Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Noun Phrase 60. The noun phrase today is loan shark. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. A loan shark is someone who lends money at excessively high rates of interest. This is usually connected with organized crime and is illegal. Yeah. there are, there are laws about how much you're allowed to charge for loans. And of course loan sharks, they loan at a much higher rate than is actually legal. So it's definitely usually connected with illegal, illegal activity or organized crime. Let's continue on. If a borrower does not pay in a timely manner. So if he doesn't pay on time or he's late and usually the time that he's got to pay is usually much sooner and the rate is much higher. The loan shark may send one of his minions. All right. Remember we sometimes covered this remember in the movie with the cute little yellow guys those are minions. Well in real life, minions are not really, does not really have a good meaning. It usually means somebody who works and just follows orders usually for someone who's bad or evil then we say a minion. So he will send one of his minions to threaten him or her especially physically. Yeah. So and of course this is illegal too. You know according to law. You're not allowed to physically you know attack people for these loans. And usually they will do it you know in stages you know if you don't pay back right away maybe they just hit you a few times. Or then maybe they may break a finger or break two fingers or maybe even get around to breaking a leg. You know if you continue not to pay. They, they threaten you into paying more or trying to get you even more desperate to get the money from somebody else. To pay them back. All right. Good. So let's continue. A loan shark could also be referred to as a Shylock. Yes. From the character in the Shakespeare play of The Merchant of Venice. Yeah. If you ever read that old play. It's a very good play by Shakespeare. But there was another character you know, way back at that time in that 1500s who lent money and also it usually was at very very high rates too. So this is why sometimes they're also referred to as a Shylock as well. All right. Let's go on. A shark can also refer to someone who gets money my cheating people. Yes. Well. We do have another term called a card shark. So a card shark is someone who usually will cheat people out of money usually by playing cards. But they're very good at cheating and playing cards and so this is what I mean. You know, don't never play with him. He's a card shark. So it also has that meaning too. So again. Let's continue. Though the loan shark is believed to get its name. All right. So this is kind of the origin of how the name came about. Believed to get its name because they prey on the desperate. Yeah. So usually only somebody wants to get a loan from a loan shark, is only taking it from him because they couldn't get it from the bank. Or nobody else would give it to them and they wanted it for some reason and they still thought it was worth the risk of getting it. Maybe they thought something else was going to pay off really really well and very very soon. And they they could pay back the loan shark and it wouldn't be a problem. But it usually doesn't work out that way. So they prey on the desperate and if they don't the loan shark will be out for blood. You know, just like a shark is out for blood. If you don't pay back so one way they the shark means somebody who cheats somebody and they will and the loan shark will also be out for blood, if you don't repay. Until they get their money plus interest. They don't just want the the initial loan. They want that money plus the interest you're supposed to be playing. The excessively high interest. All right. All right. And now we just have a few examples. Example number one here. He couldn't get a loan from a bank and he was so desperate that he went to a loan shark to get the money. All right. Or number two. We say Jack skipped town. Well if you skip town. He's like, you're running away. He skipped town because he was being threatened by a loan shark for not paying back the money which he borrowed. Okay. Well hopefully you can go far enough away and not get found. That the loan shark never finds him. Anyway I hope you got it. I hope it's clear. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.
A2 US shark loan pay desperate illegal interest English Tutor Nick P Noun Phrase (60) Loan Shark 8 0 anitawu12 posted on 2019/06/27 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary