In this mini episode, you will learn the interesting phrase “Woe is me.”
Episode 454 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the interesting phrase “Woe is me.” Send your questions about English and your comments and suggestions to EverybodyESL@gmail.com. (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Intro
“Hi! This is Farah Namira from Indonesia, and you are listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 454 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 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 an interesting phrase.
The phrase is “Woe is me.” Woe is me. That is w-o-e, is, me. Woe is me.
Before I tell you what this phrase means and how we use it, let’s look at that first word, woe. What is woe? Woe is a very old-fashioned word that means great sadness or a great tragedy. I don’t know if you will ever see or hear that word unless it is part of this larger phrase, “Woe is me.”
What does that phrase mean? When do people say, “Woe is me”? “Woe is me” is a way of expressing your feelings when something terrible has happened, when you feel a great sadness, or when you are experiencing grief. Or if you have experienced a great tragedy, you might say, “Woe is me.” It really means, “I have experienced something terrible.”
It comes from some versions of the Bible. And later, William Shakespeare used the phrase in his famous play Hamlet. This phrase has a very old-fashioned feeling to it.
The phrase doesn’t seem to make any sense. “Woe is me.” We really can’t use any other word besides woe in that sentence. We can’t say, “Sadness is me” or “Tragedy is me.” Those sound strange, and so does “Woe is me.” But that’s okay because it is a set phrase—an idiom. We just use it and don’t even really think about it.
When people use it now, they are probably doing it to sound old-fashioned or to sound funny.
Here is the kind of situation where I think you might hear this phrase:
Imagine that my friend is complaining about something. Imagine that my friend is complaining about something that I don’t think is very important. I think my friend’s complaints are a little bit silly. My friend is complaining about things that really aren’t so bad, and they’re not important. I don’t really know why he keeps complaining. Finally, in response to his complaining, I say, “Oh, woe is me!”
That is a funny or teasing way of saying, “This is what you sound like: You sound like somebody who has seen something terrible or who is experiencing great sadness or grief. I think you are exaggerating your problem.” We sometimes use the phrase “Woe is me” to tease somebody else. If we want to say, “I don’t think your complaint is really all that important. I don’t know why you are complaining so much. I don’t know why you are so upset about this.”
And that is “Woe is me,” an interesting phrase that I think you should know.
Outro
This is the end of episode 454 of Everybody ESL. Remember: If you have any questions about English, or if you have comments for me, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Farah 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!