This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 220.
You'll learn these business idioms in a blink.
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Offer ends August 10th. allearsenglish.com connection hey lindsay how are you i'm doing fantastic aubrey what is happening to you with you today what's going on it's been an interesting week it was a short week for my kids so whenever my kids are home it's just difficult right they want my attention i'm trying to work i'm sure a lot of you listeners out there who work from home or who have young kids can feel my pain Yes, I can imagine.
I can imagine. Well, Aubrey, I have a question for you today.
You ready? Well, have you ever attended anything?
Have you attended anything recently that was over more quickly than you expected?
Yes. This week, I'm going to say, right?
This week, I feel like before I knew it, it was over.
This week has gone really quickly. What about you?
Yes. We're just coming out. Guys, we do record in advance with this podcast to make sure we have amazing episodes for you.
And we're recording in early January. So we had our New Year's Day on Monday.
I think the holidays fell in a weird place this year.
So it made the weeks go fast. And then the whole season felt kind of long to me.
So I would say that too. Right now it's a Friday and I'm like, what happened to the week?
Oh my gosh, it was over in the blink of an eye.
Exactly. And we've used a couple of phrases here for something being over quickly.
We got a really good question about the idiom in the blink of an eye.
We're going to teach it and to others. This is such a great way to connect with someone to talk about things that seemed to fly by, seems to be over in the blink of an eye.
It's so true, guys. Before we get into it though today, hit that follow button right now.
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I think it's at the top of your player right there where you can just add us and hit that follow button, guys, to make sure you don't miss it. all right all right we have a question but this one actually came from youtube right aubry yes exactly this was in a youtube comment silva left this comment i'll go ahead and read it okay aubry i haven't seen anyone teaching the english expression in a blink of an eye even though its meaning is straight on itself it would be great to expand our vocabulary by the wealth of your daily experiences thank you for your attention Yeah, this is interesting.
I also love this. Sometimes you guys will send in questions where you hear something and don't quite understand it, but maybe you're aware of an expression, but you don't hear teachers or podcasters talking about it ever.
So that's another thing to say, like, why don't I hear people talking about this?
Is it outdated? Do we still use it? It's a great question.
That's why we're here for our listeners to tell you whether it is outdated and we're going to let you know, right?
What does it mean? When should you use it?
So we're going to go into it today. Yes.
And we're going to share a couple others as well, because like we were saying, this is a great thing to ask somebody, right?
What's something that you felt went by in the blink of an eye?
Something that ended surprisingly quickly, because usually that's something that was very interesting, engaging, or out of the ordinary in some way.
So that's a great, it sparks a good conversation. yeah good stuff so let's go into this first one then right the core the core phrase of today's episode in the blink of an eye can we add any more detail for our listeners well it means that it happens very quickly we want to keep in mind that of course idioms must be used word for word so when our student left this comment she wrote in a blink of an eye so just keep in mind this one it must be the blink in the blink of an eye and something like this it's just the article it seems so small But it sounds incorrect to natives because it's idiomatic language that must be used word for word.
Yeah, it's tough. I mean, we always say that we believe in connection, not perfection, which we do.
But when it comes to idioms, you do need to kind of get all those words in in the right order and use the correct little prepositions, guys.
OK, sometimes it's just a matter of being aware.
Right. If you just hadn't noticed or you make this mistake, all it takes is one person pointing it out like, oh, The article does matter.
The preposition does matter. And then bam, you're going to get it correct from now on.
There you go. So that meeting went by in the blink of an eye.
What else? Yeah, which would be impressive.
I feel like meetings rarely go by in the blink of an eye.
When they do, someone's doing something right, right?
It's going quickly. We're getting a lot of information.
It's interesting. Yeah, for sure. For sure.
Yeah. Or you might say this task seems like a lot, but you're going to finish it in the blink of an eye.
It's kind of a way to encourage. Like it seems like a lot, but it's pretty simple tasks.
You'll get it done quickly. Yeah, and is there a shortened, more casual form of this that you know of, Aubrey?
Is there any? Yeah, I often hear went by in a blink.
And this is interesting to look at the grammar here because this might be why Silva wrote in a blink of an eye.
Because when it's shortened, we change it from the blink of an eye to went by in a blink.
We change the article. That's so rude of native English speakers to make it so difficult.
But you'll also hear it this way, shortened to, that went by in a blink.
In a blink. There's also a book, I don't know if you've read it, by Malcolm Gladwell called Blink.
Have you read it? Oh, no, I haven't. Oh, yeah.
I haven't read it either. I just know about it.
I've heard it's great. We both need to check it out, evidently.
Talking about kind of cognitive abilities, how people make split-second decisions and judgments, right?
Super interesting. Check out that book, guys.
That would be a really nice one to add to your... kind of common knowledge.
These are the ways conversations get started, right?
Yes, right. But this is, I mean, if you understand the grammar of articles, you would understand why it changes.
Because when we say we're defining the blink, the blink of an eye, we're adding that extra information.
We need that definite article, the. When we shorten it to just in a blink, it becomes general, just in a blink, any blink.
So we need... an indefinite article. That's a really good point.
Guys, if you have any questions about that grammar explanation, let us know.
We're going to do more grammar, I think, Aubrey, in 2024.
We did some really good grammar episodes in the fall of 2023.
So guys, make sure you check those out, but we're going to get into it even deeper this year.
Excited for that. Absolutely. Yeah, let's go into our second one here, which is in one fell swoop.
I don't hear this quite as often, but I really like it.
This is one where when someone does say it, like Jessica does this sometimes, Jessica Beck on our team, she'll use an idiom that I haven't heard in a while.
And I love it. I'm like, I'm impressed. I'm impressed by your vocabulary.
Well done. What I think about this, I think about like an eagle coming down and swooping up something.
I don't know why. Yeah, because they swoop, right?
An eagle swoops down and grabs the mouse or something.
Or certain birds do. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
It just means all at once, right? Yeah. You can do something all at once instead of having to do it in different steps or stages.
You could say... i was able to do it in one fell swoop yeah and there are other idioms that explain this idea too but for today we'll focus on this one so here's an example guys we thought about stopping and finishing the meeting tomorrow but we really want to get it all done in one fell swoop that is kind of satisfying right when you can get everything done at once Yes.
And I'm thinking about this word fell. It seems like such weird grammar in one fell swoop.
If you have the app and you're following along on the transcripts, you're seeing that it's spelled F-E-L-L.
If not, you might be like, what word are they saying in one fell swoop?
It's kind of strange. I liked your expression there.
What word are they saying? What's going on?
I gesticulate a lot. You see my hand. If you're watching on YouTube, you see my hands moving a lot.
That was funny. Yeah, guys, a good reason to get the app, right, is because you actually see the transcripts right there on your screen as you're in the app.
So go to allersenglish.com slash app. It is weird.
One fell swoop. It feels like it should be one full swoop.
Right. That would make more sense in one full swoop, like fell, to have...
The past participle of the bird fall there doesn't really make sense.
I guess think of a bird falling instead of diving, but they're not falling.
It's weird. Yeah, we'd have to look at the history of that.
Do we have any other sample sentence there?
Did we get them all? Yeah, you could say they invited all the clients to an event so they could meet them all in one fell swoop.
Nice. And this is just a fun way to say all at once.
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Exclusions apply. See details online. Okay, Aubrey, there is a third way to say this.
And what is it? Yes, this one I used at the top of the episode to say this week was over before I knew it.
Just means very quickly or very soon. We say before you know it or before I knew it. and i think this is one of the most accessible ones or something you might say to anyone of any age like if your kid is going to school like first day of kindergarten maybe they're nervous how it'll be over before you know it i'll be there at the bus to pick you up yeah i just imagine saying this to anyone it's very colloquial friendly yes i agree right you might say you should get started the deadline will be here before you know it you could say this to anyone in daily conversations and also at work Yeah, it's kind of, yeah, it's kind of folksy.
It's a little folksy, if that's the word.
I don't know. Yeah, friendly. Yeah, I think so.
Yeah. Or you could say before I knew it, the meeting was over, right?
It means you were really immersed in it.
Yes, it seemed like it went by really quickly.
Yeah, that's a really good point. Whereas, you know, our listener on YouTube, Silva, was asking about this in the blink of an eye.
And I do hear it. I wouldn't call it outdated.
But I think you make a good point there, Lindsay.
Like, I wouldn't say to my kids, the day will be over in the blink of an eye.
They would probably be like, what are you talking about?
You know, it's not common enough that a child would necessarily know it.
Children don't often know the average idiom.
But at work, yes. your average coworker is going to understand it and be familiar.
Sure. I love it. So interesting. Is there another episode that our listeners should go back and check out as we finish up today?
Yeah. Yeah. We had a really good one recently.
You and Michelle recorded, can you say good when you agree in English?
This is very interesting. If you guys missed it, you definitely want to scroll up.
It was episode 202. And again, hit follow so you don't miss any of our great episodes.
Yeah, I think that one was also based on a listener question.
We love your questions. So guys, go check out that episode.
Let's finish up today with a role play, Aubrey.
What do you think? Yes, you and I are at a conference for this role play.
Yay. Okay, cool. Oh, that keynote speaker was fantastic.
I agree. It was so riveting that it went by in a blink.
I thought I'd need to attend several workshops for all that info, but she covered it all in one fell swoop.
Yes. I have a feeling all of the workshops will be interesting still, though.
Before we know it, we'll be at the closing event.
Oh, yeah. Is that how you feel when you go to conferences, Aubrey, usually?
Or do they drag on for you? Or does it depend?
No, they do go by fast. The main conferences I've attended are education conferences.
I used to be an IB French teacher. So that's the International Baccalaureate program.
And I went to a conference at Price University in Texas for that.
And it was like a four-day conference. And it went by in a blink, in the blink of an eye.
It just felt so fast because there were so many interesting workshops and networking events.
And it was fantastic. Oh, yeah. It's so intense, right?
So many people you want to meet, so much that you want to learn.
So that is a good example of how things can go by in a blink of an eye.
A week can go by in a blink of an eye. So what did we say here?
Yeah. So first I said it was so riveting that it went by in a blink, right?
So you can either say it went by in a blink or it went by in the blink of an eye.
The blink of an eye. Love it. And then I said, I thought I'd need to attend several workshops, but she covered it all in one fell swoop or she covered it in one fell swoop.
Again, very kind of weird, but... Yes, it's such a straight, like I do hear this, but when you actually look at the individual words and try and pick it apart, it's like, this is weird.
We got to remember, that's why it's idiomatic.
We cannot take the individual words and figure out what it means.
For sure. Maybe our listeners will take it on to type it into Google and look up the etymology of that phrase.
Yeah, I'd like to know. Share it on YouTube in the comments or on social media.
I want to know. Love that. Love that. And then you said, Aubrey, before we know it, we'll be at the closing event.
Nice. Yeah, it's just meaning this is going to go by very quickly.
So before we know it, it'll be over. Yeah.
And usually by that point of a conference, you're just ready to go home because you're tired.
Right. It is exhausting. It can go by really fast.
It's very engaging, but it's always exhausting at the end.
You're ready to leave. Yeah. And what's the takeaway for our listeners on this one today?
Yeah. Sometimes language learners, I think, see idiomatic language as too informal, maybe for business English, but that's not the case.
In the US, everywhere, English speaking countries, we use a lot of idiomatic language at work in business conversations.
So you should be adding idiomatic language like today's idioms to your business conversations. yeah that will make you more interesting and again you can use this with clients with your boss with your colleagues it just depends on which one you're using guys right so good good stuff all right aubry well thanks for being on the podcast today good stuff awesome thank you i'll see you next time have a good one bye bye Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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