hi welcome to invid i'm adam in today's
video i want to talk to you about some
everyday expressions
that are used or that come from the
world of sports okay now these are
especially common in the states if
you're learning american english this is
very important for you to understand
in america sports are a very big part of
everyday life and a lot of the words
from sports make their way into everyday
conversations so i'm going to show you
10 expressions and words from sports and
what they actually mean and how they're
actually used in everyday conversation
okay and they could be in all types of
situations as well
so we're going to say we're going to
start with
to knock it out of the park or to hit it
out of the park
this comes from baseball okay
and baseball is a very popular sport in
america it's called america's favorite
pastime
america's favorite pastime is baseball
so to knock it out of the park
again when we talk about park we're
talking about the baseball field we call
it the ballpark
this is where they play baseball
so to knock it out means to get a home
run a home run means you can go all
around the bases and score and all the
players on the bases in front of you can
also score so to knock it out of the
park means to be very successful
okay so my friend went for an audition
she's a singer and she was trying to
join a
broadway performance as a singer so she
went for an audition
okay so she went to try out
and then after the audition i met her
and i go okay how was your audition how
did you do oh i think i knocked it out
of the park they're gonna call me back
for a second uh second audition so i hit
it out of the park means i did it very
very well very successful very good
performance okay from baseball
to strike out also from baseball
okay
and to strike out is the opposite it
means to fail so when you think about a
baseball player he's at the plate and
here comes the pitch swing
miss swing miss swing miss three strikes
and he's out he goes back to sit down
the next player comes up so he failed so
to strike out i guess i should put two
because these are verbs
you know
i'll choose so to strike out means to
fail so now you think i'm
at a bar with my friend
okay a lot of examples are in bars i'm
at a bar with my friend and he sees a
girl on the other side of the bar that
he really is attracted to so i said you
know go out go ask her for a drink or if
she wants a drink
so he goes over
and a minute later he comes back and i
say to him you struck out huh he goes
yep or how did you do i struck out
so the past tense
so struck out means failed didn't
succeed in what he was going to do also
from baseball but again used in everyday
conversations
to take a rain check again i have a lot
of baseball ones here today to take a
rain check so now if you buy a ticket to
a baseball game
and you go to a ballpark that doesn't
have a roof it's not covered it's not a
dome
so if you go to the baseball game and it
starts to rain
if it rains heavily enough and long
enough they cancel the game
but does that mean that you lose your
ticket no what you do get is a range
check
okay they will play this game at a
future date
and you can use this range check to get
into that game or to get into another
game because you paid for it you paid
for a full game you will get a full game
if you couldn't watch the game because
of the rain you will get a rain check
you will use it another time so my
friend asked me to go out for dinner and
i said no i can't i'm really busy
tonight but i really want to go out with
you can i take a rain check means can we
do it another time
yes i want to go out with you i can't
today i will take that invitation and
use it another time just like i could go
watch the baseball game another time
okay
to cover all the bases still working on
baseball here
so again you have a diamond
you have home plate first base second
base third base so if there is late in
the game the score is very close or tied
the players the defending players will
come closer
and they will cover
all the bases to make sure that this the
other team can't score
so if you're covering all the bases
means you're looking at every possible
angle and you're making sure that
nothing can go wrong okay i have a
company and i'm trying i'm entertaining
a possible client
and i want this meeting or this visit to
be perfect
so i make sure that my stu my staff
covers all the bases they know where to
take the client to eat where to take the
client site seeing
what the client likes what the client
doesn't like to make sure that the visit
is perfect so i make sure that we
covered all the bases so nothing can go
wrong
if you covered all the bases nothing
should go wrong okay to make a pit stop
this comes from auto racing
so you have a track okay and the cars
just go around and round and round and
round but these are very
big machines they're using a lot of
energy and a lot of power and they have
tires that eventually wear out so after
a few laps of the track they have to
come in so you have
here's your track and then you have
a little spot where they come in they
get gas they get new tires they take a
drink and they keep going so this area
is called the pit stop
so whenever you need to take a little
break from something especially if you
need to go to the washroom
you need to make a pit stop okay
these days it's most commonly used to
mean i need to go to the washroom i need
to make a pit stop i need to go use the
washroom and then we'll continue with
our thing or i just need to make a take
a short break and go somewhere and do
something and i'll be right back and
we'll continue okay so here are five
let's look at five more okay we're gonna
keep going different sports different
words one more baseball one anyway so
quarterback i'm sure a lot of you have
heard this word this could be a noun or
a verb
now a quarterback is from american
football the quarterback is the one who
takes the ball and throws it or runs
with it or hands it off to somebody so
in essence this is the person who is
controlling the play
for the offense for the team that has
the ball
to quarterback means to take charge to
lead to control
so basically leader as a noun
to lead as a verb
right so
i have a very important meeting with a
client next week and i i know that i
need the best person in charge of the
meeting to make sure that we get the
contract so i choose my top salesperson
to quarterback the meeting okay to be in
charge make sure everybody knows what
they have to do do all the talking take
control get the sale
again
very common word very common situation
in the states
full court press this comes from
basketball
so full court press is one of the
defensive styles in
basketball where you just score your
basket the other team gets it on their
end line and all the team all the
defensive team covers the entire court
and covers every player to make it very
difficult for them to move okay so
basically press basically means pressure
so full chord press or to apply a full
court press
means to apply a lot of pressure okay to
make the other side or the other team
make a mistake or give up the ball and
again you can use this in any situation
military political
business social
so when you
are in a campaign for an election you
want to become president
you want to attack your opponent by
applying a full court press making sure
that you cover everything they say
everywhere they go you have cameras to
basically force them into making a
mistake okay so one candidate is
applying a full court press against the
other candidates okay
to throw someone a curveball so we're
back to baseball
so a curveball is a type of pitch so you
have the pitcher and there's the hitter
with the bat so the pitcher throws the
ball now a curveball
basically goes travels this way
and like let's say here's
the batter
and no i'm not a good artist but that's
not what we're here for
oh so let me make it a bit higher than
the ball comes like this and then drops
or a breaking ball but mostly it's a
curveball it curves down so the the
batter
he thinks he's about to hit it and then
the ball drops and he's all confused and
he doesn't know what to do right so if
you throw someone a curveball you give
them a situation that is very difficult
to handle or you put them in a situation
where they weren't expecting what was
happening
and then they make a mistake or they get
into trouble now you can say this even
about a friend or a business associate
associate
i i was going to go uh i was going to
meet my client i was going to get the
sale but then my competitor threw me a
curveball
by giving them a cheaper price and i
couldn't compete and we lost the
contract whatever okay a curveball could
be any situation that you weren't
expecting and that created problems for
you that was difficult to handle
step up or in the full expression is
step up to the plate again from baseball
so here's the plate so where the person
is standing
this is the plate okay
when you step up
you take responsibility okay or you face
the difficult situation you don't run
away it's the opposite so you step up to
the plate means you take your turn or
you take your responsibility and again
any situation
so there's going to be a debate in the
school and everybody's a little bit
afraid of the other team because they're
much better but bill decided he's going
to step up to the plate and he's going
to
go do what needs to be done
and on the sidelines so now we're back
to american football i forgot to mention
that before
american football now this is the field
okay here's your end zones
and here's your center
on the side these are the sidelines
one team stands here the other team
stands here that's the sidelines
if you're on the sidelines means you're
not involved in the action
if you've been relegated to the
sidelines means you've been made
unimportant you've been made redundant
okay so the leader of the negotiating
team has been relegated to the sidelines
because he wasn't doing a good job
management sends somebody else to take
over and hopefully do a better job so
relegated to the sidelines i mean you
can sit and watch you can't participate
now it's a lot of information to take in
i understand but
keep in mind if you want to learn real
english
you have to learn the culture language
and culture are very much tied together
even if you heard correctly what people
are saying if you don't know what these
expressions mean because you don't
really know much about american sports
you're going to have a hard time
understanding things
the context or the
sub the substance of the conversation
learn sports if you go in america take
the expressions learn what they mean
they're going to be used in a lot of
different situations okay
if you want to make sure you understand
these go to ingvid.com there's a quiz
you can practice using these expressions
uh if you have any questions
please ask me in the forum there at
invid.com uh please subscribe to my
youtube channel and i'll give you some
more good videos about vocab and
expressions and i'll see you again soon
bye