Show off
Today’s word is a phrasal verb, “show off.” When you show off, you are doing something just to demonstrate to others, just to show others, what you can do. When you show off, you usually don’t do that thing for yourself, but you want to get a reaction from others. You’re only doing it for the attention.
Do you remember how you heard it just now? In my opinion, some people who have microchips implanted in their body are actually using it to improve their lives, especially if they use it to access their buildings at work. But I also think a lot of people are just showing off. If we’re being honest, the chips don’t actually make most people’s lives easier. If you’re on a train in Sweden, you can scan your phone or scan your hand—does having a microchip really improve your life? Or are those people just showing off? Do they just want other people to think they’re really technologically advanced? I guess I’ll never know for sure, but I suspect a lot of them are just showing off. They want their friends to think they’re high-tech; they want people to stare at them as they get their hand scanned on the train. If so, then they’re showing off—they are doing it just because of how it looks to other people.
We all know people who do things to show off, and it doesn’t usually make a good impression—at least on me. Sometimes people with a lot of money—or people who think they have a lot of money—try to show off by buying expensive cars, clothes, jewelry—just to show off to others.
Kids will show off all the time—they do things just for the attention of their friends. Boys will show off to girls, maybe by smoking or breaking the rules.
So in this sense, showing off is bad. But I should mention at this point that this is a tricky phrasal verb with another similar meaning, but in this other meaning, it is not necessarily bad. To show off can also just mean to demonstrate your skills, or to reveal something. Let’s say you play golf and you worked hard at your putting and on the driving range all winter long. When the sun comes out, you want to show off your new skills on the golf course. You want to demonstrate it because you’re proud of the work you put in. Maybe you taught your dog a new trick and you want to show it off at the park. Athletes often show off their talents. Think about the slam-dunk contest in the NBA or the home-run derby in professional baseball. Athletes are showing off what they can do. That’s not bad; after all, it’s their job to perform in front of others. They have the skills, so it’s not bad to show them off.
In my opinion—and this is probably more just my opinion than an actual definition—but in my opinion, it’s all about your intentions. If you’re proud of something and it’s authentic, then showing off isn’t bad. But if you’re doing something just to get attention, or, even worse, to make others feel bad, then showing off is not a good thing.
I’ll give you one more example that I think illustrates the difference between good showing off and bad showing off. I’m American and we love cars in the United States, so this will be a car example. Think about these two examples. In the first case, someone saves up her money, does all her research, and finally buys a great car that will make her happy and that she can afford. She’s proud of having saved the money and gotten what she wanted, and wants to show off her new car the next time she and her friends go out for dinner together. I don’t mind that at all; she’s proud of herself and doesn’t care if the world knows it. Now contrast that with someone else—this person is a guy—who buys a more expensive car than he can really afford, and he bought it so that he could attract attention from women and to make his other guy friends envious. What he wants is to be seen as better than other people. That’s showing off in a bad way—he has every right to do it, but to me that’s bad showing off.
Like I said, the difference between showing off in a good way and showing off in a bad way can be a matter of personal opinion, so this example is just my opinion. Now all you guys driving Cadillac Escalades are going to write me angry notes.
That’s all for this week—thanks for being with us again. We’ll be back on Thursday for the next episode. If you’re new to the program, this is episode 78! That means there are about 20 hours of Plain English episodes in the archives. Go back and listen to some of the old episodes if you haven’t heard them. With 20 hours of listening practice, you’ll soon be able to show off your new English skills to your friends—and I mean that in a good way
Learn more expressions like this
