What's the name of that director?

It's just on the tip of my...

Oh.

Hi. James from engVid.

Today I want to teach you about a word "tip".

We use this word a lot in English, and I am going to teach you what it means,

some collocations-and

collocations are words that are found together generally, you know, a lot-and a few idioms.

If you're ready, we'll go to the board, visit Mr. E and start our lesson.

Let's go.

So, E has "tip", he's pointing to his tongue and he's pointing to these icebergs, and he's

pointing to the tip.

So I've got an idea that "tip" has something to do with the edge or the pointed part of something.

Hmm?

Well, here's our word: "tip".

For pronunciation, you go: "t-ip".

Right?

"ip", "tip", like: "dip" or "sip".

So that's pronunciation.

I think it's very important that you not only know what the word means, but how to say it

or how to recognize it when you hear it.

So that's our lesson for the day.

The two basic meanings of "tip" are: A) a gift of money for service.

Not everywhere in the world this happens, but in North America and in England, if you

go to a restaurant, when you...

Oh, sorry.

Not England.

[Laughs] In North America, which is Canada, the United States, not including Mexico, but

in these two countries after you finish a meal you are kind of obligated to leave a

little extra money if the service is good.

So if you liked the waiter or waitress, they do a good service, you leave money and it's

called a tip.

It's a gift for good service, like:

"Thank you. I really appreciate it. Here you go."

We also do this for taxis.

All right?

Now, the pointed end of something...

Here's my tongue and the tip, the tip of my tongue.

That's the tip of my tongue, ah.

But also with this marker, that's the tip of the marker.

It's pointed and it's the very end.

And that should help you understand why E was pointing to the tip of the iceberg which

is pointed and the tip of his tongue.

With these two ideas we're going to now move into how we can use "tip" like a native speaker,

and some idioms as well.

Okay? To make English fun and understandable.

The first one we talked about, "tip" at a restaurant. Money.

But do you know "tip" is also for information?

Remember we said it's the tip or the pointed end?

Well, it's the beginning of something.

When someone gives you a tip, they might come to you close and go:

"Hey. I've got a hot tip."

So, "tip" here could also be hot, and that means like it's special information, important information.

Something they want to tell you that's going to benefit you.

"Hey, I got a hot tip about a car selling for a really cheap price and it's in really

good condition."

It's special and it's for you.

It's pointed to you.

All right?

This one's a funny one.

If you...

[Laughs] Another meaning for "tip" is to make something...

If it tips it will fall over.

So it means on an angle to fall.

Right?

It tipped over it went: "Wuh, boom".

It tipped.

"Tip" means to fall over, but in North America there's a little habit people have of cow tipping.

I don't suggest that you do it, it's not funny because the poor cows, they sleep standing up.

And some people will go to farms and they will push the cow, and the cow will fall over,

wake up.

"Moo. Who mooved me?"

It's not nice.

Don't do it.

All right?

That's number three.

So, "tip" here also means to make fall over.

So these are three basic pieces of information about "tip".

One is tip given for service; two is for information that you give to someone, especially a hot

tip; and three if something's tipping over like a book or a glass, it's going to fall.

All right?

And we did talk about the pointed end of something, and that's where we lead to here.

"Tip of the iceberg".

See how big icebergs are?

Okay?

Well, they're very tall.

If you look here you see this part here, yeah?

Well, that's a smaller part of something larger.

So if someone tells you something, like:

"And then he did that, and that's just the tip of the iceberg",

that means that small part is nothing compared to how much more is coming.

There's an enormous or a great amount of information, or other things about to happen.

Right?

So: "We went to the party, and we got shrimp to eat.

But that was the tip of the iceberg.

Then there was lobster, there was a pasta dish.

It just went on and on."

And you're like:

"Wow! That's a lot!" Here's one you might not know or I'm sure you don't.

See my hand?

"Tip one's hand".

No, I'm not talking about the finger.

When you tip your hand it's to reveal what you're going to do or let people know about

a secret.

Okay? Huh?

Well, I own a company and I want to buy someone else's company, so we're talking maybe at

lunch or dinner, and then I say:

"You know, John, I've always liked your company. I want to buy it."

I've just tipped my hand.

I've let them know what my intention is in my head and let them know.

So, "to tip one's hand" is like playing cards, you show them: This is what I have, this is

what I want to do.

All right?

Sometimes people say: "Don't tip your hand."

It means keep your cards or don't let them know what you want to do.

Keep it secret.

All right? That's tipping your hand.

Here's number six: "tip the scales".

Well, scales weigh things.

How much does it weigh?

Right?

Is it heavy, is it light, what have you?

In a lot of sports, they like talking about the big players.

And when they say...

Or boxing, or martial arts, they talk about tipping the scales and it means something

has or specifically in this case somebody has a certain weight.

So when you go: "He tips the scales at 250 pounds.

He's a big guy and he weighs 250 pounds."

Right?

So "to tip the scales" is usually used for weight.

How much does a person weigh?

And especially used in sports.

If you watch football or soccer, they don't talk about those guys.

But you talk about the boxers, UFC fighters, you know, MMA, or football players, American football

or hockey players because they like to talk about how big they are.

Tipping the scales.

The "tip of the tongue".

We talked about that early...

Earlier, and if you remember...

So let's go back.

It's on the tip of my...

That's right, I reversed back in time to show you "tip of the tongue" means I want to say

it, his name is Luca-...

But I can't remember.

It's on the tip of my tongue.

I have the knowledge, but I can't seem to remember it well enough to say it.

So when something's on the tip of your tongue it means you want to tell somebody something,

but you can't remember the information, but you know it's right in here and it's just

not coming out.

So you're ready to speak, but can't remember.

"Tip one's hat".

"Good day, Governor. How are you today, sir?"

When you tip one's hat it's to show respect.

In the old days, people used to tip their hat by going: "Hello" to the ladies or the

gentlemen, and it would be saying: "Hello. How are you?"

But sometimes you'll see people today say: "I tip my hat to you, sir."

It means you've done something special, unexpected, and it's a show of respect, like:

"What you did I respect a lot, so I tip my hat to you."

I take...

I show you respect.

"Tip" here.

Do you remember we talked about "tip" is information for help?

Well, the police usually have a problem finding criminals and people don't want to talk.

So sometimes they pick up their phone: "Hello. Police?

No, you don't need to know my name.

No. Don't need to know my name, but I will tell you about the criminal who had the gun."

This is called "anonymous tip".

"nym" meaning name, "anom" means no name.

It means they give information to the police to help them solve a crime, find a criminal,

but they don't say their name so their identity is hidden.

It's an anonymous tip.

Information to help the police.

You can give an anonymous tip at work as well.

It's like: "Boss..."

You can't say: "Boss, I know who did it" because that's not anonymous.

But if you left a card and didn't sign it, and just said:

"Mr. E was the one smoking the cigarettes and eating the chocolates."

They go: -"Who told you?"

-"Nobody, but I have this letter. It's an anonymous tip."

And I'm having troubles saying "anonymous", so I know you probably have trouble saying

it, too.

So you can say: "a-non-y-mous, anonymous".

Cool?

Let's go on to the next one.

Remember: "anonymous" means to not know.

You don't know the person who said it or wrote it.

"Tip the balance".

Well, you see there's a little balance beam, it's equal now, right?

But when something tips the balance what it does is it's a change or something that happened

which will make something more likely to happen.

I know, okay, let's go back over that again.

That's a complicated sentence.

More likely to happen means maybe before it was 50/50 but now it will be 70 to 80, maybe

100% going to happen.

So when something is more likely to happen you have changed something that was:

"Enh, I don't know", to: "Definitely I'm going to".

An example, maybe I see a beautiful girl across the road and I think:

"Oh, I would really like to say 'Hello' to her and ask her to go out for a date.

But she's really beautiful."

But then I see her with heavy groceries and she's looking for help, and I go:

"Now I'll go and say 'Hello', because she could use my help and then I can ask her."

Her groceries have tipped the balance, given me an opportunity to go and talk to her.

Yeah, see?

Or maybe someone offers you a job and it's a lot of hard work and a lot of time, and

you're like: "I don't know about this.

This seems difficult."

And then they say: "We'll pay you 1 million dollars."

Well, that tips the balance, I'm going to take that job for sure.

Anyway, we've done some...

Well, we've done the basic definition of "tip", we worked on the pronunciation-right?-we've

given some meanings, other meanings for the word "tip", as well as some common idioms.

I want to go now to do some collocations and a little quiz to make sure you've mastered the lesson.

Are you ready?

Let's go.

[Snaps]

Okay.

So, let's look at those collocations, shall we?

Remember: a collocation, a collocation are words that are usually found together and

have a certain meaning.

Okay?

In this case since we're working on "tip", what I've done is I've put the word "tip"

with a box to show you where it would show up when you say the collocation.

You'll notice it's not always in the same place.

Now, when you have "tip" and "of" together it usually means the pointed end of something.

This is the tip of my finger, that is the tip of my tongue, and this is the tip of the

marker, the pointed end.

Cool?