potato. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. If someone says something is a

hot potato or someone is a hot potato, it is usually a difficult issue that

people try to avoid talking about usually because there is a lot of

controversy around it. Okay. Let's continue.

Hot potato is a noun phrase derived directly from an older idiom which is

still used today. The idiom is to drop someone like a hot

potato, which basically means to leave or

abandon someone quickly especially because he or she is trouble or too

unpleasant. Okay. Good. Let's continue here. The reasoning behind hot potato is that a

cooked potato is very hot to the touch. So if you touch it with your hands it's very

hot. It almost burns your hand and potatoes remain hot longer than other food

because of their water content. Because of the water that's in it and thick skin. So the

combination of thick skin and the water content lets the potatoes stay hot a lot

longer. The idea is that if one had a hot potato in their hands he or she does not

want to hold on to it too long and would want to pass it on to another person as

quickly as possible. Here you take it. No you take it. No you'll take it. Kind

of like that idea. All right. This is also directly connected to a children's a

game called "hot potato" that involves passing an object usually a beanbag. Like

a small beanbag of course on as quickly as possible to another player while the

music is playing. If a child is caught holding the object

when the music stops, he is out. It's very similar to another game that

we've often played like musical chairs. Where everybody walks around these

chairs and when the music stops everybody sits down and usually they

always took one chair away so one person will end up not being able to sit down

that person is out. So it's a very similar idea to that. Okay. Let's continue here.

And we got three examples. Okay. Example number one. If a politician is in a swing

state. You know , sometimes it can go for one party, sometimes he could go for the

other party. That's what we mean by a swing state. He often tries to avoid

controversial topics such as abortion gun control etc. like a hot potato

because no matter what he says, he's going to probably make somebody angry,

because those are some more controversial topics. Now if he was in a

state where obviously one party you know easy the for against that he could

speak that way you know, more freely or more easily because he knows the

majority of people would probably still vote for him. But if he wants to try you

know, to get some people like independents or in-between, he might be careful. He

wants to you know, he treats those topics like a hot potato. He tries not to to

touch them or get involved in them at all. All right. Number two here. We

especially use like the idiom his new girlfriend started acting controlling

and demanding , so he dropped her like a hot potato . Like oh no she's too much

trouble. Goodbye. Or number three here. That

athlete used to be a big supporter or maybe even a sponsor for that company

but after the scandal broke they dropped him like a hot potato or he became a hot

potato and they had to get rid of him. Yeah. Because suddenly he became

controversial. Okay. Anyway, I hope you got it, I hope it was clear. I

hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.