217 - What Bugs You? Insects and Annoyances with Lucas

[music] Hi everybody, my name is Shawna and this is the American English podcast. My goal here is to teach you the English spoken in the United States. Through common expressions, pronunciation tips, and interesting cultural snippets or stories, I hope to keep this fun, useful, and interesting. Let's do it. Hi everybody, welcome back. Today I have Lucas on the show again. Hey everyone, how's it going? Some of you have been requesting his presence, so he is now present. I feel flattered, thank you. Today we're going to be talking about a fun topic I believe. Sort of. I think it's fun. Yeah, it's fun. We're going to be talking. Now it's funny. We're going to be talking about things that bug us, things that annoy us, things that irritate us. Exactly. We'll start with the etymology of "to bug" as a verb, and then we'll move into different types of bugs that are common that you should know in English. And the last thing we'll do today is talk about, well, Lucas's crazy story that happened recently with some bugs. Yep, traumatic. Alright, so stay tuned until the very end to hear that story. We'll also hear lots of different fun things that bug us. Hopefully this is entertaining and gets you thinking about things that annoy you in your life. Alright, so let's get started. Lucas, where do you think the verb "to bug" came from? For sure the mosquito or the fly. There's a lot more irritating than a mosquito biting you or a fly just zooming through your face while you're trying to eat. I think that was an easy one. Actually, it's pretty interesting. The word actually comes from middle English. In the past there was the word "buga", which meant a frightening creature goblin or boogie man. What? Yes. And so by the early 1600s, people were also using bug for certain insects, especially bed bugs. Much later in the 20th century to bug someone came to mean to bother or annoy them. Interesting. Well, so maybe it's a coincidence because insects actually really bug you. Exactly. So it's really easy to imagine. You mentioned a fly, which zooms around, which flies around you and makes that irritating buzzing noise. And then also, yeah, mosquitoes. Yep. Mosquitoes sting or bite, Lucas? They. I think it's sting because it's from the front. No, my bad. I think it's bite because it's with their nose or something. They bite with their nose. Or their. Look at. You know what I mean. You know, there's sticky thing that is in the front of their face. And then when you're stung, it's from bite bugs that have it in their butts. They have a stinger at the end of their booty, like a bee. Right. So you get bitten by mosquitoes and stung by bees and wasps. Yeah. We can say to get bitten or to get bitten in casual American English. And so, yeah, we're going to go through a lot of these bugs that bite and sting. But first, we're going to play a game. Okay. And I'm going to guess five things that bug you. And you're going to guess five things that bug me. Sounds good. Easy, easy, easy. Easy, easy. All right. So, the first thing that I know annoys you is light. Sleeping in a room where there's light coming in through the window. Yes. Or through the underneath the door. Any source. Well, is it? Any source? Yeah. Since we met back in 2015, this has been a battle between us. He always wants the curtains to be blackout curtains where no light is coming through. Yeah. I like to sleep like a vampire. It needs to be completely dark. And I don't know. I think I have light sensitivity a little bit. My eyelids are not very insulated or something. They're not thick. Yeah. But yeah. But what's funny is something that bugs Shana is waking up in a room that is too dark. She likes to wake up with the room all bright, the sun rising and the burst chirping. And so it goes against what I like. So we have that little conflict, but we figured out a happy medium, I think now. Yeah. Which is. She said, it's a one-room. I need to wake up and open the curtains. Yeah. I wake up, open the curtains and then we experience the day, the daylight, the beauty of the world. Okay. So my turn. One thing that clearly irritates Shana is when she's eating, chewing, enjoying her lunch and her meal. Someone comes and touches her. In any form hugs her, kisses her, she gets, kisses her, she gets infuriated. Yes. And on top of that, she has a daughter called Clara. That is a clingy hugger kisser girl and she's connected to Shana like nothing else. She's my glue. She prefers to hug her and kiss her right when she's eating. Yeah. So every lunch time is this battle of Clara. In Shana doesn't know what to do. Should I accept the love? Should I be irritated that I'm trying to chew a meat? Actually, it spreads to other areas too. Like if I'm brushing my teeth and my mouth is full of toothpaste and water and bubbles and then someone's like, "Oh mom, can you help me get my socks or something?" More importantly, two times. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That drives me crazy. We're adding to some of the vocabulary here. Lucas said to irritate, we had to annoy, to bother, to bug. I just used to get on my nerves and something drives me crazy. That's a lot. Lots of ways to express yourself when you're annoyed. Yeah. Yeah. I think people use these so often. Let me think of something else that annoys Lucas. Hmm. I think when someone wakes you up too early, I think that's definitely something because you are a clear night owl. Yes. I am a morning person. And so you tend to stay up later, like maybe two o'clock in the morning doing your creative activities. And then if I wake you up at seven in the morning to help with the girls, you're sort of not so happy. A half awake. And what's funny is, so we have two daughters, Julian Clara. Julia is exactly like me. She doesn't like to go to sleep and she likes to just sleep on. Sleep in. And she likes to just sleep in. Sleep in. Sleep in. Not sleep in. Sleep in. Yeah. She likes to just sleep for a long time in the morning. Yeah. She likes to sleep in. Yes. And Clara and Shana are the opposite. Clara also likes to wake up super early. She's in, how to say, an early bird. She's an early bird. The early bird catches the worm. Yeah. She actually says that sometimes. Yeah. So it's like the family is splitting half into different styles. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, my turn. Mm-hmm. Another thing that annoys Shana. Let me think. Oh. When she's trying to get out of the house, maybe that's a general one. But especially when we got to be somewhere, a specific time, and the girls are super slow, and dragging their feet to get ready to get in the car. It's like I can see like a bar filling up on top of her head. And if you get to the end of the bar, she explodes. Yeah. Get in the car right now. No. No. So I wouldn't say I have a short fuse. So when you think of a bomb, there's the, I don't know, the string attached to the bomb. I'm not sure what we technically call that the fuse. Yeah. Yeah, the fuse. The fuse. The fuse. When we say someone that has a short fuse, it means they're very quick to anger and explode. I wouldn't say I'm quick to anger. I don't think I have a short fuse. or fuse. - You don't. That's in that situation though. - Yeah. - That's when the fuse kinda shrinks. - Yeah, shortens. Yeah, I just like to be on time and I think any dragging getting out the doors is like, "Get in the car, go, go, go." Yeah, so definitely that's one of them. We only actually did three each. I think that's good. But let's move on to the bugs that are common in the US. - You ready? (laughs) All right, so I think the most common bug is an ant. And a bug can also be called an insect. - Yeah. - Is there like a specific kind of ant that is the most popular in the US? - I don't know honestly. - Okay. - Yeah. - But yeah, they're everywhere. - Yeah, they live in colonies. They carry like three times their weight or something like that. - Oh, I think it's even more. - You think so? - It takes something crazy. - How much, let's see. Oh, I see 10 times its own body weight. Wow. - It's incredible. - So that's similar to a 150 pound person carrying 1,500 to 3,000 pounds. Wow. One thing I actually like, or do you want to mention is that, do you know what it means when we say we have ants in our pants? - Yes, 'cause Julia has ants in her pants. All the time at the dining table, you know that kid that can't stop, can't be quiet, can't sit and eat, gotta be moving, gotta be shifting. - Fidgeting? - Fidgeting, yeah. - Yeah, that means they have ants in their pants. Yeah, they're really active, yeah. - They're excited to do something too. Someone might not have ants in their pants if they're like, "Oh, I wanna go to the pool. "I'm so excited and keep moving around like ready to go." - Oh yeah, yeah. - They have ants in their pants. All right, number two, mosquito. - The worst. - You think that's the worst? Oh, for Brazilians for sure, actually. - Yeah, coming from Brazil, they're, you know, they're predominant there and they like our kids a lot. So we suffer for them. - Yeah, well, I think they like me too. - Really? - Yeah. I read something about blood type. - Oh yeah, the bacteria thing. - Oh, that's, yeah, that's something too. Bacteria on your skin can attract them. Your blood type can affect whether you get bit more. - So I think when American go to Brazil, they're like, ooh, new type of bacteria. - New fish blood. - Fresh. - Yeah. Yeah, in Brazil, you guys of course have dangy and shikongunya and then. - You've got the tropical diseases that these mosquitoes carry. - Yeah. - It's funny 'cause you, you know, you guys have the same mosquitoes here. - Do we? - Yeah, it's the same type, you know, they're everywhere. But you don't have the viruses going around and mosquitoes carrying them. - 'Cause you got dangy last time we went to Brazil two years ago. - Painful, my God. - Yeah, and I had zika before. - Yeah. - Yeah, when I was in Colombia. - Y'all spotted mosquitoes. - Like a leopard. - Yeah, it was not good. Number three, the fly. - The fly, we-- - She fly, don't bother me. She fly, don't bother me. - We are in a constant war against flies in our house. - Yeah, they're attracted to food. - Fruit. - Fruit garbage. - Oh. - Strong smells. - Yeah. - Yeah, they're usually flying around the get in the house and then drive us crazy. Next we have the cockroach. - Ooh. - Interesting, 'cause I haven't seen that many in the US. In Brazil, I would see them all the time. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I do remember your grandma with the flying cockroach. Was it a flying cockroach or something? - No, she was strolling on the floor. And my grandma had this brand new flip flop. And she was wearing-- - She had brand new flip flops. - Yeah. - She on a star, she started screaming, "Oh my God, a cockroach." And then she was like, "Wait a second, she took off her shoe and she stepped on it with her barefoot so she wouldn't get her flip flop dirty." And I was like, "Welcome to the retina." (laughs) - Yeah. - So, number five, we have beetle. All right, a beetle is an insect with a hard outer covering over its wings. They come in many shapes, sizes, and colors. - Butterfly. - Butterflies are flying insects, right? - Yep. - They have colorful wings. What are they before their butterflies? - Caterpillar cocoon and then butterfly. - Yes. - Okay, we have moths. - Same thing, I just found out that today, we are, that some moths don't have mouth or maybe all of them or some-- - They don't have mouths. - They don't have mouth, so they can't eat, so they live off-- They're gluttony, gluttony, gluttonous. - gluttonous? - So they're gluttonous? - Yeah, they have to eat, overeat, when they're caterpillars. - Uh-huh. - 'Cause that's the only time they'll have to eat. And then they'll live off of that until they die. So guys, correct me if I'm wrong in the comments, but I saw that today, I thought it was really interesting. - Number eight, grasshopper. Oh, grasshoppers are sweet. - I like them, they're like a nice sound machine a night. - Yeah. And then we have crickets. - Yep. Okay, what's the difference? For me, this is the same thing. Jumps and crickets. - Crickets. - This is not the sound they make. (laughing) - God. - What's the difference between a cricket and a grasshopper? Grasshoppers are green and have-- - They're big, they're big. I think, yeah. - Yeah, crickets are small, Lucas. - I know, but they're like siblings. - They're closely related, but you can tell them a part. Crickets are usually active at night, and grasshoppers are active during the day. - Interesting. Crickets are brown, black, or dark colored, and then grasshoppers are green or brown. - Oh, interesting. So at night, while we're here, our crickets never grasshoppers. - Yeah, interesting. - Mm-hmm. - Okay. All right, which brings us to the last one. Number 10, the Firefly. - Ah, magical. - Also known as a lightning bug. - Really? - Mm-hmm. And it produces light in its abdomen, which, yeah, we love Fireflies at our house. This time of year is really special in North Carolina and especially around the Blue Ridge Mountains because there are so many different types of Fireflies. And in our yard, we get a lot of them. - Yeah, we got lucky. This house, they like the yard. So every night we have a little show. - Yeah. - And then we happen to have a friend that is one of the biggest Firefly specialists in the planet. - On the planet. - On the planet. And he, yeah, he was telling me how mysterious it is that they can synchronize their blinks. And yeah, very, very special creatures. - Yeah, I love them. They always come when it's the right temperature, the right humidity. - Yep, the incline. - Yeah. - They like inclines. - Yep. And if you guys are interested, check out the blue ghosts. That's a type of Firefly that's really special. And if I'm not mistaken, it doesn't exist in many other places in the world. - Really? - Yeah. - I've seen them once. They're like a very, very light blue, almost white. So they're not green like a normal Firefly. And they synchronized. And then the synchronization was crazy. I saw probably 100 of them. Almost blinking, like, it goes in waves. They start a little off and they find a rhythm and then they start blinking together. - And you saw that in the forest, right? - Yeah. If you ever wanna see that, and summertime come to Ashville, they have many spots where you can take a tour, right? And see the blue ghosts. - Yeah. There's one other thing that I like about Fireflies. It's the fact that they don't have a stinger. - Nope. - So they don't sting us. - They're mellow. They won't bite you. The girls like to go outside and catch them. - They're so slow and mellow. They do just land on your hand and just chill. - Remember last summer, the girls brought a bunch into the house and turned off the lights. And then so we had Fireflies and the house. Yeah. All right, that brings us to the bonus, insect, which is. - Oh boy, the yellow jackets. - Yellow jackets and wasps. Do you know the difference? - And hornets. So apparently the yellow jacket, people think they're a hornet, but if I'm not mistaken, they're a false hornet. They're not a true hornet. They are maybe part of the family of the wasps, something like that. So for me, they all the same. They all mean. (laughs) They. They protect their nests and their houses fiercely. And I had a taste of that two days ago, three days ago, and I still have the itch from it. - Yeah, so let's start from the beginning. - Let me tell the story or you wanna tell your-- - Yeah, we can share the task. - Okay. - So we came home from Brazil and our yard was completely overgrown. The grass in the front yard was about three feet tall. The weeds, they're some that are taller than me. We live in the forest and so things grow really well. There's humidity in the right rainfall so that it's green, it's lush, but when you go away for a while, it's very overgrown. - You got out of hand. - Yeah, it got way out of hand. And so I told Lucas once we got home, we have to deal with the front lawn. Like do you mind mowing the lawn? - So here I go, like trying to be like a good American taking care of their yard, got the lawn mower, and started mowing, right? So did half of the yard. And then when I got to the left side, I did one part next to the fence. And then here comes my neighbor. Our front neighbor has a daughter that is best friends with our daughters. So she comes and play every day in our house. So he was coming to talk to me to ask about how was my trip to Brazil and then get his daughter. And then right when he approached me and we started talking, I was like, ooh, I felt something. And then again, I was like, oh, maybe some mosquito. And then he got stunned. And then before we knew it, I was like, we're being attacked. I probably ran over some sort of nest. - Right. And all of a sudden I started feeling them inside my shirt. And you could see them getting stuck on my pants like lining up a bunch of yellow jackets. - Just to be clear. So they live in colonies. And then when they move together, we would call that a swarm. - Yes. - So they swarmed you. - Exactly. - This is, okay, let's go back a little bit. What I learned is that they like burls. They'll find like a rat hole or a snake hole and they'll just steal it and build their house there underground. - They steal the hole? - Yeah, they just invade whatever hole that another animal did and made and call tips. And then they build their house underground. So you can't see it. The problem is if you're just walking if it's normal movement, they won't attack. But the lawn mower really loud and the vibration triggered their attack instinct. We got to protect the nest and they go violently after you. So they swarmed me and my neighbor. At that moment when I noticed we started running to the front door like, let's get in the house. And here comes the other part of the story. Shana was in the shower. She couldn't hear us yelling. The door was locked. The kids were playing side. So I was banging on the door, open the door. You don't know this part. While they were stinging me and my neighbor and the kids were like kind of like, oh, guess who it is? They didn't know what was happening. They were playing. - Oh my gosh, you're doing that. - It was like, open the door. Banging. So they finally did. We rushed in some hornets invaded the house. Through the whole process, all the hornets that were stuck on my clothes kept stinging me. - So they have a stinger. - They have a stinger and different than bees. Bees when they sting you, they leave the sting behind. - Stinger. - They leave the stinger behind. That's why they die. They horn it. They would just keep there going in and out, in and out. So maybe in one spot, like here, I think I got stunned. Probably three or four times just one spot. - Wow. - Okay. So, okay. So I was in the shower. I got out of the shower. I was soaking wet. And all of a sudden, Lucas comes running in the room. - And the hornets were getting the room and were confused. Like, what's happening? - Yes. They're not hornets, right? - Well, you know, but people called them hornets, yellow jacket hornets. - Social wasthru related to hornets. - There you go. - The point is, when I came out of the shower and I was soaking wet and saw these yellow jackets in our bedroom, I started freaking out and I like ran outside of the room and I saw Alex our neighbor in the living room. I think there was one attacking him and he was jumping and just to understand this, he's a very reserved man. He doesn't talk. He doesn't, he doesn't, no small talk. - He's a stoic Ukrainian gentleman. - Yes. - Very quiet. At this moment, he was jumping like, - Jumping in like, yes. - And beating your head all around trying to get the walls out and me to. - And he saw me running out in my towel soaking wet and the girls were screaming. - Before you know it, everybody was jumping. - And screaming in the house. - And Julia. Like, Julia is having fun with the thing. Like, I'm on a mission. You know, like, let me put my, my, my big keeper thing and I was like, Julia. - Yeah. - Get out of here. - No, it was, it was very bad. - So Alex got his daughter ran away to his house. He got probably stung like four times. - Something like that. - I ran to the shower. I saw all the harness on my pants and as I was taking off my clothes, they kept stinging me and then I took a shower. I started counting all the stings and I got stung 14 times. And it was the first day was really painful because yellow jackets have a stronger poison than regular bees. And it was just very painful and annoying. - Yeah, really annoying. So what did you do to ease the pain? - So the anti-itch cream helped. - Okay, it didn't help with the pain, but it helped with the itchiness. - Yeah, nothing helped with the pain. I mean, I took Tylenol, which is like a myodot painkiller, helped a little bit, but it's localized. So it was really like on the surface pain. And that was the first day. The second day was a mix of pain and itchiness. I couldn't stop itching it. And so I took Benadryl that helped, but it makes you super sleepy, but it definitely helped. - Yeah. Benadryl makes you so drowsy. A lot of people bring that on the airplane so that they'll fall asleep, so that they'll knock out on the plane. Yeah, so you were itchy and miserable and tired and. - Not, not fun. But, you know, the end of the day survived to tell the story. - Yeah, the aftermath was also us in our house trying to get rid of the seven yellow jackets that made it inside. - Yep. - Which was an event in itself. Lots of screaming involved. Lots of kids running from one room to the other. I mean, they love drama and give them a bunch of yellow jackets in the house and they're gonna be into that. - They were loving it. That was so weird. - They pretended they were afraid, but I don't know. They were just screaming. - So yeah, for you that is listening, be careful. Summertime, humid. That's when they thrive. They're not really present as much or at all in cold weather, rainy weather, and they like hot and humid. - Yeah. - So you mentioned the burrow, right? So they can be in burrows in the lawn. Or they might be in rotten logs. They might be under brush. So like under bushes. - Yes. - Or shrubs. You might find them. Where else might you find them? Like in an abandoned house behind a wall and a paddock. - Yeah, little cracks in wooden areas and piles of logs and anything. Anything that is easy, they're like a opportunistic. So they'll find something that is already half built, like a burrow, like a rat burrow, and they'll just go from there. - Yeah, it's. Today we talked about 10 of the most common bugs or insects, including of course the yellow jackets. If you have stories about bugs, fantastic, feel free to share one of them in the comments. I'd love to hear from you. And otherwise, this is a great opportunity to start thinking about what annoys you or what bugs you. I think that there are plenty of things that are obvious to a spouse or a friend or a teacher. So it's a fun thing to talk about. You might also think of things on your own that are maybe not annoyances, but small annoyances, like pet peeves. And that's a whole other topic in itself that we can cover in the future. - Yep, I'm sure. - Another episode of pet peeves. - The pet peeves. In any case, Lucas, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really loved having you here again. - Thanks. Thanks for having me and thanks everyone that enjoyed listening. I have a blast coming here and chatting away. - Yeah. - English. - Come back soon. - Thank you. - Bye. - Bye. - All right. So that's the end of today's episode. I want to do a video. a quick review of the things that we cover today. Number one, we covered what it means to bug. To bug means to annoy, bother, or irritate. We can say, stop bugging me. Some synonyms include to bother, right? Am I bothering you? Sometimes it bothers me when people play very loud music. Maybe I'm getting old. To annoy, right? So that's pretty direct. When kids whine, it annoys me, that sort of, "um, um, please, uh, that's whining." And I find it very annoying. I can also say it's very irritating. Irritating is also common to use with different materials. For example, when I wear itchy fabric, it irritates my skin. We have to get on someone's nerves. Oh, he gets on my nerves. We can be a little bit more dramatic when something is frustrating and extremely annoying. We can say, that drives me crazy. Maybe we live in New York City and there is construction outside. We might say, "oh, the sound drives me crazy." We might also say to Pester. And that has the word pest in it, pest is like an insect too. So you might call up pest control to get rid of insects in your house. Maybe some spiders even or ants or whatever it is, cockroaches, termites. So to Pester is the same as to annoy the children, Pestered their parents for ice cream. So what are some things that bug you? What gets on your nerves? Yeah. It's, uh, it's a fun topic of conversation. All right, enjoy the rest of your day. Bye.