This is an All Ears English podcast episode 2471.
Out of energy or out of power?
What's the difference?
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Power outages are a common part of life no matter where you live.
Today, find out how to articulate it in English, especially if you drop from a call due to losing power.
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Hey there, Aubrey.
How's everything going today?
I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you?
Good.
Aubrey, when is the last time your power died at your house or maybe your office?
It's been a while.
It doesn't happen too often here.
I think last year during the monsoons in the fall, the power cut out briefly.
Not long enough we had to light candles or anything.
I
It was maybe, you know, not long enough.
We were worried about things in the fridge spoiling.
What about you?
I think we actually had a random power outage, I think like Sunday night or Monday night.
And I woke up the next morning and I knew because, you know, the clock was flashing 12, right?
That's always the telltale sign.
Mm hmm.
It happens sometimes.
That's why you have to have multiple alarms set if you're supposed to get up.
Right.
The phone and the alarm and the backup alarm.
So true.
Yes.
Yes.
I usually set like five when I like if we do open conversation club early.
Yeah.
It's funny.
What are we getting into today, Aubrey?
Talking about power.
This was inspired by actually something that happened in Open Conversation Club where, during the club, a student lost power and left.
And when they came back they said I ran out of energy, when they meant that the power died, the electricity had cut out at their home.
So it ended up being a really interesting discussion because of course, we do use energy a lot to mean electrical power.
So you would think you could say that.
You would think so, but you actually can't, right?
When we say I ran out of energy, you would think the student was saying physically.
Exactly, right?
That they had run out of energy.
They're tired.
They need a granola bar.
That's what we mean when we say I ran out of energy.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
So we're going to get into this curious question today about how to say this correctly.
But first, I do want to say thank you to some wonderful listeners that left reviews for the podcast.
So a huge thank you to Holly Hello from Switzerland and Pijon 101 from Taiwan.
Guys, if you want to hear your name read out loud on the show, leave us a review.
Tell us what you love about the show.
Yes.
Amazing.
We love these reviews.
We read them and they help other listeners find the show as well.
So give us a rating and leave us a review.
All right.
Good.
All right, Aubrey.
So what do we need to know here?
Yeah.
So, like we said, this is tricky because we do use the word energy to mean electrical power in some context.
So let's share some sentences where we would use energy to mean electrical power.
Yeah, here we go.
So here's the first one.
The storm knocked out the energy supply to thousands of homes.
Yeah.
And so we mean the electricity.
We'll say the energy supply.
We could just say the storm knocked out the energy to homes, but we usually would say the energy supply.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, energy.
Yeah.
When you take the word energy alone, again, it doesn't work in this way.
Yeah.
It doesn't just mean electricity by itself.
Right.
But we'll say supply of energy, energy supply.
We also will say like we need to find more sustainable sources of energy.
And here we're talking about renewable resources, natural gas, right?
Sources of energy.
Or solar panels can convert sunlight into electrical energy.
Okay.
Yeah.
And so here we have that adjective to describe what type of energy we're talking about.
We're being specific electrical energy or the factory uses a lot of energy during peak production hours.
And here we would know we mean power.
We mean electrical energy.
Yeah.
And that's another thing that they're going to.
They're talking about with AI that it's going to need a lot of energy to run right.
When it comes to its peak, um, Huge amounts of energy.
Yeah, I had seen something.
It's like maybe old malls could be used to just fill with supercomputers to power AI.
I'm like, well, at least that would be a use for old strip malls.
Oh, that's sort of depressing, but also kind of makes sense.
I don't know how I feel about it.
I'm working through my emotions right now.
It feels very Skynet.
If you guys have watched Terminator and you see the giant buildings with all of the supercomputers.
Kind of scary.
Yeah, kind of scary.
Here's another example.
Governments are investing in renewable energy like wind and hydroelectric power.
So again, a type of energy, right?
Exactly, right?
We're naming it renewable energy.
Or she turned off the lights to save energy.
And here we're just meaning electrical power, right?
So I can totally see why the student made this mistake and how all listeners out there could.
So we're going to dive into this chunk out of energy.
Often, when words are used as a chunk right, with certain prepositions, certain words right, it's idiomatic.
This means it's only used to mean that a person has run out of energy.
They don't have enough calories in their system.
They're tired.
Yeah.
I mean, that's usually sometimes that happens to me when I hike is that does that happen to you?
Even though I eat a good breakfast, it's like mid morning, halfway through the hike.
And all of a sudden I get kind of shaky.
I start to feel really weak and maybe queasy and I just have to eat a bar and then I'm good.
That's exactly right.
Maybe your electrolytes are low or you just burn too many calories and you're like, I'm exhausted.
I'm out of energy.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So then what would be other ways that student could have articulated what was happening?
Yeah.
So we want to share some other expressions we use to mean a loss of electrical power.
This is actually a really interesting connection skill, right?
If your power goes out, you want to be able to talk about it.
You want to ask people about it.
It's interesting, especially if you're both dealing with it at once.
Maybe you call a neighbor, a friend that lives close by, did your power cut out too?
But you would not use this chunk.
You wouldn't say, are you out of energy, right?
That is specific to a person's amount of energy.
So instead, we're going to share the four ways that you could say this.
Yes, I love it.
So the first one is the power died.
And it's ironic because you think die would just be for people, right?
But no, our power died during the lightning storm.
We had to use candles for three hours.
Exactly.
We often talk about electric, you know, technology dying as well.
And if you say the power died, then you mean it cut off, it turned off.
I mean, that could be another episode, Aubrey, potentially for another day.
My laptop died, my phone died, my power died.
We're throwing this word around quite a bit to say that something has...
Yeah, run out of something, whether it's battery or energy.
Yes, we use this a lot, died, to mean this, right?
Very idiomatic.
So that's the first thing you could say is just my power died.
So if this student came back after losing power, losing their electrical power, they could just say oh, my power died.
The second option is to say that your power cut out, or we have three phrasal verbs we can use.
Cut out, went out, or shut off.
All three we'll say.
Pesky phrasal verbs are back to haunt us, but no problem.
We'll do it in context.
Right, Aubrey?
Exactly.
Did your power cut out last night?
Ours was out from 8 to 10.
Yeah.
And this is the same as dying.
Like, did your power die?
Did your power cut out?
But it's interesting because we wouldn't say cut off, or at least I didn't say that in my regional dialect.
We would say cut out.
Did your power cut out?
Power cut off.
Yeah.
I guess cut off would be a little bit more like they cut off the power.
Someone did it on purpose.
That's true.
Was your power cut off would mean more like the power company for some reason cut power.
Maybe they were going to be trimming trees or fixing a line, something like that.
Then you'd say the power was cut off for this specific reason.
Or sometimes in certain cities, it might be that they strategically cut off the power because they're worried everyone's going to use AC Uh, which is so brutal, but I've heard about this happening.
That's a good point.
Yes.
Right.
So sometimes it is intentional like that.
It's interesting.
The phrasal verb you use implies whether it's intentional or accidental, because cut off.
It implies there was something has happened to make people lose power that wasn't intentionally done by the power company.
Exactly.
What else, Aubrey?
So then if it's went out, our power just went out.
I'll have to call you back, right?
You're on a phone call.
You're like, that means the lights have shut off.
Maybe the timer on the microwave shut off.
Your power went out.
You know, something about life, this kind of thing always seems to happen.
We talked about internet connections on the IELTS Energy podcast recently and now power.
These moments always happen when you're an important call, like an important moment.
That does seem to happen a lot, right? only when it really matters.
You're delivering a big webinar and all these people are listening to you, or you're having a really important conversation.
Do you find that that's true?
Yes, I do find that happens a lot.
It would be so funny if one of the power in one of our homes cut off as we're I said cut off.
That would be if the company cut it off.
But if it cut out while we're chatting, that would be pretty funny to be watching on YouTube to see it happen.
Right, right, right.
That'd be hilarious.
I love it.
Or the power shut off.
Hopefully it'll be back on soon.
So that is shut off, right?
Yeah.
And it's interesting.
We would use the passive if we're talking about the power company shutting off.
We'd say the power was shut off.
That means someone did it.
If you say the power shut off, that's assuming there's some kind of accident, something that's happened, to shut it off.
Right.
And usually the first thing you do when the power's out.
You might go down and check the breaker right.
The breaker box.
But sometimes I get nervous around those breaker boxes because I don't know like which one goes to which one.
And what if I hit the wrong one, Aubrey?
I know it's true.
My parents have a condo in North Scottsdale.
And when we stay there, we turn on certain breakers like the water heater when we're there.
And then we have to turn them off when we leave.
I'm like you have to be really careful to leave like the kitchen on.
You can't turn off the fridge but turn off the right ones.
It is a little stressful.
Yeah.
It's not like there's like a guide, like this switch goes to this and yeah.
Home ownership is complicated.
Unless if you guys have the same, my dad will like write on a piece of tape or something.
He's like writing what it is, the switch for each thing so that you know which one is which.
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
What would be the third example?
Alright, so the third, we don't just say power, right?
The power died, the power cut out.
We can also say the lights cut out or the electricity cut out.
And we can also use all of these phrasal verbs for that, right?
The lights shut off, the electricity went out.
So all of these, you can interchange the lights or electricity for power. yeah and that usually i would say electricity uh that's my go-to but we can interchange it right depending on what we want to say in the moment exactly right so you could say the electricity cut out while we were on vacation everything in our fridge is ruined this has happened to me before we came back from mexico once and it actually was the fuse of the fridge it wasn't the whole house at least but we had to throw out everything in the fridge because it had all spoiled oh not good oh my gosh Terrible.
And then the other thing we could say is there was a power outage.
So the power company announced a scheduled power outage for tonight at midnight.
You're right.
Sometimes when they're doing construction on lines, they'll shut off the power.
Exactly.
Right.
So there might be a scheduled power outage, but we can use this as well to describe something that happens unannounced.
Right.
Like there's a power outage.
We don't we don't know why.
Yes.
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Okay, Aubrey, let's do a role play.
So here we are at my house during a storm.
That's perfect.
Want to start us out?
Oh no, the lights just cut out.
Oh, the microwave shut off too.
I think the power went out.
Let me check the fuse box.
Nope, it's not that.
I guess there was a power outage in the area.
Hopefully it won't last long.
The oven lasts power too, and the lasagna is only halfway cooked.
Oh, this storm's pretty bad.
The power flickered a few times earlier, but I didn't think it would go out completely.
Let's just light some candles and hope they fix it soon.
Oh, that's so annoying, right?
Worst case scenario, the half-cooked lasagna in the oven.
They better fix this soon.
I know, right?
So here we use cut out, the lights cut out, right?
So we use that one.
Which just means they stopped working, right?
There are a lot of ways we can say that the lights went out, the lights shut off, the lights cut out.
And then I said the microwave shut off too.
I think the power went out.
So the verb to go out, power going out.
And then you said, I guess there was a power outage in the area.
So you can talk about a power outage for your home or for the entire area, right?
That's very versatile.
You're just talking about the power cutting out.
And then I'm saying the oven lost power too.
And the lasagna is only halfway cooked.
And usually this is what happens.
You think it's just your laptop that goes out, but then you look around and you're like oh, it's everything.
Exactly.
It's like, oh, nope.
All of the microwave, all the clocks for everything are off.
Exactly.
Especially if it's in the daytime.
So lights wouldn't necessarily be on.
And then you're seeing all of the power, the devices turn off.
Yeah, for sure.
And then what's the last thing I said?
Yeah, you said the power flickered a few times, but I didn't think it would go out completely.
So there's so many ways you could say that.
I didn't think it would cut out, shut off, right?
There are a lot of phrasal verbs we use for power dying.
And then a bonus here, you said the power flickered a few times.
This means it's quickly going in and out.
We notice it most often if the lights turn off and on quickly.
We say the power is flickering.
Yes.
Great bonus word for today.
So for a takeaway, where should we leave our listeners?
Yeah, this is a really interesting vocabulary.
And I do feel like this is a fun thing to connect about.
I remember growing up, we lost power once for like six hours and we lit candles and we were telling stories.
And I feel like everyone has a memory like that.
So you can ask someone about a time they lost power.
What was it like?
What did they do?
What a fun way to connect.
Yeah, it's so true.
Oh my gosh.
It's almost like a snowstorm, right?
The snowstorm things you do, you huddle together, make snowmen and that kind of thing.
Also, we know that around the world, there are a lot of places where power does go out regularly.
So if you are in a place where that happens, or even, I think, in New York City, they do phased blackouts, like we were saying in the summer.
When they think that ACs will be overused.
So being able to communicate if you're involved in global business, being able to communicate what's happened, if this is happening in your city or town, is so key for connection, Aubrey.
Absolutely.
And if you drop off a call and it's because the power cut out.
You need to know what to say, right?
There are a lot of different ways that you can describe this, and this will help you avoid this potential error of saying that you ran out of energy, right.
That's one thing that we can't say to talk about the power dying, cutting out.
We only use that for a person needing a granola bar, right?
A person runs out of energy.
I love that it's granola bar every time.
That's the go-to.
Totally.
I know what your go-to snack is now.
Eat a granola bar if you're out of energy.
All right.
Good stuff.
Well, you have a good day, Aubrey.
I'll talk to you very soon.
Awesome.
See you next time.
All right.
Bye.
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