Keep to yourself

If you "keep to yourself", you generally spend most of your time alone

Today's story: João Gilberto
Explore more: Lesson #177
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Keep to yourself

Today’s expression is “keep to yourself.” If you “keep to yourself,” you generally spend most of your time alone. João Gilberto liked to keep to himself. He didn’t make a lot of public appearances. He wasn’t frequently spotted at parties. He liked to keep to himself; he preferred to spend time alone.

Ironically, you can actually make this plural. You can say, “they keep to themselves,” when you’re talking about a group of people that tends to socialize or spend time only within that group, usually a family. You could say, for example, that you haven’t met your new neighbors yet; they generally keep to themselves. They, as a group, as their family, tend to not socialize very much. As individuals, they may be really social and spend tons of time together, within their group, within their family. But if you don’t see them out in the neighborhood; if they don’t invite you over; if they decline your invitations—then you might conclude that they generally keep to themselves.

Have you heard the word “clique”? It’s like a small informal group. It’s not typically a compliment. If you say an environment has a lot cliques, it’s not very welcoming for new people. High schools are famous for having cliques. Little groups of people and they don’t socialize with people who aren’t in their little group. There can be cliques in the workplace, too, anywhere there are groups of people. In those instances, there might be certain groups of people, certain cliques, who keep to themselves. They don’t socialize with people who are not part of their little group.

This is different from keeping something to yourself. If you keep something to yourself, you are keeping that thing secret. A friend or family member might tell you something private and ask you to keep it to yourself; don’t tell anyone about it. If you have a thought and it’s better to not say it, just keep it to yourself. Don’t say anything.

But remember, if a person keeps to himself or herself, that person generally avoids social contact with others. If a family or couple or a group of people keep to themselves, they tend not to socialize outside their group.

JR’s song of the week / Quote of the week

The song of the week is, in honor of João Gilberto, “The Girl From Ipanema.” A couple more facts about this song. It is believed to be the second-most-recorded pop song in history, behind the song “Yesterday” by the Beatles. That means more artists and singers have recorded and released this song than any other in history, except one. A lot of those singers are women, so they adapt the song to “The Boy from Ipanema,” when there is a woman singer.

I went on Spotify to search for “The Boy from Ipanema” just to see if I could find one or two examples of women who covered this, and there is a long list of artists, who cover both Girl and Boy from Ipanema. I had no idea it was so popular. I listened to a few versions. The more modern version I like best is by Diana Krall. I really like the Diana Krall version. Amy Winehouse bucked the trend: she sang “The Girl from Ipanema.”


Okay that’s all today. Getz/Gilberto – look for that on Spotify. It’s got a black and orange cover. JR and I will be back on Monday. Thanks again for being with us and for sending your notes and messages. I really do appreciate hearing from each and every one of you. Remember PlainEnglish.com/mail to get the extra episode resources. See you right back here on Monday!

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Story: João Gilberto