In this mini episode, you will learn the useful expression “How dare you?”
Episode 281 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the useful expression “How dare you?” 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 Puyan, from Iran. And you are listening to Everybody ESL (English as a Second Language).”
Welcome to episode 281 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 am going to teach you a very useful expression. This is an expression that you might have heard before, but maybe you did not understand it.
Before I tell you this expression, I want to talk about a certain verb. And that verb is dare. Dare. D-a-r-e. Dare. Dare is a little bit hard to explain.
One meaning of this verb is “to have enough courage to try something dangerous or frightening.” To have enough courage to try something dangerous or frightening. Okay, that is the verb dare. And it is part of the expression that I’m going to talk about now.
That expression is “How dare you?” How dare you?
That is spelled H-o-w, d-a-r-e, y-o-u. How dare you?
One thing you might notice about this expression is the word order seems a little strange. Because in a question with one verb, we do not usually put the verb before the subject. For instance, in a question with the verb do, we would not say, “What do you?” What do you? No, that sounds very strange. We would have to say, “What are you doing?”
But in this expression, “How dare you,” that verb comes before the subject. Dare comes before you. And that might sound a little strange to you. I think, even to native English speakers, this expression sounds a little bit old-fashioned. But we just think of it as one whole piece. We just learn the meaning of this one whole piece.
And I want to tell you the meaning of this expression, “How dare you?” We use “How dare you?” when we think someone has done something very, very bad. Something very wrong or very insulting. If somebody has done something to make you very angry or to make you feel very insulted, and you cannot believe that they did this thing, you can say, “How dare you?”
What you are saying when you say, “How dare you?” is something like, “How could you have enough courage to do this terrible thing? How could you have enough bravery to do something so awful? You said or did something to me that I think is so bad, and I cannot believe that you had enough courage to do that thing. You had enough courage to hurt me like that or insult me like that.”
That’s what it means when we say, “How dare you?”
Even though that looks like a question—it has a question word in it (how?), and it ends in a question mark—it isn’t really a question. We are not really asking for an answer when we say to somebody, “How dare you?”
Because what it really means is “I cannot believe that you said that,” or “I cannot believe that you did that.” “That was so bad. It was so awful. It was so hurtful that I cannot believe you had enough courage to do it.”
I think this expression sounds pretty strong. We do not say this—at least not in a serious way—for small things, for minor things. We save this for big things and important things. “How dare you?” sounds very strong and very important, and it expresses great anger or great hurt or a great feeling of being insulted.
And that is “How dare you?”—a very useful expression that I think you should know.
Outro
This is the end of episode 281 of Everybody ESL. Remember: if you have questions about English, or if you have comments or suggestions for me, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Puyan recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode—send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. I’ll be back soon with a new episode, and until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. I’ll see you soon. Goodbye!