Why pipes?

Well, these first topics exist because I imagine that people may ask, eventually, so I have them already prepared, he he.

This is a pipe.

A personal quote(1) that I use a lot in my classes is this one "You have to put it in your pipe and smoke it", so I decided to create a blog, but I had to give it a name, right? (It couldn't be Englishclassesblog, or teacherleo.blogspot.com, these names are really boring[2]) So I decided to base my blog on this. I even created an e-mail just for this!

What does "You have to put it in your pipe and smoke it" mean (3)?

This is an expression that means "You have to accept things as they are" or "You can't change it, just accept it". It is used in cases where people can't change the facts, and another one says that for the first to accept. For example, imagine that your friend Bob has a car. He left it on the street and went to your apairtment ot have some tea. One hour later he discovers that his car was robbed (4) and can't accept that fact after 3 days. You can say this quote to him.

Isn't this expression a little...impolite?

Yes it is, but I never used it on the impolite way with my students. I used mainly whenever I said to them that they had to study a lot, there was no other way....


(1) quote: citation, passage taken from another source
(2) boring: not interesting, dull
(3) to mean: mean or intend to express or convey;
e.g. "You never understand what I mean!"; "what do his words intend?"
(4) to rob: steal, plunder, illegally take property by force

note: this is also a pipe