-H-H-H. I'm going to do that again, Hamid. This is a sound every American understands. So I'm giving you inside information. Sound again. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Hello. Hello. Oh, that's good too. Actually, that's another one. All right, I'm going to give you an example of what uh-huh means. So somebody asks me a question. And I don't know the answer to it. I say uh-huh. Now do you get it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So let me explain. I'll give you, okay, choose A or B. It means either I don't know or it means I do know. Which one do you think? Uh-huh. Does it mean I do not know? I do know or I don't know? Uh-huh. Probably we give the answer, but the answer is uh-huh, not correct. But we think that that's the correct answer. We understand the review that the answer was incorrect. So the other two persons will give us more patience about this. So it will be shocking. Oh, well, here's the thing. The sound uh-huh it matches a sentence. English is very musical. So when we say, you've heard the sentence, I do not know. Well, Americans don't say I do not know. We start to reduce it. So from I do not know, we say I don't know. From I don't know, we say I don't know. He's that music. So we can take the words away, but we keep the music. Uh-huh. So if somebody asks you a question and you don't know the answer, you just say uh-huh. Well, unless it's your boss or you're in court or something and someone says, you know, what's the answer to this? Then you want to be clear and you say formally, I do not know. Oh, yes, yes. Do understand that slang and idioms are used informally. In other words, you have to be in an informal situation. So yeah, definitely very important that you want to impress. You wouldn't say uh-huh. But you can say I don't know that you can do. And by the way, we have another expression for I don't know. It's a really strange expression. If someone asks you a question and you don't know the answer, you can either say uh-huh or you can say beats me really popular. Beats me. Beats me. It means the question is actually winning because you don't know the answer. Thank you. That's very popular. Hamid, you can use that with anybody. Beats me. With anybody. Okay now, so going back to next up, Navid. 100 points for that one. Okay. Good. Right now, Hamid and Navid, you are both neck and neck. Neck and neck. That means like a horse race. If two horses are neck-in-neck, they're even on the finish line, so you're neck-in-neck. You're even right now. Okay, Navid. You're slaying it. Okay, so we're going to spin the wheel again for Navid. We're pulling up the wheel, and it's spinning. It's spinning, we're spinning, and it's stopping on gestures. Gestures. Okay. Hand gestures. Hand gestures. Yeah. We're getting ready here. Navid. Oh, wait. Oh, yeah. You can't see us right now, can you? We're going to have to, okay, here's the challenge for you, David, for 500 points for Slaying Man. Describe the gesture, since Navid can only hear you. Let's see. That's the challenge, Navid. Navid, you still with us? Yeah, I'm with you, but I lost your words, I didn't get you. Well, we're going to try to describe a gesture that David is going to make. And if we can't, we'll spin the wheel again and come up with a different category, but let's see the gesture, David. I accept this. Okay, first I'll show you the gesture. It's this. Oh, okay. How would you describe that? Okay, you take your, we call it the index finger, your first finger next to your thumb and you stick it straight out at the person you're talking with. With your other index finger, you run it across the top from the back of the finger to the front and you do it over and over again and you have to have a look on your face that looks like disappointment as you do it. Oh. You have any idea? I know this is very difficult, trying to imagine. Isn't this often accompanied by the phrase, Tisk, Tisk? Yeah, right. Yeah, with your mouth or you simply shake your head in disappointment or disbelief as you do it. Navid, are you sort of seeing in your mind what David is describing or would you like us to spin the wheel one more time and give you a different question? I think it's better to spin the wheel. Okay, okay. But Navid, definitely watch the show afterwards on YouTube and you'll be able to see the gesture I'm doing. And Navid, why don't you explain, actually? Go ahead and give us… All right, people who are watching can see me. This means if someone does something that's really shameful that they just should not have done, you do this for shame. You can either say that shame on you or it means you've done something really bad. Yeah. Okay. Let's spin that wheel and get something… Because we only got a couple more minutes here. Okay. We're spinning the wheel and the wheel is stopping on animals. Animals. Okay. All right. Navid, are you with us? Are you hearing this? Yeah, I'm hearing it. Okay. Okay. So, Navid, the expression is we'll use the animal cat. Okay. So, here's the expression, to let the cat out of the bag. So, I'll give you an example in context. Well, I was trying to keep this a secret, but you let the cat out of the bag. So, does that mean, A, you divulged the secret or does it mean you kept it a secret? You kept the secret. Nope. Actually, it means the opposite. Right. So, you let the cat out of the bag and the bag is the secret. So, if you say, oh, no, Navid, you let the cat out of the bag. It means you divulged. You took the secret out of the bag and told everyone, which I didn't want you to do. You let the cat out of the bag. A popular expression. Oh, well, gosh, this has been… So, okay, David, so what's your tally there? Between Hamid and Navid and Slangman? Well, clearly, I did not win in my descriptions. I will take away some points from you. And why are we just declaring, you know, everyone wins because this was a success. As we say in slang, dead heat, which means your neck and neck, which is also slang for your even. So, it's a dead heat. Well, listen, you know, for this brand new game, Wheel of Slang, I think this is going to be a hit. That's another slang expression. A hit? Yes. And by the way, all the words we use are on our website at slangman.com. They're all in this book. Every expression I use comes from this series. And the book's equal about 20 years of living in America. So, if you want to learn slang and idioms, please visit us at my website here, slangman.com. David, listen, I want to thank you so much. Slangman David Burke joined us from Los Angeles with his brand new game, Wheel of Slang. It was a lot of fun. I want to thank Hamid, originally from Afghanistan, working now in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. And I want to thank Navid from Pakistan, who joined us by Skype. Thank you so much. And, you know, keep the learning going. Visit our website. It's learningenglish.voanews.com. Check out all the many videos we have at the VOA Learning English Channel on YouTube. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you next time. Take care. Where's the slang? Slang. Slang. I want to keep slang. Okay. Bye, guys. Bye, everyone.