Hi everyone. It's Jennifer here with some useful expressions for everyday English.
Have you ever heard someone talk and talk, and you wished they would just get the point?
I’m guilty of not coming to the point right away when I talk and when I write.
I like to provide background information, so I don’t always state the main things first.
To GET to the point or to COME to the point means you say or write your most important idea immediately.
We can use these variations for emphasis:
get right to the point, come straight to the point.
When we write email or text someone, we usually get right to the point and we don’t waste words.
Can you think of another situation when it’s important to come straight to the point?
A similar expression is to get to the heart of the matter.
However, telling someone, "Get to the point" OR "I wish you’d get to the point" …sounds impatient. So be careful not to be rude.
In contrast, if I suggest, “Let’s get to the heart of the matter,” I’m showing more sensitivity.
At least, that's how I hear it.
"To get to the heart of the matter" is to identify the central issue, the main problem.
If your friend is terribly upset and trying to explain why,
it may take some tears and a good amount of talking before you get to the heart of the matter.
In a work situation, you might choose a different expression: to get to the bottom of something. This is similar to our previous expression.
When you get to the bottom of a matter, you work to discover the reason or cause of a problem because you want to fix it.
If a problem appears at work, you can lead your colleagues into action and say:
Let’s get to the bottom of this. Let’s figure out what went wrong.
An equivalent expression is get to the root of the problem or to get to the root of a matter.
If production is going down or if sales are dropping, a company needs to get to the root of the problem and take corrective action.
It’s time for you to put these expressions into use. Choose one and write an example in the comments.
I’ll offer corrections as time allows. Please help one another by reading and commenting on other examples.
If you enjoy learning common expressions that you can use in everyday English, please let me know and like this video.
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That’s all for now. As always, thanks for watching and happy studies!
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