Vocabulary Spotlight Spicy, Hot, and Salty
The A to Z English Podcast
Exploring the Distinctions Between Spicy and Hot
Exploring the nuanced meanings of 'spicy' and 'hot', uncovering the historical shifts in their usage from literature to contemporary contexts, and addressing the common conflation of temperature and spiciness descriptors.
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In this episode, Xochitl explain the various meanings related to the words: spicy, hot, and salty.
Transcript:
00:00:02
Xochitl
Hello A-Z English podcast listeners Jack and social are back with another episode for you and today we are doing a vocabulary builder so we want to do words that have two different meanings and we're going to expound or explain what these meanings are. So Jack, what are our first ones salty and salty, same words.
00:00:21
Jack
Yeah, something salty. Yeah, salty is an adjective, right? Something is.
00:00:23
Xochitl
Meanings.
00:00:26
Jack
Healthy. Usually we use it when we're talking about food, so if this say this ohh these these French fries are too salty, it means it just has or this soup is too salty. There's like a lot of salt in it, I mean.
00:00:42
Xochitl
The salt level is by.
00:00:44
Jack
Yeah, it's making you thirsty. You're drinking a lot of water because you're like you're. Yeah, you're you. You could just, you know, when something has too much salt, you know, salt or you know what? I'm. I'm not even gonna say too much salt because pretzels are salty.
00:00:48
Xochitl
Making your mouth sucker.
00:01:02
Jack
And I love pretzels because I have a I love salty food. So, you know, eating salty pretzels. It does make my mouth dry and and kind of, you know, want to drink water. I do enjoy the taste of it. I I do enjoy it.
00:01:20
Xochitl
How that would say because if you like the salty flavor of of the soup at someone's house, don't say wow, the soup is salty. You know that not.
00:01:28
Jack
Right.
00:01:28
Jack
And.
00:01:29
Xochitl
Humble it use leaves me negatively, so just maybe the soup is delicious or something.
00:01:29
Jack
I.
00:01:35
Jack
Yeah, just say this is delicious. Don't say this is salty because if you say salty, it means that's just the that's that's a coded word for too salty.
00:01:45
Xochitl
Yeah, has too much salt. Yeah. No, Jack, what is the other meaning of the word salty?
00:01:52
Jack
Yeah, this one's a little more complicated. This is when we, a word we ascribe to people, right? So when someone is salty, it means they're being standoffish. Prickly, cantankerous. Yeah. I'm using all these words that no one's going to know. So they're not helping you guys at all.
00:02:04
Xochitl
And and that.
00:02:12
Jack
Grumpy, you know, like, you know, salty.
00:02:16
Xochitl
Good word from SpongeBob.
00:02:18
Jack
What's that?
00:02:19
Xochitl
Like Squidward from SpongeBob?
00:02:21
Jack
Yeah, like Squidward from from SpongeBob. He's a salty character. He's like, he's not nice.
00:02:27
Jack
He's he's, you know, kind of kind of.
00:02:28
Xochitl
Yeah.
00:02:31
Xochitl
Frankie Grumpy in a bad mood?
00:02:32
Jack
Yeah, cranky, grumpy. He's short. He's.
00:02:34
Jack
Short tempered, he's you know when you ask him a question, he snaps back at you. It's not, you know, a a person that you would just sit and have a fun, casual conversation with. If someone is kind of salty, they're a little bit difficult to talk to, a little bit standoffish.
00:02:54
Jack
It doesn't mean they're not nice, and it doesn't mean they're not helpful. It's just that their personality is they're they're kind of like a porcupine or a cactus. You know, they're prickly.
00:03:04
Xochitl
Yeah, they're pretty.
00:03:06
Jack
Yeah.
00:03:07
Xochitl
Again, this isn't isn't really a neutral word, so don't describe someone as salty. If you mean well.
00:03:15
Xochitl
It's not like an endearing term. It's kind. It's a negative term, so keep that in mind. But yeah, that is just all.
00:03:21
Jack
It's a negative term, right? And with when I'm when I'm describing the pretzels, that's fine. This popcorn is salty. You know when you're eating.
00:03:29
Jack
Uh. Movie theater popcorn. It should be salty, you know. But describing the soup, it should not be described as salty if it has the right salt content, then you say it's delicious.
00:03:43
Jack
And.
00:03:43
Xochitl
Yeah, I would say when in doubt, don't call it salty. You know, when in doubt, just don't call it salty. But yeah, this is good. This is tasty. This is delicious. You know those other adjectives, but salty just means something that's highly salted and that.
00:03:50
Jack
Right, right.
00:03:53
Jack
Just say good. This is good, yeah.
00:03:57
발표자
Yeah.
00:04:03
Xochitl
Can be positive, negative or new.
00:04:05
Xochitl
Control and when in reference to people, it's pretty much always a negative connotation, so just keep.
00:04:11
Xochitl
That in mind.
00:04:12
Xochitl
Yeah. Yeah. And so so our next one, we have spicy, spicy can mean something that is like a chili pepper where you take a bite out of it and your mouth is on fire. Right. Oh my God. So spicy.
00:04:23
Jack
Mm-hmm.
00:04:27
Xochitl
A really spicy soup. You know, it has a lot of different Peppers.
00:04:32
Xochitl
And you know, you take a bite and again your mouth is on.
00:04:35
Xochitl
Fire you gotta.
00:04:37
Xochitl
Tug down some cold water or some yogurt or something that is 1 meaning spicy and the other meaning of spicy is something that is well spiced and that means it has a lot of condiments, but none of them are necessarily.
00:04:54
Xochitl
Bringing your mouth on fire. So like a a Christmas cake like a.
00:04:56
Jack
Right.
00:05:00
Xochitl
Orange aniseed, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg could all be in there and it could be a well spiced cake. A spicy cake, but it's not spicy in the sense that your mouth is on fire, it just has a lot of different flavor profiles to.
00:05:16
Xochitl
Other I would say calling something spicy in the sense that it has a lot of spices is an old fashioned term, so people don't.
00:05:24
Jack
Yeah.
00:05:24
Xochitl
Usually do that.
00:05:27
Xochitl
You might say ohh this cake is nicely spiced, but that would be something you'd probably read in older literature and not something that you hear colloquially, meaning you don't hear like people speak that very often.
00:05:30
Jack
Yeah.
00:05:39
Jack
I think flavorful would be a better one. You know better adjective. This is really flavorful because it's full of different flavors, you know and yeah.
00:05:43
Xochitl
Yes.
00:05:47
Xochitl
But yeah, that's a more common one. Yeah. So, but if you're reading, you know.
00:05:53
Xochitl
An old English literature, but can you see someone called a Christmas cake spicy? They don't mean it has like hot Peppers.
00:05:59
Jack
It's just, it doesn't mean there's 25, you know, little Thai Chili Peppers in there. Yeah. Jalapenos or a Carolina Reaper or something like that. You know, that's going to make your head explode.
00:06:04
Xochitl
How old are you?
00:06:12
Xochitl
Yeah, or like a.
00:06:14
Xochitl
If you see a recipe for a spice cake online, that just means a cake that has a lot of spices, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, all those things. It doesn't mean that cake that has jalapenos in it, so that's just a distinction.
00:06:21
Jack
Right.
00:06:28
Xochitl
Yeah, Jack, how about the next one? Hot. What are the two meanings for hot?
00:06:34
Jack
Ohh yeah, this is a good one too because hot can mean spicy like and by spicy I mean.
00:06:43
Xochitl
Hot pepper hot.
00:06:44
Jack
Pepper, spicy, right. The kind your mouth on fire, you know.
00:06:45
Xochitl
How can you?
00:06:50
Jack
Spicy. Yeah, but it also can mean temperature hot, so you know. Ohh Ouch. I burned my. I burned my mouth. I burned my tongue because the soup is too hot. You know, temperature wise. Yeah.
00:07:04
Xochitl
The tea is too hot. Yeah. Ohh. This tea is so hot. This hot chocolate is so hot.
00:07:10
Xochitl
I burn my mouth.
00:07:12
Xochitl
Whereas if someone says ohh the soup is hot, you have to ask them before you try it. If they mean temperature hot or they mean spicy hot.
00:07:22
Jack
MHM.
00:07:22
Xochitl
So remember, keep that in mind if you're a person who doesn't like spice or something because a lot of times in the US we will use hot interchangeably with temperature and spiciness, and it can mean both as well, like, oh, the soup is hot temperature wise and spice level wise, so that is.
00:07:36
Jack
Yeah, like hot sauce. You know, is going to mean spicy. You know what I mean? Cause it's like there's no, it's not like you're going to heat up a bag of sauce, you know, like.
00:07:41
Xochitl
Yeah.
00:07:48
Xochitl
You something like hot ranch dressing or something?
00:07:53
Jack
Yeah, just.
00:07:56
Jack
Straight out of the microwave. Yeah. No hot, hot sauce means spicy sauce, you know? So we we say hot sauce. That means spicy sauce. But hot soup. Yeah. Hot tea. Yeah. Hot tea is better. Yeah.
00:08:08
Xochitl
Sorry, do you know hot tea is going to be temperature wise hot because it's going to be very weird for someone to put like jalapenos or Thai chilies in a cup of tea. Right? So you people are if you use contacts there, you'll realize people mean temperature.
00:08:15
Jack
Right.
00:08:25
Xochitl
Hot.
00:08:26
Xochitl
Soup as Jack.
00:08:27
Xochitl
Saying that, one can go either way, so you have to ask, you know the clarifying.
00:08:31
Xochitl
Motion temperature. Hot or spicy hot and that would kind of get you an answer of neither or both or whatever. So yeah.
00:08:42
Xochitl
All right, listeners.
00:08:44
Xochitl
Thank you for joining us on this episode of A-Z English podcast. Make sure to leave a comment down below at AZ englishpodcast.com. Shoot us an e-mail at AZ English podcast at Gmail.
00:08:55
Xochitl
Dot com.
00:08:56
Xochitl
And make sure to join and subscribe to our exclusive videos in order for us to keep the lights on. We really appreciate you guys.
00:09:05
Xochitl
Subscribing to that so that we can continue to make more content for you and we really appreciate you guys and your patronage and we will see you guys next time join our we chat, what's up groups to join the conversation. Bye bye.
00:09:17
Jack
Bye bye.
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