This mini episode teaches you the common and useful expressions “to be tired of” and “to be sick of.”
Episode 178 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you two common and useful expressions: “to be tired of” and “to be sick of.” Send your questions about English and your suggestions for future episodes to EverybodyESL@gmail.com! (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
In this episode, I am going to teach you two similar constructions. I have been using these constructions a lot lately, and that's what made me think it might be good to teach you how to use them, too.
The first construction that I'm going to teach you is “to be tired of” something. To be tired of something. What does it mean to be tired of something? To be tired of something means to have experienced so much of something—or to have done something so much—that you are now bored with it. Or you are now annoyed with it. If you have done something so much, or experienced something so much, or if you have done it or experienced it too much, you might become very bored with it. Or you might become very annoyed with it. This thing is no longer fun, no longer interesting. You no longer want anything to do with it. You have become bored or annoyed because of it.
An example of this might be “I am so tired of this pandemic!” I am so tired of this pandemic. I have been saying that a lot: I am tired of this pandemic. In other words, I have experienced it so much—too much—that as a result, now I am annoyed with it.
Of course, I guess I was annoyed with it at the very beginning, too. But I'm even more annoyed now.
The second construction that I wanted to tell you about is very similar to “be tired of.” And this construction is “to be sick of.” To be sick of something. If you are sick of something, that means you have experienced something or had something so much—too much—that as a result, you now feel sick.
This construction works the same way as “to be tired of” something. “To be sick of” something means you have experienced too much of something, and it has made you feel sick. For instance, you could say, “I am sick of this pandemic!” Let me say it again: I am sick of this pandemic! You probably are, too.
Something that I think is interesting about these constructions is that we often combine them into one construction. You will often hear people say, “I am sick and tired of” something. “To be sick and tired of" something means to have had so much of something or to have experienced so much of something, that you now feel annoyed and sick and frustrated and angry. And it's just a very bad feeling.
So you could say—I think you know what I'm going to say here—you could say, “I am sick and tired of the pandemic!” I am sick and tired of the pandemic! And it's true: I am. And you probably are, too.
These constructions are very common even when we're talking about things other than the pandemic. You will hear these constructions often.
That is “be tired of,” “be sick of,” and “be sick and tired of”: three constructions that I think you should know.