This week’s Not the Queen’s English cheat sheet guides you through the singer Adele’s recent interview on the iconic BBC radio show Desert Island Discs (listen here), explaining all the slang, idioms and cultural references so that you can fully understand and enjoy the episode while also enriching your English. We cover advanced vocabulary for English learners, as well as slang and cultural references that even native speakers from outside the UK might not be familiar with. The version here on the website covers 20 words and phrases; a full version, covering more than three times as much content, is available to our Patreon subscribers (sign up here). We would recommend listening to the interview with the cheat sheet open and pausing it whenever you don’t understand something in order to check the meaning.
Desert Island Discs?
Before we get to the cheat sheet, a bit of background on Desert Island Discs: this programme has been broadcast on Radio 4 since 1942 and is nothing short of a British institution (i.e. an extremely significant and engrained part of British culture). Even people who don’t listen to the show are familiar with its format: guests (called ‘castaways’) are to choose eight songs, a book, and a luxury item to take with them when they are cast away (that is, shipwrecked) to a desert island. (Just to be absolutely clear, this is just a framing device. The BBC doesn’t really abandon celebrities on uninhabited tropical islands!) Just about anyone who is anyone (i.e. anyone even slightly prominent or influential) in the UK has been (or will eventually be) interviewed on Desert Island Discs, from scientists who have made important discoveries but maybe aren’t very famous to the general public, to international stars like Adele herself.
Accents
As well as the content covered in the cheat sheet below, this interview offers a great opportunity to familiarise yourself with some different British accents. The host of Desert Island Discs (a very prestigious position: there have only been five in the show’s long history) is Lauren Laverne, who comes from Sunderland in the north of England. Sunderland is right next to Newcastle, so there are some hints of Geordie in her accent, but overall her accent is not particularly strong. Adele, on the other hand, comes from Tottenham in North London, and has quite a strong working-class London accent (this could be referred to as Cockney, depending on which definition of this you subscribe to). In a world where a lot of celebrities take themselves very seriously and talk in quite a dull, generic manner, Adele’s use of English is a real treat – we promise you’ll learn a lot from her!
Cheat Sheet
We’ve given a time stamp for each item: these are just for guidance and may not be 100% accurate.
(01:31) pull off that rare feat:
‘Pull off’ means ‘achieve’ or ‘manage to do’ and suggests the thing achieved was difficult or unlikely. ‘Feat’ is a slightly old-fashioned or literary word for an act or action, but we do sometimes use it in casual conversation in this context, where it suggests that the act in question is very impressive or difficult to accomplish.
(01:56) gear yourself up:
‘To gear up’ means ‘to get ready’; when we use it reflexively like this, it tends to imply mental preparation for something stressful or difficult.
(02:44) put that down to:
‘Put down’ in this context means ‘attribute’. ‘What do you put that down to?’ is a way of asking ‘What do you think is the reason for that?’
(03:29) homebody:
A homebody is someone who loves being at home, and perhaps prefers staying in to going out.
(03:22) pottering around:
We use ‘pottering around’ to mean doing nothing in particular. It conjures an image of someone relaxing at home by doing little bits of DIY or gardening or similar activities, but not putting a lot of effort or concentration into these activities and not completing any big projects.
(04:59) thick as thieves:
This term is used of people (usually friends) who are very close. It implies that they have been through a lot together and perhaps share secrets with each other. Note how in Adele's accent, THs are pronounced almost like Fs. It’s also worth noting that Adele’s use of ‘both’ is not really correct here, as it implies that both she and her mum were individually thick as thieves; this doesn’t make sense as ‘thick as thieves’ is something people are together, not individually. This mistaken use of ‘both’ is quite common in casual speech.
(05:19) claim to fame:
Someone’s claim to fame is the thing for which they are famous. We often use this phrase ironically to refer to a very slight, local kind of fame, or to a connection someone has with a minor celebrity (or perhaps a very loose, distant connection to a major celebrity).
(05:11) Mystic Meg:
Mystic Meg is a British astrologer who writes newspaper horoscope columns. In the 1990s, she had a segment on the National Lottery TV show during which she would make predictions about the winner of the lottery, saying for example that they had a certain letter in their name or bought their ticket on a particular day of the week. She has very distinctive look and so is very recognisable, and a bit of an iconic figure in the UK, though not one people take very seriously perhaps. The word ‘mystic’ is another word for psychic or fortune-teller; it is also used as an adjective.
(05:21) threw herself into:
To throw yourself into something means to start dedicating most of your time and energy to it. We often talk about people throwing themselves into their work, sometimes with the connotation that they are doing this in order to avoid thinking about a problem in another area of their life.
(07:27) spoilt rotten:
This is a very common expression used about children. To spoil a child is to indulge them too much; that is, to buy them too many toys or sweets, or let them misbehave without getting into trouble. We add the word ‘rotten’ as an intensifier, so ‘spoilt/spoiled rotten’ means ‘extremely indulged’. This can be a judgemental thing to say, but it is also often said affectionately or jokingly.
(10:19) demons:
Demons are, in a literal sense, evil spirits or devils, however when we talk about a person having demons, we are referring to chronic problems of an emotional or psychological nature, usually relating to that person’s troubled past. The term is often used to refer to things like addiction and trauma.
(14:52) riding on:
This is an idiomatic way of saying ‘depending on’. If we say there is a lot riding on something, it means the thing in question is very important, and a lot of other things are dependent on it being successful. This is the main context in which we use ‘riding on’; it can’t replace ‘depending on’ in other contexts.
(18:33) the Tube:
This is a very commonly used nickname for the London Underground (the extensive subway or underground rail network in the UK capital). It is not considered very informal or slangy; for example, you might well hear the Underground referred to as the Tube even on the news.
(19:30) When did the penny drop?:
This means ‘When did you realise?’ We talk about the penny dropping to refer to a moment of sudden realisation or understanding, for example. Literally, a penny is the smallest unit of British currency, or the coin representing that unit.
(19:51) Year 6:
In the English school system, this is the last year of primary school, so children in Year 6 are around the age of 11. Each of the four countries that make up the UK has its own education system; Wales has the same system for naming school years as England, but it works differently in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
(22:27) stage fright:
This refers to the feeling of anxiety people get when they have to perform in front of an audience. It can be used in quite a general way, but it often refers specifically to an extreme and sudden kind of anxiety that causes the person to freeze and so potentially prevents them from completing their performance.
(22:16) did it on the quiet:
Doing something ‘on the quiet’ means doing it privately, without drawing attention to oneself. It doesn’t necessarily imply secrecy as such, but simply a desire not to have people ask lots of questions about what you are doing, and to avoid ‘making a fuss’ (that is, creating drama).
(29:13) blew me socks off:
If something blows your socks off, it means it amazes or astonishes you in a very good way. We say this about things that are extremely (and perhaps surprisingly) impressive. Adele says ‘me’ here instead of ‘my’; this is common in informal speech in lots of regions of England.
(31:22) over my dead body is my kid having…
We use the phrase ‘over my dead body’ to express strong resistance to an idea. It basically means ‘I would rather die than let this happen’. We often use it on its own in response to something someone else has said, but it can also be incorporated into a sentence. As you can see from this example, this creates a bit of an unusual sentence structure, with the verb and subject inverted (‘is my kid’ instead of ‘my kid is’).
(31:23) messy divorce:
We refer to a divorce as ‘messy’ to suggest that the couple involved have argued a lot and hurt each other's feelings (and possibly those of their children and other people around them) in the process of getting divorced. The opposite of this would be an ‘amicable’ divorce (‘amicable’ is quite a formal word, but it does often get used in this particular context).