Archive for July, 2015

grammatical word: tackle

{ July 22, 2015 @ 5:45 pm } · { grammatical word }
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craig-nickerson-quote-the-problem-is-with-us-today-we-need-to-tackle

This blog entry is about the verb “tackle”. We often use this word in business situations when we want to talk about starting to deal with a problem at work. Let me give you some examples of how to use it.

We’re having a big problem with the employees over the issue of vacation time. How do you think we should tackle this problem?

People are constantly late for work, and the boss said he would tackle the problem himself. I wonder what he’s going to do.

I’ll tackle the problem of low morale at the office if you deal with the customer complaints we’ve been getting recently.

Our sales have been going down steadily since January. If we don’t tackle this problem soon, we’ll go out of business.

It’s important to note that when we say we will tackle a problem, it means we haven’t started to deal with that problem yet. If the process has already started, then we say we’re handling the problem or dealing with the problem.

You might be interested to know that we can also use the word “tackle” when talking about American football. When a football player attacks a player from the opposite team in order to stop him from running with the football, we say he “tackles” him. So I suppose that’s why we use it when talking about problems; we are attacking a problem in order to stop it.

grammatical expression: in one’s sleep

{ July 9, 2015 @ 5:45 pm } · { grammatical expression }
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I have another interesting grammatical expression for you: “in one’s sleep”. We use it when we want to talk about something that we know very well, or something that we are very skillful at. Here are some example sentences using it.

I know the way to Stephen’s house very well. I’ve been there so many times I could get there in my sleep.

Sharon has fixed this kind of computer so many times that she could do it in her sleep.

A: Do you know how to make beef stew?

B: Are you kidding? I used to make it for my mother at least twice a month. I can do it in my sleep.

I’m going to train you very well. By the time we’re finished, you’ll be able to use this machine in your sleep.

As you can see from my examples, we use words such as “can”, “could” or “be able to” with this expression.

The idea with this expression is that we know how to do something so well that we could do it automatically even in an unconscious state. Obviously, this is not true, and if we are asleep, we could not do it. However, this is a typical example of exaggeration in English. We often use exaggeration as a way to emphasize something when we’re speaking. It’s used far more often in spoken English than in written English.

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