idiom: to be all ears

{ October 24, 2010 @ 1:45 am } · { idioms }
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Last week I heard someone on a TV show use an idiom that I’d like to write about today. The expression is to be “all ears”. This is used when we want to say to another person that we will listen to them with our full attention. For example:

A: I have something to tell you.

B: Ok, I’m all ears. What is it?

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A: I have some great news for you guys!

B: Really? We’re all ears! What’s your news?

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A: There’s something I have to say to you.

B: Ok, give me just one minute to finish this and then I’m all ears.

So, as you can see, this expression is used as a response to another person’s statement that they want to say something to us. We use it when talking about ourselves or our group. Therefore, we can say “I’m all ears.” or “We’re all ears.”, but we DON’T say things like, “He’s all ears.” or “You’re all ears.” If we say this, it will sound strange.

separable phrasal verb: blow up

{ October 22, 2010 @ 3:21 am } · { phrasal verbs }
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Today’s phrasal verb, “blow up” has a few different meanings. Some of them you may know and some of them you may not. Let me go over the different meanings for you now.

1. to inflate something with air using one’s mouth. For example:

Can you help me with these balloons? I need to blow them up before the party starts.

I had to blow up an air mattress for my daughter, so I’m really out of breath now.

2. for someone to cause something to explode. For example:

Did you hear about what happened to the mayor’s car? Somebody blew it up yesterday! He was killed instantly.

The mayor’s car was blown up yesterday, and he died in the explosion. (passive voice)

On the TV show 24, people are constantly blowing things up.

Things are constantly being blown up on the TV show, 24. (passive voice)

3. for something to explode. (intransitive) For example:

The plane blew up after it crashed into the mountain.

There was a gas leak in my friend’s trailer, and it blew up. Luckily, no one was in it at the time.

4. to enlarge a photograph. For example

I can’t see the people in this picture very well. Can you blow it up for me?

We can blow this photo up a little, but if we do it too much, the image won’t be clear.

5. to lose one’s temper and get angry at someone. (usually used with “at” and is inseparable) For example:

My mom blew up at my dad yesterday when he came home drunk again.

I blew up at my friend yesterday after she kept me waiting for half an hour. I hate it when she’s late!

As I wrote above, the third meaning is intransitive, so it doesn’t take an object. The difference between the second meaning and the third one is that in the second meaning, somebody intentionally causes the explosion, but in the third meaning, the explosion happens naturally or we don’t know the cause of it.

With the fifth meaning, we use the preposition “at” after the phrasal verb. This means that the person gets angry directly when talking to another person. If we say, “I blew up at my friend.”, it means I got angry when talking to my friend and shouted at him or her.

grammatical expression: in the meantime

{ October 21, 2010 @ 3:09 am } · { grammatical expression }
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Last week, one of my readers asked me to write about the expression “in the meantime”, so I will do that today.

This expression is used when we want to talk about the period of time between two events. The first period of time can be now or a certain date or time; the second period of time is when something is supposed to happen. For example:

You can cut up these vegetables. In the meantime, I will start making the sauce.

I will start my new job at an international company in two months. In the meantime, I plan to study a lot and improve my English skills.

The party was supposed to start at 7:00, but I arrived in the area at 5:00 so, in the meantime, I went to a cafe and read a book.

A: Our work finishes at 6:00, but the office dinner doesn’t start until 7:30! What are we supposed to do in the meantime?!

B: Let’s just have a beer at the bar near the office.

As you can see, this expression can be used to talk about the past, the present or the future. In the case of the first example, the period of time that “in the meantime” is referring to is the time the person starts cutting up the vegetables, and the time they finish doing that. In the second example, the first period of time is now, and the second period of time is two months from now when the person starts their new job. In the last two examples, the periods of time are quite obvious because the person mentions exact times: between 5:00 and 7:00 (third example) and between 6:00 and 7:30 (last example).

adjective: bitter

{ October 20, 2010 @ 2:58 am } · { adjectives }
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bitter-beer-face

Most people know the word “bitter” refers to the taste of something being strong and unpleasant. However, there are other meanings which many people don’t know about. That’s what I’d like to write about today.

There are three basic meanings for the word “bitter”. Let me go over them for you.

1. the taste of something which is strong and unpleasant. For example:

This coffee is really bitter. I’d like to get another cup please.

I don’t like the taste of this vegetable. It’s really bitter, and it tastes like medicine.

2. something that is very strong in a negative way. It’s often used to talk about cold weather, the truth or a struggle. For example:

I hate the bitter winters in my hometown.

I really hate the weather in my hometown in the winter because it’s bitterly cold.

I know you’re having a hard time dealing with your divorce, but you have to get over it. The bitter truth is that your husband doesn’t love you anymore.

There is a bitter struggle going on right now between various leaders to see who will become president.

3. used to describe a person who remains angry about something for a long period of time. For example:

My father got fired from his job about a year ago, and he’s still bitter about it.

My friend is a bitter woman when it comes to men. She has had her heart broken many times, and now she hates men completely!

In the second definition, I used the word “bitter” as an adverb – “bitterly” – in front of the adjective “cold”. This is a special case though; we don’t use “bitterly” with most other adjectives. Let me give you some other examples of how it can be used.

It was bitterly painful to see my ex-husband with another woman.

The war between the two countries was bitterly fought.

The smell of sulfur is bitterly pungent.

There are probably other examples of how to use the word “bitterly”, but these are the main ones I could think of for natural conversations. However, you might see it used in novels but, in those cases, it’s not natural for conversational English.

grammatical word: bound

{ October 19, 2010 @ 1:28 am } · { grammatical word }
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Today’s grammatical word is “bound” and, even though it is technically an adjective, it doesn’t function as a typical adjective, so I’ve decided to write about it as a grammatical word. It’s not typical as an adjective because it must always be followed by a verb and then the rest of the sentence.

It is used when we are making a prediction about something in the future, and we feel quite certain that it will be true. For example:

There are bound to be a lot of pretty girls at Kelly’s party because she’s a model.

A: I was invited to have dinner at a French restaurant tonight.

B: Then you’d better take a lot of money with you. It’s bound to be quite expensive.

I don’t want to go to the dance club on Saturday night. It’s bound to be really crowded.

A: Do you think Jake will come to the dinner tonight at the seafood restaurant.

B: He’s bound to come. He really loves seafood.

My favorite basketball team hasn’t lost a single game this season, so they’re bound to win again tonight.

As you can see, the word “bound” is always followed by the infinitive (to + base form of a verb). Often, the verb is “to be”, as in the first three examples, but we can also use other verbs, as in the last two examples.

the difference between words: clever and smart

{ October 18, 2010 @ 12:29 am } · { the difference between words }
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Many of my students get confused about when to use the adjectives “clever” and “smart”, so that’s what I’d like to write about today.

In English, we use the word “smart” to say someone is intelligent in a general way. It has the same meaning as “intelligent” except that that “smart” sounds a little more casual than “intelligent”.  We use the word “clever” to describe people who are able to quickly find solutions to particular problems or who can think of witty and humorous things to say. We can also use “clever” to describe the thing the clever person thinks of such as an idea, story, joke, etc. For example:

My best friend is extremely smart. He went to Harvard and got his PhD in physics.

Pauline isn’t very well educated, but she’s very smart. She reads a lot in her free time and is very knowledgeable about many things.

Jim was the only person in our class who could think of a solution to our problem. He’s very clever.

My friend is extremely witty and clever. Sometimes she makes me laugh so hard with the things she says.

The suspense movie I saw yesterday had a very clever twist ending. I was very surprised.

My husband came up with a very clever idea to make money while staying at home.

There is also another misunderstanding about the word “smart” in Japan. The Japanese language has borrowed the word “smart”, but the meaning has been changed. In Japanese, “smart” is used to talk about a person’s body which is thin, but in English, “smart” is only used to say someone is intelligent. It has nothing to do with a person’s body.

idiom: if/when push comes to shove

{ October 17, 2010 @ 6:45 am } · { idioms }
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The idiom for this week is “when push comes to shove”. First of all, it’s important to know the meaning of the word “shove”. It is a verb which means to push someone or something very hard. It is pronounced /shuv/.

We use the idiom “when push comes to shove” when we want to talk about a situation that has become so serious that someone must take action in order to deal with it.

So, with this idiom, the word “push” represents the normal, not so serious situation, and the word “shove” represents the much more serious situation which has developed. So, if the normal situation becomes a serious situation, someone will do something about it. For example:

My friend Henry can be quite lazy, but when push comes to shove, he’ll do his work.

My parents don’t want to give money to me because I’m now an adult, but if push comes to shove, I know they’ll always lend me money.

My sister is a very busy woman, but when push comes to shove, she’ll always make time to talk to me.

My team and I can finish the project by the deadline, because if push comes to shove, we will work overtime.

So, in these examples, the normal situations are: Henry is lazy, my parents don’t lend me money, my sister is too busy to talk to me, my team doesn’t work overtime; however, if the situation becomes worse, then it changes: Henry will do his work, my parents will lend me money, my sister will make time to talk to me, my team will work overtime.

separable phrasal verb: get across (to)

{ October 15, 2010 @ 1:56 am } · { phrasal verbs }
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Today’s phrasal verb is “get across”. It is used when we are trying to explain something to another person or other people, and we want to make them understand what we are talking about.

This phrasal verb is often followed by the preposition “to” if we use an object in the sentence. However, it’s not always necessary to include an object and, if we don’t, then “get across” will be intransitive.  For example:

This is a difficult idea. I hope I can get it across to you.

The teacher was trying to explain the meaning of the word “patient”. I understood it, but I don’t think she was able to get it across to the lower level students.

I tried to make my boss understand my idea for saving money at the company, but I don’t think I was able to get it across to him.

I understand the point you’re trying to make, but I think using some charts and pictures during your presentation will help you to get it across.

A: Do you think everyone understood what my concept for the project was?

B: Yes, I think you were able to get it across very well.

I would say that we usually say “to” when we’re trying to explain something to a specific person. However, when we’re explaining something to a larger group of people, we often drop the “to”.

So, this is the phrasal verb for this week. I hope I was able to get it across!  🙂

grammatical expression: to say the least

{ October 14, 2010 @ 3:08 am } · { grammatical expression }
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Today is my 200th blog entry!!!! I can’t believe it! Where did all the time go? I want to thank my readers for all your nice comments, and I hope to continue writing this blog for a long time.

Anyway, for today’s blog entry, I would like to write about another common expression: “to say the least”. It is used when we want to indicate that a certain word isn’t strong enough to describe a situation. For example:

My sister just won $100,000 in the lottery. She’s really happy, to say the least!

Thank you for giving that doll to my daughter. She loves it, to say the least!

There are many good-looking people in Italy, to say the least!

A: Well, that was a very strange movie.

B: Yeah, to say the least. I haven’t seen such a weird movie in a long time.

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A: Would you say Charlie is a serious person?

B: Oh yes, to say the least. He never laughs or even smiles.

So, by using “to say the least” in these sentences, we’re saying that the words “happy”, “love”, “strange” and “serious” don’t go far enough in describing the situation. However, instead of adding “really, really, really, really” to the beginning to emphasize the word, we use “to say the least” at the end to emphasize it.

As you can see from the examples, we usually use this expression in sentences with adjectives, but sometimes we can use it with verbs such as “like”, “love”, “hate”, etc. We can also use it when talking about the quantity of something, as in the third example about how many good-looking people there are in Italy.

adjective: gorgeous

{ October 13, 2010 @ 2:35 am } · { adjectives }
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Today,  I have a word that is commonly misunderstood in Japan: “gorgeous”. Many people, in Japan at least, think it contains the meaning of being expensive, but this is not true. In English, it means that someone or something is extremely beautiful, and that’s all. For example:

My friend’s girlfriend is gorgeous. I wish I could find a woman as beautiful as she is.

The view from the top of Mount Fuji was absolutely gorgeous. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my life.

A: The hotel we stayed at in Rome was just gorgeous.

B: Oh really? Was it expensive?

A: Not too much. We were really lucky.

If we want to use a word that contains the meaning of being expensive, we can use the adjective “luxurious”. So if we say a place is luxurious, then it’s almost always going to be expensive and beautiful.

In the first example, a woman is being described as “gorgeous”, but we can also describe a man as “gorgeous”. For example:

Look at that guy over there! Isn’t he gorgeous!?

In these cases, the speaker will almost always be a young female such as a teenage girl or a woman in her 20s. Older women don’t usually describe a man as “gorgeous”. Instead, they will say he is “handsome”, “good-looking” or “attractive”.

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