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Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Proverbs 75. The name of the proverb
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today is ' The straw that broke the camel's back. " Okay this is actually
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pretty common one. All right. Let's take a look at the note here. This proverb
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refers to the last thing in a series of negative things that causes a breakdown
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in a system or someone to lose one's patience or simply to be a breaking
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causes, a breaking point that causes something to fail. So it's not
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usually just one thing it was usually a number of things that we're building up
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over time. Just like the idea of you know, if you pack too much stuff on the
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camel's back is obviously it's not the first thing or the second thing or the
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third thing you put on it, but there comes a point that if you just continue
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and continue and continue, eventually the camel's back will break or he will
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collapse. The whole thing will fall apart. So let's continue here. They say this
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proverb does come from an Arab proverb about overloading a camel's back
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beyond its capacity. So that's what they the original idea did come from. All
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right. Again. Let's continue the form of this proverb close to our modern-day use
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can be first found in a Charles Dickens novel "Dombey and Son. " Remember Charles
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Dickens 'A Christmas Carol' , he's famous for many, many famous novels. The original
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wording in the Dickens novel was 'as the last straw breaks the laden camel's
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back. 'Yeah. Laden always means that you know, you have a lot of stuff that's weighing
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down. That's really heavy , you know by putting a lot of things on top of
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something. We always say something is laden with it. It's filled with it and
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it's weighing down. The Laden camel's back. It's also formed into another
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phrase in which someone can say something is the last straw. And that one's
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pretty common too. So well that's the last straw I'm quitting or something
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like that. It means the last thing there's been a lot of things been building up to
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this point and that's it. That's the end. All right. So
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let's continue and let's give one good example here. Jack was already on
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the bad side of the boss due to his poor performance and laziness for many months.
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Yes. It was probably quite a number of things that was building up that the
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boss was annoying the boss about, about Jack you know. So was it again that just
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wasn't one thing. It was like 10 things or 15 things. Today when he arrived at an
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important meeting 30 minutes late the boss said that was the last straw.
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That's it. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. He fired him on the
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spot. Yeah. Now normally you know if somebody's just late once for a meeting
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they probably won't be fired just for that. So that's why very often the thing
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that breaks the camel's back or the thing that's the last straw is not
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always the worst thing or the most serious thing but it's usually been
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building for a long time and somebody again somebody just lost their patience
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or that was the thing that finally made something foul or collapse. Then we say
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that thing is the thing that broke the camel's back or that thing is the last
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straw. Okay anyway, I hope you got it. I hope it's clear. Thank you for your time . Bye-
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bye.