Daily Dose of English 91
Underwear
Daily Dose of English 91
Intermediate
Hey everyone, 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 gonna be talking about underwear, because why not? Underwear or what that's what we call in the US the clothes that you wear Under your other clothes, so they're not really they're Interior clothes or what are other words for underwear? I I don't, is there anything else for it? I'm sure there's gotta be some British word or something to say what underwear is. But it's things like boxers, briefs, boxer briefs, panties, bras, things like that. All of the different. Underwear and so I kind of wanted just to talk a little bit about underwear because it's Sort of interesting I think because everybody kind of has their own opinions But they don't really talk about it or at least we don't in English It's not a very common topic of conversation because it's kind of weird right? It's your it's your underwear. It's sort of private And so I thought I might make an interesting little little video here because when else would you learn these words? I don't know um So I guess we'll start with just the underwear is generally used for any clothes that go directly against your skin and are not meant to be seen. That's the general definition but there's not a strict definition. There's a lot of things that could be considered underwear but aren't and things that aren't underwear or that don't seem like underwear but probably kind of are. So a good example is that socks aren't really thought of as underwear despite them being a very similar thing to your regular underwear. And there's also a very fine line between bathing suits and underwear, especially women's bathing suits. A bikini is basically the same thing as regular women's underwear except it's a little bit thicker and dries out faster. That's basically the entire difference for a lot of things. Of course, there's other tons of different versions and variations that would make it. a little bit different. And I think we should also get into naming because that's sort of the main thing. Like what is underwear called in English? And so I think I'll hop to men's underwear because that's just what I know better. That's what I buy and wear. And there's a couple of different styles that are popular. The first one is which is the best kind, the best style is called boxer briefs. And boxer briefs is the underwear that's a little bit tight, not like too tight, but they're kind of long. So they go down your leg a little bit, so sort of to around your mid-thigh more or less, and they hold your junk in place. tightly, not too tightly, it's not like pinching it, but it's like grabbing it and you have that support. And those are the best kind because they're quite comfortable, they're easy to wear, they can be really breathable, and they don't let things fly around, if you get what I mean. So boxer briefs are kind of a combination of boxers and briefs. Boxers are those sort of typical underwear that you might think of as like if you draw a picture of underwear. They're sort of like shorts. They're essentially shorts that go inside of your shorts or your pants. because they have a lot more space in them, right? They don't grab your legs or your butt. So there's more openness and flowiness to boxers. I don't know where they get their name, honestly. They might have something to do with boxing, I guess. I don't know. But there's a lot more space in there. And I find this to be quite uncomfortable because there's extra space in there. And if you move around, right, there's a lot of, there's no support, you could say. And that can be kind of uncomfortable. Briefs are the other one which is where there is if you think of like Superman his underwear is sort of that in the shape of a brief right that blue part I think where it is just your junk and then a small band kind of around your waist that becomes briefs. Again I don't really know where the name comes from but brief is something that's short so I guess it kind of comes from that. Um, and so briefs are tight. They do hold things in, but they're really short, right? There's not really any extra leg padding. And something that I like about, uh, boxer briefs is that they also help with sweat issues. Um, and so like, if your legs get a little bit sweaty, right, they don't rub together and end up sort of chafing. That's a good word. Chafing is when something rubs up against something, creating a sort of friction and an issue. It's typically used for skin, right? So if something's chafing up against your skin, it's like from your backpack or from your underwear or your pants or something like that. And so boxer briefs avoid the issues of uncomfortable boxers and the issue of uncomfortable boxer briefs. Tidy Whities are also a pretty famous, well-known, that's the same thing, a famous name for briefs that are very tight and white. And they're sort of seen as a very nerdy, uncool person wears Tidy Whities because they're like the underwear that your mom might buy you when you're in middle school or something. And so and those are called tighty-whities. Those are also not very comfortable and they do not look very good. So Probably avoid them, but I don't know maybe you like them. I'm not here to judge Going from men's underwear to women's underwear. There is sort of two halves to it typically because we think of the bra and the the bottoms or the panties as different parts of women under women's underwear And the bra is the top part. If you didn't figure that out because of the other part of the bottom part, what am I saying? Nevermind. And so we'll start with the bottoms. Bottoms, there's not that many different styles. There's a lot of different looks. Sure, there's tons and tons of different designs, especially if you get into, there's entire underwear stores dedicated to specifically women's underwear. Victoria's Secret is very common in the US, especially in malls. They typically specialize a bit more in bras and tops, but they definitely sell tons and tons of bottoms as well. The main style of bottoms that is, I think, common nowadays are called panties. little pants, essentially. Naming, again, doesn't really make sense. But those are the ones that are a very small bit of fabric that kind of goes between the legs and then around the waist. That's the most common. Then there's another style, which is kind of like briefs, where they go a bit further down the butt and the legs. And those are often called boy shorts. because they kind of look like boxers. Boy shorts, try saying that, that's hard to say. Boy shorts, boy shorts. And so those are a bit more supporting and they can be, they're very helpful if you have a, you're having your period or something like that and you need to, a little bit more comfort and support in your underwear. And then a little bit beyond that there's what we might call granny panties Which are panties that a granny would wear and those are you sort of similar to boy shorts? But they're usually a bit bigger and they're they kind of cover the entire Waist and a little bit of the belly as well and some of the legs. Those are the biggest ones They're typically of not a very interesting color like gray or white or something like that and they're sort of known as being comfortable, but not very nice to look at. But again, it's comfort should be the most important thing when choosing your underwear. And then going to the tops, there are not really a ton of different styles of bra. The only kind of main ones are like strapless, which means they don't have a strap on the shoulders and you just connect it in the back or sometimes the front. Then there's front connecting, back connecting. And there's not that many different styles. Yeah, you can get into like historical styles where it's like how it was supported, but the general idea is relatively similar. Except if you get into sports bras, which are sort of, they do visually look different. There's typically not wires in them. It's just like elastic and some padding of some kind. However, sports bras aren't really considered underwear because your underwear you shouldn't wear when outside, but with a sports bra that you wear to the gym or if you're going on a run and it's pretty normal. It's not something that's seen as, oh my God, you're in your underwear, whereas like a regular bra would look like that. Same thing goes for like a speedo if we go back to men's underwear a speedo is essentially Briefs but for swimming they're very tight very small, but that's not that's not underwear That's just a small swimsuit, which is sort of normal. So we have these very interesting distinctions between underwear versus like sportswear and And I think we might go into that into another episode. I'm thinking of doing a series of where episodes. So we'll see what I talk about in the next couple of episodes, various something where. So I hope that you enjoyed this kind of weird episode of me talking about underwear. And I hope to see you again tomorrow for an episode about software. I'll see you again. Bye.
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