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  • Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Adjective Phrase 28. The adjective phrase

  • today is Six Feet Under. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here.

  • If someone says that another person is Six Feet Under,

  • it means that person is dead and buried. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here.

  • The origin of this phrase goes all the way back to the Black Plague. The Mayor

  • of London you know, at that time had enacted a law to bury bodies at least

  • six feet under the ground to limit the spread of the plague. So that's the first

  • time that six feet was actually mentioned. Okay. This thinking turned out

  • to be incorrect because the disease spread by fleas usually spread before a

  • body was dead and buried and it was ended. So they ended up ending this for a

  • while. However it was brought back in the 1800s.

  • So however in the 1800's, there was a demand for dead bodies due to training

  • medical doctors. I don't know maybe they started making a lot more medical

  • advances and they had a lot more medical students and they needed more dead

  • bodies and there were many grave robbers being paid to produce the dead bodies

  • and this was a problem. So they ... brought back six feet to make it more

  • difficult for the grave robbers to rob the graves because it's a lot further

  • that they have to dig down. Okay. Good. progress was being made. Thus the law was

  • reversed back to six feet. Like today in our present time in the US. it varies

  • from state to state , but six feet is still usually kept as an old habit and

  • standard. So some could be a lot less I've heard it you know it could be even

  • as little as two feet, but you know, probably want to be at least that or

  • further down to make sure that the the odor of the decaying body cannot come

  • through. Okay. All right. Anyway, let's continue

  • here. Let's look at two examples. Just to see how it's used. You should be

  • careful if you become a whistleblower and produce state evidence, you may end

  • up six feet under. Yeah if you're testifying against somebody you know

  • somebody who's powerful and has connections you know, they may send

  • somebody to have something happen to you. So you could end up six feet under.

  • Or number two here. if you don't give up smoking three packs of cigarettes a day

  • you may end up six feet under at an early age. So in that sense it's actually

  • used in kind of a humorous way. To be you know, death is usually not humorous , but

  • this is one way to kind of make it or ease it , so that it's not so bad. Okay.

  • Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope it was clear. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Adjective Phrase 28. The adjective phrase

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