Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Hi, there. My name's Ronnie.

  • Maybe you're watching www.engvid.com or maybe you're watching

  • me on YouTube. Thanks. Awesome.

  • I have a question for you, though. How old are you? Yeah? Okay.

  • Are you married? No. Do you have a problem with this? Because I know before I got married,

  • I had no problem not being married, but other people did. For example, my friends who were married,

  • maybe they were jealous, other people who I worked with, and people who I generally

  • met from day to day.

  • So, today I've got a special lesson for you people who are not married. This lesson is called:

  • "Oh My Gawd, You're Not Married Yet? What's Wrong With Her? What's Wrong With Him?"

  • So, people automatically assume that if you're over the ripe age of 30 and you're not married,

  • there's something wrong with you. Maybe there's something wrong with the other people who

  • want to tell you their opinion of how you should live your life. That's what I think.

  • So, I'm going to go through some terms, some of them slang, some of them more traditional,

  • and reasons why you can give people why you're not married yet. And it's none of their business,

  • really. I was fortunate enough to have a mom who didn't push me to get married. Thanks,

  • mom. Does your mom push you to get married? -"Come on, get married, get married."

  • -"Find me a handsome guy, mom, who's not a dick. Maybe I'll do that."

  • So, first of all, people are going to say behind your back, which means not in front

  • of you: "What's wrong with him?" Most of the time people will say: "He must be gay." Because

  • every man out there who's not married just must be gay. This came from a long, long,

  • long, long time ago. There's an area of history... An era of history called the Victorian Era.

  • They didn't admit to people that they were gay because that's wrong, or that was wrong

  • back then. They had this really amazing kind of sneaky word to say, a "confirmed bachelor".

  • Now, if we lived in the Victorian times and somebody told you that they were a confirmed

  • bachelor, we would know that that means that that man is gay. Nowadays, we just go:

  • "He's gay." Or if you're a gay man, you say: "I'm gay." But gay men can marry, so yeah, there's

  • no excuse.

  • What I'm going to teach you is the difference between men and women being married and not

  • being married. So, if you're a man who's not married, we have a word called a "bachelor".

  • This is a very common, very famous TV show called The Bachelor. If you're a woman who's

  • not married, you are a "bachelorette". If you know anything about French or if your

  • language has masculine and feminine, you would understand that the "ette" part makes it a

  • girl. So, we have the male is a bachelor or a confirmed bachelor, and then we have the

  • female as a bachelorette. So, if you are a man and you're not married, everything's fine

  • unless people think that you're gay. If you're gay, that's fine. The confirmed bachelor.

  • But if you're a woman and you're not married, we got some really bad names for you guys

  • in English, especially if you're old, like over 30. So, we have two names that are not

  • good that we substitute for a bachelorette, because a bachelorette should be young. We

  • have the word "old maid" and a "spinster". So, an old maid and a spinster are older women

  • who have not yet married or never will marry. So, this goes back to the question:

  • What's wrong with her? Why did nobody marry her? Hmm. This is what we call in English a double

  • standard. "A double standard" means what is acceptable or in society for a man, bachelor

  • - it's not acceptable in society for a woman. So, a man who's over 30 hasn't met the right

  • woman yet, but a woman who's over 30 and not married is a spinster or an old maid. Double

  • standards are not cool at all.

  • Then some people, tragically, have lost their husband or wife. This is a very bad thing,

  • but we actually have a name for it. Now, the one for women are... Is most common that you

  • know. If a woman has lost her husband, she's called a "widow". Be careful. Not a window.

  • "My mom's a window." Your mom's a window? "Widow", "widow", there's no "n". Okay? So,

  • "widow". And if you're a man who's lost his wife, you're called a "widower". I think that

  • you guys probably have heard of "widow", but not "widower" because in the history of war

  • and health problems, women seem to live longer than men, so widows are more common than widowers,

  • but they do happen.

  • Another reason why maybe you're not married is maybe you were married, but your marriage

  • was not so good in the end and you got divorced. So, if you got divorced, you would be called

  • a "divorcee". This is a noun. All of these words, here, I have put a "n", it means a

  • noun. So, a divorcee is a man or a woman who has been divorced. Are you divorced? No? Me

  • neither. And we're back to our double standards for women. A woman who has been divorced would

  • go to a bar, have a good time, maybe find a young boy to amuse her. If this happens,

  • this lovely lady is called a "Cougar". A cougar is slang for a usually divorced lady who likes

  • to enjoy herself after a couple refreshments at the bar, and have some fun with younger

  • men. As a man, though, we do not have a cougar counterpart, because in our society, unfortunately,

  • it's quite normal that men would find a younger lady to amuse him if he's divorced, or married,

  • or single. So, this double standard exists I think a bit too much.

  • On to the adjectives. So, we have some adjectives... Adjectives to describe your situation. You're

  • not married. Oh my gawd. So, you can tell the person: "I'm divorced." This means, once

  • again, your marriage has finished. Bye-bye. You can say: "I'm happily divorced", which

  • means this was a good thing for you. Bye-bye. You can say you're recently divorced, this

  • means it happened not too long ago. It's not telling if it's a good thing or a bad thing,

  • but the person knows that it's a new situation.

  • People can also be separated. Now, "separated" is one step away from being divorced. So,

  • let's say that you and your husband or you and your wife were fighting a lot, not really

  • having a happy marriage, a lot of people choose to separate. So this means they live in different

  • rooms, different houses, different cities, and they try to continue their relationship.

  • So, they're not yet divorced, but they're separated.

  • Of course, if you've never been married and you aren't married, you would be single. I'm

  • single. Okay. And there's another term that we use a lot for maybe tax purposes or to

  • help us explain to people what's happening, although you never have to, we have an expression

  • in a lot of countries called "common-law". So it says: "We are common-law." Common-law

  • means that you live together, you're in a relationship, and you're been living together

  • for quite a while. I think, legally, it's six months, but it could be six months to

  • a year. So, be careful, maybe you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend and you've been living with

  • them for six months. So, under the government's eyes-dunh-dunh-dunh-dunh-and they are brutal,

  • you will become what's known as common-law.

  • I've also seen one thing here that again, Ronnie-hello-has made a spelling mistake.

  • Do you make spelling mistakes? I do. Let me just change something, here. This word: "seperated"

  • actually is spelt s-e-p-a-r-a-t-e-d, so always check your spelling, Ronnie.

  • If you have questions about this, you could ask people.

  • But remember: What somebody does behind closed doors is their own business.

  • And if you're really wondering why that person isn't married, why don't you think about it before asking them?

  • Maybe it'll make your life a little bit better.

  • Toodles.

Hi, there. My name's Ronnie.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it