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Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Adjective Phrase 37. The adjective phrase today is
tit-for-tat. Okay. Let's continue. If someone does something tit-for-tat
it is usually done in revenge or in retaliation for something done to upset
or harm someone or harm a particular person. So they did something to you, you do
something back to them. It's a little bit like the idea of like an eye for an eye
a tooth for tooth. All right. Let's continue. The origin of tit for tat is believed to
derive from like an older phrase " tip for tap. " Okay. Which used to mean
blow-for-blow. So I hit you. You hit me. Even though blow, today blow sounds more
like a hard hit. But you know , tit for tat it would actually or tip and tap
would actually be a light hit today. Okay. for that just became a variant of the
word. Okay. So it's a little strange. Because the original phrase was tip
for tap and that kind of went out. And the variant remained. So we still say tit
for tat. But no longer tip for you know, tip for tap anymore. Okay. Let's continue.
Okay. The word tip still has the meaning of a slight hit or a light hit. Yeah. So
just like , like in baseball you could get a foul tip. Where the batter swings and
he just barely the, the ball just barely touches the bat. So that could be
referred to as a foul tip or if you're passing somebody and you just barely
touch them just slightly, you could say you, you, you know , you just tipped them or
something just tipped it. Okay. Let's continue. Tap is also a light hit as
in you tap someone on the shoulder. Like try to get their attention. Hey, hey buddy you know,
again. Hey excuse me. Try to get somebody's attention. You tap them. Okay.
Tit for tat could be found in John Heywood's book of Proverbs. Of course you
know he was another one that compiled or collected a lot of Proverbs too.
All right. We just have two examples here. Example number one. In the trade war
between those two countries there were tit-for-tat cases of implementing duties
on each other's good. So if one country puts some duties on their, their country
they turn around and did it back and back and forth several times. So they
were doing it tit for tat. You do it to me I do it back to you. Okay and we
sometimes hear this too. Sometimes if like two countries are angry at each
other and they, they force their diplomats to leave. So if you force my
diplomats to leave. You tit for tat they'll turn around and do the same
thing back to them.They'll force that country's diplomats to leave too So we
might hear it in that sort of situation as well. And the second one that we have
here. Those warring drug gangs have had tit-for-tat attacks on each other's
members in a war over territory. Yeah. We often use to hear about this in the past
that you know these drug gangs, they think they have this certain territory
but two of them might be fighting about a small piece that they think should
belong to them. So they will fight back to each other,
tick and tit for tat. Okay. Anyway, I hope you got it . I hope it was clear. Thank you for
your time. Bye-bye.