Winning English - Mastering Idioms, Slang, and Cultural References
To rope in • Understand the landscape • Move the ball forward • Fighting fires • Heart skipped a beat • Love at first sight
You and a colleague arrive at work on Monday and discover that one of your projects had some major problems come up over the weekend.
You say, “Wow, we’re going to have to rope in a few more people on this.”
“Yes,” your colleague agrees. “We need to talk to a lot of people to understand the landscape.”
“I agree”, you say. “We need to move the ball forward today, or we’ll just be fighting fires all week!”
Just so you know, today’s words and sayings are all taken from a real business conversation about a Monday that did not go well.
“To rope in” means to involve other people in a project, even if they don’t want to be involved. You’ll likely have to use pressure - the “rope” - to get them to help.
“To understand the landscape” means to understand the situation you are in. The “landscape” is all of the dangers and opportunities that are available to you. It’s similar to “lay of the land” from a previous edition.
“To move the ball forward” means to make a small bit of progress in a difficult situation. It comes from American football - or really any game that involves a ball. You always want to be moving the ball toward the goal to earn some points. You certainly don’t want to go backwards.
To be “fighting fires” means that you are fixing many small problems as they come up. This phrase usually implies that there are bigger problems causing all of the small “fires”, but you are so busy with those small problems that you never fix the underlying causes.
A grandmother and a granddaughter are talking.
The granddaughter asks, “What was it like when you met my grandfather?”
“Oh,” the grandmother says. “My heart skipped a beat!”
The grandfather then walks into the room and say, “Yes, it was love at first sight!”
I couldn’t let today’s newsletter be so stressful, so I thought I’d tell a love story, too.
Normally, your heart beats in a steady way. But if something surprises us, it usually goes faster. When this happens, we say that it “skipped a beat”. “To skip” means to not do something. For example, if you “skip” class, you didn’t go to class. Now, your heart doesn’t actually “skip a beat”, but it can feel that way. Note that “skipped a beat” can be either good or bad, depending on whether you were delighted or scared, but usually it is positive.
“It was love at first sight” is a common and romantic way to say that you fell in love with someone very quickly.
Thanks for reading Winning English! Remember to listen to the podcast, as well, to reinforce your learning. As always, if you like Winning English, please tell a friend. And today a special thanks to a brother of mine, who had to go through that tough Monday meeting. Talk soon!