M: No, what's natter? I love a good chat. Or you can say, I don't like talking to others, but I have to do it. Or I don't chat to other people much. Not every day. Natter, for example, is UK, it's British English, informal.
R: It's the best English.
M: To talk continuously for a long time. Like this. Like you are nattering away. You are chatting away. You can say that sometimes I talk a lot with others, or I don't talk much with other people, or I have to talk to people because of my job. Make small talk. Make small talk means when you meet a person, for example, in a lift, at work, during a coffee break, and then you kind of discuss the weather. Like, oh, like, do you like the weather? Like, how are you? Just like make small talk.
R: Do you like the weather? No, I hate the weather. I wish there was no weather ever.
M: Yeah. And I hate talking to people too. Don't talk to me.
R: Don't talk... That's why I'm taking a language exam, because I just hate talking to people so much.
M: When I was a child, I used to talk to everybody, but not now, for example. Or when I was a child, I was a chatterbox. A chatterbox...
R: Am I allowed to use that.
M: Chatterbox? Yeah. Chatterbox is okay.
R: Maria, a lady of all English. The Empress of English has decreed that chatterbox is acceptable
M: Exactly. Because it's American English. It's British English. So everyone uses a chatterbox. So a person, especially a child who talks a lot. So you can say, I used to be a chatterbox at school, but now I'm not at school, and now I'm not a chatterbox. Even if you were not a chatterbox at school, just use this sentence, dear listener. I used to be such a chatterbox at school. And Rory, we don't understand what your teacher told you. What's this like talk, talk, talk, wouldn't take a telling. What is take a telling?
R: Take a telling just means wouldn't listen to what they are told.
M: Still we don't understand this.
R: Like, if you, if you, well, if you take a telling, then that means that you do what you are told to do, but if you don't take a telling, then you do not do what you are told to do, like if the teacher in your primary one class tells you to shut up, even though you are hyper-social at this age. Ah, Mrs. Chalmers...
M: Is it the same as take a telling-off?
R: It could be, actually, I suppose, because if you're, if you're being given a telling then it just means that you're being told to do something. And usually that happens when you're doing something you should not be doing.
M: Because we have a verb, tell off. Tell somebody off. Usually, a parent or a teacher tells you off, like they speak angrily to you, like, oh, why are you late, where have you been, what have you done? You're bad.
R: Why are you talking in class, even though human beings are social animals.