Describing Things: Thingy, Doodah and Top Notch English

Tom arrives hungry — "I’m very good thanks. Quite hungry, looking forward to lunch." — and Katie sets the terms straight away: lunch comes after he has guessed the words. "Well you better get them right or I’m going to eat your lunch." What follows is a run through the words English speakers reach for when the real word simply won’t come, plus a second conversation with Clare on the expressions we use to say something is brilliant, heavy, or perfect.

What you’ll hear in this episode

The first half is Katie feeding Tom clues. He gets a thingy immediately and puts it to work: Pass me that thingy, Where’s the thingy that you use to turn on the television? Then he adds two of his own that aren’t on Katie’s list — thingamajig and whatchamacallit — one of them a word he says he used constantly as a child. A whatsit and a doodah follow, with Tom noting that people now use doodah for computer and technology things, a USB drive being his example. The last one takes two wrong guesses, "A dongle?" and "A knick-knack.", before Katie gives him a gizmo. His reaction: "God there are so many words like this aren’t there?"

In the second conversation Clare answers "I’m fabulous." and claims she can guess everything. Katie sets up wicked by apologising for her age — "oh I do sound like an old lady" — and Clare gets it, but argues the word has moved on: "maybe now they say sick." She adds that sick, "to me means something really bad, but...but to them means something really really cool". They also cover top notch, collecting dust, in mint condition — where Clare admits "I don’t know why we say mint condition." and Katie replies "No idea why." — and it weighs a tonne, illustrated with a sofa going upstairs to a new flat.

Quick facts

Episode	Colloquial 2.10 – Describing Things
Pack	Colloquial 2
Level	2
Duration	18 minutes 24 seconds
Recorded	in a cafe (second conversation)
Speakers	Katie, Tom, Clare
Workbook	Included in the all-in-one pack

What you’ll learn

The useful thing about this pair of English conversations is that you hear the vocabulary being hunted for, not delivered. Katie gives half a word — "A doo...", "Top...", "it’s just in a room, collecting..." — and the other speaker completes it. That is exactly how these expressions arrive in real speech: as fixed chunks where the second half is almost automatic. Training your ear to finish them is training your ear to hear them at speed.

You also get a lesson in what dictionaries can’t easily tell you. Katie flags wicked as a young person’s word she wouldn’t use herself; Clare goes further and says it belongs to a generation that has moved on to sick. Both words mean the opposite of what they look like. That gap between literal meaning and colloquial use is discussed openly, so you learn the risk as well as the phrase.

After each conversation there’s a Meaning and Pronunciation task: you answer a question, then repeat after the beep, with model sentences like He’s got all the latest gizmos and That new suitcase on wheels’ll come in handy. Notice how the contraction swallows will — good listening practice on its own.

Vocabulary from this episode

The workbook glossary grades each item for how informal it is. From this unit:

a thingy (1) – a word we use when we can't remember or don’t know the word for something
a doodah (1) – a word we use when we can't remember or don’t know the word for something
a whatsit (1) – a word we use when we can't remember or don’t know the word for something
a gizmo (1) – something small we don’t know the name for, usually a piece of equipment or technology
to come in handy (1) – to be useful
wicked (2) – brilliant, great, clever - very informal, a word that usually younger people use
top notch (1) – of the highest quality
to weigh a tonne (1) – a funny way to say something is very heavy
collecting dust / gathering dust (1) – not being used or touched by anyone
in mint condition (1) – perfect, not damaged in any way, like the thing is new

In the workbook

The unit for this episode gives you the full transcript of both conversations, so you can go back and see how Tom builds his list out loud and where Clare disagrees with Katie about wicked. The glossary above appears with its 1–3 informality scale, including the warning not to use level 3 language with your mother-in-law.

Then there are two practice exercises. Practice Exercise 1 is a speed-matching task: join to weigh, to come in, a doo, top, mint and collecting to their second halves. It looks easy on paper and is much harder said quickly, which is the point. Practice Exercise 2 is six gapped sentences — the TV _____, the six-month-old laptop that’s still in _____, the thing that’s been _____ in the garage for years. Answers for both are printed at the back.

The workbook comes with the complete Zapp! English pack, which covers every episode across all our shows for €39.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Is the audio free?

Yes. The English conversations are free to download. The workbook with the glossary, transcript and exercises is part of the €39 all-in-one pack.

Is the conversation scripted?

The conversations with Tom and Clare are unscripted — you can hear the guessing, the wrong answers and the laughter. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

What level is this episode?

Level 2 of Colloquial. You’ll manage it if you can follow a relaxed conversation between two native speakers who are interrupting and finishing each other’s sentences.

Can I really say "wicked"?

Listen to what Katie and Clare say about it. It’s marked (2) in the glossary — best used in very informal situations with people you know well — and Clare thinks it may already sound dated.

How long is it?

18 minutes 24 seconds, including both conversations and both pronunciation tasks.

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