Name: English Tutor Nick P Verb Phrase (140) Black Out
Uploaded: 2019-06-25T14:52:56.000Z
Duration: 5 min
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Verb Phrase 140. The  verb phrase today is to

black out. Okay. Today we actually have five meanings for black out and we also

The imperative

give you five examples to cover each meaning. All right. Let's take a look at the

note here. Let's look at the first meaning. The  first meaning of black out which is

maybe the most common one. It means to faint or lose consciousness. So if you faint,

you fall on the floor. We could say that somebody just blacked out.

You can almost imagine you know,  it's like your eyes see black. You're out.

You're unconscious. So you don't know what's going on. Let's look at the first

example.  I was so weak and sick from illness,   I just blacked out and fell to

the floor. So that's perfect for the first example. Let's look at the second

meaning here.  if someone blacks out a period of time

or memory,  he or she can no longer remember that experience. So a lot of

times ...well I don't know if we do it purposely or sometimes it's just our

mind that does it and to help protect us.  So we actually have some examples here

for this one too. Here somebody might say I just tried to black out that memory..

It means sometimes sometimes you try to purposely do it. Because when you

think of that , it's just too painful and you can't handle it. So I'm just trying

to black out that memory and it's too painful to think about. Yeah. Or actually

this is ... the next one can also cover this too. We sometimes say amnesia is a

natural defense mechanism that blacks out a tragic memory. So if you had

something very terrible happen to you. Sometimes we know,  people get amnesia.

They can't remember their identity. They can remember a lot of things they learned,

but they can't remember their identity.  And we sometimes say it's a natural

defense mechanism because your mind couldn't handle it for a period of time.

You know , eventually usually most peoples' memories do come back and they

do remember their identity. But you know,  you you might black it out. Whether it's

consciously or unconsciously. You try to black it out. So you don't remember it

anymore. We also use blackout really ... I didn't put in here but a lot of times we

might use it when people are really drunk.  They got so drunk,  they went out that

night. Maybe they remember the beginning of the night , but when they got past a

certain drunk point ... maybe they probably they could have also collapsed so they passed

out woke up somewhere. We say that they blacked out. He blacked out. You know , from

being too drunk. And if he blacked out,  when he wakes up he can't remember a

period of the time when he was very, very drunk. All right. Let's look at the next

one. To prevent something from being broadcast in a specific area. Okay. With

this one of course .. we have the next one here. In some countries,  in some communist

countries some news is blocked out from being reported in the media. So the

government is blocking it out because maybe they fear people finding out this

information or finding out the truth about this information. So it might be

blacked out in that sense. All right.  Let's look at the next one here. To cover

with black lines. Literally putting black lines over something,  so that something

cannot be read. Then we say to black out.  Let's look at this example here. We

were able to get this government document from the Freedom of Information

Act. That's a law that was passed that people have the right to find out this

information. So they can request it from the government. However one of the big

problems is sometimes you do get some information that's useful. But there's

other times you'll just get a lot of papers with a lot of black lines through

it. So,  so let's continue. This is what they usually say. However the government

blocked out or blacked out many lines for national security reasons.

So they blacked them out. So you can't read it. So I don't know how freedom of

information. Well,  you have the freedom to get a lot of black lines.  I guess if they

black out too much. Usually they always claim it's national security reasons and

that's why they can do that. But that's what it is. That's blacking out with a pen.

They actually draw black lines over. They draw

deep enough that you can't see through it.  Okay. And oh well this one.  I could just

give you an example for this one. Because actually I gave you two examples for one

of the other ones. For lights,  if we say the lights blackout well this is a

blackout. Just means to go out. Yeah the lights are blacked out for several

hours. You know during that storm. Or you know maybe there really was a blackout

an electric pole went down and the lights were blacked out. So you can use

it that way as well.  Okay. Anyway I hope you got it. I hope it was

clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.

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English Tutor Nick P Verb Phrase (140) Black Out

literally

specific

eventually

phrase