2021-08-09 Cringe – The English We Speak

Summary

What makes you feel really uncomfortable and embarrassed – a person, a situation or a film? We have an expression you can use to talk about that!

Transcript

Jiaying
Welcome to The English We Speak with me, Jiaying… 

Neil
… and me, Neil. Have you seen that new film about a wizard who makes friends with an ugly horse that turns into a beautiful unicorn?

Jiaying
Oh yeah! The acting is the definition of cringe! The whole film is so cringe! 

Neil
Cringe? What do you mean cringe? You don’t like the film?

Jiaying
Don’t like it?! That’s an understatement – it was awful. The actor who played the wizard was really terrible, and the plot was stupid. We use the word cringe when you want to say something is really embarrassing and makes you feel uncomfortable. It can be used as a verb or an adjective.

Neil
So you can say the film made you cringe or the film was cringe. Why? It wasn’t that bad!

Jiaying
Neil – it was so cliched. The acting was over the top, and the ugly horse becoming a beautiful unicorn didn’t make any sense – it was so cringe! 

Neil
But that’s the point of the film – it was designed to make you cringe – it was that kind of humour! It wasn’t trying to be serious! 

Jiaying
Oh, in that case, I didn’t get it! So, actually, if it was intentionally cringe, it was quite funny. Let’s talk more about things that are cringe after these examples.

Examples
Did you hear that terrible joke he told! It was so cringe!

When my uncle starts dancing – it’s really cringe.

When she told me how she had sat in the wrong meeting for an hour before realising, I cringed.

Jiaying
You’re listening to The English We Speak from BBC Learning English, and we’re talking about the word ‘cringe’. It can be used to describe something or someone that makes you feel embarrassed. You can also say ‘cringey’, as an adjective.

Neil
Yes, so you can describe someone or something as cringe – so like an embarrassing person or joke.

Jiaying
Yes! Or even an experience. What’s the most cringe thing that’s ever happened to you?

Neil
Well, you may be surprised, but quite few cringey things have happened to me!

Jiaying
I can imagine! I think your most cringey moment is when you arrived at the party dressed as a giant cucumber!

Neil
To be fair – I was dressed as a courgette, and I thought it was a fancy dress party because you said dress fancily! 

Jiaying
It was so cringe! I meant to wear a fancy suit – it was a wedding.

Neil
Yeah – I cringed a lot. But at least I ended up in lots of photos!

Jiaying
You certainly did! Bye, Neil.

Neil
Bye.