146.- Spill the tea

Transcript

Feifei
Hello and welcome to The English We Speak with me, Feifei…

Roy
…and me, Roy.

Feifei
We may sound a little different. That’s because we are not able to record in our normal studios during the coronavirus outbreak. Roy, have you heard about Rob?

Roy
No, what about Rob?

Feifei
Well, you know that Rob’s been wearing a long t-shirt recently. It’s because the other night he went out with some friends. Well, he lost a dare and now he’s got a tattoo of panda on a skateboard on his arm.

Roy
Feifei, he’s probably really embarrassed about that. You shouldn’t gossip.

Feifei
I am not! But, you always love it when I spill the tea!

Roy
You spilt some tea? While recording!? That’s dangerous when we’re surrounded by laptops and microphones.

Feifei
No Roy, ‘spilling the tea’ means ‘to gossip’. I’m going to spill the tea some more right after these examples…

Examples
I shouldn’t spill the tea, but have you heard that Bob and Susan are dating?

Come on, spill the tea. Tell me what you know about Derek!

I’ll spill the tea. There’s going to be a huge party and no one has invited Peter.

Feifei
This is The English We Speak from BBC Learning English and we’re talking about the expression ‘spill the tea’ which means to ‘to gossip’

Roy
So come on Feifei, spill the tea. You know everything that happens in the office. How did you know about Rob’s tattoo?

Feifei
I will never reveal my sources. Well, OK. It was Neil.

Roy
I can’t believe you told me that! You gave up your source so easily.

Feifei
Well you asked, so I told you! I’m just really honest.

Roy
Well, Feifei. I have a surprise for you! You know that Neil told you that Rob has a new tattoo?

Feifei
Yes.

Roy
Well Feifei, Rob hasn’t really got a ‘panda on a skateboard’ tattoo – we created the story to see if you’d spill the tea! Rob would never do something so silly!

Feifei
That’s not fair! Bye, Roy.

Roy
Bye.