Nov 27, 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl9O14qWvxo
Episode transcript below:
Hello! How are you doing? Today is Black Friday. In the United States, this is a crazy day. I have to tell you a little bit about it and how it can benefit you.
I recently came back to the United States after travelling a lot this year. And so I was here for Thanksgiving yesterday, which was lovely. I got to spend it with my family. And today is Black Friday.
What the heck is Black Friday? That’s what all my international friends are asking me, because it’s a really big deal in the United States and it’s beginning to go to other countries. I know England and in other countries too, I’m sure, they’re picking up the Black Friday sale.
So, Black Friday is a huge shopping day in the United States. It’s probably the biggest shopping day, because a lot of stores will offer their products at a special low price. So, they’ll have a lot of promotions and people get really crazy about this, because also the stores open up at early hours. Some stores even open up at midnight on Thursday, well, early Friday morning, right? So, to start off Black Friday as early as possible, it actually starts some places in the middle of the night. Crazy, right?
So, I started wondering: where did Black Friday come from? Where did the name come from? You know I love language and I’m always curious about the meaning and where our vocabulary comes from. So, I thought you might like to know, because it will also help you with your English.
So, Black Friday is always the day after Thanksgiving. Americans typically spend Thanksgiving at home with their families and then the next biggest holiday after Thanksgiving is Christmas. And so, for Christmas, we usually give gifts to each other. So, after Thanksgiving, people start to think about buying presents for their friends and family. So, the day after Thanksgiving, since often it’s a holiday, or people take the day off – Sorry, I shouldn’t say it’s a holiday. It’s not an official holiday. But most people try to take it off of work so that they can relax or go shopping. So it’s a really good time, very convenient for a lot of people, to go shopping. And so, this is the day of the year where a lot of shops will see a lot of sales, a lot of income, a lot of shoppers spending money. So, this is where Black Friday comes in.
In accounting, we have two terms: “in the red” or “in the black”. If you are “in the red”, that means your business is losing money. If you are “in the black”, that means that your business is making money. You have a good income, you have profits: that’s “in the black”. So whenever you have negative money, it’s “in the red”. Whenever you have positive money, it’s “in the black”.
And so that is one of the most popular explanations of why we call today Black Friday, because it’s the day when a lot of retailers will finally see profits. They’ll see a lot of profits; they’ll be in the black. So it’s Black Friday!
Okay, so, what’s the connection? How can it benefit you as an English learner?
Well, I started thinking about all of my English-teacher friends online. The last couple of months, I’ve been thinking about how to connect with them. You know that I’m all about connection, and especially for learning English, I believe in connecting with people through English. That should be our biggest priority, to be able to speak fluently and understand other people to connect with them. But I do that in other ways in my life, too. So you might not realize this – it’s kind of a secret, but not really a secret, we just don’t talk about it a lot – but a lot of the online English teachers are friends. So I reached out to the people who I know and who I respect, and I know that they’re doing an amazing job with their teaching online, and their products and courses. And I said, “Hey! Let’s offer something special to our English learners online for B...