Do you know someone who is starting to learn English? Three teams race around London to find eight letters which will take them to the winning crowns. Hello and welcome to The English We Speak, where we explain phrases used by fluent English speakers so that you can use them as well. I'm Feifei and I'm joined by Beth. Hello, Beth. Hi, Feifei. Did you watch the award show last night? With that singer? Yes, incredible. The vocals, the outfit, her confidence. She ate. When you say ate...
You're not talking about food, are you? No, no. In modern slang, ate means someone did something very well. It's often used for performances and fashion. Ah, OK. So if someone gives a motivating speech with low... of confidence, I could say They ate. Absolutely. So I went to this fancy dress party the other night. My costume ate. It was fantastic. Oh, I want to see pictures. Let's listen to more examples of ate.
Georgie had such a cool hairstyle yesterday. It absolutely ate. Did you see the women's Euros football final? Chloe Kelly's winning penalty ate. We went to do some karaoke the other night and Beth chose a big musical song to sing. She got up there and she ate and left no crumbs. Now we just heard an example with ate and left no crumbs. We can add...
And ate no crumbs to mean something is completely faultless. Nothing was left behind or is negative. So it's an even bigger compliment. Yes. And another word that has a similar meaning to ate is... slay. You can use them in the same way, but remember they're both informal slang. You ate that definition, Feifei. What an episode. Right. We'll be back next time with another useful English phrase. See you soon. Bye.