This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 100.
How death can bring life to business English vocabulary.
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Offer ends August 10th. allearsenglish.com connection hey aubrey how's everything going today i'm great lindsay how are you well i'm glad to be on the mic i've been doing some traveling all over the country to the east coast and then out to california to the west coast and back to denver but finally i'm back in my home office recording the podcast welcome how's it feel to be It feels good to be home.
The sun is shining. It's warm in Denver.
So it's all good. But today, Aubrey, we're getting into a really interesting topic, right?
So this concept of... We'll start with the concept of... Well, it's about death.
So no one... It's not necessarily... Such a great connotation we have when we hear the word death.
Right, Aubrey? What's really interesting is the idioms we're going to share today, they all have the word death, but they don't have anything to do with death, actually, right?
We don't have that negative connotation.
No one's actually thinking about death. It's just something that is used in a bunch of idioms that we use in business English all the time.
Yeah, and we want you guys to know that in the business world, you're still interacting with human beings.
You're not interacting with machines. And so these human beings, native speakers, are going to use language like this, similar to what they would use at a party, right?
We bring our whole selves into work, don't you think, Aubrey?
Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, native speakers, they don't even realize they're using idiomatic language when they use it.
They're throwing idioms here and there. It might have the word death.
They're not thinking about death because it's just an idiom.
It means something else entirely. They'd use it as a party.
They'll use it at work, in a meeting, in a presentation.
Idioms pop up all over the place. They're not editing themselves because it's just the language they're used to using.
100%. So I'm going to start with a question for you, Aubrey.
Here's a good question. So what is a topic that you have a tendency to beat to death?
What is something that you just talk about?
Once you get on it, you can't stop talking about it.
You get kind of hooked, mentally hooked in.
Yeah, we're going to talk about this idiom today, guys.
It's so interesting. To beat something to death means we talk about it all the time for, yeah, like you said, something that you talk about a lot.
You can't stop talking about it or you it's like you can't help but bring it up all the time.
And I have done this lately when it comes to religion.
Because I left the religion of my childhood and I've started reading more about it and finding out things about it that I didn't know as a child.
And it was such a big part of my life that I sort of can't help myself from bringing it up all the time with neighbors, with friends, sometimes with family.
And often I'll feel that like, oh, I'm talking about this too much.
People don't want to hear it. That's when you're really like, okay, I'm beating this to death.
That's fascinating. Is it around specific people?
Like maybe people who don't know what you know?
Or is it someone that triggers you? Is it a certain environment that triggers this?
It's almost like an addiction to a topic that we go really into it and we want to keep talking about it.
It is a good question. Most often it comes up around others who have also left this faith.
So we're sort of all finding out these interesting things or horrifying things sometimes, just things that are very surprising or shocking.
And we're all interested, right? So we'll bring it up and we'll talk about it.
But then the beating it to death comes where I'm sort of still interested and still thinking about it.
And maybe I'll get together with my neighbors and it'll just sort of come up.
Something related will come up and then I'll make a joke about it or I'll be like, did you know?
Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, it was kind of like, okay, Aubrey's bringing that up again.
Yeah. But it's kind of, it's a little bit of a lonely feeling sometimes when you want to go deep into something and maybe you chat about it for a few minutes with someone and then they just move on to like TV shows or something that feels so much less important.
Do you think so? It feels a little lonely at times when that happens.
For sure. Sure, but I also get where they're coming from because you guys out there listening, you know what that's like to be part of a conversation where one, the other person is much more interested in something than you are.
And you can be interested and ask follow-up questions to a point.
And then you're sort of like, this doesn't mean as much to me.
It's not as related to me. So let's move on.
And I always understand. I understand what you guys, I understand what my friends do that.
That's why we have this expression, right?
Like when you're beating something to death, it's not pleasant.
Yeah. Right. I love it. So we're going to go into the definition of that in just a second.
But first, what do we want to tell our listeners, Aubrey?
Where else can they go to learn more about this topic of death?
Yeah, well, this episode was inspired by an episode over on All Ears English 1968.
You and Michelle were chatting and you brought up this article called Stop Shooting Yourself to Death.
So we're going to talk about what does that mean?
Whoever wrote the article put this interesting idiom in the headline.
But you guys, if you missed that, if you're not following All Ears English, you missed this really interesting episode about not only the grammar of should and some of these verbs we were talking about, but also this great conversation you guys had about our internal dialogue.
We shouldn't be... getting down on ourselves and telling us, I should have done this.
I should have done that. I loved that episode.
So guys, if you're not yet, go follow All Ears English.
Make sure you're getting those great episodes over there as well.
Yes. Just go to the search bar right now, wherever you're listening and type in All Ears English and then hit the follow button.
You're going to see lots of yellow and just go into that show.
We love yellow. It's like our color. I don't know what it is.
It's the color of energy. hit the follow button and follow that show.
We do four episodes a week on that show.
And you can follow Business English and All Ears English.
And essentially, you could get seven new episodes a week.
Amazing. Yes. And in those episodes, we often do talk about how we can use that vocab in business too, right?
It just comes up a lot. So it's definitely if you're working in English, All Ears English is also an amazing podcast to follow.
So don't miss out, guys. Yeah, good stuff.
All right. So our listeners have a sense now of what this first idiom means, right?
But let's go into a little bit more. So what is the full expression, Aubrey?
Yeah. So it's beating something to death.
And this is not the literal meaning of like actually beating someone or something, right?
It's very idiomatic. It just means to say something or use or do something so often that it's no longer interesting.
So let's share some example sentences. You don't want to be the person that does this in conversation, right?
I'm trying not to do it. Right. And it usually happens all in one session.
I mean, right. It's not as much about multiple conversation sessions.
It's usually about that one time when you're having that conversation, you're talking too much about this thing.
Right. So here's how you could say it. Not to beat this issue to death, but we need to discuss cost analysis as well.
So that means I would have talked about maybe costs before. right?
And then I'm saying, oh, we also need to talk about cost analysis, not just profit margin, not just... We're staying on a theme and we're not coming off of it is what I'm trying to say.
Right. This is where it comes up in business all the time, right?
Where often in a meeting, a lot of things will be related and it'll start feeling like, okay, I know you guys feel like you've heard all of this, but we still have more detail to share.
And that's a great idiom to use to make it a little more lighthearted to say this.
Not to beat this issue to death, but... We still got to go into some cost details here.
Yeah. And it can be hard, you know, as the presenter, it can be hard if you're not getting any feedback from your, let's say you're presenting to your team, right?
We, I mean, we have our, our team sync on Thursday.
And sometimes when, when I'm presenting to our team, I wonder, am I talking too much about this thing?
Are people bored? Yeah. It's hard to gauge sometimes, right?
Especially over Zoom, if you're not in person.
Sometimes it is. It's hard to tell, like, is this sinking in?
Sorry if I'm beating this to death, guys, but we need all this information.
Right. So this is going to be super useful for you guys, our listeners.
If you are someone that presents in meetings, and we all do at some point, so use this.
What's the second phrase that we might use, Aubrey?
Yeah, we also use this to kind of share that we are going to move on.
We might say, all right, we understood what we did wrong.
We can move on. No need to beat it to death.
So this is saying like, we don't need to cover this any longer.
We can move on now. And this is another way that we use it a lot.
Good. So it's perfect. So that's what that's all about.
Again, guys, not about physically beating.
We're not talking about violence here. Make sure you understand that.
We're talking about going into a topic a little too deeply, a little too much.
Too long. Okay. And that's really good to point out because you might hear this and be worried that if you say it, it sounds violent.
Like native speakers might know, right? Idiomatic language.
We're just not taking it literally. It has such a totally separate meaning from the actual words.
We use this all the time. If you hear a native speaker say this, know that they're not thinking about violence.
They're thinking about talking about something too much.
Right. Okay. What's the second one that we use the word death, but we don't necessarily mean to die?
Exactly. Right. We say a fate worse than death.
This means just an extremely bad outcome.
We use it to exaggerate. Again, same as the other one.
We're not thinking about death. We're not talking about death.
We're just talking about something really bad.
Okay, something really bad. And this is actually a good way to signal your values, what you care about, what you think is very bad or very good, right, Aubrey?
So for example, what are you wearing to the work event, right?
I'm not wearing heels. That would be a fate worse than death.
So what am I saying here when I say that?
This is definitely hyperbole, right? You're using it to exaggerate how much you hate wearing high heels, right?
We use it this way a lot. This is how I use this idiom the most, is to just say that I don't like something, but I'm just playfully really exaggerating how much I don't want to do it, how much I don't like it, to call it a fate worse than death.
Obviously, it's not literally worse than death.
I just don't like it. Right. And then here's a conversation starter.
What's something that could happen while you're traveling that would be a fate worse than death?
Well, I'll tell you what happened to me on Sunday is I it was pretty much almost a fate worse than death.
I was standing in line in the rental car line for two hours in LAX.
Oh, no. two hours standing in the line for two hours standing in the line like a fate worse than death Lindsay and I kind of missed the afternoon it was sort of bad it was yeah I couldn't believe it I looked at the other rental car company and I thought wow they have all the agents and they're just rolling people through and I've been here for two hours through the wrong company thank Clearly, yeah.
I'm sorry you dealt with that. It's such a perfect example because of like clearly not literally worse than dying, but that's not how we use this.
You definitely would say like, I was in line forever.
It was a fate worse than death. And you just mean it was miserable.
It was a terrible outcome. And I think that though, I would say that usually when I hear native speakers use this phrase, it's often with the wood, with the hypothetical conditional, right?
It would be a fate worse than death. I just feel that way.
It's just more frequently used that way.
Yes. And for solidarity, the empathy, like when you're telling me this story about waiting in the rental car line, I absolutely would say that.
That would be a fate worse than death. And I'm just trying to share like, that sounds miserable.
I'm sorry you had to do that. Yeah, I think that's the way it would be more commonly used.
Rather than me saying it was a fate worse than death, you saying that.
When you hear my story, I think that's how native speakers actually use that phrase.
Yeah, to empathize. Yeah, much more often.
And it's perfect for work, for business.
If anyone's sharing something that went... poorly, something that was really negative, right?
This is a great way to empathize, to show that you understand, you feel badly for them to say, oh, that would be a fate worse than death.
Or that sounds like a fate worse than, I think the would, you're right.
It sounds better. That would be a fate worse than death.
Yeah, because it's just hypotheticals. It's a situation or it's empathizing.
I love it. Okay, what's number three for our listeners?
Okay, so this one is the kiss of death, kiss of death, which means an action that would mean failure or ruin for someone or for a project, right?
So we often will use this in business English.
Maybe we're wanting to give someone advice and be like, oh, don't do that.
That would be the kiss of death for this project.
And you're saying it would ruin it. It would create a really bad outcome.
So it's kind of like maybe multiple things happen that were bad, but this would be the final thing that would just shut the whole thing down.
Exactly. Yeah. Let's share a couple examples here.
One might be the trip wasn't going well.
And then when she missed her flight home, that was the kiss of death.
So just like you said, things are already going badly.
Right. Things are kind of stacking up and then missing the flight was the kiss of death for the trip.
Yeah. It was terrible. Yeah. Yeah, it really is.
Yeah. It's a series of events, but this is the final thing.
It's the nail in the coffin, as they say, right?
Another expression. It's the final thing that really messes you up.
Here's another example. The keynote speaker described a company's business plan and why it was their kiss of death.
So the business plan was the thing that really brought down the whole company.
Right. Exactly. Right. So things were going poorly.
There are all these, like you said, Lindsay, this is not the first problem, right?
All of these things, there's all of these problems.
And then we're realizing, you know what?
The business plan was the kiss of death.
So this is interesting because it's like, this was something that was created quite a bit, but something went wrong, right?
It wasn't correct. It was, there was some problem with it.
And that was the nail in the coffin, like you said.
You know, these phrases are really interesting because they're quite nuanced.
They're quite high level based on not what they mean, but based on where we place them, you know, where they're used, what their strategy, what strategy they fulfill.
Yeah, it's true. And it's really interesting to think about the title of that article.
You know, stop shooting yourself to death.
We use idioms like this. in a very high level way like that, right?
So in that way, we're changing it. We're saying, don't use the word should so much.
You're shoulding yourself to death, meaning this is too much.
You're creating this problem. And we're very flexible with how we use them sometimes, right?
So like you said, Lindsay, it depends on how you use it, the context.
But again, feel free to use these. You're going to hear your coworkers, other native speakers use these because we're not thinking about death when we use them.
Yeah, guys. So make sure you write these down.
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Exclusions apply. See details online. Okay, Aubrey, let's go into a role play because I know our listeners love these role plays.
Really understand how we use this. So what are our roles here?
All right. So you and I are discussing a coworker who recently resigned.
I'll start us out. Are you ready? Yes. I know you and Marie were close, so I'm sorry if I'm beating this to death, but can you tell me what happened?
Well, she had been unhappy for some time.
And I think this past quarter, not meeting her sales goals was just the kiss of death.
I'm sorry to hear it. Probably for the best then.
Staying at a job when you're unhappy would be a fate worse than death. nice i like it so we're discussing a business situation here again guys totally legitimate to use these in the business world so the first thing that you said aubry was i know you and marie were close so i'm sorry if i'm beating this to death so why did i use it there yeah this would be interesting if you're asking someone about something that you know they've probably gotten this question before.
You're not the first one asking them because if a coworker leaves and you were close, likely lots of people are going to be asked, oh, do you know why she left?
What was going on? So this is something I would be like, sorry if I'm beating this to death, meaning sorry if you've heard this question a lot.
Sorry if this is very repetitive for you, but do you mind telling me what happened?
Right. Sure. And that also really shows that empathy because it shows that, you know, what that person's been talking about, thinking about for quite a lot, like many times up until now.
Right. Yes. Good point. Right. You're recognizing you may have heard this question before.
So sorry. Good. And then I said she had been unhappy for some time.
And I think this past quarter, not meeting her sales goal was just the kiss of death.
So maybe other things had happened. Yeah, clearly there had been problems for a while.
Things weren't going well. And then this last quarter, she wasn't able to meet a sales goal thing like that was the last straw.
It was the kiss of death and she decided to resign.
Yes, I love it. So good. And then the last one, what did you say?
So I was saying staying at a job when you're unhappy would be a fate worse than death.
So it has the would there, this hypothetical situation, like you said, Lindsay, clearly exaggerating, right?
But yeah, this is often how we'll say, whatever it is I'm talking about that would be bad, that I wouldn't like, I'll say, that would be a fate worse than death.
Yeah, that's interesting. I hadn't really thought about that.
But I think that phrase really is more in the in the wood world.
It's in the hypothetical world to show what we think would be bad and what would be good.
I think it's a way to show our values. Definitely.
Yeah, it's interesting, which is a great way to connect, right?
This is a good takeaway for you guys. Like, don't be afraid to share your values, to use these interesting native expressions, even though they have the word death, right?
That do sort of give a little glimpse into what matters most to you.
Yeah, I mean, and you can also obviously, I think with the fate worse than death, we shared the sarcastic version of that, but we didn't quite talk about it as much.
You can also share a way to show your values.
Like if you are someone that hires everyone to do things, you could say cooking my own meals would be a fate worse than death, right?
If you're really wealthy and you have a personal chef, you know, this can show your values, your attitudes towards life.
Yeah, definitely. Very interesting. This vocabulary is great.
I think it makes such a difference when you're working in English to not be using just textbook English, right?
You need to get beyond that. You need to be using interesting idioms, interesting expressions.
This is how we make our dialogue, our conversations a little more informal and more comfortable for whoever you're talking to.
And more human, right, Aubrey? It's a way that we can, we don't want to just work with robots, robots working with robots.
We'll save that for chat GDP, right? Right.
We want to work with human beings and we want to know who we're working with and what they actually care about.
So use these phrases, guys, to feel more comfortable at work.
I mean, Aubrey, how many hours a week do we spend at our workplace?
40 plus, 20 plus hours. That's a huge percentage of our waking hours.
I know, right? If you're miserable, if it's a fate worse than death to go to work every day, there are things you can do to fix that, like create these connections, create these friendships and interesting conversations between the people you work with so that you enjoy it, so that you look forward to it.
Exactly. And our vision here is that language will never be a barrier to that connection.
That's the whole point of what we're doing here.
That's why All Ears English exists. So guys, go over, find the All Ears English podcast, hit follow, and then make sure you are following the Business English podcast right here.
All right, Aubrey, let's hop off the mic for today.
I'll see you next time. Awesome. Bye. Take care.
Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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