Daily Dose of English 29
Chapstick
Daily Dose of English 29
Intermediate
Hey, everybody. My name is Ben and you're listening to a Daily Dose of English. This is a short, simple podcast that you can listen to every day to improve your English. You can find the transcripts for all episodes and more on benslanguagelab.com. I'm glad you could make it today. In this episode, we're going to be talking about chapstick, or lip balm as it's sometimes called, or anything that you put on your lips in order to hydrate them and keep them healthy, or to maybe cure wounds of some kind. because I quite like ChapStick and it's something that I use many times every single day. In fact, right now I have a stick in my hands that I'm playing with because they also make for great fidget toys. Toys that you don't really do anything with other than just move around while you're at your desk or working or recording a simple daily English podcast, you know, as you might do. But there's a lot more to talk about with ChapStick, I think, especially starting from the name because that name is a brand. There's a brand called ChapStick that got very popular and it sort of turned itself into the default name for chapstick in the US. I don't actually know what it's called in other parts of the English-speaking world, but where I'm from, you can refer to anything that you put on your lips in order to hydrate them or to keep them moist or whatever as chapstick. That's all chapstick is the idea. This phenomenon is often called genericization or generic is, actually, I don't know how do you say it, but it's when something becomes generic, when you use a brand name for a generic, just word, right? There's a lot of them, especially in the US because we have so many products that are like critical, I guess, to the American experience. But ChapStick is one of those. Kleenex is also a really, really common name for any kind of facial tissue. That's not necessarily in the part where I'm from. I would call it a tissue. Let's see. Coke is another one in some parts of the country. When you say Coke, it means any sort of fizzy drink, not necessarily just Coca-Cola. However, I would call that soda. Are there any, or Googling, right? So often you can just say Google it to mean search the internet for it. It doesn't necessarily mean to use Google. There's lots of different things like that, where we sort of genericized the name of something to become Google. the default term. I don't think I use a ton of those. I probably have some that I just don't even realize that are actually brand names, except for Chapstick, which is one of the main ones that I definitely still use. That's what the word is to me. I didn't even know it was a brand for many, many years growing up. I just thought it was the word for the thing. because I almost never use that brand. I don't think I've ever had a chapstick chapstick, which is kind of a weird sentence to say. I tend to use other brands a little more often because I like them, how they feel and yeah. Something that I find a little bit funny, I guess, about chapsticks in general is that a lot of people complain about losing them. There's almost a meme that you can see on the internet of people saying that they never finish a chapstick because they always lose them before that time. Because they're not very big, right? They're maybe two inches tall. and they can easily fit under furniture or they can just fall out of your pocket or they can just hide away at the bottom of a bag. There's a lot of ways to lose a chapstick. But my, I guess, superpower is that I almost never lose my chapsticks. Honestly, I don't really think that I ever do lose them. Usually it's somebody else's fault if I lose my chapstick because they misplace it or something like that. because I don't really know why, it's just never been difficult for me. I use it and I put it back where it goes. But I think one of my tricks is that I often have, or I usually have a different chapstick for each different place that I go, right? So I have one here at my desk, I have one in the bathroom, I have one for my backpack, and I have one for, even for like just the sitting room or the living room, I'll have a chapstick on the table just in case, right? And so there's a lot of different chapsticks all over the house in order to not lose them. because I especially like to get the ones that are a little bit nicer maybe a little bit fancier if you want or if you're here's a fun new word bougie no idea where that word comes from but bougie is a way to say something that's fancy but it's not necessarily better right it's just more expensive is the main thing of something that's bougie and you feel a little bit more fancy using it. So for example, this chapstick I have right here is Yuzu citrus made by a small brand from my hometown. And yuzu is not a fruit that grows in the US. It's a citrus fruit from Japan, I'm pretty sure. And yuzu citrus is a very bougie flavor to have. But it is delicious, I will say. It's a lovely sort of light citrusy flavor between lemon and orange or something like that. And so I very much actually, I do really enjoy it. It's a very nice chapstick. But I think, honestly, my second favorite brand, let's talk about more brands, I guess, why not, is Burt's Bees. And they're available in a lot of places that I've seen, at least in the US and Mexico and North America. So they might not be available in Europe, but I have no idea, or any other part of the world. But Burt's Bees, I like because the wax in it is very uh it works with my lips really well it's like sort of it's i don't know it doesn't hurt them it's it's very sort of firm but i've heard that a lot of people don't like it so um I don't know. It's also a little bit expensive. I think each stick is like 4. Don't lose them because they do last months if you don't lose them. I think my favorite brand, honestly, is just Vaseline. Oh, that's another one. I think that's not a brand or that is a brand, but it's used as sort of a generic term, I think. Or is it a brand? I have no idea. Whatever. But I really like Vaseline because it's fairly cheap, it doesn't really smell like much, and it's really, you can kind of use it for a lot of things. And it's, I don't know, it's just very satisfying to use on my lips, honestly. This is a very weird episode, now that I'm actually sitting here and recording this, it just sounds strange. I'm talking about lips and waxes and balms. So I apologize if you find this a little bit strange or off-putting. But you know what? We're going to roll with it. I've had some interesting episodes in the last couple days. So we're just going to keep going. Why not? But yeah, I like Vaseline because also you can use it on little cuts or scrapes or if you have dry skin or whatever. And so it's just generically useful. It also lasts forever. I got a little tub of it. uh, like a year ago or something like that. And it's still like halfway done. And I use it every single day. I don't, I don't really understand how it's still half full. Cause like I use it every day and I feel like it should go down. There should be less of it, but it just doesn't seem to ever end. And so I don't know how they actually like survive as a, as a company making products, because if everybody has to buy one of them, like once every, 11 years, like how are you going to sell your product? But I guess that it works somehow. I don't know. Maybe people lose their Vaseline. So that could, that could be a thing too. Oh yeah. That's the generic term. The generic term is petroleum jelly, which is a, just a terrible name, which is why everybody calls it Vaseline. Anyways, I've also had some interesting discussions with people about chapsticks because everybody has their own way of using them. For example, I keep the wax part barely out of the plastic, right? So you can barely see it so that I can put it on. But some people, they like to fully extend it, right? They completely take the wax out like a couple of centimeters in order to put it on because I don't know why I guess I don't get it. It just looks so weird. It looks like to me, it looks like you're going to take a bite, which obviously would be disgusting. And so I just don't understand how people can both fully take it out and then they'll put it like back away, like three inches down into the thing. But that just doesn't make sense to me. I always keep mine just a little bit out of the top so that I can easily apply it to my lips and move on with my life. I don't have to fiddle with the controls or anything like that. And so I've had some funny, they're not actual arguments, but I will definitely make fun of somebody and say, you take the entire chapstick out? What a weirdo. because it's something that just looks strange to me. I don't know why. It gives me the heebie-jeebies. Ooh, what's that? I don't know. It just looks strange, okay? That's a good word if you don't know the heebie-jeebies, and that's when something makes you a little bit uncomfortable or feel weird for not really any reason, or maybe just seeing something kind of gross, like mice or something. I don't know, but anyways. Okay, I'm going to stop talking about ChapStick now. This is a very odd episode. I apologize, but I hope that you kind of enjoyed it. At least, I don't know. Let me know down below what kind of ChapStick do you like? Do you use ChapStick or do you do something else? I'm looking forward to seeing your responses, but I'll see you again tomorrow for another episode. Have a great one and I'll see you then. Bye-bye.
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