Ask Alisha: Your English Questions Answered #216 - The different meanings of the verb TO OBSERVE | English Grammar for Beginners
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Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Ask Alicia, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them. Maybe. Let's get to your first question this week. First question this week comes from Evan. Hi, Evan. Evan says, what does observe mean in observe the holiday? I thought this word meant look. Thanks. Yeah. Interesting question. To observe a holiday. This use of observe means recognize. So when companies

usually it's companies, say this on like their website or you see this on like an official announcement somewhere, it's usually because they are going to take a day off or maybe they are going to have different business hours. So the company might write something on their website like the company is going to observe the Christmas holiday this year and we will not be open on December 25th or something like that. You might see this kind of announcement on a company website.

So this observe means we are going to recognize, like recognize and take action because of the holiday. So when we observe a holiday, it's like saying we noticed that this holiday is important or we recognize this holiday is important. So something is going to be a little bit different because of that holiday. So yes, observe usually means to look at something or to watch something, like especially in a scientific way. But when we use it with holidays,

as in observe the holiday, it means to recognize. So interesting question. Thanks a bunch for sending it along. Okay, let's move on to your second question. Second question comes from Chris. Hi, Chris. Chris says, what's the difference between tinker and fiddle, as in tinker with something or fiddle with something? Oh, interesting question. Okay, so let's talk about these two verbs, to tinker.

tinker and to fiddle. So both of these mean kind of like to make small changes to something. But the difference is in the intention or in the purpose. When we tinker with something, one, it's often

kind of with like a mechanical thing, something that we can build, something that we can change the parts of or the pieces of, and it's often with some kind of intention. That means we have some kind of plan. So for example, you might say like, "Oh, my dad's out tinkering with the car again." It sounds like the father is making some changes to the car

in order to make it better or more efficient or something like that. Or, oh, my mom is out tinkering with her birdhouses or something like that. Sounds like she's making some changes to the birdhouses to make them nicer or something like that. So we tend to use this word to talk about things that we can improve

in some way or things that maybe we can change the efficiency of. So to tinker with things sounds like something we have some kind of purpose or some kind of plan, something we want to achieve. When we fiddle with something, on the other hand, we don't have this feeling of purpose. It's like we're just kind of messing around. We're just kind of

playing around. So a really common example sentence that we use to fiddle in is with hair. So a lot of people will touch their hair like this or maybe make other motions.

when they feel nervous or anxious or maybe shy as well. So we often say like, oh, she's fiddling with her hair, this kind of gesture. It's like, there's no plan, right? We're just kind of feeling it, touching it as like a release of emotion or maybe because we feel bored, we might fiddle.

with some kind of cloth, like we might fiddle with a string on our sweatshirt just as we're thinking about something. There's no real plan there. We don't have something we want to do. And you might hear people say they're going to go and like fiddle with the car, which sounds like there's not really like a plan. So in that case, it's like they maybe just want to look at something or maybe just take a look around or maybe just kind of

I don't know, just waste some time perhaps. But with tinker, it sounds much more like there's some kind of plan or some kind of idea in mind. With fiddle, it sounds like you're not really thinking of anything in particular. You're just kind of wasting time or getting your emotions out by playing with something. So these are the differences between to tinker and to fiddle with something. Thanks very much for an interesting question. Okay, let's move on to your next question. Next question comes from...

from Hassan. Hi, Hassan. Hassan asks, "How do we use 'gotta' in the negative form?" Okay, so first let's break down 'gotta' in the positive form. So, 'gotta', G-O-T-T-A, this is the casual, informal, reduced form of 'got to', like, "I've got to do something." So, you can probably hear, I just said, "I have got to." So, we use this to talk about our responsibilities, and in very

casual everyday speech, we drop the have and we just say I gotta, right? So we use this to talk about our responsibilities. Therefore, if we want to use this in the negative form, we use this to talk about something that we do not have a responsibility to do. So we would say I don't have to, right? In the most basic standard form of English. And when we want to use this reduced form, we would say I don't gotta, right? So this is extremely casual, quite

rough English, but this is something that we use to express things we don't have a responsibility to do. Like, "I don't gotta go to work today." Or, "I don't gotta do that." So this sounds extremely casual and extremely rough, but this is how we would use "gotta" in a negative sentence for things that you don't have to do. So this is one that's maybe not used by all people,

all English speakers around the world, you might hear it from time to time. It's kind of a personal preference. I might use it from time to time if I'm speaking with someone who I'm extremely close to and I feel comfortable being very, very casual with them. But I would not personally use this at work or if I'm trying to be very polite with someone. This is some kind of expression, or rather this is one kind of expression that I would feel comfortable just using with close friends. Like, I don't gotta or I gotta.

So I hope that this answers your question about how to use gotta in the negative form. All right, thanks so much for sending that along. That is everything that I have for this week. So thank you as always for sending your great questions. Thanks very much for watching this week's episode of Ask Alicia and I will see you again next time. Bye.