Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[stevenukd]

Dear Teachers,

1. Listen to me and listen to me good �it�s not by any means your fault that you were used�.
- What does �listen to me good� mean here?

2. What you see is what you�ll get.
- This means �what you see is what you�ll understand�, right?

Thanks very much

Stevenukd

[CP]

1. The expression is, "Listen and listen good." Of course, "good" should be "well" to be grammatical. To "listen good" means to pay close attention.

2. The expression is, "What you see is what you get." It was coined in the late 1960s or early 1970s by a comedian named Flip Wilson, spoken by one of his on-stage characters, Geraldine, a super-sexy girl. While "Do you get it?" means "Do you understand it?", here "what you get" has nothing to do with understanding, but everything to do with what you will have if you choose Geraldine.
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You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb

[Bob S.]

What you see is what you get, a.k.a. WYSIWYG, means you will get just what you see, no more, no less, nothing extra, nothing hidden.

I first noticed WYSIWYG (wissy-wig) as an acronym in reference to word processing software back in the early days of computers. Back then, on monochrome CRTs, mostly what you saw on the screen was simple system font lettering. What printed out might be different even if you were lucky enough to have more than simple system fonts for your printer. A big leap was WP software that showed on the screen the font you were using and how it would look after it printed. That was hailed as WYSIWYG word processing. (And boy oh boy, you just HAD to have this latest memory-sucking upgrade even if it meant getting more RAM chips for your 128k desktop pc!)
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper

[bud]