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Hi, everybody.

Welcome back to ask Alicia the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them.

Maybe first question this week comes from Silas.

Hi, Silas.

Silas says Hi, Alicia.

How's it going?

I'd like to know the meaning of the expression.

Weird flex, but okay.

And how do I use it in a sentence.

Okay, this is a bit of recent slang.

Weird flex, but okay.

Focuses in on the meaning of the word flex.

So if you are interested in, like, health or like muscle training or anything like that, you might know the verb to flex.

So to flex is what we do when we want to show off a muscle.

We have been training, So when we flex a muscle, we put energy into the muscle to make the muscle like stand out.

We want it to look bigger, like we want to show off that muscle.

So when we flex a muscle, we're trying to show it off.

We're, like, excited about that thing, or we're proud about it or something like that.

So flex here in this expression, Weird Flex does not refer to muscle.

It doesn't refer to the body, but actually something else that the speaker or the writer is trying to show off.

So it's something that seems strange.

So in the example of muscles and muscle training, like the person who wants to show off wants to show their muscles.

But when we used the expression weird flex, someone is trying to show off something that seems strange.

And then we add, but OK, at the end to mean, I don't really understand, But all right, so to give an example of this, if I on Twitter, right, like I spent $3000 on socks this month, who and I talk about how excited I am?

I'm like showing off that I spent $3000 on socks.

Someone might respond to me Weird flex, but okay, so that means like it's strange that you want to show off that you spent $3000 on socks like that's a really strange thing to be excited about, but okay, so to give another example, your friend might tell you something like I have the biggest collection of rocks in my whole neighborhood, and you might say Weird flex, but okay.

So again, it's like, that's a strange thing that you want to show off.

Uh, okay.

Whatever it is like, it's not hurting anybody.

It's just a little bit weird that you want to show that off or you want to brag or boast about that thing.

So that's what weird flex, but okay.

Means you see this one a lot online.

I hope that that helps you.

Thanks very much for this interesting question.

Okay, let's move on to your next question.

Next question comes from Riggins Riggins.

Hi, Riggins.

Riggins says hi, Alicia.

I'm Riggins from Haiti.

I'm good in English.

But due to a lack of practice, I've kind of lost my touch because I'm sick and tired of the learning process.

So I'd like to know how to keep my English up.

Please.

Okay.

Um, first, I'm sure that you're not the only person like I lose motivation all the time.

I would say that if you are having trouble keeping your motivation up, you should try looking for a different way to practice or a different way to use English.

So, for example, if there's a hobby that you have in your native language, you could try doing that in English.

Or maybe there's a book or a movie that you are really interested in.

Or that seems cool.

And you want to understand that in English.

I would suggest trying to find something that's not like a traditional textbook or it's not a traditional way of learning, like going to class and doing work sheets and that kind of thing.

I would suggest actually trying to use English in your everyday life to, like, do your work or to study something or to accomplish a hobby.

Maybe you make a new friend who can speak only English.

So I would suggest finding something outside of a traditional learning setting to d'oh.

I think that that might help you a little bit with your motivation.

That has helped me a lot in the past.

Actually making friends with people who cannot speak my language has been hugely motivating for me, and I try to study the vocabulary words that they often talk about aunt.

I try to learn from their speech patterns, too, so I would suggest trying to find something to do with other people as much as possible that uses English.

So I hope that this helps you and helps other people with their motivation issues.

It happens to all of us at some point in time, but I hope that these tips can help.

Thanks very much for this question.

Okay, let's move on to your next question.

Next question comes from Amit Farouk.

Hello, Amit, Amit says.

What is the difference between May and can?

Okay, um Historically, May is used to ask for permission.

Can is used to express ability to do something or lack of ability to do something.

So that's the historical use of May and can.

In today's English, however, lots of people use can tow ask for permission to do something.

We do not, however, use May to talk about ability.

So let's take a look at some examples.

Can I go to the restroom?

May I go to the restroom?

Can I leave early today?

May I leave early today?

So in today's English, he's all refer to the same thing.

They're all requests to use the restroom or to leave early.

Ah, in today's American English.

I would say that using may tends to sound a little bit more formal than using can.

If you ever want to be sure to sound polite and to make sure you're communicating clearly, you can use May.

But in most day today conversations we use can.

So I hope that this helps you.

Thanks very much for the question.

Okay, let's move on to your next question.

Next question comes from Yovani hyo.

Bonnie Giovanni says, Hi, Alicia.

My name is Yovani.

I'm from Venezuela.

I've always wanted to know the meaning of this sentence.

Don't get twisted even though it's not used very often.

Thanks.

Yeah, you're right.

This isn't such a common expression.

I found only a few references to this expression.

And they were typically from music, actually.

Ah, so this expression could mean like, don't get angry or don't get upset or don't get nervous.

So it refers to being in like a negative condition so twisted if you imagine like a towel, do we have?

We do?

Yeah, For this explanation, let's imagine like a towel.

So a regular just plain towel when we hold the towel looks like this.

But if we twist the towel like this.

It's under tension like it's under pressure.

So if we imagine ourselves as like the towel like we're under pressure, we're really tight.

Were really tense.

We could be angry.

We could be nervous.

We could be upset about something.

So if someone says to you, don't get twisted, it's like Chill out like don't be upset.

Don't be angry.

Relax, in other words, So I would guess that this is what this word means or what this expression means rather.

But as you said, this is not such a common expression.

We don't say Don't get twisted.

Really?

In American English, you might hear people say something like, Just chill out as I've said are maybe like, Don't worry or they're a couple of other slightly more rude expressions that we use to.

So I hope that this helps you.

Thanks very much for the question.

Okay, let's move on to your next question.

Next question comes from uh, Malik.

Hi, Malik.

Malik says, Is this sentence correct?

The color of shirts of players?

Could you explain Maura about too possessive noun in a row.

Thanks in advance.

Yeah, Great question.

This is kind of tricky.

So in this situation, we would say the color of the players shirts.

So a key here is that we're using players and we're using an apostrophe after the S in players.

That apostrophe is acting as a possessive a posture feet.

So we have two ways of creating the possessive in English we can use of as in the color of the players shirts and we can use the apostrophe s form.

So, for example, Alicia's would be Alicia Apostrophe s.

The apostrophe s shows something is belonging to meet.

That's my thing.

Alicia's phone.

So in this situation, we have players players here.

We're talking about shirts that belonged to players, So it's not just one person.

When a noun ends with an S, we make the plural, possessive form by adding an apostrophe to the end of the word, and we do not add another s.

So in the singular form, when I said Alicia's phone, for example, Alicia is one person.

So I right, Alicia Apostrophe s in this example.

However, because we're talking about a group of people players, we don't use an apostrophe s because the word already ends in s and it sounds kind of strange.

Just try to say like, players is something like that.

So to avoid this, we simply right players with s and adding apostrophe at the end.

So this shows the plural form that means plural, possessive apostrophe there.

It's very natural to use that apostrophe form of the possessive when we're talking about something that belongs to a person.

So again, in my example, when I said Alicia's phone, it sounds quite natural to use that apostrophe s to show possession as a person in the plural form Two players shirts.

It's a shirt sport shirts that belong to a player.

So when we're not using a person when we're using like an object, it might be a little bit more common to see and of pattern used there.

In this case, it's color of the shirts, so color is like a characteristic that belongs to the shirt or, in this case, shirts.

So here it sounds natural to use the of pattern because there's not a person here.

We're talking about the characteristics of an object color of the shirts so of can be used to talk about like characteristics of things and the apostrophe s form can be used to talk about like things that belong to people.

Let's look at one more example, though, that uses no people.

So, for example, the color of the seats in the cars or the color of the cars seats so we could use either of these patterns.

I personally would probably use the color of the seats in the cars because we can clearly see, like the levels of belonging.

First, we have color, and the color belongs to the seats and the seats are in the cars.

So I think that sounds much nicer.

You might see that color of the cars seats sentence, though, as we talked about.

It's a little bit less natural, maybe to use the possessive apostrophe there with car because it's not actually a person.

I think you might use that, though.

I don't think it's incorrect to use that, but I personally would prefer to use something that kind of clearly shows the hierarchy, the level of belonging or the levels of belonging, as in the first example the color of the seats in the car.

I hope that this helps you thank you very much for this interesting question.

All right, so that is everything that I have for this week.

Thank you.

As always for sending your great questions.

Remember, you can send them to me at English class window one dot com slash ask hyphen.

Alicia.

Of course, if you liked this lesson, please don't forget to give it a thumb's up.

Subscribe to our channel if you have not already, and check us out in English class 121 dot com for some other things that can help you with your English studies.

Thanks very much for watching this week's episode of Ask Alicia and I Will See You again next week.

Bye bye.

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