In this mini episode, you will learn the interesting phrase "or else.”
Episode 479 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the interesting phrase "or else.” 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, everybody! This is Shuma, from Japan, And you are listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 479 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 a useful phrase. The phrase is “or else." Or else. That's spelled o-r e-l-s-e. Or else.
Before I can talk about this phrase, “or else,” I need to talk about the word else. I think this might be kind of a difficult word to understand. Else means “other, or other than, or different from.” And you will hear else used in phrases like “anyone else” or “anything else.”
For example, you can imagine somebody knocking on a door, and then when a small child answers, you can imagine the person saying, “Hello, is anyone else at home?” Is anyone else at home? In other words, "Is anybody other than you home right now?”“Are there other people at home?”
Or somebody might say, “When you go to the store, can you please pick up something for me? Can you please pick up some apples for me?” And the other person might say, “Yes, of course. Anything else? Would you like anything else?” In other words, "Would you like something other than apples?” Or "Would you like something different from apples?”“Are there other things you would like too?”
This meaning of else is found in this phrase, “or else.” But this phrase, “or else,” is a little bit strange because it stands for a complete sentence. It is missing most of the parts of a sentence, but we can understand it anyway.
When “or else” is used by itself, it always sounds like a threat. It always sounds like someone is saying, “Some other thing will happen.”Or maybe, "Something other than what you want will happen.” It always sounds like something bad will happen.
When you hear someone say, "Or else,” they are saying something bad will happen to you.
Here is an example of a situation where someone might use this phrase, “or else”:
“You had better leave my house, or else.”
Like I said, “or else,” used like that—used all by itself—is a complete sentence. It's missing most of the pieces of a sentence, but we understand that it means “Or something bad will happen.” You had better leave my house, or something bad will happen. If you don't leave my house, something bad will happen.
That's what I meant when I said that “or else”sounds like a threat: If you don't do this, something bad will happen.
If you think about it hard, you can see how “or else”contains that meaning that we talked about before, that meaning of else. Because it means “other, or other than, or different from.”
“Or else” means some bad thing other than what you want.
And that is “or else,” an interesting, strange, and useful expression that I think you should know.
Outro
This is the end of episode 479 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 Shuma 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!