Hi, everybody. Welcome to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. In today's
video, I'm going to introduce you to some very famous characters. Now, if you
look at this board and you look at all these names, you should notice that
these are all fictional characters. And "fictional" means not real. They are
from movies, or from books, or just from legend; from myths, etc. from a
different... from different places. Okay. So, we're going to look at all
these people. Now, why am I going to introduce you to these characters?
Because these are so famous or so well-known that people use these
characters, they refer to these characters in everyday situations. And
when somebody refers to one of these characters, the person listening right
away understands what they're trying to say; what they mean when they're
describing somebody else or a situation, as the case may be.
So, for example, if we look at "Darth Vader" — "Darth Vader" was a character
in the movie... in the Star Wars movies, and he represents pure evil. So, when
you want to describe someone and you think they're really mean and not... or
not nice, or you really just don't like them, you can easily describe them as
"Darth Vader". So, for example, my friend got a new job and at the end of
his first week, I called him, I say: "Hey. How's your new job?" He goes...
And he says to me: "You know, my boss, he's... he's... I hate that guy. He's
like... he's Darth Vader. He's worse than Darth Vader." As soon as he says:
"Darth Vader", I get an image of somebody dressed all in black, and, you
know, like breathing through his mask and just being very, very mean and
killing everybody. So, not a very good boss. On the flip side, from the same
movie series, we have "Yoda". "Yoda" is somebody who's very calm, very quiet,
but very clearly focused on what he or she has to do, and very nice and trying
to help somebody. Right? So evil and goodness, basically. So, if somebody is
"Yoda" — somebody is very calm; not necessarily good, more about calm. "Very
Zen", we would say about this person. But, again, when you refer to these
characters, it's very clearly understood what you're trying to say about someone
else. So, we're going to look at a few more.
Let's look at "Tarzan". "Tarzan" was lost as a baby and he was lost in the
jungle. And some gorillas or monkeys — I don't know... exactly know the story
exactly — raised him. So, he grew up like an animal, but he's a man. But he's
very strong; he has lots of muscles, but not very educated. So, when we talk
about people who are, you know, like, maybe have very good body, but "not much
in between the ears", we would say: "Oh, he's like Tarzan." Right? We would
describe him as "Tarzan". And it's very popular in sports, especially football,
to say about somebody: "He looks like Tarzan, but plays like Jane." It means
he looks very tough, but he's actually very wimpy, very weak; not a very good
"Charlie Brown". I think everybody knows Charlie Brown, and Snoopy, and Lucy, and
all the gang there at the neighbourhood. So, when we describe someone as "Charlie
Brown", we're talking about somebody who's a very nice person, but very
mediocre. Nothing special. You know? Just gets by his life, does the things
he's supposed to do, tries his best, but somehow never really succeeds. So, let's
think about Charlie Brown. He goes to kick that football, and Lucy always
moves it for him, and he always falls on his head. So he means well; he just
can't necessarily do very well. And a very common expression people use...
they say to somebody is: "You're a good man, Charlie Brown." It means: "You
tried very hard, you meant well, you wanted to help, but somehow you landed
on your back and failed." So, people feel a little bit bad for you, but they
like you. Everybody likes Charlie Brown; he's just not going to get very far in
life.
"MacGyver". Now, MacGyver was a TV show in the 80s, and I'm pretty sure they
started it again. Or, no, sorry. In the 90s. And they started a new series
called "MacGyver", but everybody understands "MacGyver" because it's
actually used as a verb. "To MacGyver something" means to make something out
of nothing. So, in this TV show, this character, MacGyver, always somehow got
into trouble or found himself in a situation where he had to help people.
And somehow, he always got trapped in a room, or a car, or a van, or a plane,
with like a... like a matchstick and a piece of tape. And somehow, he was able
to build a bomb, and blow up the whole place and escape every single episode.
Whatever little things he had, he was like... he was a very smart guy; he knew
a lot about science, and he was always able to make a bomb out of everything.
If you gave him a cube of sugar and a piece of lemon, he'll make you a bomb
somehow out of that. So, when somebody does anything, they tweak something, or
they build something, or they make some sort of contraption out of very
miscellaneous parts; out of whatever little pieces of things they found — we
say: "Wow, you really MacGyvered that whatever." If you fix your car, you
MacGyvered the car. You MacGyvered this, you MacGyvered that — you made something
out of nothing, or you got yourself out of a difficult situation by using your
wits.
"Captain Ahab" is from a famous book called "Moby Dick". Captain Ahab, he was
the one who had a wooden leg. And the reason he had a wooden leg is because a
white whale, Moby Dick, bit his leg off. And he spent the rest of his life
looking for that white whale because he wanted to kill that white whale. And
when we talk about somebody "being like Captain Ahab", we're talking about
somebody who's just obsessed with something; who can't get whatever that
thing out of their mind. So, they become a little bit crazy. So, when somebody is
like very, very stubborn or very, very obsessed about something, we will call
him "Captain Ahab" or just "Ahab" for short. Most people just say: "Ahab"
without the "Captain". So, we can also use that to describe somebody. Okay?
Then there's "Barbie". I'm not sure if there's an i-e or just "i", but Barbie
is a doll; she's a very famous doll. She has blonde hair, she has a perfect body
as far as plastic bodies go, and she's supposed to be the perfect woman. Right?
And her boyfriend, Ken, is the perfect guy. And the problem with Barbie is that
she is very superficial. And actually... actually, I'm pretty sure it is with an
"e": "Barbie" for the Barbie doll. So, when we talk about... when we describe a
woman as "being a Barbie" means she's very good looking, but she's plastic.
Right? There's maybe not much inside; not much personality. So, very, very
superficial. Very surface good looking; not inside good looking. And the same
for Ken. So, it's a little bit of an insult to call somebody "Barbie". Right?
So, just keep that in mind. But people refer to this a lot when they're
describing somebody. And if you're on Instagram, you'll see a lot of people
calling each other "Barbie" or "Ken", or whatever, because it's all fake; it's
all plastic, I guess you could say.
"Forrest Gump" is a very famous movie. I'm sure most of you have seen it, or at
least have heard of it. So, Forrest Gump, this character — that's his name,
Forrest — he's very slow. He's, like, not... you can't say he's stupid; he's
just slow. He thinks very slowly, he speaks slowly, he acts slowly; but he
can run really, really fast. So, two things when people refer to somebody as
"Forrest Gump". Sometimes, people just use it as an insult. Like, if somebody
is talking slowly, they'll call him "Forrest Gump". But realistically, we
talk about "Forrest Gump", someone who appears slow, but is actually very, very
smart because this character did amazing things in his life. And he became very
successful, very famous, very powerful, but very slow. So, you can also think of
"Forrest Gump" as somebody who's very, very lucky because based on what they...
how they speak and how they act, they shouldn't be able to succeed, but
somehow they always do. And when somebody needs to run away, you always
say: "Run, Forrest, run!" Right? Because that's what he did in the movie. So,
that's... People refer to that line a lot; every time somebody starts running,
especially running away from somebody.
"Mary Poppins" — an old movie. I think it's Disney, but I'm not sure. There was
an old movie with Julie Andrews, but there's, I think, recently there was a
remake of this movie. But anyways, when you refer to someone as Mary Poppins,
you are saying that this person is just too, too, too much sweet. Everything's
sugar and lovely, and everybody's happy and very optimistic to the point where
it's just unnatural. It's actually not a good thing. So, if you're describing
someone, like: "Don't be a Mary Poppins" — you're being too sweet; like, it's not
realistic. "Be normal", basically. You're a little bit too optimistic, too
sweet. It's... It... it makes people feel uncomfortable, in other words.
"Sherlock Holmes" was a very famous detective in novels, and this character
is able to solve any murder mystery, any mystery, any crime. So, when somebody is
very good at observation, or very good at investigation or finding things out,
we might refer to him as "Sherlock". We generally... we don't refer to the full
name; we don't say: "Holmes"; we just say: "Sherlock". But another expression
we have is: "No kidding, Sherlock." When somebody says something that's very,
very obvious or makes an observation that everybody else has already seen as
well, people will say: "No kidding, Sherlock." Although, to be fair, and
excuse my language, most people say: "No shit, Sherlock." That's the common
expression. It means you've just said something very obvious. We... everybody
already understood this. Right? Don't say the second one; say the: "No
kidding, Sherlock", but you'll probably hear the second one more often.
Then we have the abom-... "Abominable Snowman" — a little hard to pronounce.
"Abominable Snowman", or the "Yeti", or "Bigfoot", or "Sasquatch". These are all
the same character. Different countries or different regions of the world have a
different name for it. So, the Abominable Snowman is mostly in, like,
the mountains, like places that have mountains would call that. Yeti, I
think, is more from, like, the Himalayas, from like the Mount Everest
region. Bigfoot is very common in Canada and the US. And I think Sasquatch is
mostly in Canada. But basically, it's all the same thing. This is a very big
man, ape mix. He's very tall, he's very big; full of hair. So, he looks a little
bit like a big gorilla, but he walks on two feet. And whenever you see a picture
of the Yeti, or the snowman, or whatever, it's always very, very blurry.
So, you're not exactly sure it's real, but everybody believes it. So, this is
not a real character. It's not from a movie, not from a book; this is just
from legend. Right? So, people have always said: "Oh, yeah, somebody says
So, when we call somebody: "Yeti" or "Bigfoot", or we descri-... describe
someone as being a "Yeti", or a "Bigfoot", or a "Sasquatch", there's two
meanings. One is that this person is not real; somebody is just imagining him,
because nobody's actually seen this person. So, if you think about a
business, everybody works in a company, but nobody knows who the... the chief
is, who the CEO is. So, they call him "Yeti", because he's a mystery. He...
everybody thinks he's there, but nobody's actually seen him. That's one
meaning. Another meaning, and it's not very nice so don't use it; and be
careful who you use it with, if you do use it. If you see, especially a man,
but a very big, hairy man — you might... people sometimes will call him a
"Sasquatch" or "Bigfoot". It's not nice. It's very, very rude, but you might hear
that some people use that expression. And that's what they're referring to: A
big, hairy person. All right? Okay.
Now, there are obviously many, many, many more fictional characters that
people use in everyday conversations. But remember: Learning English or
learning any language is not only about vocabulary and grammar; you need to
understand the cultural references. So, when somebody is having a conversation
and they're talking about: "Oh, did you see Barbie? She got a new... another
plastic surgery." They're referring to this character and you... you need to
make sure that you understand that connection, that reference in order to
understand the conversation. You might understand all the words, you might
understand the grammar — if you don't know the culture, it's a little bit hard
to follow some... some conversations. And, again, people refer to movies, they
refer to movie lines, or books, or TV shows, or all kinds of different things
in everyday conversations. You need to start getting to know what these
So, if you want to make sure you understand these ones, go to
www.engvid.com and take the short quiz there that will test your knowledge of
these. You can also ask me more questions. In the comment section at
engVid, you can also suggest other fictional characters that you have heard
native-English speakers use in conversation, in regular conversation,
and teach each other more references. Anyways, if you liked the video — I hope
you did — give me a like. Please subscribe to my channel, and don't
forget to ring the bell there to get notifications of future videos; and come
back soon for more culture tips, grammar tips, vocab, etc. See you.