Winning English - Idioms, Slang, and Cultural References
Sidetracked • Cut in • Train of thought • Uh, oh • Jog your memory • Stomach is growling • Awesome • Sounds good • Sit tight • Hold down the fort • Go Dutch
Imagine you and a colleague are at your desks at work.
Your colleague hangs up the phone and says, “I’m afraid I won’t have that presentation done today, after all. I just got completely sidetracked by that call from our manager.”
You say, “Actually, I’ve been thinking, and I have a way to shorten the presentation so we can get it done.”
Just then, a third colleague walks up, and says, “Hey, can I cut in for a second?” The three of you then spend five minutes discussing the upcoming executive meeting.
Afterward, your colleague asks, “Okay, what was your idea for shortening the presentation?”
“What? Oh. I have no idea,” you say. “I’ve completely lost my train of thought!”
“Uh, oh,” your colleague says. “We need something to jog your memory so we can get that done!”
You might have noticed that the themes of this story are interruption and forgetting.
“To get sidetracked” means that you are diverted away from your main topic or goal to a different one. This verb comes from trains. Trains usually ride on a main track. But they can get diverted to side tracks, like in the picture above. If that happens, they won’t reach their destination.
“To cut in” is another way to say “to interrupt”.
“Uh, oh” is a common way to indicate that “what you just said to me is not good news”. Another version of this is “oh, no”.
“Train of thought” comes from trains, too, of course. It’s what we call a logical sequence of thoughts in our brains. If we “lose our train of thought”, it means we were interrupted and forgot what we were talking about.
When you try “to jog your memory”, it means that you try to do something to remember what it was you were saying, sometimes by starting over or thinking about the last thing you said.
Imagine you and a friend are walking down the street.
You say, “My stomach is growling. Let’s get something to eat.”
“Okay, how about this restaurant here?" your friend asks. "I’ve heard the food is awesome!”
“Sounds good!” you say. “Let’s sit at this table.”
“Okay,” your friend says. “Sit tight, and I’ll order at the counter.”
“Alright,” you say. “I’ll hold down the fort.”
When your friend returns, you ask, “Did you pay for the food?”
“Yes, it’s okay,” your friend says.
“No,” you say. “Let’s go Dutch. What did my food cost?”
Oftentimes, when we’re really hungry, our stomach will start making sounds. When that happens, we say our “stomach is growling”. “Growling” is also what we call the sound many animals make - like dogs, for example.
When something is “awesome”, it literally means that it causes people to feel the emotion of “awe”. “Awe” is a mixed emotion of respect, fear, and wonder. We often get this feeling when looking up at the night sky. But in North America, the word “awesome” has come to mean “really, really great”. In fact, I once had a friend tell me that he knew someone was American if they wrote “awesome” in an email or text.
When we tell someone to “sit tight”, we are asking them to sit down and wait for a short time while we do something.
“To hold down the fort” means to wait somewhere while someone else is away on an errand or doing a task. The idea is that you are like a guard protecting a fort from being captured by enemies, but the phrase is rarely used for that serious of a situation.
And finally, “to go Dutch” means that every person will pay their own portion of a bill. This is instead of each person paying an equal share or one person paying the entire bill. The origin of this phrase isn’t exactly clear, but it seems likely that it reflects how the English thought about people from the Netherlands, who are called the Dutch. By the way, some popular North American payment apps - like Venmo - have a “Go Dutch” option to split bills between people.
Thanks for reading Winning English! Remember to listen to the podcast, as well, to reinforce your learning. If you like what you read or hear, please like the post, leave a comment, and tell a friend. Talk soon!