This mini episode teaches you how to use the compound adjective “good old.”
Episode 212 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you how to use the compound adjective “good old.” 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.)
Intro
“Hi! This is Vivi from Lefkoşa, Cyprus, and you’re listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 212 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English. My name is Ben, and I have a mini episode for you today, where I am going to teach you about one English topic. You can subscribe to the Everybody ESL podcast at Apple podcasts, on the Stitcher app, and wherever you find your podcasts. If you like Everybody ESL, leave it a good review so other people can find out about it too. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. Okay! Let’s get on with this mini episode.
The episode
In this episode, I want to teach you a special way that we use two common adjectives. We sometimes use the common adjectives, good (g-o-o-d) and old (o-l-d) together to mean a specific thing. When we use them together as good old, that can be a way of describing a person or a thing that we have a special kind of feeling about.
When we describe a person or a thing with this kind of compound adjective, good old, we are saying that this person or thing is very familiar to us. We know it well, or we remember it well. And we have a certain amount of affection for this person or thing.
Let me give you an example of a situation where you might hear somebody use good old as this special kind of adjective.
Let’s say you are looking at some old photographs, photographs from your childhood. In one photograph, you see a picture of yourself and all of your classmates from a long time ago, when you were, let’s say . . . ten years old. And you recognize one kid in particular. Let’s say this kid’s name is Frankie.
When you look at this picture of Frankie, you say, “Oh, I remember good old Frankie.” Or maybe you say, “Oh, look! There’s good old Frankie.”
What do you mean when you say, “good old Frankie”? You don’t mean that he’s old. I mean, look at him! In the picture, he’s a kid just like you. And you might not even mean that he’s good. Maybe Frankie was always misbehaving and being naughty. When you describe Frankie as good old Frankie, you are saying, “Oh, I remember Frankie. Oh yes. I remember him, and I have a good feeling about him. I feel affection for him. When I look at this picture or when I think about Frankie, I feel good. I have good memories.”
Good old Frankie means that you feel fondness or affection or love or happy memories when you think about Frankie or when you see his photograph.
Like I said, we can use good old when we are talking about anyone or anything that we have this kind of positive feeling for, something that we know well, and have that kind of fondness or affection for. It could be an old friend. It could be somebody who works at the café who you see every week. Or it could be something from your childhood home, or it could be something from your office. It really can be anything as long as it is very familiar to you and you have feelings of affection for it.
And that is good old, a very special and useful adjective that I think you should know.
Outro
And that's the end of episode 212 of Everybody ESL. Remember: if you have any questions about English, or if you have comments or suggestions about the podcast, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can use at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Vivi recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode—send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. I’ll be back soon with another episode, and until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. Goodbye! I’ll see you soon.