AEE: This is Not Just a Run-of-the-Mill Episode
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This is the All Ears English Podcast. This is not just a run-of-the-mill episode. Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection with your American host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz.

and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. To get real-time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All Ears English app for iOS and Android. Start your seven-day free trial at allearsenglish.com forward slash app.

What can you say when something feels average or not special? Today, get new vocabulary to comment on experiences. Plus, find out how to add some variety to your life. This Father's Day, help dad be all he can be with a gift from the Home Depot. Because he's not just dad, he's the handyman of the house, the plumber in a pinch, and the emergency mechanic.

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Hey Aubrey, how are you today? I'm great Lindsay, how are you? Good. Aubrey, do you prefer a day that is run of the mill or would you rather have a day that's out of the ordinary? What kind of day would you like to have in general? I love a day that's out of the ordinary, right? I am not a fan of a run of the mill day. I want something to be different, switch it up, something exciting to happen. What about you, Lindsay? It's true. It's kind of the feeling I get when I come back from a trip.

when all of my days have been so different from my typical days at home. I've been maybe traveling abroad, different food, different air, different temperature, different people, different languages. It feels so alive. That's what makes you feel alive, Aubrey. And then we get back to the routine. It's kind of like same old, same old, the humdrum of the daily routine. Yeah. But I don't actually mind my daily routine either. We get to podcast. I mean, it's kind of awesome. That's true. We've

we rarely have a run-of-the-mill day right there's usually something out of the ordinary exciting and different happening all there's english so that helps that our our daily routine is is pretty fun that's for sure so this has been some great vocabulary that we're kind of hinting out for the episode i'm going to go ahead and read the question this came in from youtube and we do have a really nice youtube channel if you prefer to watch this podcast you can do that guys go over to youtube

type in All Ears English. Alright? This is from M Hashemi 7976. Shall I go ahead and read it, Aubrey? Yeah, let's do it. Alright.

All right, they said, "Hi, dear Lizzie and Michelle and Aubrey. I'm Milad Hashemi from Iran. Could you explore the expression run of the mill, its origin, meaning, and how it's typically used in both professional and casual contexts? I'm especially curious about how to use it naturally without sounding overly formal and outdated."

Love it. That's a great question. And I love that Milad is thinking about all of this, right? Not just what's it mean? How do I use it? But is it outdated? Can I still use it in what context? So yeah, we're going to get into all of this today. Yeah, these are all really important questions to be asking. So I'm glad you're asking it. Where does this word, this phrase run of the mill, where does it originate from?

Yeah, this originates from the industrial world. So it's referring to mills that produced goods like textiles or grain. So it initially referred to like average standard output of a mill before there was any quality control, sorting or improvements. So sort of describing all these goods that were average, not special or unique, because that's what it means run of the mill, something that's just average, it hasn't been approved upon in any way.

Okay. Yeah, the part of the country where I'm from, New England, has a lot of mills. I don't know if there are more than the rest of the country, but every town in New England, including the one where my parents live now, Dover, New Hampshire, you go there and there's an old mill that they've remade into apartment buildings or shops, lofts, artist lofts, that kind of thing. And it's just really ingrained in New England.

It's really interesting. I think it is more common in New England. I think so. It does not happen here very often, right? Okay. Yeah. But every now and then. There's an apartment complex where I went to college called Old Mill. This was in the West, in Utah. And they said that there used to be an old mill there. And so they called the complex Old Mill. It's probably due to the industry that was going on and the landscape. I think in the West, it's more farming, I guess, and farming.

different exactly based on the land manufacturing for sure yeah super interesting um aubrey where's the best place for our listeners to listen to the podcast

Oh man, definitely on our app. We have a free app, the All Ears English app. You can get it at allearsenglish.com slash app. And for premium members, we have so many great bonuses, transcripts that are human created transcripts and tappable keywords. We choose each week, each episode rather, the most useful keywords for you. And you can create a

personal vocabulary list there and then remove keywords once you have them part of your active vocabulary. It's really the best way to listen to the podcast. Exactly. I mean, what's the alternative when you listen to the show, writing down keywords on pieces of paper and then you lose them and how will you keep track of everything in one place? That happens inside the app.

So go to allersenglish.com slash APP and we have one for iOS and Android. So let us make it easy for you. You got it. All right, let's go into a bit deeper into run of the mill.

Yeah, let's give you some examples. So this just means like we said, ordinary, common, average. So an example might be they didn't choose that school because it's very run of the mill. They're looking for something exceptional. This reminds me of living in New York City and everyone who had kids just getting to elementary school, they were like interviewing school administrators. They wanted something where their child was going to be the best and brightest, right?

Yeah, it's so true. Or I don't want her, I don't want to get her a run of the mill gift. This makes me think of blue jeans a little bit because the way we think of blue jeans here, like American blue jeans is very run of the mill. Like they're just average clothing. But I'm not sure if this is true anymore. Our listeners will have to tell us.

But I feel like a few years ago, 10 years ago in Europe, blue jeans were considered more expensive, more faint, like, like more desirable clothing. But I feel like here they're just blue jeans. They're just average clothing. True. I remember this when I had an exchange student and she was buying all of these Levi's jeans to like Levi's of friends. I think they were cheaper in the U S right. And then just cool that she had bought them in the States. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know if that's the case as much anymore. Not sure. Now that it,

easier to buy things online, to get whatever you could want. But once upon a time, yeah, that was the hot commodity. Levi's were a big deal. Yeah. Levi's are pretty run-of-the-mill here, I would say. Although I had a pair of Levi's and I loved my Levi's. They're comfortable, but they're pretty run-of-the-mill.

Right. I want to answer the other questions quickly here. Run of the mill. I could totally see how someone might think this were outdated because it is kind of from an older time, the mill, and we don't hear it super often. Right.

You will still hear it. You absolutely can use it. It is a little bit less common, but when I hear it, I don't think like that's outdated language. That person's older, right? It doesn't feel outdated to me. What do you think, Lindsay? I 100% agree. This is not one of those words that's going to date you, right? Right.

And I think you could definitely use it in everyday conversations like both of these examples, right? We're looking for a school that's not run of the mill, a gift that's not run of the mill, but then also at work for sure. We would use this in a professional context too, right? I don't want to work for a company that's run of the mill. It's just a fun way to say average, boring or ordinary. Boring, ordinary. Yes. And another way to say that is garden variety. Yeah. So ordinary or commonplace. Right.

Right? Yeah, I love this. You might say, this is just your basic garden variety sofa. Let's find something more unique. Yeah, yeah. It has nothing to do with a garden, like the literal meaning has maybe, but we use this idiomatically just to mean very common, not unique. Yeah, or I'm looking for a garden variety car. I care a lot more about safety than appearance, right? So getting a functional car, a practical car.

Exactly. You don't want a sports car. You're just looking for something garden variety, very average. I've also heard it being used in creative ways. Like when people talk about mental health, like garden variety anxiety is something that just everyday anxiety versus something more serious. It can be used in a lot of ways to address the seriousness or the intensity or the uniqueness of a situation or a condition.

That's a really good point. Yes, we definitely use it that way. We'll use it to describe a book. If someone were reading a book and someone asks if we would recommend it, we might say, that's just kind of your garden variety thriller. We're saying like, it's really not that unique or special. I don't know if I would recommend it. Kind of.

kind of generic nothing special about it nothing extreme about it yeah good one okay what else and then you just used this one I think we also did it and that just came out of you very naturally look at that we're learning real English here exactly ordinary average maybe you'll say this restaurant's nothing special I doubt we'll come back or we could say I wasn't able to spend a lot of time on my research paper so it ended up being nothing special

Okay. Yes. I love that one. And I'm curious if this one is as familiar to you, Lindsay. Oh, yeah. I hear this a lot in the West. We say nothing to write home about. Yeah, I love this one. Ordinary average. Yeah, same. Definitely. I love this one, actually. It's really fun. This is fun. It's fun. Maybe, I'm not sure where it originates. Maybe it originates from... Well, I'm imagining like letter writing, maybe during, you know, World War I. That's what I was thinking too. Writing a letter home. And if nothing exciting had happened, I have nothing to write home about.

That's what I was thinking. I was thinking about war times, probably World War I. Yeah, really fascinating. So for example, the date was okay, but nothing to write home about. I doubt we'll go out again. Right. So you can see this doesn't actually have anything to do about writing letters home. You just mean nothing special, nothing exciting. What else? And this is when I say a lot, my volleyball serve is nothing to write home about. I say this with pickleball too, because you can choose who serves first and the other person that first round won't be able to serve.

So I'll often let my partner serve and I'll be like, my serve's consistent, but it's nothing to write home about. So I'll let them serve first. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You got to know. I mean, that's in tennis too. It's important to know is your strength, your serve or your return. And you would be very strategic about deciding, are you going to serve first? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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Okay, Aubrey, role play time. So we are college students discussing our courses. All right, I'll start us out. I love that we're young. I love when sometimes in our role plays, I'm like, let's be young, let's be college kids again. I love it.

All right, I'll start us. How are you liking your biology course? It's all right. The teacher is just your garden variety science teacher. Sounds like my statistics teacher. His lectures are definitely nothing to write home about. Is it Mr. Martin's? Yeah, I had her too. And oh, Miss, Mr. I had him too. And the course was nothing special. Run of the mill assignments and a lot of reading from the textbook.

yeah nice yeah this happens right I had teachers like this just garden variety teachers that not really exciting lectures and I kind of feel like to be honest I feel like lately movies have been kind of like this I I don't know I recently watched do you ever see the movie with honors from the 90s do you know that it's a really great movie oh wait it's Brendan Fraser Brendan Fraser it's about a guy who takes in a homeless man at Harvard he's a Harvard student he gets to know the homeless man

I was bawling at the end and I cannot remember a movie that's gotten me to tears in the last couple of years. New movie. I don't know. It's just something about it. I feel like a lot of them are kind of run of the mill these days. Yeah. They're not as heartfelt, but those movies from the nineties, really, I was like,

really crying after that. I agree. And that doesn't happen much anymore. It might be interesting. It might be thrilling, but it's rare that I'm going to be sobbing. The depth of the plots or just the, you're right. It's the heartfelt nature is not there in some of the movies. You know which film, you probably saw this as well. The last time I really cried in a film was Harriet, the film about Harriet Tubman. I don't think I've seen it. That was fantastic.

And I'm trying to think of her name. She was Elphaba in the new Wicked film as well. Okay. Fantastic actress. And I just really found, I mean, based on history, that is also so, you've already got that when it's historical. Yep. You already feel the power of these are things that really happened. And I sobbed in the movie theater. Yeah. There are some exceptions like that one, right? That will just really tug on your heartstrings. But I feel like a lot of what's coming out is just kind of like meh.

I agree. Okay, let's go through this. So you first, I'm asking about your biology course and you said the teacher's just your garden variety science teacher. So this is a fun way to say just kind of average, common, just nothing exciting, garden variety. Garden variety. And then his lectures are definitely nothing to write home about.

Right? So right. So our equivalent now might be, you know, we wouldn't call when we're talking to mom, you know, she's home, we're not gonna be like my, you know, biology professor is the best. It's so interesting. Back in the old days, it would be in a letter that you'd have to write. Oh, yeah, that's so funny. Oh, my gosh. Letter. Wow. Oh, all right. And then what did I say? The run of the mill here? Yeah. So you said yeah, number two in the course was nothing special.

Nothing special. And then run-of-the-mill assignments, right? So just kind of average, nothing fun, nothing exciting to complete. Yeah. I mean, what should we do, Aubrey, if our lives are feeling run-of-the-mill? What is some life advice? What should we do? Good question, right? You got to figure out how to switch it up, right? Whether it's at work or in your daily life, if everything's run-of-the-mill garden variety, I think there are things that you can do to go do something unexpected, something you've never done. Yeah.

- Yeah, and I think it's also the little changes we can make. Like if you walk your dog, do you always follow the exact same route? I think the human mind tends to do that, but what if every time you walk your dog, you create a different route, right? Little changes you could make in your day that would create up more of a sense of vibrancy.

In your life. Yes. I love that. And then writing in a gratitude journal. Scroll up if you missed it. We were just talking about grateful versus thankful. Something like that could really make a difference in whether your day feels run of the mill or not.

Yeah. So add gratitude to variety and you've got a good recipe for success there. I love it. I agree. I love that recipe for success. All right. All right. Good stuff, guys. Don't forget the best place to listen to the podcast is in the iOS or Android app because there you have a chance to get the premium features. Go to allersenglish.com slash app.

All right. Yes. Awesome. You can also search keywords there to access our archives. That's true. That's another search for old episodes too. That's a good point, Aubrey. That's another thing that you can't do in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And you can't even do that in our website anymore because we're not blogging on every single topic. So go to the app and use that as a huge search bar to search every episode. All right. Awesome. So fun. Great. Aubrey, talk to you soon. Yep. See you later. Bye. Bye.

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