299. Decode Business Phrases: No More “What Does That Mean?” | Confident Business English

Hello there, how are you doing?

The other week I did an episode called Decoding British Phrases and it seemed like it was really popular, so I am going to go through even more business phrases today, so hopefully you know exactly what they mean next time you hear them.

Let's crack on.

Welcome back to Confident Business English.

My name is Anna.

I'm a Neural Language Coach and this podcast is for you.

If you are a, It's likely that you have to spend some percentage of your time working in English, whether that's 100, maybe 80 70 60, whatever it is.

You can already communicate in English, but there's a certain lack of confidence with some interactions that you have.

This podcast is for you.

All of the episodes help you address some area where you lack confidence.

And today, we're again going to focus on understanding things.

Because it's horrible that feeling when you're in the middle of a meeting and somebody says something and you don't quite catch it.

And you're then second guessing yourself.

Did you understand what they were saying?

And, let's be honest, you might not always feel comfortable or it might not be the right dynamic to say can you please repeat everything you've said?

Or can we just go back to that one word that I didn't understand?

You might not want to do that.

And I totally understand.

You also might not want to send an email afterwards clarifying.

You know, it can be a little bit awkward.

And then you just feel like you are missing part of the conversation.

So let's try and help you with that.

I've got this list, which I've been compiling.

I just compile so many lists of different things.

These are lots of different business phrases that have either come in my sessions or they're also things I've heard.

I have to share this with you.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through them one by one.

These aren't necessarily things that just British people say, but still they're kind of universal ones.

I'm going to tell you what it is.

I'm going to give you the definition.

I'll give you a example sentence.

And I'm also going to tell you a little bit about the origin of the phrase, because I think that really can help unlock a bit of the understanding and can help the phrase stick.

Here we go then.

I'm going to start in alphabetical order, because it's kind of hard to categorize them in different groups, because they're all quite different.

We're going to start with the first one here. across the board.

Essentially, this means something applies to everyone, everywhere in an organisation or a situation.

A typical example would be if your company is implementing something in all areas of the organisation.

Let's imagine it's a policy and your colleague says something like we're introducing the new security policy across the board.

What they're saying is that this policy is going to be applied across across all the teams.

And I think the key thing you need to stick to there is across.

That really helps you understand the meaning there.

Apparently, the origin is from horse racing, which I found really interesting, where when you placed a bet across the board implied that you were betting across all the outcomes of the horse's performance.

If you're a betting person, if you're into that, maybe you already knew that, but I didn't.

So that's the root apparently of the phrase.

So across the board applies to everything.

Next, we move on to the world of contracts.

And this phrase, I actually got watching an episode of House of Cards.

If you haven't watched that, I think I've mentioned it before on the podcast.

It's a political drama.

The phrase is airtight contract.

For example, if somebody in your legal department said that the contract is airtight, or even the agreement is airtight, what they're implying is that the contract is completely secure.

There's no possibility for challenge or, from their perspective, there's no possibility for challenge.

There's not a loophole that could come in.

The origin here is kind of obvious.

If you think about a Tupperware, these things are actually really famous in Spain.

It's very funny, but Spain has... a huge industry around Tupperware.

It's like a sealed container.

It's airtight.

So no air can get in or out.

And in this case, we use in contracts to say there's no loopholes.

There's no possibility for challenge.

So airtight contract, a secure contract.

Now let's imagine that you're joining a new company in a new role and you're taking part in the handover process, and your colleague is giving you some information about how they do things there.

And they say well, you know, as a rule of thumb, we try to respond to the client emails within one business day.

As a rule of thumb, you're like, oh my goodness.

Okay, well, I'm just going to take rule and just assume that they mean a general rule.

And you would be right.

It's nothing more complicated than that.

As a rule of thumb, The thing that you have on your hand just means a general rule, basic rule, based on things that I've done before.

It's not necessarily a strict rule, right?

It's just like, as a general rule, we do it like this.

Apparently, the origin of that phrase comes from craftsmanship, and the width of your thumb was used to measure things.

So that's where the rule of thumb comes from.

So I thought that was quite nice.

So rule of thumb. general rule.

Moving on typical situation, you or your team are putting together a report to present to the executives.

You take it there, you take it to the meeting, and they give you some feedback.

They're like you know it's good, but I just think we need to beef up the data section of the report.

And you're like, okay, well, beef is a meat and up is up.

So I'm not really sure what where we're going with that.

This is really a little bit of a strange one, but the most likely place you're going to hear it is when we're talking about reports.

What does it mean?

Well, you have got a bit of a clue there with the beef, meat, substance, strength, detail.

Think about a steak, right?

It's meaty substance.

And it essentially comes from that.

That's the origin of adding more beef to make something stronger and more substantial.

So beef up means more substance.

If you get that feedback on your report, it means you need to put something more in there more detail, more information, whatever it is,

Let's come back to now policies, which we were talking about earlier.

We had that across the board, which means it's applied everywhere.

Here's another one that comes up all the time.

And whenever I show this to clients they're always like oh, this is weird, but kind of makes sense.

If your executive team says we need to introduce a blanket policy, requiring all staff to complete cybersecurity training, for example, and you're like okay, so a blanket is in my house.

It keeps me warm.

Not really sure how that applies to policy.

Well, what I want you to think about is, you know, imagine getting a whole blanket and covering yourself because you're really cold and you've got the blanket all over you.

You're completely covered.

And that's what this means.

It's something, a rule, for example, or an approach or a policy that applies equally to everyone and everything.

A blanket policy applied everywhere.

So we've got two phrases there that are kind of in the same family.

Turning to a different topic now, let's talk about approaching things, how to go about things.

Imagine you're in the early planning stages of a project and one of your colleagues around the table says well, you know, for the initial planning stage let's just take a broad brush approach and we can work out the details later.

And you pick up on the brush and you're like, okay, great.

Yep.

Got the brush.

Not really sure about broad brush.

Not really sure what that means.

Maybe you connect the broad with wide.

So you're like wide brush. okay, great, not really getting me any closer to that answer there.

Well, imagine taking a massive brush and painting a wall.

It's not going to be very detailed, right?

You're going to be able to cover the wall, but it's going to be a little bit messy.

Whereas if you had a brush which was really precise, very thin, you could do things with a lot of detail.

So if you do or you suggest a broad brush approach, It's like, let's just do something in general.

Let's have a go at it without going into too much detail.

It's definitely a phrase that has a positive connotation, because you could say doing something in a rushed way or doing something without enough detail could also be a bad thing.

But when people are using this phrase, they're doing it as it's just like okay, let's just get started.

We can do a broad brush approach now and we can come back and refine the details later.

And the origin of that is exactly about painting.

It's not really very difficult to put two and two together there.

So broad brush approach, general, not detailed.

Next, let's imagine you're in a meeting with your finance director and they're talking about the budget in 2026.

And they say, you know, we do need to dial back spending next year in 2026.

And you're like, dial back?

Dial is probably not a word that you're used to hearing often.

And it's very tricky in this phrasal verb.

It doesn't really make sense when you hear it, but it does when you know about the origin.

Now I want you to imagine one of those old school.

Well, it's not really that old school, but my mom has one in her kitchen.

But you know, you have like a radio and you have that dial and the dial turns either way to turn up the volume or turn down the volume.

You can also get it on like speakers and things like that.

Well, we call that a dial.

And if we dial back spending or dial down down spending, both of those are the same.

It means to reduce spending, but it's not only used in finance.

You could also use it in other contexts as well, like I think we should dial back on the European market, for example.

But again, in some way it's talking about reducing or lessening the intensity of something and we've got to go back to that dial on the radio.

We're turning it down and We're dialing it back.

We're reducing something.

We're lessening the intensity of something.

So dial back, dial down is reduce or lessen.

Let's talk about tasks now.

Have you ever had somebody in a meeting where you are allocating or assigning different things and they're like okay, let's divvy up some of the tasks here and decide who does what.

Divvy up.

This apparently comes from 19th century British slang.

And it makes sense because it actually comes from the word divide.

So all it means let's divvy up is let's divide the tasks among the groups or people that are there.

Let's divvy up the tasks.

Let's divvy it up.

Divvy up, divide.

Absolutely definitely 100 informal.

So you're going to hear that in that kind of casual conversation that you're having with colleagues, definitely not something you're likely to hear at a board meeting, for example.

We are going to finish up today with the last one, with the letter d, and this is a really weird word which is dovetail.

Imagine somebody's giving a presentation and maybe you ask a question about their topic and they're like that's a really nice question And that dovetails nicely into my next slide.

And you're like, dovetail?

What on earth is dovetail?

And you're like, okay, I give up.

This is pointless.

I'm never going to be able to understand English.

Well, no, it makes sense when we go back to the origin, which is carpentry.

So a dovetail joint is made of two interlocking pieces that fit together perfectly like the tails of a dove.

Now a dove is a bird, right?

The white bird.

I think it comes in other colours as well, but it's a white bird.

So if they're saying to you, that dovetails nicely into my next slide, what they're saying is that fits perfectly with my next slide.

So dovetail equals perfect fit.

Let's leave that there for today then.

I hope that you enjoyed that.

Maybe you learned something new, or maybe it's just one of those phrases that you've heard before and now you're like ah okay, I get it.

Understanding these really common phrases and expressions is really worth your time, because it is going to help you feel more confident when you walk into those rooms or when you're having those conversations online.

Whatever it is, if you can follow the conversation better, you're not going to stress and feel as anxious about those types of interactions.

Just before I go.

Don't forget that if you find these episodes really useful and you want even more business English tips from me, then you can sign up to my weekly Friday newsletter.

I send extra tips that are not included on the podcast.

And it's also a really nice compliment to everything that you've learned during the week.

Link in the description box below to sign up.

All right.

Thank you so much for squeezing me into your very busy week.

And remember if there is a time over the next seven days where you're like I don't know if I want to say something or not, just go for it.

Speak up.

Say what you want to say.

It'll be fine.

The world will still turn.

See you same time, same place next week.

Bye-bye.

[Essential Business Idioms: Decoding Professional Communication]-[299. Decode Business Phrases: No More “What Does That Mean?”]

📋 Summary

Enhancing Professional Communication: A Guide to Common Business Phrases

1. Across the Board

2. Airtight Contract

3. Rule of Thumb

4. Beef Up

5. Blanket Policy

6. Broad Brush Approach

7. Dial Back / Dial Down

8. Divvy Up

9. Dovetail

Conclusion

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript