This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 256.
Get organized with this Business English vocabulary. welcome to the business english podcast from all ears english get the english skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business 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 Still translating in your head when you speak English?
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Hey, Lindsay, how are you? Doing great, Aubrey.
What is going on in your world today? It's actually funny.
A really loud jet just flew over the house.
I'm glad we weren't recording yet. It was so loud.
I'm like, that's crazy. I kind of wanted to go outside.
I'd be like, how low is that? Why is it so loud?
Good question. Wow. I think there's a military base not too far.
And so sometimes that happens and it's Did the papers on your desk just fly all over the place as you... Yes.
If the door had been open, they probably would have.
It was that loud. And then I would have had to figure out how to straighten them and arrange them.
Very related to today's question. Ooh, nice one.
So today we got a good question from our listener on YouTube.
Jessica from Mexico City. Should I just dive in and read the question, Aubrey?
Yeah, let's do it. Okay. I have a question.
What is the most common way to express that you are putting things in the right way, place, or spot?
For example, I have a bunch of documents spread all over the table, and I want to say that I want to have them all organized.
So how can I say that in a natural way? Could it be, let me fix all these documents before we go, or let me accommodate these documents before we go?
I'm kind of lost. In Spanish, we say, déjame acomodar estos documentos antes de irnos.
Oh, a little Spanish in there. I hope you can help me.
Thanks for everything. I love it. I love that we got to hear your amazing Spanish accent.
Well done. And I left that in because, oh, this is such a great thing to see this false friend, to have acomodar, which does not mean the same in English.
And so it's just such a good way to notice that we can't translate directly.
There are all these false cognates, false friends, where they look the same, these two words, but they mean something different.
Oh my gosh, we have to watch out for false friends.
We always warn our listeners. We've done entire episodes on how to watch out for false friends, probably more over on the All Ears English podcast, which guys, if you're not following it, open search, type in All Ears English, hit follow and do the same right here on Business English.
Yes, absolutely. Because this happens in business English too, right?
There are these false cognates between languages and that's what's caused the problem here.
So just first to quickly answer in American English, we would not say fix or accommodate for straightening documents like this, organizing.
Fix is a synonym of repair, has a few other meanings, but we don't ever use it for like straightening, arranging, organizing.
And accommodate is a synonym of adapt, So that has a very different meaning in English.
Adapt to something, right. The one thing I always found interesting and not natural to me, but a lot of people use it, is to fix someone a meal.
I always thought that was different. I don't use it.
Do you use it, Aubrey, to fix you some dinner too?
Yes, this is very geographical. Yes, my grandma would always say that.
Can I fix you something? Can I fix you a meal?
And I feel like my dad says it. So that's interesting.
It depends on where you were raised and the language your family uses.
Yeah, for sure. So that is very regional.
I could tell you that pretty much in New England on the East Coast where I grew up.
Maybe in the South, it's more common. In New England, Northeast, I don't hear it much.
No, that's fascinating. So yeah, you might hear it on a TV show if it's about in the West, set in the West, because I feel like it is either Northwest or maybe all of the West, you'll hear this.
And maybe the South too. What can I fix you?
Meaning, can I make you something to eat?
It feels friendly. I mean, I like it. It feels friendly.
It feels kind of like, you're at home, home cooking, that kind of thing, you know?
For sure. Yeah, I love it. But what we do want to share today is we want to share a few different words that you can use to, you know, depending on what exactly you plan to do with the documents.
There are a few different ways we say this in English.
Very useful at work. We say these things all the time, but they do have a little bit different meaning depending on what exactly you're doing with these papers that are all over your desk.
Yeah, and I feel like the number one tip would be just digitize them, you know?
Right. Step one, digitize. Don't let them be a file on your desk.
Put it into your Google Drive or Google, whatever you use, SharePoint people use, right?
Get it online as much as you can. Well, it's so interesting.
For our business, everything can be digital, but I go to medical offices and I see them with paper files filed and I feel like so many offices still are having to work with maybe they could digitize everything, but they still have just walls of paper files.
Especially if they've been open for 50 years, they're like a family business.
The project is going to be a lot. So here's what we can do though in English, right?
In terms of you have to straighten up that pile.
What do we do, Aubrey? Exactly. So let's do the first one, which Lindsay just used, straighten.
So just straightening them up and putting them in a pile so they don't look messy.
This does not mean you're filing them or putting them.
You're just keeping them from looking so messy when we say straighten.
Do you find that when you straighten your desk, your mind kind of feels more clarity or more sense of calm?
Yes. We have a desk in our kitchen, which is sort of a catch-all.
Our kids will throw papers from their backpacks there.
And when it's sort of overflowing with papers, it is a stress point for me.
So even if I just straighten them so they're in neat stacks, I feel better about it.
I see. Yeah, that makes sense. Usually on Friday afternoons, my desk is just a disaster, like a tornado hit it because everything's just hitting the wall.
It's Friday. But I try to, at the end, just straighten everything out and then put up my out-of-office and then It feels like I'm kind of wrapping up the week with some sense of control.
Even if things are not done, I still feel like things are under control.
It's a false sense of control. I love this.
We used it here a few times, but just another example, you can say, I'm going to straighten these documents and then we can go.
It doesn't mean you're taking the time to file them.
You just kind of put, like you said, straightening everything so it doesn't look like a terrible mess.
But we can also use this word. We use it to talk about straightening a room, meaning we're sort of picking up the clutter.
And we also use it for straightening like a photograph on the wall.
If it's a little askew, a little like crooked, we'll say I need to straighten this photograph.
Now, just a little pro tip, a spontaneous question.
How do we know when to say I'm going to straighten something versus I'm going to straighten up around here?
I'm going to straighten up in this room.
Straighten or straighten up. I would never say straighten up documents.
I'm going to straighten these. It's a more direct synonym with organize, arrange, something like that.
Whereas straighten up, the phrasal verb means like to clean up. to pick up things.
Yeah. It just lives on its own, right? It lives independently.
It doesn't need, I'm going to straighten up the room.
You could say, I'm going to straighten up the room, but you can also just say, I'm going to straighten up, but we can't just say, I'm going to straighten, period.
Straighten what? Exactly. I'm going to straighten the room.
And when I am talking about cleaning, I think I am more likely to use the phrasal verb, straighten up.
I'm going to straighten up the room. What about you?
Would you say straighten or straighten up?
Oh, yeah. I'm going to straighten up the room.
But when it comes to documents, I'm going to straighten these documents.
Exactly. Straighten the photograph on the wall, straighten the documents.
Right. It's more about a specific thing.
So this is a real nuance for our listeners.
You know, guys, soon we are launching the B2 fluency course coming up very soon.
This is the kind of thing that in B2 you might see.
Really understanding those differences, but going into more depth with a study plan, with lessons, with other native speakers on video, that kind of thing.
Absolutely. You're going to get more information about that course soon.
So coming up soon. Yeah. Let's go to the next one here.
Organize. This has sort of the same meaning as sort or file.
It means you could say I need to organize these documents before we go.
And that doesn't just mean straightening a pile.
Maybe you're putting them in alphabetical order or separate piles.
You're doing a little more to organize them.
Exactly. Yeah, for sure. Can you organize these papers for me?
So maybe it's by date. Maybe it's by topic.
Whatever it is, there's some way of putting it in order.
Yeah. Some kind of ordering is going to be happening.
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Exclusions apply. See details online. Okay, and then sort.
Sort. So what is the difference between this one?
I feel like sort and organize are very similar.
Maybe you're making two piles or maybe you're going to file one or two of them.
So you might say, I'm going to sort these papers before we go.
I think the big difference here is you can organize a lot of different things.
You can organize your time. You can organize lots of items that are around and sort.
I feel like we use more specifically for documents.
Yeah, I mean, although we do say sort our laundry, right?
Like, that's true. Your partner's laundry, your kids laundry, your laundry, this sock belongs to this person.
It's interesting. They're like all these random things that we choose which verb, right?
I wouldn't say I'm organizing the laundry. i'm sorting it's kind of about the piles it's about if you're making piles then it's interesting interesting um so just some sample sentences right um give me a second to organize the i meant to have sort there give me a second to sort these documents before the meeting so yeah it really when we say sort they're so close guys and we're really trying to give you the nuance here they're very close but again it's like when you have categories kind of with sorting Yes.
And these are pretty interchangeable. I feel like when you're talking about, you're not just straightening them, you're doing in some way, you're ordering them or putting them in piles.
You can pretty well say sort or organize.
It means you're doing something more than just straightening a stack of papers.
And then there's put in order, which is kind of the same thing as all of them.
It's just saying it in other words. Exactly.
Exactly. A phrasal verb to say, right? You might say, I'm going to take some time to put these documents in order.
And that has the same meaning as to organize these documents.
Or I need to put these papers in order. Yeah.
And that is such a good feeling, especially if you work from home or not just your desk, but maybe your closet.
Right. Exactly. We also use this idiomatically to talk about our life being in order, right?
Get your life in order. It's the same, like the restraining documents, we're organizing everything and we want our life to have that calm feeling of just everything's in order.
Yeah, or even just our Google Drive. I'm dying to organize our Google Drive and I've been wanting to do it for like three years.
I just never have the time. So it's just chaos in there.
We've got to get Google Drive in order. Yeah, it's pretty funny.
All right, let's get into a role play here.
Yeah, so you and I are co-workers cleaning out an office in this role play.
All right, so I organized all the documents that were in the desk and made a stack of papers to recycle.
I'll just straighten them so they fit in the box.
Awesome. These stacks over here have been sorted according to priority.
Nice. We can start with the highest priority and then put everything in order.
Nice. Okay. We've used them all here and this doesn't feel strange to use them all in the conversation, but I love that we have all of these different options because if we just said sort every time, that would get very dull and these do have a little bit of a different meaning.
A hundred percent. So first I said, I organized the documents that were in the desk and I made a stack of papers to recycle.
Right. And they said, I'll just straighten them so they fit in the box.
So you've done a lot more work to organize those documents.
You're figuring out what everything you have, and then you have a stack that's messy.
You're going to straighten it so that it fits in a box.
So that's just about the physical organizing.
It's not about the organ. Maybe the documents were organized in by year or something, right?
Organize them by something topic and then sort comes in here, right?
What did you say? You said. Yeah, and then I said these stacks over here have been sorted according to priority.
So though they are a little interchangeable, organized is sort of the high level I'm taking this whole mess, all this stuff and kind of generally figuring out what's what.
Yeah. And then we can sort according to date or according to priority.
I agree. Yeah, I think that's a better...
Like sword is a more specific word and organize is that broad umbrella term.
I think that's well said. Yeah, that makes sense.
And then use this last one. We can start with highest priority and put everything in order.
And this can be sort of general, like just generally we're putting everything in order with all of these documents.
And it can also be used to say like put in order of date or alphabetical, right?
We can use that both ways. Yeah, so we definitely, hopefully we answered our listeners question.
Jessica, if you have a follow up question or if something's not clear, write back to us.
We'll do a follow up episode and go even deeper here on this topic.
Aubrey, what's the takeaway? I love it. Think of the takeaway as don't trust the thesaurus and don't translate directly, right?
Because a lot of these, if you're looking at a thesaurus for a synonym for something, They're going to have different contexts.
They're going to have different meanings depending on what you're talking about.
And then if you're translating directly from one language to the next, you could end up making a mistake because so many words look like they should mean the same thing in two languages and just don't.
Yeah. And so that kind of follows up on what we said in another episode, Aubrey, where we said, if you want to learn something, take a task to your teacher and tell your teacher to assign it to you.
So I could imagine if you're meeting your teacher in a cafe in New York and you want to learn the difference between these words, bring a big old stack of papers, bring your tax returns.
Yes. What are all the verbs I'm going to use when I sort these and organize them, straighten them?
And do the project together. That's actual experimental learning.
Experiential learning. I love that idea.
Let's do the thing and talk about it as we do it.
It doesn't have to be tax return. It could be anything.
Different things, right? Maybe it's your bills or it's this and it's that.
It's your address book. We're going to organize things together and learn these words by actually doing it.
Yeah, it's going to pull all of this interesting vocabulary that you don't always think to use when you do a task like that.
I love that. Good stuff. All right, guys, hit follow on Business English.
And Aubrey, I will see you next time. Awesome.
See you next time. Bye. Bye. Thank you.
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