Video version of this episode:
https://youtu.be/hPLDP_f_E60

Special Guest Gabriel from Clark and Miller:
https://www.clarkandmiller.com/describing-trends-in-english/

Transcript:

Hey, Daniel, thank you for reaching out to me and asking me to talk about one of my favorite English phrases. Okay.

So, first of all, who the hell am I? I'm Gabriel Clark from Clark and Miller.

What about my favorite phrase? Okay. So, one of my favorite phrases is hodgepodge, which you Daniel pointed out that I used in a recent podcast episode. Hodgepodge,

Hello guys. Welcome back to the Vocab Man. Usually whenever I come across an English expression, I try to figure out the meaning and then I make a podcast episode out of it so that the other learners can learn with me. And this time I tried to do something different. I reached out directly to the podcaster and then.

I asked about the meaning of a specific word. So in this case it was hodgepodge. And so I listened to an interview between two teachers and one teacher is Stanek and the other is Gabriel, but let's take a closer look at the sentence in which hodgepodge was used. And which made me ask Gabriel about the meaning.

I mean, I personally, I really like your accent because it's the kind of interesting hodgepodge a to use awesome phrase that you used earlier. It's kind of a hodgepodge of your background and your experience, you know, where you're from, but also your experience working and living in England, because there are elements of sort of British, like London, English in there.

And I like it because it, it, it, it's kind of you, it's yours. And I think that's great. And I think people, anyone who's learning English should not strive necessarily to sound British but to sound like who they are. I know this sounds very obvious.

hodgepodge.

It's fun to say, isn't it hodgepodge? What does it mean? Well, I had a quick look at various dictionaries online just to check it out. And we've got things like a heterogeneous mixture and a jumble and a confused mixture and an untidy mixture. So obviously it means some sort of mixture, a hodgepodge of something as a mixture of something, but I'm not sure I agree with all these terms. Um, I like some of these, like a jumble, um, confused mixture. Yeah. Maybe it can be a bit confused, sometimes an untidy mixture. I'm not sure that it has a bit of a negative feeling to it, but maybe not some non tidy things are quite nice, aren't they? Yeah.

Anyway, so let's, let's look at some examples of this because I think I generally use it quite positively. You know, like your favorite band can draw on a hodgepodge of different influences or, um, your current TV show can have a real hodgepodge of different characters, you know, lots of different people with different sort of vibes.

Thank you very much, Gabriel. I really appreciated your examples. And for me, it will be easier to remember the word hodgepodge and let's take a look at the Merriam Webster website. There are some recent examples from the web. For instance, San Diego union Tribune wrote an article on the 18th of March.

And it says the original artwork seemed a hodgepodge of images, including a skateboard and arm, a flame insect, a hummingbird and an alpinists or extreme mountain climber. And there are others, which I don't want to mention here instead. I want to talk about my own dialect in my mother tongue, which is Swiss German.

And I have to say that my own dialect has also become some sort of a hodgepodge because these days I am not living in the same place where I grew up. And I am surrounded by a lot of different people. I mean, these are people who come from different regions of Switzerland. So that means that I am surrounded by different types of dialects, which over the years had an impact on my own speech.

So in my opinion, my dialect tests become some sort of a hodgepodge. Yeah. And again, Gabriel. Thank you so much. It was really, really appreciate it. I hope that you are in for a future episode. I mean, this was a lot of fun for me and yeah. See you around. This was the Vocab Man. I am Daniel and thank you for tuning in bye.

hodgepodge.

It's fun to say, isn't it hodgepodge?

who the hell am I? I'm Gabriel from Clark. I'm the Clark in Clark Miller I'm Gabriel Clark from Clark and Miller. What the hell is Clark and Miller? Clark and Miller is a, we have a Clark Miller English YouTube channel, the Clark and English Miller Clark in English, Clark and Miller

english podcast and the Clark and Miller English blog, which you can find as clarkandmiller.com Clark like Clark Kent. And that's me and Miller, like, you know, the beer anyway, that's me.