This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 353, four ways to say, I don't know in English.
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For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English, with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Aubrey, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
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How's it going today, Aubrey?
I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you? Good, good.
But I have an interesting question for you.
Okay. Let's hear it.
So can you tell if you'll get along with a co -worker within the first few minutes of meeting them?
Oh, that is a good question.
I feel like, yes. I feel like everyone I meet, I feel like I can usually tell within a few minutes.
Usually for like 99 % of the people I meet, I'm going to like them.
And I'm like, oh, I can tell I'm going to like this person.
And then the rare time when there is someone that we maybe are not going to get along or I'm not going to like them, I can tell right away.
Like some people happen right away.
Interesting. What about you?
Yeah. Most of the time, it's true.
The same thing. There's an intuition that we have, I think as human beings.
But then sometimes people surprise me.
Yeah, that's true. They seem maybe they're like a little shy or maybe a little abrasive at first.
And then they become, they end up when you get to know the real person, there are these great people.
Absolutely. I feel like all of those people, I'm going to assume I'm going to like them right away.
Right. The only people is like, I'm not going to end up getting along.
They do something within the first couple of minutes.
I'm like, ah, this is not going to work out.
We're not going to get along.
Interesting. Something's very extreme, right?
Got it. Got it. All right.
So this is the topic we're going to get into this idea of telling, right?
The word tell, but first Aubrey, we have some poll results to report for our listeners who are participating in our polls.
Yes. We had a really fun poll.
Do you often make mistakes at work?
A ton of people answer this poll.
Thank you for everybody who answered in Spotify.
This was from episode 328, nevermind how to respond to a coworker's mistake.
What were our results, Lindsay?
So the yeses were 63 .4 % just to be specific and the nos were 36 .6%.
Right? So yeah, of course the answer is most people yes, make mistakes at work.
And that makes me feel reassured because I make mistakes all the time.
Absolutely. And I think the often is key because even everybody who said no, we still make mistakes at work, but hopefully not often, right?
36 are like, I do, but not often.
Good job. But if you are often making mistakes, it might actually be a good thing too, because it means maybe you're pushing yourself, maybe you're learning something new, trying to apply it.
If you're a, you work in software development, maybe you're learning AI software development.
So that's going to lead to mistakes, but it's a good point.
Right? So both are good.
Yeah, both are good.
Okay. Let's get into it today, Aubrey.
So what do our listeners need to know?
All right. So we are diving into a couple of phrases that we use often at work that might confuse you.
The first one is I can't tell, which has two meanings in English, right?
The first one would mean that you're not supposed to say something like I can't tell you the answer.
This is a little more straightforward.
Yeah. What would be another example, Lindsay?
He can't tell her the address because he doesn't know it.
So it's just the information is not available, let's say.
Exactly. But there is a second meaning to this that is a little more idiomatic that might be a little confusing.
And it means I don't know.
We'll use I can't tell to mean I don't know or like I can't figure it out.
Right. It's like I can't observe or I can't see.
Right? I can't tell what's happening here.
I'm looking at this thing and I can't quite tell what's happening.
Exactly. And this way that we use it has nothing to do with something that we would tell someone or say it's a chunk.
That means I don't know.
I can't tell or maybe just other verbs.
I can't gather what's happening.
Right. I can't conclude.
I can't figure it out.
Yes, exactly. You might say during the meeting, no one could tell when it would end.
And this doesn't mean no one could say it means no one knew.
Oh, yeah. So number one is kind of like almost a secret or no information's available.
And number two is we don't really know.
Yeah, exactly. And it becomes even more confusing because we do also say I can't say or I cannot say for the same meanings for both.
Right. I can't say this because I don't know.
And also, especially let's do a mini role play because we often use this as a response.
Start us out here Lindsay.
All right, here we go.
Do you know what time you'll get to the conference?
Can't say. This means I don't know.
Yeah, this means you're not saying you're not at liberty to share as we shared before in another episode.
Right. It means I don't know.
Or I might say I can't say what time he'll get here.
And it's because maybe something's someone's unpredictable.
Right. For some reason I'm like, there's no way of knowing.
Yes. Anything. We're pulling in some information from our community today.
Yes. This is very exciting.
So I posted in our community about the phrase there's no telling.
I had heard it in a song by Bright Eyes, one of my favorite bands.
And I shared in the community and then members were commenting, sharing related phrases and asking like, does this mean the same thing?
Does this have a little different context?
So I planned this episode with some of their ideas.
Yeah, so fun. All right.
Let's start with there's no telling.
Yes. All right. So this idea of there's no telling means there's no way to know.
Right. So for example, there's no telling how long this meeting will take.
There's just no way we can know at the beginning of the meeting.
Exactly. And we do say also there's no way of knowing, but this chunk, there's no telling could be confusing if you look at the verb tell, and you're thinking of this meaning to say something to tell someone something.
It doesn't mean that.
Right. It's an idiomatic chunk.
Oh my gosh, confusing potentially.
Right. Yeah. Exactly.
Right. It's another way to answer.
I don't know. And it often implies that something's unpredictable.
Like you said, there's no way of knowing when this meeting could end.
Maybe this is a boss that some meetings are five hours, sometimes they're 15 minutes.
There's no telling.
Maybe you have an erratic boss, right?
They're just doing crazy things all the time.
Yeah, exactly. And sometimes meetings are three minutes, sometimes are three hours.
And there's no telling.
Don't know. Right. And so he's kind of a way of throwing up your hands and saying, it's a little bit out of my control too.
Right. Exactly. Which is actually a really great connection skill because you're going to fill solidarity here.
Like if you have coworkers and you're all a little frustrated because the something is so unpredictable to use a phrase like this is like, Oh, there's no telling.
Yes, exactly. Very useful.
Let's see a role play, Aubrey.
Yeah, you want to start us out?
No. All right, here we go.
When do you think the client will get back to us?
There's no telling.
Okay. So maybe you know something about this client.
Yeah, right. Maybe they have taken a long time to get back to us in the past.
Something is unpredictable, which would make sense if I say there's no telling.
Yes. I love that. And there's another phrase, um, that means something slightly different, Aubrey.
What is it? Yeah. So this one is juries still out or the jury's still out.
This was shared in our community by Pauline.
Shout out Pauline. She heard it in a Ted talk.
This means something either hasn't been decided or isn't known yet.
It's a great one. Right.
So for example, the jury's still out on whether we should have taken on this project.
We're not literally talking about a jury trial, hopefully.
And that's a good point.
This literally you could be talking about if there's a court case and the jury is deliberating.
So they have left, they're trying to decide the judgment.
You say they're out, they're out of the room.
They're still deciding.
So jury's still out.
It means they haven't brought their decision yet, but we use this automatically in English to say about any decision.
If the decision hasn't been made yet, jury's still out.
Right. Aubrey, have you been called for jury duty lately?
Not lately. I have gotten the notice in the mail a couple of times, but then when I call the night before, I've always been dismissed.
Nice. What about you?
Oh, I just had it recently in September.
I had to go in. So my, my number was in the category to go in, but it was a Monday or it was a Wednesday, I think.
And there weren't a lot of cases and the case that we were going to get called into just settled.
So I got to go home.
Yeah. But it was interesting.
I had never made it to that stage.
And what they do is they put you in a room and they show, they tell you about the judicial system and how important your role is there.
And you kind of get into it.
You're like, Oh yeah, this, you know, this is doing your civic duty.
My brother -in -law was on a high profile case.
He was having to go in every day for months for months.
I never found out which case it even was.
I don't think he ever shared.
Um, but yeah, imagine just like missing work for months.
It's kind of cool, but it's also kind of terrifying just to kind of have to leave your entire life behind.
Wow. Interesting. I wonder what the case was because maybe he can't tell.
Right. I maybe wonder if he wasn't able to say, or if I want to remember now, maybe I just never asked maybe if I asked him now he would tell me, I'm going to have to ask.
Yeah, I'm curious. Jury duty.
I love that movie. You guys out there listening.
If you haven't seen jury duty, it's so funny.
It's really good. Definitely check it out.
So basically, yeah, this idea jury's still out.
We haven't decided the decision hasn't been made yet by whoever, you know, by the other person or by you.
Yeah. Yeah. Let's do another mini roleplay.
Cause we often just respond this to something.
So I'll start us. Right.
Have you decided which candidate to hire?
No jury still out and notice how I take off the jury and that's interesting, right?
You could say the jury is still out and you can, but it just makes it feel a little more idiomatic when you take off the.
Yeah. Both are correct.
Right. But we do this a lot where we have idioms that are like four or five words and we'll often, it's kind of like saying grass is greener instead of the grass is always greener on the other side.
We try to shorten it a little bit when they're longer.
Right. And it just makes it really clear that we're not talking about a jury literally.
Right. That's true too.
If you say the jury is still out, like what jury?
Good point. Are you talking about an actual jury?
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Okay. Aubrey, and number three here that we want our listeners to come away with.
What is it? I have no clue, which also means I don't know.
This one was shared in our community by Jude, shout out Jude.
She's an amazing student that we love to have in there.
And this is interesting.
I use this a lot, you know, I'll say I have no clue how long this will take.
It's sort of a more native, natural, informal way of saying, I don't know.
Yes. I remember discovering this phrase when I was a kid in the eighties and thinking, Oh, this is kind of slangy, kind of cool.
If I say this, I'll be cool.
Yeah. Little Lindsay planning how to be cool.
That's true. It's so funny.
So just again, just saying, I don't know.
I'm not sure. Right.
You don't have the answer.
Exactly. And we often shorten this one as well.
Let's do a little mini role play to see what that might look like.
All right, here we go.
So what role are you being assigned on the team?
No clue. I think I'm supposed to find out today.
Right. And this doesn't leave any sense of uncertainty or unpredictability of someone, right?
It's just flat out.
You just don't know.
Yep. Flat out don't know.
I have no idea. That's the other way of saying it, no idea, no idea.
Yes. And there's another episode.
Our listeners could check out Aubrey.
What's that episode?
Yeah. We want to make sure you guys don't miss episode 342 right here of the business English episode, which had some interesting idioms.
Do you push the envelope at work?
Really good conversation you and Michelle had.
So don't miss that one.
Yes. Go and check it out.
What's our takeaway for today's episode?
I feel like some really important stuff came out around connection.
What do you think? Yes, absolutely right.
There are so many ways to say, I don't know this, you know, this, uh, there's no telling or I can't tell is idiomatic.
So you just have to recognize you can't take every verb and assume it always means the same thing.
Cause with all of the idioms in English, there's a good chance that has multiple meanings.
Yeah. And the key here too is just stay away from just always saying, I don't know, right?
Try some of these different ideas, different ways of saying that you're just not sure.
Experiment with them, try new things.
So you'll become more interesting to speak to.
Right. A more interesting, uh, conversationalist.
Yeah. Yes. For sure.
And we do have a Spotify poll for you guys today and every day, be sure to fill it out.
Can you tell if you'll get along with a coworker within a few minutes of meeting them, you heard Lindsay's response and my response.
We want to hear from you.
Yeah. So that you, so you have to choose yes or no.
So let us know, go over to that poll and let us know your answer.
All right. We'll share the results very soon.
Sounds good. Good stuff.
You have a good week.
I'll talk to you soon.
You too. Thanks Lindsay.
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