Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 32. The word origin today is to cry wolf. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. If someone cries wolf he or she cries or complains about something when there is really no problem or no serious problem. If they do this too often this eventually results in other people not believing or trusting someone anymore. So they are no longer willing to help. Okay. Let's continue. The origin of cry wolf comes directly from an Aesop fable called \"The Boy Who Cried Wolf. \" According to the story, a boy was given the responsibility of looking after the Sheep. During the night the boy considered this job to be very, very boring. Okay. Just for fun he decided to pretend he was in danger. You know he needed some excitement and it's too boring Yeah. Let's see what happens if I cry wolf. Kind of like that. So he decided to cry out \"Wolf, wolf \" kind of like that. When the people heard his cries they rushed to help him. However they soon learned this was just a joke and they probably weren't very happy about that. The boy foolishly repeated this several times and finally the people stopped listening to him. Yeah. So when a real wolf came and the boy and the sheep were truly in danger, were really in danger, nobody trusted or responded to his calls anymore. So we hear this a lot we always tell somebody \" don't cry wolf . \" You know only call people when you really need them or when it's a real situation. So All right. And let's just look at one example we have here. If you keep yelling for help over such minor issues ..you know not very important issues , no one is going to want to help you anymore. You cannot cry wolf and expect people to take you seriously. Okay. Anyway so this is the real origin of it. I hope you got it. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.
B1 US danger origin sheep anymore wolf wolf people English Tutor Nick P Word Origins (32) Cry Wolf 43 0 anitawu12 posted on 2019/05/08 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary