Welcome to Get WHAT Ball Rolling?!...
A resource for understanding American English Idioms used in Academic Presentations.
When you are standing in front of a crowd of people who are waiting for your presentation
to begin, how do you as the speaker begin your presentation?
“Let’s get the ball rolling” is one common expression used at the beginning of
a presentation.
But there is no ball in the room!
What ball are we talking about?
The intended meaning of the expression is begin the discussion or lecture.
*Oftentimes, this expression signals the lecture will begin with an activity or warm-up discussion.
*This activity will then lead to the main idea or purpose of the lecture.
Let’s consider the following example.
In a lecture in biology class on microorganisms in food production, the instructor might say
the following: Let’s get the ball rolling.
Take a minute and write down your five favorite things to eat or drink, then share your list
with your neighbor.
As we know, microorganisms are all around us, everywhere we go.
Did you know that we put microorganisms into our foods, intentionally, to make things tastier
and healthier?
As you heard, “let’s get the ball rolling was the first sentence spoken.
Starting with this phrase alerted the audience to this warm-up activity, which previews the
main part of the lecture.
Other variations of this expression that you may hear are:
To get the ball rolling To get the ball rolling, what is your personal definition of…
In order to get the ball rolling…
In order to get the ball rolling, ask the person sitting next to you what languages
they speak.
Let’s get rolling…
We’ve got a lot to cover today, so let’s get rolling.
All of these variations have the same meaning more or less.
Now, the next time you hear “let’s get the ball rolling”, you will know what it
means, and not think it’s time for a football game!
Thanks for watching, and have fun trying out these idioms!