EASY ENGLISH VOCABULARY: Money Slang & Expressions

0:00 Hi, everybody.

0:00 Welcome to www.engvid.com.

0:01 I'm Adam.

0:02 In today's video, we're going to talk about money.

0:05 Now, more specifically,

0:06 we're going to talk about how we talk about money in terms

0:10 of slang and in terms of certain expressions or idioms, right?

0:14 And we're going to talk the way people refer to money in everyday life.

0:19 So, you may have already heard some of these expressions,

0:23 but what we call the different coins and the different bills,

0:28 sometimes they have nicknames.

0:30 So, for example, one cent, which is 0.01 dollar, is called a penny.

0:38 Now, for those of you who might not know,

0:41 in Canada, we don't have pennies anymore.

0:43 We got rid of them, and the numbers are

0:46 just rounded up or down to the nearest nickel.

0:49 Nickel is five cents.

0:51 Now, most of these are both U.S.

0:53 and Canada.

0:54 In U.S.

0:55 and Canada, we say pennies, nickels,

0:57 10 cents is a dime, 25 cents is a quarter, okay?

1:02 Here, we get other slight differences in the dollar.

1:06 So, in Canada, the dollar is a coin.

1:09 In the U.S., one dollar is a paper bill.

1:12 So, in Canada, we call it a loonie.

1:15 Now, why is it called a loonie?

1:17 Because if you look at a Canadian dollar, on one side,

1:20 you will see a bird, just a bird floating in water.

1:24 The name of that bird is the loonie, the loon, sorry.

1:29 It's called the loon, which is why we nicknamed the coin the loonie.

1:34 Now, a few years after the introduction of the dollar coin,

1:38 the government introduced a two-dollar coin.

1:40 Now, because we already had a loonie, of course,

1:43 we needed a nickname for the two dollars,

1:45 so we called it a toonie, just so they rhyme.

1:48 In the U.S., they don't have a two-dollar bill or coin.

1:52 But in both countries, you can say one dollar is a buck,

1:56 or you can say any dollar amount, you can say buck or bucks.

2:02 Buck basically means dollar.

2:03 So, one buck or a buck, five bucks, ten bucks, a hundred bucks.

2:08 Loonie is only one dollar, toonie is only two dollars.

2:12 A five-dollar bill, both countries have bills, a common nickname is a fiver.

2:18 How much is that...

2:19 How much is that drink?

2:21 Oh, it's a fiver, it's not too much.

2:23 But again, not everybody uses it, but in case you do hear it,

2:28 you understand a fiver means a five-dollar bill.

2:31 There's an actual...

2:32 There's a company that sells products and services for five bucks or less,

2:36 it's called Five or Two.

2:37 We won't get into that.

2:39 Some people call a ten-dollar bill a ten-spot.

2:42 Sometimes they'll say twenty-spot, but not as common.

2:45 A ten-spot just means ten dollars.

2:48 And twenty dollars is twenty dollars,

2:50 but notice that I don't say twenty dollars, I say twenty.

2:54 Most people will say twenty,

2:55 they just take the "t" off because it's just shorter and easier.

3:00 Okay, so that's the...

3:01 How we talk about the money itself.

3:03 Now, a hundred-dollar bill, fifty-dollar bills is just fifty bucks.

3:07 Nobody has...

3:08 There's no nickname for that.

3:10 The hundred-dollar bill, you might hear people refer to as a "c" note.

3:15 "C" means "cent", from the...

3:17 From Latin, "cent" meaning one hundred,

3:20 or even from French, meaning one hundred.

3:22 Or, the Roman numeral "c" equals one hundred,

3:26 so some people might call it a "c" note.

3:29 In the U.S., they might call it a "Benjamin",

3:33 because on one side of the hundred-dollar bill,

3:36 there's a portrait of a man, that's Benjamin Franklin.

3:40 That's who's on the hundred-dollar bill, so Benjamin is a hundred-dollar.

3:45 When people talk about the Benjamins, they're referring to money in general.

3:50 Okay?

3:51 So, now, we also have a few expressions that include money terms.

3:57 Okay?

3:57 So, if we're talking about "dime a dozen",

4:01 so "dime", ten cents, "dozen" means twelve.

4:05 If something's a dime a dozen, it means it's very common, nothing special.

4:10 So, for example, if you buy bagels in the old days, now...

4:15 Now, you can't buy anything for ten cents, but in the old days,

4:19 you could buy, like, twelve bagels for a dime.

4:23 It was actually cheaper to buy a dozen than to buy individual items.

4:27 Right?

4:27 So, now, when we talk about something that's

4:30 cheap and not very special, or very common,

4:33 or it's everywhere, or nobody cares so much about it, it's a dime a dozen.

4:38 I can get a dime a dozen...

4:39 I can get those for a dime a dozen.

4:42 So, for example, somebody says, "Oh,

4:44 my friend is a very good English teacher." And you say,

4:48 "Well, listen, I live in Canada.

4:49 I could get English teachers at a dime

4:51 a dozen." It means English teachers are very common,

4:54 they're nothing special in Canada.

4:56 In some other countries where there aren't many English teachers,

5:00 a Canadian teacher would be a very valuable asset.

5:05 "Nickel and dime".

5:06 So, nickel and dime...

5:07 So, nickel and dime.

5:09 We use this expression in two ways.

5:11 It could be an adjective, or it could be a verb.

5:14 As an adjective, when you're talking about a nickel and dime store,

5:17 or a nickel and dime production, it means very cheap, not very high quality,

5:22 because everything costs, like, a nickel or a dime.

5:25 There was nothing expensive in it.

5:28 "To nickel and dime someone" means to try

5:31 to bargain a little bit too much for, like,

5:34 little things that don't really matter.

5:35 So, if I go to buy a car, and the car is, let's say, $20,000, and I say,

5:41 "Come on, just give me a discount, like a $100 discount." And he goes,

5:45 "Why are you trying to nickel and dime me?

5:47 Just buy the car and get your value out of it some other way." So,

5:51 "to nickel and dime" means to try to get a discount,

5:54 or to try to be cheap about something,

5:56 or to try to get somebody to do something a little bit more,

6:00 or for a little bit less.

6:02 But very little, it almost makes no difference.

6:05 It's a little bit annoying.

6:08 Next, if somebody is "counting pennies", so pennies,

6:11 "counting pennies" means worried about everything they spend.

6:15 So, if you go to the store, and you say,

6:18 okay, you want to buy a can of tuna, let's say.

6:21 This can of tuna is $1.

6:23 This can of tuna is $0.98.

6:25 Okay, I'll buy this one because it's cheaper.

6:28 It doesn't really matter, like, two cents makes no difference.

6:30 Buy the one that you like more.

6:33 If you're counting pennies, you're already very worried about money,

6:36 and maybe you don't have much money,

6:38 or maybe you're just the type of person who worries for no reason, right?

6:42 So, "counting pennies", worried too much about money.

6:46 A "penny pincher".

6:47 When we call somebody a "penny pincher", it means they're pinching.

6:51 They're very...

6:51 they don't like to let go of the...

6:54 if you...

6:54 of the money.

6:55 So, if you try to take their penny, they're pinching it really hard.

6:58 They don't want to let go.

6:59 Very cheap person.

7:00 A person who doesn't like to spend money.

7:03 Always tries to save as much as he can or she can.

7:07 To give your two cents worth.

7:09 If somebody offers their two cents worth, or ask you...

7:13 asks you for your two cents worth, they're basically asking for your opinion.

7:18 If I want to give my two cents worth, I want to give my opinion.

7:23 For some reason, opinions are worth two cents.

7:26 "Cents" basically means pennies, so two pennies.

7:29 This must be a very old expression,

7:31 because I think opinions are worth a lot more than two cents these days,

7:35 but the expression stuck.

7:38 The $64,000 question.

7:39 Now, there used to be...

7:41 I'm not sure if it's still on TV, but there used to be a game show,

7:46 the $64,000 pyramid, and you answer questions and trivia,

7:51 and then if you're the winner, at the end of the show, you get to, like,

7:56 a little circle, and it's you and your partner, and your partner will...

8:00 and there's questions on the board that your partner can't see,

8:04 and you have to give clues.

8:06 And if your partner guesses all the clues, he or she wins $64,000.

8:12 So, basically, the last question, if you got all the questions correct,

8:17 and the last one, if you get it correct, you win.

8:20 So, now, we use this expression,

8:22 the $64,000 question means the most important question,

8:26 or the most difficult question.

8:28 So, in business, for example, I say, "Okay,

8:31 we need to upgrade all our computer systems." And my partner says,

8:35 "Well, you know, we're a little bit tight on money.

8:39 How are we going to afford that?" "Yes, that's the $64,000 question.

8:43 That's the difficult question.

8:45 That's what we need to figure out now." And, again,

8:48 used pretty commonly in everyday situations, that you need to solve something.

8:53 Now, in everyday context, especially in terms of, like,

8:59 shops, a "twofer" means two for.

9:03 So, usually two for the price of one.

9:09 So, the sale...

9:10 it's a twofer sale, means...

9:12 or it's a twofer item.

9:14 You buy two, you get one free.

9:16 Okay?

9:17 This is just a bit of a slang shortening of this expression.

9:21 You'll often see "buck a beer", "buck a shock", "buck a whatever".

9:25 If you see something "buck a" and "whatever",

9:28 the "whatever" thing that fills the blank is $1.

9:32 So, some bars will have a happy hour.

9:35 There's a certain time of the day, for, like, one or two hours,

9:39 where they will have special deals, and a lot of them will have "buck a beer".

9:44 "Buck a beer" means each beer is $1.

9:46 So, you can go buy many of them.

9:49 And lastly, and I'm not encouraging this, but you may...

9:53 you may hear this expression, the "five-finger discount".

9:58 "Five-finger discount" means stealing something.

10:01 If you're using your fingers to take something,

10:04 you're giving yourself a discount.

10:06 It's 100% discount off the item because you took it with your five fingers.

10:11 You stole it.

10:12 That's what it means.

10:13 And I'm connecting it here because of the discount.

10:17 Okay?

10:17 So, there you go.

10:19 Very useful expressions that use the...

10:21 use money terms or money expressions in them.

10:24 So, if you have any questions about any

10:26 of these, if you're not sure, if you have...

10:28 need some more explanation,

10:30 please go to www.engvid.com and ask in the comment section.

10:34 I'll be happy to help you out with those.

10:36 There's also a quiz where you can test your understanding of these expressions.

10:39 And that's it.

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10:54 Bye-bye.