Hi, this is Nitun here from Bangladesh.
You are listening to Everybody ESL.
Enjoy! Welcome to episode 393 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English.
My name is Ben and I have a mini episode for you today where I am going to teach you about one English topic.
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Okay, let's get on with this mini episode.
In this episode, I am going to teach you a very strange English idiom.
The idiom is by the skin of your teeth, by the skin of your teeth—that's by b -y, the skin, s -k -i -n, of your teeth, t -e -e -t -h, by the skin of your teeth.
What could this mean?
By the skin of your teeth, when do we use this expression?
What does it mean? By the skin of your teeth means just barely or by a very small amount.
We use it when we are describing somebody who succeeds by a very small amount, somebody who almost fails.
They succeeded, or they won something, or they managed to do something difficult by a small amount—only a small amount.
For instance, let's say that you have taken an important exam.
Later, after you get your grade back, after you find out how you did on this exam, your friend asks you, Well, did you pass the exam?
Now, you did pass the exam, but you almost failed.
Let's say that if you had gotten 10 questions wrong, you would have failed.
But you only got 9 questions wrong, so you passed.
You didn't pass by very much, you passed by only a little bit.
So you could say, I passed by the skin of my teeth, by the skin of my teeth.
In other words, I passed the exam, but only barely.
I almost did not pass the exam.
I succeeded, but only by a very little bit, only by a small margin.
Or let's say you are hurrying to the airport.
Your flight is going to leave soon.
You are rushing to get to the airport in time.
And you are lucky. You do get to the airport on time, and you get to the gate, and you get on your plane just in time.
If you had been one minute later, you would not have gotten on the plane.
But you did get on the plane.
You could say, I made it on my flight by the skin of my teeth.
I made it, or I succeeded by the skin of my teeth.
I almost failed. I almost did not succeed, but I did succeed.
I did it by the skin of my teeth.
And that is by the skin of your teeth, or by the skin of my teeth, the skin of his teeth, the skin of her teeth.
This is an interesting idiom that I think you should know.
This is the end of episode 393 of Everybody ESL.
Remember, if you have questions about English, or if you have comments for me, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes, the same way Nitun recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode, send an email to everybodyesl at gmail .com.
I'll be back soon with a new episode, and until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning.
I'll see you soon. Goodbye.
