#SpokenEnglish
#usefullanguage
🔘That’s not saying much
▪️used to say that it is not surprising that someone or something is better than another person or thing because the other person or thing is so bad.
🔸This version is better than the original, but that’s not saying much.
🔘No more Mr Nice Guy!
▪️used to say that you will stop trying to behave honestly and fairly.
🔸OK, no more Mr. Nice Guy. The next person to speak out of turn gets detention.
🔘Work it/things .
▪️ to make arrangements for something to happen, especially by behaving in a clever or skilful way.
🔸We should try and work it so that we can all go together.
#usefullanguage
🔘That’s not saying much
▪️used to say that it is not surprising that someone or something is better than another person or thing because the other person or thing is so bad.
🔸This version is better than the original, but that’s not saying much.
🔘No more Mr Nice Guy!
▪️used to say that you will stop trying to behave honestly and fairly.
🔸OK, no more Mr. Nice Guy. The next person to speak out of turn gets detention.
🔘Work it/things .
▪️ to make arrangements for something to happen, especially by behaving in a clever or skilful way.
🔸We should try and work it so that we can all go together.
The Pronunciation Poem
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
Well done! And now you wish perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead, is said like bed, not bead -
for goodness' sake don't call it 'deed'!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, or broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's doze and rose and lose -
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I learned to speak it when I was five!
And yet to write it, the more I sigh,
I'll not learn how 'til the day I die.
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
Well done! And now you wish perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead, is said like bed, not bead -
for goodness' sake don't call it 'deed'!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, or broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's doze and rose and lose -
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I learned to speak it when I was five!
And yet to write it, the more I sigh,
I'll not learn how 'til the day I die.
#SpokenEnglish
#usefullanguage
🔘On your own head be it
~used to tell someone that they will be blamed if the thing they are planning to do goes wrong.
➖This is not the time for such a discussion. But if you insist, on your head be it.
🔘Not if I can help it.
~used to say that you are not going to do something.
➖‘Are you going to watch the school play?’ ‘Not if I can help it.’
🔘Shake a leg.
~used to tell someone to hurry,
or quickly start doing something.
➖C’mon, shake a leg!
#usefullanguage
🔘On your own head be it
~used to tell someone that they will be blamed if the thing they are planning to do goes wrong.
➖This is not the time for such a discussion. But if you insist, on your head be it.
🔘Not if I can help it.
~used to say that you are not going to do something.
➖‘Are you going to watch the school play?’ ‘Not if I can help it.’
🔘Shake a leg.
~used to tell someone to hurry,
or quickly start doing something.
➖C’mon, shake a leg!