Hi guys and welcome back to Love English. Today's lesson 15 business idioms to
help you in the workplac. But wait if you're not interested in learning
business idioms still keep watching although these idioms are specifically
related to work and jobs it doesn't mean that we don't use them in general
everyday English they are still incredibly useful to know now before we
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English now I think it's time we got on with the lesson 15 business idioms that
we use in day-to-day English idiom number one to get your foot in the door
we'd often say this when you get a job usually not your ideal job starting to
work at the company where you can work your way up and get promoted I always
wanted to work for that company and I finally got my foot in the door number
two sounds like a food idiom but it actually is referring to business
a slice of the pie to share money profits the benefits of a business
adventure so he really wanted to have but his
slice of the pie meaning he wanted to have his share of the money most
probably the company made a really big profits and they all wanted a slice of
the pie we really do like pies in English number three is to have a finger
in every pie this describes a person who has multiple interest in many different
businesses often in a negative way people might not approve of this he's
interested in every aspect of the industry he's got a finger in every pie
number four and I really do like this one to hold the fort if you ask somebody
to hold the fort you are simply asking them to take
control and responsibility for a temporary period of time a fort was
traditionally a castle a fortress where people could not enter and it was
protected by other people with bows and arrows however in this situation we're
talking about the business or shop perhaps while the boss is out of the
office I have to hold the fort to have a responsibility for a place a situation
possibly someone while another person is unavailable
number five red tape something that I don't think any of us enjoy red tape is
often the rules of the official rules that can actually delay things they're
usually very complicated rules that can cause a lot of problems and and really
slow the business process down you have to go through endless red tape to start
up a business number six is a nice and simple to get the ball rolling and this
simply means to get something started whether it is a project or setting up a
business come on let's get the ball rolling and get the investment money we
need so let's start the project let's get the ball rolling now often in
business you need to be on time and rather than say don't be late or exactly
1 o'clock people will say 1 o'clock sharp
means exactly at that time not a minute before
not a minute after so when we use the adjective sharp when related to time we
are talking about being very very punctual meeting is starting at 1:00
o'clock sharp money money money there is lots of it in
business at least there is if you're making a profit and the expression a
ballpark figure means around about we don't know the exact amount of often
money it is an approximation around abouts
could you give me a ballpark figure on costs could you give me a rough an
approximate number number nine bottom line oh right native speakers use
this to draw things to a conclusion the bottom line is he really isn't good at
his job so this is kind of coming down to basics to the essentials that is how
it is the bottom line could also refer to a company's of businesses net
earnings that's the money after paying taxes and costs so what the profit is
that they make after everything else has been taken out of the equation so the
bottom line but the first one I think is probably one of the nicest ways to use
the idiom the bottom line is you need business idioms to put something in
black and white means that you really do want something in writing which can be
very important in business for well many legal reasons thinking about this
logically a piece of paper is usually white and
the writing is usually black particularly if it's been typed so if
you have a verbal agreement with somebody you might say okay but I need
this in black and white it means they want it to be written down now of course
black and white can also refer to things being very clear right and wrong so in
this case it's more general idiom but in business
we're actually referring to the paper something being written down almost
contractual now number 11 I actually think might be more of an
American idiom I don't hear it used as often in the UK to blow a deal to blow a
deal now in this case when you blow a deal it means you've ruined it you've
destroyed the deal and it's not going to happen so that means that the business
agreement that was in place has now been taken apart and destroyed the business
won't go ahead he blew the deal and lost us at the contract number 12 a cash cow
now obviously cows don't usually have cash they provide milk in this case
we're kind of using it as a metaphor to say that something is providing a lot of
money so a product or service that produces an abundance a lot of profit
for the business this investment could be a cash cow we can make a lot of money
number 13 is really referring to business competition dog-eat-dog now
that doesn't sound great but it does emphasize how vicious and competitive
business can be often thinking about people companies only thinking of
themselves and not caring if they destroy the competition the only rule in
this industry is dog-eat-dog number fourteen is flat out now this is a great
expression to refer to somebody that has been working non-stop without stopping
and really is now exhausted which is a bit how I feel this week I have been
working flat out really early in the morning till late at night and I need
her break so I've been working all week because I've got a deadline at Friday
I've been working flat out number 15 our final idiom to be snowed under which is
a great idiomatic expression for this time of year when you are snowed under
you literally have so much work that you feel you are underneath and have all the
pressure and you've got all this work on top of you that you have to do I've been
so snowed under at work I don't seem to be able to get it all done
guys I hope of those business idioms were useful and you will try using them
in your workplace or indeed like I said comment below in the description box
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