Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Verb Phrase 140. The verb phrase today is to black out. Okay. Today we actually have five meanings for black out and we also give you five examples to cover each meaning. All right. Let's take a look at the note here. Let's look at the first meaning. The first meaning of black out which is maybe the most common one. It means to faint or lose consciousness. So if you faint, you fall on the floor. We could say that somebody just blacked out. You can almost imagine you know, it's like your eyes see black. You're out. You're unconscious. So you don't know what's going on. Let's look at the first example. I was so weak and sick from illness, I just blacked out and fell to the floor. So that's perfect for the first example. Let's look at the second meaning here. if someone blacks out a period of time or memory, he or she can no longer remember that experience. So a lot of times ...well I don't know if we do it purposely or sometimes it's just our mind that does it and to help protect us. So we actually have some examples here for this one too. Here somebody might say I just tried to black out that memory.. It means sometimes sometimes you try to purposely do it. Because when you think of that , it's just too painful and you can't handle it. So I'm just trying to black out that memory and it's too painful to think about. Yeah. Or actually this is ... the next one can also cover this too. We sometimes say amnesia is a natural defense mechanism that blacks out a tragic memory. So if you had something very terrible happen to you. Sometimes we know, people get amnesia. They can't remember their identity. They can remember a lot of things they learned, but they can't remember their identity. And we sometimes say it's a natural defense mechanism because your mind couldn't handle it for a period of time. You know , eventually usually most peoples' memories do come back and they do remember their identity. But you know, you you might black it out. Whether it's consciously or unconsciously. You try to black it out. So you don't remember it anymore. We also use blackout really ... I didn't put in here but a lot of times we might use it when people are really drunk. They got so drunk, they went out that night. Maybe they remember the beginning of the night , but when they got past a certain drunk point ... maybe they probably they could have also collapsed so they passed out woke up somewhere. We say that they blacked out. He blacked out. You know , from being too drunk. And if he blacked out, when he wakes up he can't remember a period of the time when he was very, very drunk. All right. Let's look at the next one. To prevent something from being broadcast in a specific area. Okay. With this one of course .. we have the next one here. In some countries, in some communist countries some news is blocked out from being reported in the media. So the government is blocking it out because maybe they fear people finding out this information or finding out the truth about this information. So it might be blacked out in that sense. All right. Let's look at the next one here. To cover with black lines. Literally putting black lines over something, so that something cannot be read. Then we say to black out. Let's look at this example here. We were able to get this government document from the Freedom of Information Act. That's a law that was passed that people have the right to find out this information. So they can request it from the government. However one of the big problems is sometimes you do get some information that's useful. But there's other times you'll just get a lot of papers with a lot of black lines through it. So, so let's continue. This is what they usually say. However the government blocked out or blacked out many lines for national security reasons. So they blacked them out. So you can't read it. So I don't know how freedom of information. Well, you have the freedom to get a lot of black lines. I guess if they black out too much. Usually they always claim it's national security reasons and that's why they can do that. But that's what it is. That's blacking out with a pen. They actually draw black lines over. They draw deep enough that you can't see through it. Okay. And oh well this one. I could just give you an example for this one. Because actually I gave you two examples for one of the other ones. For lights, if we say the lights blackout well this is a blackout. Just means to go out. Yeah the lights are blacked out for several hours. You know during that storm. Or you know maybe there really was a blackout an electric pole went down and the lights were blacked out. So you can use it that way as well. Okay. Anyway I hope you got it. I hope it was clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.
A2 US blacked black blackout drunk information memory English Tutor Nick P Verb Phrase (140) Black Out 13 0 anitawu12 posted on 2019/06/25 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary