¶ Intro / Opening
This BBC Podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Längre äckvid på kortare tid. Ionik 5 med ultra snabb laddning, privatleising från 4995. Upplev kraften med elektrisk innovation. Jondai Ionic 5. Power Your World. Besök din lokala Yundai-återförsäljare eller vår hemsida yndai.se. Dej skulle ju köpa några nya palsrält. Det kanske blev lite mer grejer. De hade ju allt, skrivbord, jag köpte en sån här. Och kontorstolar, och sen hade de en skit snygg tippkontrol.
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¶ Understanding the Phrase "Cut Corners"
Hello and welcome to the English We Speak, where we explain expressions used by fluent English speakers so that you can use them too. I'm Fay Fay and I'm joined by Georgie. How are you? I'm very well, thank you, Fay Fay. How are you? Well, I'm a bit annoyed. I had some decorators paint the living room, but there are bits missing and they've not done a great job tidying up either.
They really cut corners. Ugh, that is so annoying. Uh but Fay Fey, you've just used an interesting phrase, cut corners. So why don't we learn that in this programme? Let's do it, Georgie. Well I think it would be useful to first think about this phrase literally, don't you think? Yes, I agree. So let's imagine an athletics track. It's oval shaped with multiple lanes.
Now, if you're running in the outside lane, you run a longer distance, don't you? That's right. So after the start of a race, runners usually want to cross to one of the inner lanes so that they can run the shorter distance and make it easier. They take a shortcut. And the best place to do that is in the corner of the running track.
Exactly. So the runners are cutting corners to make things easier. So that's the literal use. What about metaphorical? Well it's similar. If you cut corners when doing a task, you take a metaphorical shortcut. You do it in an easier, quicker, or cheaper way. But often this means that the result is not as good, like what happened with my decorators. Yes, cutting corners has quite negative connotations, like you're not doing something properly. Let's hear some more examples.
¶ Using "Cut Corners" and Its Opposites
The client we're hosting this reception for is really important to us. So we can't cut corners on this. It has to be perfect. You can't cut corners with health and safety. You need to do things properly or someone could get hurt. I was under a lot of time pressure for this project, so I had to cut a few corners. I hope that's okay. So cutting corners is about taking the easy, quick, or cheap route, which means that sometimes the job is not done properly.
Are there any phrases which mean the opposite? There are. So instead of cutting corners, you can go the extra mile or go above and beyond. Both of these mean more than just doing things properly, they mean you do more than what's expected of you. Well, we hope our listeners feel that we go above and beyond with our English language teaching.
Let's recap. We learnt cut corners, which means you choose the easiest, quickest, or cheapest way of doing something, which sometimes means you don't do it properly. Join us again next time. Goodbye. Bye. Amazon Spring Deal Days är här med grimma erbjudanden så Johan kan passa på att finda, göm från alla sina vårdssysslor.
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