hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Adverb Phrase 23. The adverb phrase today
is back to square one. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. If someone says he
or she must go back to square one, it means that he or she has to completely
start all over again from the very beginning usually after a failure or
possibly hitting a dead end. Where you can't go any further and you have to
just throw the whole thing away and begin again. So you have to go right back
to square one. Okay. Let's continue here. There are three
different claims to the origin of this phrase. The first comes from the way
announcer's used to broadcast soccer and rugby games. They divided the field into
different squares. Okay, of rectangles to describe what part of the field the
action was taking place in. So remember this was like pre-TV. So they were
probably like announcing it on the radio, but you know people had to use their
imagination to know where in the field they were. So they were saying there in
square one. There in square five. There in square six or whatever and of course you
know I guess the idea is after the play is over. You begin a completely new play
again. It's back to square one. That's the idea. Okay. So yeah the idea would go back
to square one if a new play begins. Even though there is some question about this
one because some people say they don't think they started hearing about this
this phrase back to square one until like around the 1950s. It would have been, it
would have been some time after this. But still yet some people think this is
where it came from. Let's continue. The second theory is from
board games. You know there's a lot of board games like you know, checkers, chess,
Monopoly . Things like that. You know board games especially Snakes and Ladders. Well,
this one especially , because I think if you messed up , you had to start all over
again and you had to go back to square one. So this is another one where people
think that it came from this game. So that is the second one. The third one or the last
possible origin comes from the playground game
hopscotch which is still popular today. Sometimes you see the kids draw chalk on
the grounds and they jump in all these boxes which has a number of squares
children's jump through usually numbered from one to ten. And of course you know,
if they finish it at the end you got to go back to square one to start all over
again. So that's the idea. So there are three
possibilities of what people think that this phrase actually came from . It probably
could be any one of them. Okay. Let's continue. We got three examples here to
show how we use this phrase today. Let's look at the first one. It is said Thomas
Edison tried over 1,000 times with different substances to invent the light
bulb and I guess that means he failed 1000 times too So each time he failed, he
had to go back to square one to start all over again.
So that was something that remember Thomas Edison always pushed was his
persistence to just keep trying and trying and trying no matter how many
times you fail. All right. Let's look at number two here. The negotiations
completely fell apart. We will have to go back to square one to start them up
again. This is a very common way we might hear it. And the last one here. That
strong typhoon completely destroyed the outdoor project the students were
working on. They will have to go back to square one to rebuild it all over again.
Okay. Anyway I hope you got it. I hope it was clear. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.