Welcome to TED Talk English Club active each Monday from 31 Jan through 16 May 2022 

Click the brownish box above for a SUMMARY of 31 January Meeting:)

Click the black box below for a SUMMARY of 7 Feb Meeting:)

Club Meeting 7 Feb 2022 = Meeting 2 of Vol 1

TOPIC on 7 Feb: Shyness--a power rather than a disadvantage? 

The VIDEO for 7 Feb discussion is The power of shyness

• 7 Feb Question 1 for discussion: How--do you think--TED Talk 'The power of shyness' relates to what we covered on 31 Jan?

• 7 Feb Question 2 for discussion: Honestly, can you see a difference between being shy and being bashful?

• 7 Feb Question 3 for discussion: What do you make of Nicole saying 'You don't need to be loud to make a noise'?

SCRIPT of the 7 Feb video: scroll down to see or download

Club Meeting Vol 1 Meeting 1 was on 31 Jan 2022  

Topic 31 Jan was Why does the English language love extremes? What is supersizing--in English or any other language?

The video for 31 Jan discussion was Why extroverts have their own extreme language

• 31 Jan Question 1 for discussion: Why-do you think-they do it (supersizing) in English? 
• 31 Jan Question 2 for discussion: Reportedly, the supersizing also results in greater fluency. Does it?  
• 31 Jan Question 3 for discussion: Is it all about the introvert/extrovert divide (the perspective implied in the title of the video) rather than a kind of mindset (Terje's perspective)? Please give your arguments😊
• VOCABULARY for 31 Jan: Vocabulary from the video on Quizlet in English & Estonian (Click the automatic join link)

• Time: 3- 6 p.m. on 31 Jan & 7 Feb 2022  NB! Please pick from: Gertrud       7 Feb 3-3.30/ Toomas 7 Feb 3.30-4/ Heli 7 Feb 4-4.30/ 4.30-5/ 5-5.30/ Airi 7 Feb 5.30-6 p.m./ and submit by the form above.
• Format: one-on-one for 30 minutes (at a time) on Skype or Google Meet
• Access 1: as an extra treat--it is open to all of the students who at some point, since 2012, have taken a course with Terje Keldoja😊 
• Participation: You are most welcome to choose between one or more or all Meetings.
• Fee: 8 eur per 30 min one-on-one, incl Quizlet & Script & the follow-up Report (generated & edited by T. Keldoja)
• NB! Access 2: Everybody else is indeed welcome, too. However, the fee is a little less generous (12 eur per 30 minutes one-on-one ) for the 'newcomers'.
• Register: terje.keldoja@gmail.com or use the form above:)
• Scripts of the videos: Please scroll down to read & download them.
  

• Follow-up by Terje: a blog post featuring a short summary (= the follow-up Report) of all the perspectives (anonymously!) adopted by the participants--about the video & the three questions discussed-- will be published after each Monday (= pärast iga esmaspäeva ilmub blogipostitus e aruanne, millest saab lugeda anonüümselt kokku pandud ülevaadet kõigi osalenute arvamusavaldustest antud video, sh kolme esitatud küsimuse kohta😊) 
  

SCRIPT of the video for 7 Feb (NB! click the brown box below to download it)

What does it mean to be shy? Well, today I am going to be talking to you about the power of shyness. There are two types of people in this world: introverts-shy, and extroverts-life of the party.

But being an introvert doesn't mean you are only shy. Maybe you have anxiety, you have panic attacks and situations you are most uncomfortable with. Like when you are talking in front of a large group. Or maybe you are shy, you are uncomfortable when confronting people who you are not familiar with.

Or maybe you are bashful (uje = self-conscious = reluctant to draw attention to yourself), which many people confuse with meaning the same thing as being shy. But bashfulness can have a different meaning, which can be like you are able to confront somebody in your work environment but when it comes to one-on-one conversation, you are not able to keep the conversation going.

But how do people obtain shyness? So maybe something happened when you were younger, like an event. Maybe they had to give a talk in front of a large group or singing a song or had to act in a play. During that event they maybe messed up, like they forgot a line in the act or a verse in the song, or stumbled in their speech and saw somebody laughing in the crowd and felt embarrassed. And when they're put in the situation again, they are shy.

Or it could be cultural. I believe that I may have adopted my shyness from my family. My family is very culturally diverse-- my Mom from Russia and my dad from Iran. In both those countries, shyness is a characteristic for women.

Shyness has a lot of obstacles in life. One example-when I went into fourth grade, I moved into this new school, I started the year off not knowing anybody and being new.

A year goes by and I move into fifth grade. I started the year again getting used to the environment but still being alone. One day I sat at my lunch by myself and a girl from the table behind me comes up and says, 'Hi, my name is Caitlin' -- the girl right here, behind me, that's Caitlin. And she was the first friend that I made in one year. And that says a lot for the disadvantage because after that one hello we never stopped talking. But it just took me one year to make one friend. But for others it may take them just one week to make ten friends.

Shyness can, shyness ... Let's talk about the power that shyness can bring.

One good example: Most people look at the disadvantages that shyness has. For example, how lonely the person looks or how quiet they are. There's a bright side to this dark side of shyness. One good example is Lady Gaga. Yes, you heard me right-Lady Gaga. And I'm quite shocked that a famous singer like her would be shy. Lady Gaga was quoted saying, 'I don't meet that many other artists because I'm kind of shy. I may not be shy with the people I know. But with the people I don't know I'm very shy. I'm shy in the Hollywood scene. I feel a bit like I did in high school like I don't fit in.'

Even though it may seem like a disadvantage to you, but did it ever occur to you that maybe that's what drives her to be her? Because an obstacle is only perceived to be negative in your mind. [If] shyness didn't stop her if anything, I think it's what drives her to be the famous singer she is today.

So remember these two types of people: introverts-shy, extroverts-life of the party? Well, you don't need to be loud to make a noise-that's the power of shyness. Thank you.

SCRIPT of the video for 31 Jan (NB! click the brown box below to download it)

Why be tired when you can be 'shattered' or 'starving' when you've got an appetite? Are you regularly 'terrified' and do you decide everything is either 'awesome' or 'hideous'?

If these sound a little too familiar, you are not alone: this is linguistic supersizing, and it is everywhere. When is any agreement not a 'landmark' one, or a clever idea not 'genius'?

Even 'literally' has gained a second meaning in our dictionaries, meaning anything but. 'Unbelievable' is today's usually all-too-believable , while 'average' and 'mediocre', once positive adjectives, have lost their happy middle-of-the road status to become plodding (https://www.lexico.com/definition/plodding) markers of inferiority.

And, of course, never call anyone's work or appearance 'fine' or 'nice' unless you're 'dying' for an argument .

Even weather forecasts ripple with melodrama these days, delivering threats of 'Frankenstorms' and 'weather bombs' in which rain is 'organised' and winds 'bombarding'.

The word hyperbole is from the Greek for 'excess'. It entered English in the 16th century to mean extravagance of language-deliberate exaggeration to make an effect. Problems arise when we up the ante so regularly that even hyperbole loses its power.

Heroes now need to be 'superheroes', and prefixes such as uber-, ova-, and mega are having a field day. This is the world in which tautology rules, where there is no grit without determination, no strength without stamina. We fall back on such speech patterns all the time and occasionally come up short: in 2018, the then-President Donald Trump simply ran out of superlatives when he declared that UK and US relations were: 'I would say the highest level of special ... am I allowed to go higher than that? I am not sure ... but it's the highest level of special.'

Apart from wanting more linguistic bang for our buck, why exactly do we do it?

Psychologists now conclude that extroverts require more cortical stimulation from their language than introverts in order to feel any impact, opting for extreme vocabulary such as 'sweltering' over 'hot', or 'tragic' over 'sad'. It appears we feel what we say: we are likely to feel hotter or more tired if we choose the language with the biggest hit.

In addition, English tends to love extremes-it serves us well when talking about black and white, and far less well with the grey in the middle.

Of course, there is also the need to be heard above today's cacophony of chat, when bigger and louder seems the only way to go if we are to be noticed. Besides, in times of gloom and despondency, who wants vanilla?

Whether our supersizing will eventually find a reverse gear, is ultimately up to us-for now, it seems our amplification of our language will remain-literally-insane.