字幕列表 影片播放 列印英文字幕 Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Noun Phrase 137. The noun phrase today is hot potato. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. If someone says something is a hot potato or someone is a hot potato, it is usually a difficult issue that people try to avoid talking about usually because there is a lot of controversy around it. Okay. Let's continue. Hot potato is a noun phrase derived directly from an older idiom which is still used today. The idiom is to drop someone like a hot potato, which basically means to leave or abandon someone quickly especially because he or she is trouble or too unpleasant. Okay. Good. Let's continue here. The reasoning behind hot potato is that a cooked potato is very hot to the touch. So if you touch it with your hands it's very hot. It almost burns your hand and potatoes remain hot longer than other food because of their water content. Because of the water that's in it and thick skin. So the combination of thick skin and the water content lets the potatoes stay hot a lot longer. The idea is that if one had a hot potato in their hands he or she does not want to hold on to it too long and would want to pass it on to another person as quickly as possible. Here you take it. No you take it. No you'll take it. Kind of like that idea. All right. This is also directly connected to a children's a game called "hot potato" that involves passing an object usually a beanbag. Like a small beanbag of course on as quickly as possible to another player while the music is playing. If a child is caught holding the object when the music stops, he is out. It's very similar to another game that we've often played like musical chairs. Where everybody walks around these chairs and when the music stops everybody sits down and usually they always took one chair away so one person will end up not being able to sit down that person is out. So it's a very similar idea to that. Okay. Let's continue here. And we got three examples. Okay. Example number one. If a politician is in a swing state. You know , sometimes it can go for one party, sometimes he could go for the other party. That's what we mean by a swing state. He often tries to avoid controversial topics such as abortion gun control etc. like a hot potato because no matter what he says, he's going to probably make somebody angry, because those are some more controversial topics. Now if he was in a state where obviously one party you know easy the for against that he could speak that way you know, more freely or more easily because he knows the majority of people would probably still vote for him. But if he wants to try you know, to get some people like independents or in-between, he might be careful. He wants to you know, he treats those topics like a hot potato. He tries not to to touch them or get involved in them at all. All right. Number two here. We especially use like the idiom his new girlfriend started acting controlling and demanding , so he dropped her like a hot potato . Like oh no she's too much trouble. Goodbye. Or number three here. That athlete used to be a big supporter or maybe even a sponsor for that company but after the scandal broke they dropped him like a hot potato or he became a hot potato and they had to get rid of him. Yeah. Because suddenly he became controversial. Okay. Anyway, I hope you got it, I hope it was clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.
A2 初級 美國腔 英語導師Nick P名詞短語(137) Hot Potato(熱洋芋) (English Tutor Nick P Noun Phrase (137) Hot Potato) 9 0 anitawu12 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日 更多分享 分享 收藏 回報 影片單字