E-cubed 750: to spruce up something

Today's E-cubed:  to spruce up something: tân trang, làm mới cái gì đó

Did you see Coach Shane's website?
Yeah. So?
The new one! He totally spruced it up~
Really? I'll have to check it out.

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to E-cubed. Today we have a really good phrasal verb. It is to spruce up something. To spruce up something. Now this is actually a very old word, very old expression. And, what it means in modern English is to refurbish something or to take something old and make it new, make it fresh, make it look better. That's the idea. So, if you have an old wooden desk. And it doesn't look that good. If you sand it down and put new stain, bring a new color to it, maybe paint that desk. It's the same desk. But you clean it up and you paint it. Then you are sprucing up your desk. Okay?

So me, I've got this old body. I'm old. It's an old body. So, I spucing up my body by exercising and by slicing over my head. It's because I'm brucing up my body. You know, it's actually very painful. Uh, I'm trying to make my body look better, feel better, be healthier and stuff like that. To spruce up something. We can talk about our bodies. But usually, we talk about something in our home like a desk, or maybe a couch, some furnitures, or maybe your car. It can mean to clean up. So you need to spruce up your room. You need to clean up your room but also add something, a little bit of color, a little bit of style. It's a very useful word, to spruce up something. Check out the dialogue.

Did you see Coach Shane's website?
Yeah. So?
The new one! He totally spruced it up~
Really? I'll have to check it out.

Yes. We did. www.letsmasterenglish.com That's our website. But, we completely spruced it up. It looks much better. It's much more useful. All of the podcasts you can listen to right there, LME - Let's Master English, LME radio. All of my videos on Youtube, you can watch them right there, LME TV. You can check it out. All of my classes you can sign up right there. Uh but, we spruced up the site. And it's looking great. We're still getting feedback from a lot of you. Really great messages. We're looking at everything. We sincerily appreciate it.

So what about you? Do you have something that needs some sprucing up? Needs some refurbishment, need some cleaning, need some extra prettiness. Maybe your résumé. Uh huh. Do you have a résumé? In the UK, they say CV. If you have a resume, you might need to update. You might need to change things. Maybe you want to change the font, change the style. That idea is to spruce up your resume. If you have some furnitures in your home, an old desk or an old table, maybe it's an antique. It's really nice but doesn't look that good. Well, maybe you could spruce it up. Maybe you could send it to a company. And they'll redo the wood, or they'll change the outside, the upholstery. They'll spruce it up for you. It's a very nice verb, to spruce something up. And remember you can spruce yourself up, too.

Right now, perhaps your English, you're sprucing up your English by listening to daily easy english expression. And I thank you very much. Okay. I need to go rest. That's today's expression. I should be back tomorrow. But I might actually take a day off so that my body can feel fresh again. And thank you very much for watching. Practice the dialogue three more times. Please go check out our website letsmasterenglish.com and I'll see you soon. Thanks you guys. Bye bye.

E-cubed 748: the wherewithal

Today's E-cubed:  The wherewithal: khả năng (về tiền bạc), tiền cần để làm gì đó...

Why don’t you join Coach Shane’s class?
I don’t have the wherewithal!
What? You can get both for less than 30 bucks!
Really? Both?

Transcript:

Today's expression is a great word: the wherewithal. The wherewithal. What does this expression mean? This expression actually means money. And usually we say it in a negative situation. For example, I don't have the wherewithal to buy a house. I don't have the wherewithal to build the studio. You need to find the wherewithal to start your company.

So when we say the wherewithal, it usually means money. It might mean ability. It could mean genetic ability. For example, as a man I do not have the genetic wherewithal to have a baby. I can't have a baby. Okay. And, I don't want to have a baby. It looks too painful. No, thank you. Women, you guys are tough, amazing. So to have the ability, genetic ability, but especially to have the money. It really means money.

Why does wherewithal mean money? Well, in order to do all of the things you want to do here and there, you need the money. So with the money, you can go here, here, here, and do all with the money. That's definitely Coach Shane's only definition of wherewithal. But seriously, we need this money.

Tạm dịch:

Expression của ngày hôm nay là một từ rất hay: the wherewithal. The wherewithal. Từ này có nghĩa là gì? Nó thực ra có nghĩa là tiền. Và thường thì chúng tôi dùng từ này trong tình huống  tiêu cực (không có tiền hoặc không đủ tiền). Ví dụ: Tôi không có tiền để mua một ngôi nhà. Tôi không có tiền để xây dựng một phòng thu. Tôi cần phải kiếm tiền để bắt đầu công ty của mình.

Như vậy khi chúng ta nói đến "wherewithal", nó thường có nghĩa là tiền. Nó có thể có nghĩa là khả năng. Nó có thể là khả năng di truyền. Ví dụ: là một người đàn ông, tôi không có khả năng mang thai. Tôi không thể có em bé. OK không nhỉ? Và tôi cũng chẳng muốn có em bé đâu ạ. Nó có vẻ là một việc quá đau đớn. Không đâu, cảm ơn nhé. Hỡi những người phụ nữ, các bạn thật là kiên cường, thật tuyệt vời. Như vậy "wherewithal" có nghĩa là có khả năng, khả năng di truyền, nhưng đặc biệt là có tiền. Nó thực sự có nghĩa là tiền.

Tại sao wherewithal có nghĩa là tiền? Là như vậy, để có thể làm được tất cả mọi việc bạn muốn làm ở đây hay ở kia hay ở kia, bạn cần có tiền. Như vậy khi bạn có tiền, bạn có thể đi tới nơi này, nơi kia và làm được tất cả với số tiền đó. Đó chính là định nghĩa từ "wherewithal" chỉ duy nhất Coach Shane mới có. Nhưng thực sự thì chúng ta cần tiền đấy.