hello everyone and welcome back to Love English I'm Sabrah and today i
have a rather different video for you, something a little bit less formal...
so basically we all know that sometimes life can get us down and sometimes life isn't always a bed
of roses so occasionally we need some expressions to sum up the unfortunate situation we may find
ourselves in or to express our frustration so here we go everyone 12 idioms and expressions
for when let's face it life is a little bit [ __ ] don't forget guys you can follow us on instagram
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vocabulary course available details about that are down in the description box okay so number
one is of course a very classic one this is the [ __ ] has hit the fan the [ __ ] has hit the fan
so it's basically the worst possible outcome in a situation if you look at
the expression the [ __ ] just hit the fan there was already a problem because there was already
the [ __ ] basically but it was just whether it was going to hit the fan or not whether it was
actually going to happen so imagine that you're a student and you cheated in a test you copied from
the person next to you and then you realize that your teacher has seen you okay first of all this
is the first stage of the [ __ ] is hit the fan but so then the teacher talks to you and you try
and deny this because you're you don't want um the teacher to to know that you're not good at math so
you try and deny it the teacher gets more angry and she says to you i'm gonna tell your parents
now the [ __ ] has really hit the fan so when things have gone really really wrong you can
say oh no the s-h-i-t has hit the fan now the [ __ ] has really hit the fan right number two
is it's gone to pot it's gone to pot or something has gone to pod so we would normally put a noun
in that phrase like the dinner has gone to pot the restaurant has gone to pot
the standards in this country have gone to pot and essentially this means declined in quality
deteriorated gone wrong really so it's where something originally was quite good or was good
and then if it's gone to pot it's it's gone wrong it's deteriorated declined
any of those things so older people sometimes say things like oh manners and politeness have really
gone to pot in this country no one knows how to behave anymore the morals of this country have
absolutely gone the pot or someone could say my cooking has really gone to pot lately i've
really lost my touch can you think of something that's gone to pot in your country or in your life
tell us about that in the comments below the next one is a synonym really something has gone to the
dogs gone to the dogs is very similar to gone to pot but it's perhaps a little bit stronger
it really means you know ruined really kind of destroyed if you say oh it's gone to the dogs it's
almost like you know we've thrown it to the dogs and that's it now you know it's been completely
wrecked imagine if you throw a toy to the dogs what's going to happen to it so it's really
quite a negative phrase so if you hear somebody saying that school's really gone to the dogs
they're saying that perhaps once it was okay or it was good but now it's really really deteriorated
in quality in standards it's not a good school anymore another example could be oh this party's
really gone to the dogs first the caterer didn't turn up and now half the guests are leaving
it's really gone to the dogs number four this one is a great expression we use it a lot
this is something is on the line something is on the line now if something is on the line we mean
it is at risk it is in danger essentially it's in danger of being lost or that the person can
even pass away if we talk about lives being on the line we're talking about actually the the
possibility that the life can be lost so for example if i say my job is on the line after
i made that big mistake at the event in front of my boss i really think my job's on the line i mean
i think i'm going to lose my job i think i'm going to be sacked your job is on the line if we say
firefighters put their lives on the line all the time we're saying firefighters put their lives at
risks all the time you can use this for anything that's at great risk or could be irretrievably
lost next one number five is to go awry it's a hard word to pronounce you need to ignore the w
to go awry and essentially this means go wrong it's not as serious as um gone to the dogs or
um to go to pots but it means something hasn't gone quite right so we might say oh the plans
have really gone awry now for the wedding because uh the venue is cancelled so i'm gonna have to
look um for somewhere new so all isn't lost but it's not going as hoped or as expected
chemical peel gone awry fascinating number six something or someone is on their last legs
basically this means um about to break or again about to pass away so if we say
the washing machine is on its last legs we mean if you put too many clothes in it if you overload it
it could easily break so on its last legs not very um safe secure or sturdy anymore basically we can
also talk about people and animals being on their last legs for example we could say the family dog
poor toby he's on his last legs he's 14 now and he's very slow when he's got some health problems
he's on his last legs she's on her last legs next one something is a pile of crap so if we say
oh that's a pile of crap we mean it's such rubbish so if we watch a film and we think
oh it's terrible we can say oh well that was a pile of crap so it's something which is very bad
it's an expression where we're really saying that something was unenjoyable rubbish etc
often we use it about performances about meetings about anything we've attended and experienced that
we didn't enjoy we could say oh that was a pile of crap oh your future is just a huge pile of crap
the next one is to not be out of the woods to not be out of the woods and if you think about
the words as metaphorically representing danger because of course a long time ago
uh perhaps when we didn't have a gps and all of that on our phones it was it was quite dangerous
to get lost in the forest especially if you didn't have a mobile phone uh to call for help
so the forest represented danger so we have this expression to be in the woods but we
tend to use it more negatively and say we're not out of the woods meaning we're not out of danger
so for example imagine you're in a traffic jam and you start to see that it's clearing a little bit
you might think to yourself okay you know we might be all right now maybe we'll be okay the traffic's
clearing however the better expression really is if you're not sure you're completely out of
danger if you're not convinced that the situation is really improving you could say we're not out of
the woods yet anything where someone is being positive and they're expressing that they're
saying for example we can pay off our debts or i think the weather is really improving now
or the traffic's clearing anything like that but it's not 100 sure yet that you're going to have
a positive outcome you can say we're not out of the woods yet we're not totally out of the woods
next one number nine is to screw something up and this is basically where you ruin something you
make a complete mess of it if you go to your ielts exam but you've been out the previous night for a
party and you have a hangover you're very likely to screw up the test bad idea guys or for example
imagine you're on a date with somebody but you're a bit nervous and so you start talking a lot about
your previous relationship you start talking a lot about your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend
and the person you're on a date with doesn't look very happy you might say oh no i think i screwed
it up i was nervous and i started blabbering about my ex these are all cases where you can use screw
something up but i screwed it up the next one is very similar but perhaps not quite as strong
in terms of the language screw is quite strong so it's very very much informal even bordering
on swearing but the next one is blow it blow it if you blow something again you mess it up you
you ruin it if you say i blew my chance it means i ruined my chance so it's a very very common one
you'll hear used all the time i think i blew the job interview today i couldn't think of an example
for when i'd worked as a team so i just sat there and looked really uncomfortable i think i blew it
do it it blew everything number 11 is things have gone south if you think things have gone
south it means gone downwards and if we think that metaphorically often down means decrease
declined in quality that's what it means so if you think oh it's gone south it means it's not gone in
the right direction it's certainly not gone as planned or as expected now this one is slightly
more formal so you'll hear it in the news and things like that someone might say the government
talks about climate change seem to have gone south they can't seem to agree the last one is
sod's law now i'm sure you know this one it's quite a famous one basically the concept of sod's
law is that if something can go wrong it probably will and just exactly at the moment when you need
it to go right or you really want it to go right so for example like the alanis morissette song
rain on your wedding day the alanis morissette song ironic talks about it's like rain on your
wedding day it's like the fly and your chardonnay it's when the universe seems to conspire against
you when events seem to take a turn for the worst and it's out of your control and it seems really
really unfair so for example imagine that you're very afraid of flying but you think no i've got to
go i've got to fly and then you fly through a storm and there's terrible turbulence and
there's a traumatic experience you would say oh wasn't it just sod's law or imagine you're
going to take an english exam and there's lots of teachers that you know could be your examiner
but there's one particular teacher that you're afraid of perhaps they're much stricter or they
look a little bit scarier and you think oh please please please let it be one of the other teachers
the six teachers let it be one of the others and then you walk into the exam room and it's
the exact examiner you really didn't want he would think uh sod's law so it's a good one to know do
you have a similar way to express this concept in your countries tell me about that in the comments
below right everybody i hope these phrases have amused you somewhat and i'm sure when you do find
yourself in unfortunate circumstances they'll be a help for expressing your frustration or they'll
come to mind and perhaps even make you laugh a little we'll see you in the next lesson bye-bye