Free Transcription Powered by www.TranscriptionHUB.com

Valen: Hi I am Valen and welcome to engVID.com. This is a lesson on common expressions in the workplace, so idioms that you will hear used in a business setting. So we are going to do seven idioms today and the first one is “Put on the map”, and what put on the map means is to make well known. So we can use this in a sentence like this, “This new product will put us on the map”, and what that means is this new product will make us well known. ‘Put us on the map’.

Our second expression is “savvy”. Savvy means smart and knowledgeable about something. So we can use it like this, “We hired Tom because he is computer savvy”. And what this means is Tom is smart and knowledgeable about computers, he knows a lot about computers, he is computer savvy. So our second expression is ‘savvy’.

The next common English expression you might hear in the workplace is “play hardball”. Play hardball, and what this means is in a tough situation when you are dealing with a tough situation or a person you are dealing with them in a tough way, you are going to play hardball. Here is an example, “If our competitors won’t comply, we are going to have to play hardball”. So that means we are going to have to deal with our competitors in a tough way.

Our next expression is “power lunch”. So what power lunch is, it’s when business people do business over lunch. So for example, “Today our boss and our finance department went out for a power lunch”. So what this means is that the boss and the people that work in the finance department went out together to discuss business over lunch, a power lunch.

Our next expression is “the bottom line”. So what the bottom line means, is it means the final result or in the end and here is an example of how we would use the expression, the bottom line. “We worked hard on our sales pitch but the bottom line is that we didn’t make the sale”. So what this means is the end result is that we didn’t make the sale, so it sort of insinuates that it doesn’t matter that we worked hard on the sales pitch, doesn’t matter how hard we worked because the bottom line, the end result is that we didn’t make the sale regardless of how hard we worked; ‘the bottom line’.

All right, the next expression is “to tweak something”. So to tweak, here’s how we would use this. “I just have to tweak my report a little bit and then it will be finished”. So what tweak means is make slight adjustments to, so I just have to make some slight adjustment to my report and then it will be finished, so tweak, to make slight adjustments.

Okay our next expression is “flying by the seat of your pants”. So this expression has a negative connotation, it means that you don’t prepare or plan, flying by the seat of your pants means you are just doing something off the cuff, which means that you are just doing something without any preparation or planning. Here is how you would use this in a sentence. “Tom’s presentations are bad, he is always flying by the seat of his pants”. So he doesn’t prepare for his presentations, he’s just flying by the seat of his pants.

Okay, our last expression is “number crunching”. So this is what the finance department does, they number crunch, they analyze numbers. And we can use this in a sentence like this, “I am going to go back to my office and crunch some numbers”. So what this means is I am going to go back to my office and analyze the financial situation or analyze the budget or the numbers, so number crunching.

Okay so in this lesson we learned seven common English expression that you would use in the workplace, “Put on the map”, “Savvy”, “Play hardball”, “Power lunch”, “The bottom line”, “to tweak something”, “Flying by the seat of your pants” and “number crunching”.

You can test your knowledge by taking the quiz on www.engVID.com.