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Hi, my name is Emma and today we are going to talk about
expressions with the word hell.
I don't know if you know what the word hell means,
but you'll notice some flames to help you understand the meaning of hell.
So first what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the phrase "what the hell"
And then once we finish that, we're going to look at some common idioms and phrases that contain the word hell
So let's get started
Before we begin with "what the hell",
I just wanna talk about pronunciation
and also what the word hell means.
So hell is a noun. It's a place.
In certain religions, if you're very, very bad, you go to hell.
For people who are very good, they go to heaven.
Hell is supposed to be a very hot place with a lot of flames, with fire
A lot of evil people are supposed to go to hell
So that's just a bit of a background on the word hell
Now here is a word that people might confuse with the word hell.
He'll. He'll
Does anyone know what this means? Well, it's a contraction
You see this apostrophe. It means he will
So these two words have complete different meaning, so don't mix them up.
In terms of pronunciation, you don't wanna mix these two words up
So remember hell rhymes with bell
And he'll is pronounced the same way as…
like a hill. Hill.
Okay, good.
So let's look at the first expression.
I've had a lot of ESL student ask me about this expression.
What the hell! What the hell! And you'll notice an exclamation mark.
So what does this expression mean?
I'm sure if you watch American movies, TV shows, Friends, sitcoms,
you are going to see this a lot. You're going to hear it a lot.
Well, what the hell is what's known as an interjection
So we use this to show we are surprised, we're angry, we're frustrated.
But usually with the surprise and anger
So for example,
maybe I'm walking down the street
and all of a sudden, in the sky, I see something fly pass me.
Maybe it looks like an alien spaceship. I'm gonna be shocked. I'm gonna be surprised.
So right away, I'm going to say something like "what the hell"
It's surprising, what the hell.
So we use this a lot with surprise
So now let's look at
using hell as what's known as an intensifier.
So in this case, it's used as an interjection
Other interjections are woah or ah. These are interjections
Now we are going to look at hell as what's known as an intensifier,
because hell is intense
So what do I mean by this?
Well, look at the following sentence. Well, it's a question.
What _ happened? What happened?
Now say if I want to add emotion to this sentence.
I want people to know that I feel something when I'm saying this
Maybe it's surprise; maybe it's shock, anger, frustration.
Usually the 4 emotions we use hell with
Instead of just saying "Ah, what happened?"
I can say, "what the hell happened?"
What the hell happened last night?
I don't know if any of you guys have seen the movie "The Hangover"
But in that movie, three men wake up hungover with no memory of the night before
And so they have this type of moment.
What the hell happened last night?
They don't remember. They're shocked by what they see around them
Another example is:
I had a friend in high school who had a big, big party.
Her parents were away for the weekend or so she thought.
So she invited a whole bunch of people to her house
and it was a Saturday night
Her parents were supposed to come home Sunday
They came home Saturday.
So when her father walked in to their house
He said, "what the hell is going on here?"
he wasn't happy.
So we use this for anger, surprise, frustration
Now let's look at another question
Who _ is that? Who is that?
Well, what if I add the word the hell.
Who the hell is that
It really changes the meaning of this question
Before, the question was more polite.
When I add who the hell is that, it's a bit rude
So you don't want to use this with your boss. It is rude.
But I'm showing either I'm angry or surprised
So when am I gonna use this?
Well, maybe I see my best friend's husband at a bar with another woman.
Well, if I'm shocked I might ask him
who the hell is that?
When. When did you get married?
May be I found out my friend just got married.
"Oh, when did you get married?"
well, what if I'm really, really surprised or I'm angry because she didn't invite me to the
I might say, "when the hell did you get married?"
Again, it's not the nicest thing to say. You say it with your friends a lot actually
But it can be taken rudely depending on your tone of voice.
Where. Where are my keys?
Every morning I wake up and before work, I cannot find my keys
I search the whole house for my keys. I can never find them
Well, maybe one morning I'm very, very stressed out. I'm late for work
I need to get there by a certain time.
I might, instead of just saying "oh, where are my keys?",
I might say, "where the hell are my keys?"
How do I fix this? Maybe I broke something
If I add "the hell",
it shows maybe I'm frustrated. I don't know how to fix it
How the hell do I fix this?
So again, we have all of the questions:
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Oh, we don't have why up here. You can also use it for why.
Why the hell did you do this?
You can use it with any of these question words
and what it does again, is it shows you're either surprised, shocked, frustrated, or angry.
Now, two other things we can intensify
are common words like "no", "yes" and "yeah"
Now, if somebody asks me a question.
Say, for instance, if they ask me
do I think George W Bush did a great job as president of the United States
Now for some of you, you'll say "yeah, I think he did a good job"
For other, maybe you don't really care. You say "no, I don't think he did that good of a job"
Well, if you're very opinionated like me,
you might say "hell no!" hell no.
Which is a very strong way of saying no.
Similar to that, if you feel very strongly about something and you wanna say yes
You can say "hell yeah" or "hell yes"
Do you want cake with dinner? Hell yeah
Do you want to go to the movies tonight? Hell yeah
Do you want to do your homework? Hell no
So you can use these to intensify yes or no answers
Alright, so we've covered some question words.
We've seen what the hell as an interjection
We've looked at adding the hell as an intensifier
Well, there's another common meaning to what the hell.
So, it can also mean…
I don't know if you can see this
I don't care.
Which is pretty opposite to what we were just talk about
We were just saying when we add "the hell", it really makes a sentence strong.
It makes a question very strong and shows you're angry or surprised.
Well, depending on our tone of voice, it can also mean I don't care
So for instance, somebody wants to borrow my car.
If I don't really care, I might say,
"what the hell, go ahead. Here's my keys."
Another example is, if somebody…
I have a test on Monday and I should be studying
And somebody says, "do you wanna go to the bar tonight?"
"uh, what the hell, okay."
I should be studying but I don't really care, so what the hell.
Alright, I hope none of you do that, by the way.
Alright, so next, we are going to look at some common idioms and phrases, expressions with the
Alright, so here are 6 expressions.
Some of them are more common than others, but you'll hear all of these, that have to do with the
Now the first one I really like. To give someone hell
When you give someone hell… so again here's the verb.
To give someone hell, it's altogether
It means to reproach, to reprimand,
to yell at someone severely
So for example, to really understand this concept
I have a dog.
If my dog ate some of my jewelry, I would be very, very angry.
So I might give my dog hell, meaning I might yell at my dog
And say "why did you do that" you know, "bad dog"
Parents. I told you earlier that my friend had a party one weekend when her parents were out for
And here dad came home early
Her dad gave her hell.
Meaning her dad was very, very angry with her, yelled at her, screamed at her,
Really, really disappointed.
When you give someone hell, it's a bit negative
You're not happy when you give someone hell.
It means you really put them in the place
So for example, bosses. If a boss is very, very upset with something you've done
Maybe an employee stole something from their company
The boss will give that person hell.
So again, it means reproach, reprimand, to yell at someone, to scream at someone.
Give someone hell
Okay, expression #2.
Now this expression "go to hell" is not polite at all
It's very, very, very rude, so try not to use it
But you will hear it a lot, especially on movies and TV
Go to hell. So I've drawn a very angry face.
If you tell someone to go to hell,
you're probably going to be very angry when you say it
And you're pretty much saying I don't wanna deal with you right now, get away, leave me alone
But it's a very, very, very mean and angry way to say it
Because again, hell is not a nice place
It's a place where bad people go,
so if you're saying go to hell to someone, it's a very strong thing to say
#3 is to hell with it or the hell with it
So you have a choice. You can say to hell with it or you can say the hell with it
Now, this expression is often used when you give up on something
You decide that you don't want to do something anymore
So for example, maybe I've been studying all day,
and then I decide I want to go out and party
I might say, "to hell with studying"
so the "it" is what you change. So to hell with studying
I'm going to go party. So you give up on studying. To hell with studying
You don't care about studying, you're going to go party
Or to hell with… you can also use a person
Replace it with her. To hell with her
I might say that if I give up on someone, I'm kind of tired of them
I tried to call my friend all weekend.
She didn't pick up her phone.
To hell with her
Meaning I don't care anymore. I'm giving up. I'm not calling her anymore
#4 for the hell of it
I really like this expression, actually
For the hell of it. What does it mean?
Have you ever done something for no reason?
When somebody ask you "why did you do that?" you don't really have an answer
An answer is "for the hell of it"
meaning you did it for either no reason
or just for fun
So for example, maybe
I'm not working tomorrow, I don't have anything to do
and I decide to drive to Montreal
I live in Toronto. Montreal is five hours away.
So maybe one day I just think "I'm going to drive to Montreal today"
Somebody might ask me why did you do that? What were you doing in Montreal?
Well, I drove there for the hell of it,
meaning I didn't really have a reason. Maybe I just did it for fun
#5 like hell.
When we use like hell, we're talking about describing something
Usually it has to do with driving, running, studying. So it has to do with a verb.It describes the
So how did you do it? How did you drive?
I drove like hell
How did you run? I ran like hell
So like hell describes the verb
and it means you did it either with great speed, so very fast,
1. or recklessly, meaning you weren't careful
So when we use something like "like hell" for example
Well, maybe you have a wife.
She's pregnant. She's about to give birth
And you're very, very stressed out. You're getting a panic.
How would you drive your car to the hospital?
Do you think you'd drive at 40km/hr?
No, you're probably going to drive as fast as you can to get there on time before she gives birth
You drive like hell.
Maybe some of you have been late for class before
This has happened to me before.
And if you have a very strict teacher, you don't want to be late
So what do you do?
Well, you run.
And how do you run? You run like hell
Meaning you run as fast as you can.
You just sprint. You run hard
So run like hell. You could use this with studying.
How do you study? I study like hell meaning I study with great speed
Maybe you didn't study for weeks and you're test is tomorrow.
How are you going to study your test? You're gonna study like hell
#6 when hell freezes over
Now this is a fun expression
because hell, like I said before, is a very hot place. Notice the flames
Well, freezing is what happens in the winter. It's when ice comes
So when hell freezes over
means hell is going to be covered in ice
Now, this is another way of saying never,
because hell will never freeze over
So this is a fun way to say never
So let's think of some examples.
Well, maybe I have a friend,
and a guy wants to go on a date with her
I ask her, "will you go on a date with Bob?" we'll call him Bob
Will you go on a date with Bob?
Maybe she really doesn't like Bob.
She will say, "I'll go on a date with Bob when hell freezes over"
Which means she will never go on a date with Bob
Will you go see… what's a good movie…
Maybe you hate Lord of the Rings.
I don't know why. I love Lord of the Rings,
but maybe some of you out there thought it was a very boring movie, very long
So maybe somebody will ask you,
"will you see The Hobbit?"
the new Lord of the Rings movie coming out
You might say, "I will see the Hobbit when hell freezes over"
meaning you will never see that movie
It's a very strong way to say that
So today we have looked at expressions like what the hell.
We've looked at interjections. What the hell again. Hell no, hell yes
We've also looked at common expressions with hell
So I hope you come visit our website and take our quiz on these expressions
at www.engvid.com
And I hope that if I ask you
are you going to continue watching our videos,
your answer will be hell yes.
Take care.