— VOA Learning English — Words and Their Stories Source: Voice of America Learning English (https://learningenglish.voanews.com/) Licence: Public domain (work of the U.S. federal government, 17 U.S.C. §105) Audio is served by the publisher; Budi does not host or modify it.
0:01And now, words and their stories from VOA Learning English. Today we are talking about the term rub. While this three-letter word is small, it should not be seen as unimportant. In fact, rub carries a lot of meaning and can be used in many different situations. For starters, rub is a noun. One way it is used this way is in cooking. A rub is a collection of dry seasonings that can be added to meat, tofu or vegetables before cooking. Rub can also mean something problematic. If I ask, What's the rub? I am asking, What What's the problem? This expression is very informal. Rub is also a verb. For example, I might rub my head if I have a headache. Or I may rub my shoulder if it hurts. And if something really hurts, I MIGHT rub in some medicine to help reduce the pain.
1:39But to rub something in also has another meaning. An idiomatic one. If you rub something in, you keep reminding someone of something unpleasant. This is a very common expression, so let's hear it used in a conversation. Hey, I had fun playing basketball yesterday. Your team almost won. Almost. It was fun. I got a great workout. What was the score again? Okay, okay. Stop rubbing it in. Your team beat mine by... a lot. Rubbing something in is similar to rubbing someone's nose in something. In the example we just heard, one man rubs his friend's nose in a loss at a basketball game. When we rub someone's As a verb, rub is used in many other expressions. If you rub someone the wrong way, you cause that person to be angry or annoyed.
3:04It means you have irritated them, usually for something in your personality or behavior. You do not have to do anything specific to rub someone the wrong way. For example, The president of the company rubbed some of his employees the wrong way with his direct way of speaking. Another expression is to rub elbows with someone. We use this expression to describe being at the same event as someone or simply being around them. But we don't generally use it for interactions with our close friends. Often the people we rub elbows with are famous, important or influential. For example, I rubbed elbows with some famous people at the mayor's birthday celebration. Another way to use the verb RUB is in the expression to rub salt in the wound.
4:20This means you make a bad situation worse for someone else. Let's say you know someone who loses their job. When they tell you that news, you remind them that they still owe you money. You have just rubbed salt in the wound. Ouch! This is similar to kicking someone when they are down. Another use of the word rub is in the phrasal verb rub together. We use this with other words to say that we lack something. For example, if I don't have two brain cells to rub together, I can't think straight. I'm confused. Or if you don't' have two dimes to rub, you have no money. You are broke. You could also say pennies or quarters, as long as they are coins. Our last expression is to rub something out. That means you get rid of it, and sometimes we use it in a rather violent situation.
5:39If a bad person rubs someone out, they do away with them. In other words, they actually kill them. And that's all the time we have for this Words and Their Stories. Until next time, I'm Ana Mateo.
This transcript was generated automatically from the recording, so it will contain mistakes — especially around names and places.