This is the Business English Podcast, episode 241.
Don't be blindsided by these sports idioms.
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Hello, Aubrey. How's it going today? I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you? I'm feeling good. Today we're talking about curveballs and being blindsided.
Lots of good things, which we know very well these days.
I know, right? Have you been thrown any curveballs lately?
Well, I will have to say there's been some big changes that technology platforms have been making lately.
Specifically, Google Podcasts has actually shut down recently.
And so if our listeners were listening in Google Podcasts, they will need to find a new place to listen.
So that's a big curveball that we were thrown this year.
Yeah, we've been thrown a new list. Things have come out of left field.
We have some really fun idioms today because what a great way to connect with coworkers.
Wherever you work, whatever you do, this happens.
We get thrown curveballs, things happen unexpectedly, and there are some very great idioms to be able to chat about this. oh i'm i'm excited about this episode because it's very relevant and very real and this is real natural english this comes from a question from siva kumaran right siva g from india shall i read it aubry yes okay i'm siva g from india i've been following your podcast for years could you please suggest idiomatic expressions to say that there are unforeseen risks right yeah so this is really interesting right when we think about something that we can't predict something that might happen right anything unforeseen just means like we can't see it coming we can't predict it right so there are all of us have these risks all the time and the way we use idioms is when that happens right this unforeseen risk comes to pass right we have these great idioms first for talking about that oh i'm so excited this applies to the business world this can also touch on our lives the first thing that comes to mind for just everyday life is medical expenses, right?
Especially in the US, if people have some kind of event and medical expenses are a real thing here, as opposed to other places in the world where we're more covered under different systems, yeah?
Yeah, one way I feel like we talk about that is we say something is lurking on the horizon.
Do you ever say that, Lindsay? Do you think about medical expenses or something that it's because we can't predict it, right?
It's unforeseen, it's out there somewhere.
We're like, Who knows what's lurking on the horizon?
We always recognize like, you don't know what's going to happen.
Oh, and I think a big key, I guess, to success in life, which I'm still trying to figure this out is how do you, you're aware of these things, right?
But how do you focus on the things that make you happy and just keep moving forward?
And what's actually the case is not everything is going to happen all at once, right?
Most of the time, maybe one thing will happen, but then two other great things will be happening at the same time.
Yes, right. It reminds me, we recently had a guest, Hadar, talking about mindset.
And it's all about keeping that positive, that growth mindset, because if you focus on what could happen, all of these terrible unforeseen risks, it would be difficult to focus on the good, right?
Like she says, you can only hold one thought in your mind at a time.
Yeah, that was so good. Yes, right? If you guys aren't following All Ears English, go check it out.
It was a recent episode. So good. And make sure you're following both shows.
So many great episodes right here on Business English and on All Ears English that you can use to improve that business vocabulary.
So great. All right, let's get into the details here.
Aubrey, give our listeners some fantastic tools.
All right, what's the first one? What would we say?
Yeah. So this first one is out of left field and all of these come from sports.
So this one refers to baseball. A play where a ball is thrown from the area covered by the left fielder, right?
The left field. And when they are able to throw the ball all the way to home plate or first base, like further than you would maybe expect, right?
Surprising the runner and getting them out.
So that was sort of where this comes from, for something to come out of left field.
It's unexpected. And very common. So that came out of left field.
How do we handle it? So here you're acknowledging that something... kind of just appeared and you you did not expect it and usually that is what happens right the thing you think is going to happen doesn't but then something else comes from over here exactly right all of the things you've predicted none of them come to pass and that's something you did not see coming out of the blue now we're dealing with this right didn't know this was something i had to worry about right right right that came out of left field how do we handle it what else opry Or you might say, well, we're facing an issue.
Like imagine you're in a meeting and we have to have a sit down now.
And, you know, you're told, OK, we're facing an issue that's come out of left field.
So now we're going to work together and try to figure out a solution.
So this will happen a lot where you're being informed.
Your whole team is being informed like we didn't see this coming.
It's come out of left field. Now we find a solution.
Yeah, I love it. So relevant and so good.
And then there's a second one. It is to be thrown a curveball, right?
So this is, again, baseball. Love it how it's all back to baseball.
As you said, the pitcher throws a curved pitch.
And I'm not sure what a straightforward pitch.
I know they have knuckleball, they have curveball.
What else do they have in baseball? I think the straight one is just a fastball, right?
Oh, fastball, fastball. Okay. But there's also like a spitter or like spitball or something.
There's all these different pitches. And a curveball, I think, is the hardest to expect for a hitter because it sort of curves at the last second.
I think it looks like a fastball and then curves.
So they're really hard to hit. You don't see them coming.
So that's why this idiom has started being used like, oh, I'm not able to see this coming.
I've been thrown a curveball. And I love that we're talking about this today because I'm actually going to read part of an email that came in two weeks ago from one of our technology teammates, one of our developers.
And I told him about a new development and his exact email said, oof, what a curveball.
My first reactions are boom, boom, boom.
We don't need to go into the details of the email, but this was just sent to me.
This is real English is what I'm trying to say here, Aubrey.
Yes, I love that you're able to pull that directly from an email you recently received because every now and then we do, listeners will ask about idioms that are a little more outdated, a little less relevant.
And we'll still teach them. This is not one of those, right?
All three of the idioms we're teaching today, we use on the daily.
We hear at work. We get them in emails. They're very common.
Yeah. And I think as soon as our listeners listen today, they're going to start to hear this, recognize it.
It's going to be so relevant. And it'll be just a few.
It'll be quick before you're able to implement that, right?
You'll quickly be able to put it right into your language.
One of the ways I use this is, I might say something like, I don't mean to throw you a curveball, but something's come up that we need to address.
So it's almost sort of like a warning that I'm letting them know something's come up out of left field.
Like, sorry, I don't mean to throw you a curveball, but something's come up.
And that's a good one. We've done episodes before about how to say you're going to say something before you actually say it.
And that would also go into this category.
You could do another episode where this would fall into that category too.
Okay. Yeah. That's actually a really important connection skill because you're, as we talked about at the party episode, right?
About ending conversations. All right. You're, you're taking care of the person in front of you.
You're being extra careful. Yeah. Right.
Because often with something like this, something unforeseen, something that has come up, you know, out of left field, it can feel very blunt.
It can feel sort of too harsh to just throw it at someone.
And if you can just even introduce it just a little bit with one of these idioms to sort of take off that weight, even just say, I don't mean to throw you a curve ball.
You're giving that a little bit of warning, that little bit of heads up that really does.
It feels like you care, like you're creating this space to recognize we both are given something that we weren't expecting.
We can, you know, fix it together. Yes, I love it.
I love it. Anything else that we need to share here around curveball, Aubrey?
Yeah, just one more example. If something happens, you get just like that email you were saying, right?
If you can just say, ooh, that was a curveball.
I didn't see it coming. Or I love what you said.
Regis says, what a curveball. He said, oof, what a curveball.
Oof, what a curveball. We sometimes will eliminate that verb throw or thrown and just say, ooh, that was a curveball.
And I think in the high levels of business, you know, smart people don't dwell on these things too long.
They immediately go like in his email, he said, here are my first reactions.
And then three or four bullet points of observations around numbers and ideas and how to move forward.
Right. And so that's where smart people live.
They live in solutions. Okay. Absolutely.
We don't have time to dwell on why something happened and why we didn't see it coming.
Let's move forward. Love it. Valid in stores and online through August 11th, 2025 in US and Canada.
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Last one. Very much on this theme, Aubrey.
Blindsided. Yes. And this one, I hear it a lot for someone to say they were blindsided, for me to say I was blindsided.
And I've seen the film Blindside. Oh, okay.
Sandra Bullock. Have you ever seen that?
I don't think I have actually. I knew it was about football, but I didn't know exactly what blindside was referring to.
So I looked it up. It's about the quarterback being right-handed usually.
And so when they throw, they're standing with their left shoulder facing down the field and they have to turn their back to their linebackers and defenders.
And so that's considered their blindside.
So I guess it would be the other side if someone were left-handed, right?
Yeah. So then that tells the tackle, the left tackle, what they must protect, right?
So it's all about your vulnerability, right?
You've left something blind or something that needs to be protected.
Right. I wonder if most football people probably don't know that.
That's interesting. Maybe they do, or I'm curious if they all call it the blind side.
It's like, oh, this is the blind side. That's what we have to protect.
But it's just interesting when we use this at work, We're not thinking about what it means in football.
We're thinking about what it means in English, which is just that something has, again, come out of left field and has sort of shocked us, right?
We feel like we've been blindsided by something.
We didn't see it coming. Yeah, for sure.
For sure. So let's go into some examples.
So here's the first one. I won't be able to meet you for lunch.
I've been blindsided this week with an influx of tasks.
That's a good bonus right there. Influx, right?
So you just didn't expect it. You thought you would be more available for lunch, you know, and then all these things came out of nowhere.
Yes. And this is interesting to think about.
You do want to be a little more careful when you use this, I think, because there's this connotation of sort of like you should have known maybe you should have been warned.
So if you're assigned something at work.
And you say, like, I can't believe I've been blindsided with this.
You can imagine there's sort of this implication of like, I have been thrown something that I should have known about.
So we want to think about that collocation, this, you know, what's being implied when we say we've been blindsided.
Interesting. Interesting. And here's the next example.
Sorry to blindside you, but we're meeting in 15 minutes.
So this is also in the active voice, right?
I'm blindsiding you. And that's interesting, right?
Yes. And this might happen if something comes up and we have to meet.
We know people are in the middle of something.
We recognize like, I'm blindsiding you with this meeting.
I wasn't able to give you any warning. So this would be a great idiom to sort of apologize for having to drop in on their day and not having this planned ahead of time.
And I know that does happen sometimes. People get called into meetings, things get put on their calendar all of a sudden, and it can be, yeah, kind of disorienting for people for sure.
And I wanted to add in a bonus here, Aubrey, to be caught flat-footed.
Maybe we come back to this theme another day, but similar.
Right? Wouldn't you say? It is similar. What's crazy is there are a lot of idioms in English for this.
And I was surprised how many there were, right?
So I chose three from a sport. I wonder if caught flat footed is from ballet.
Tennis. I think it's tennis. I'm going to argue for tennis.
I'm going to push for tennis. Oh, that makes sense.
You have to be on your toes to be able to move.
That makes sense. Well, you have to be, your footwork is everything in tennis.
So you have to be... able to move in any direction at any time.
And if you're not, yeah, if you're not essentially on, yeah, in a way on your toes, then you can't move.
You're like rooted in the ground. That's the problem.
Volleyball's that way too, right? They'll say like, you got to be on your toes or you're not able to move as quickly as you need to.
Interesting. A lot of them come from sports.
But it makes sense that there are so many idioms for this in English because this is just such a common lived experience, right?
We're all going to be blindsided, caught off guard.
Things happen all the time that are unexpected and we have to know how to roll with the punches.
Oh my gosh, it's so true. So let's go into a role play now.
So here we are chatting before a meeting in the work context.
Here we go. Did you know about this meeting?
Nope. I think it blindsided everyone. Must be something important.
Any idea what it's about? No, I wish I'd been given a heads up.
It's tough when something like this comes out of left field.
It's stressing me out. I have a project due by five, so this has really thrown me a curveball.
Yeah. That would be stressful, right? You have a project due, and if you're pulled into an unexpected meeting, especially if you're not told how long the meeting will be, that would be really stressful.
Yeah, and right now, there have been waves of tech layoffs, right, that we've seen.
I've known people who have been laid off, and sometimes people get very stressed out when they're unexpectedly called into, especially an HR meeting, right, of course.
Is this a mass layoff? Right. I hope not.
But just that is one thing that could catch people blindsided if they're called into a meeting all of a sudden.
Right. Yes, absolutely. Right. And that's I love this because it is such a connection skill because we all know that it's possible, like it's possible for something to be unexpected or something to come out of the blue.
But I love what you said, Lindsay, where rather than dwelling on that, right?
We have this mindset of where do we go from here?
Yeah. And going to data. Let's just go through the role play real quick, Aubrey, and then we'll come out with some takeaways here for our listeners.
And so, all right. So you said, nope, I think it blindsided everyone.
Yeah. So this is like this meeting was unannounced.
So you asked, well, did you know? Nope. I think we were all blindsided.
Yeah. And then you said what? You said, no, I wish.
I said, oh, it's tough when something like this comes out of left field.
Right. So we're sort of just creating some solidarity.
Like I can tell you're stressed out. I'm like, yeah, you know, we're all sort of experiencing the same thing.
This is hard when something is unexpected, when something like this comes out of left field.
For sure. And then I said, it's stressing me out.
I have a project due by five. So this has really thrown me a curveball.
All right. So again, you said it, Aubrey, this is a great way to create solidarity with your co-workers, too.
Right? Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's it.
I mean, I think that's the final thought.
Everyone is going to have these kind of scenarios.
Every business is going to get blindsided.
We've been blindsided multiple times this year.
So far, it's only February. I know. Right.
For sure. Yeah. Sometimes it happens more at one time than another for some reason, but dwell in the numbers, dwell in the data, dwell in the solutions, not in the fact that you're off center.
Right? Yes. Idiomatic language is such a great thing to use for these types of conversations.
It does often make it just a little less formal, a little less high stakes, high stress.
Throw in these idioms that are a great way to connect while de-stressing, while taking a little bit of the pressure off the situation.
I love it. So good. Very positive episode.
Thanks for hanging out today, Aubrey. Good stuff.
Awesome. Thanks, Lindsay. All right. Talk to you soon.
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