I

feel like everyone I meet, I feel like I can usually tell within a few minutes, usually for like 99% of the people I meet, I'm going to like them. And I'm like, oh, I can tell I'm going to like this person. And then the rare time when there is someone that we maybe are not going to get along or I'm not going to like them, I can tell right away. I feel like something will happen right away. Interesting.

What about you? Yeah. Most of the time it's true. The same thing. There's an intuition that we have, I think, as human beings. But then sometimes people surprise me. Yeah, that's true. They seem, maybe they're like a little shy or maybe a little abrasive at first. And then they become, they end up, when you get to know the real person, they're these great people, you know? Absolutely.

I feel like all of those people, I'm going to assume I'm going to like them right away, right? The only people is like, I'm not going to end up getting along. They do something within the first couple of minutes that I'm like, ah, this is not going to work out. We're not going to get along. Something very extreme, right?

Got it. Got it. All right. So this is the topic we're going to get into, this idea of telling, right? The word tell. But first, Aubrey, we have some poll results to report for our listeners who are participating in our polls.

Yes, we had a really fun poll. Do you often make mistakes at work a ton of people answered this poll thank you for everybody who answered in spotify this was from episode 328 never mind how to respond to a co-workers mistake what were our results lindsay okay so

the yeses were 63.4 just to be specific. And the no's were 36.6%. So yeah, of course, the answer is most people, yes, make mistakes at work. And that makes me feel reassured because I make mistakes all the time. Absolutely.

And I think the often is key because even everybody who said no, we still make mistakes at work, but hopefully not often. Right? 36% are like, I do, but not often.

Good job. But if you are often making mistakes, it might actually be a good thing too, because it means maybe you're pushing yourself maybe you're learning something new trying to apply it if you're uh you work in software development maybe you're learning AI software development so that's going to lead to mistakes but

it's good point right so both are good yeah

both are good okay let's get into it today Aubrey so what do our listeners need to know all

right so we are diving into a couple of phrases that we use often at work that might confuse you the first one is I can't tell which has two meanings in English right the first one would mean that you're not supposed to say something like I can't tell you the answer this is a little more straightforward yeah it would be another example lindsay he

can't tell her the address because he doesn't know it so it's just the information is not

available let's say exactly but there is a second meaning to this that is a little more idiomatic that might be a little confusing and it means i don't know we'll use i can't tell to mean I don't know or like I can't figure it out. Right. It's like I can't observe or I can't see. Right. I can't

tell what's happening here. I'm looking at this thing and I can't quite tell what's happening.

Exactly. And this way that we use it has nothing to do with something that we would tell someone or say. It's a chunk. That means I don't know. I can't tell. Or

maybe just other verbs. I can't gather what's happening. Right. I can't conclude. I can't figure it out.

Yes, exactly. You might say during the meeting, no one could tell when it would end. And this doesn't mean no one could say. It means no one knew. Oh,

yeah. So number one is kind of like almost a secret or no information's available. And number two is we don't really know. Yeah. Yeah,

exactly. And it becomes even more confusing because we do also say I can't say or I cannot say for the same meanings for both, right? I can't say this because I don't know. And also, especially let's do a mini role play because we often use this as a response. Start us out here, Lindsay. All right, here we go.

Do you know what time you'll get to the conference? Can't

say. And this means I don't know.

Yeah, this means you're not saying you're not at liberty to share as we shared before in another episode, right? It

means I don't know. Or I might say, I can't say what time he'll get here. And it's because maybe something's, someone's unpredictable, right? For some reason, I'm like, there's no way of knowing.

Yes. Anything, we're pulling in some information from our community today.

Yes, this is very exciting. So I posted in our community about the phrase, there's no telling. I had heard it in a song by Bright Eyes, one of my favorite bands. And I shared in the community and then members were commenting sharing related phrases and asking like does this mean the same thing is this have a little different context so i planned this episode with some of their ideas let's start yeah so fun all right let's start with there's no telling yes all

right so this idea of there's no telling means there's no way to know, right? So for example, there's no telling how long this meeting will take. There's just no way we can know at the beginning of the meeting.

Exactly. And we do say also there's no way of knowing, but this chunk, there's no telling could be confusing if you look at the verb tell and you're thinking of this meaning to say something to tell someone something it doesn't mean that right it's an idiomatic chunk oh my gosh confusing potentially right yeah exactly right it's another way to answer i don't know and it often implies that something's unpredictable like you said there's no way of knowing when this meeting could end maybe this is a boss that some meetings are five hours sometimes they're 15 minutes there's no telling yeah

maybe you have an erratic boss right they're just doing crazy things all the time yeah exactly and sometimes meetings are three minutes sometimes or three hours and there's no telling don't know right and so it's kind of a way of throwing up your hands and saying it's a little bit out of my control too right exactly

which is actually a really great connection skill because you're going to feel solidarity here like if you have co-workers and you're all a little frustrated because something is so unpredictable right to use a phrase like this just be like oh there's no telling yes

exactly very useful uh let's let's see a role play um aubry yeah you want to start us out no all right here we go when do you think the client will get back to us? There's

no telling.

Okay, so maybe you know something about this client.

Yeah, right. Maybe they have taken a long time to get back to us in the past. Something is unpredictable, which would make sense if I say there's no telling.

Yes, I love that. And there's another phrase that means something slightly different. Aubrey, what is it?

Yeah, so this one is juries still out or the jury is still out this was shared in our community by pauline shout out pauline she heard it in a ted talk this means something either hasn't been

decided or isn't known yet that's a great one right so for example the jury's still out on whether we should have taken on this project we're not literally talking about a jury trial hopefully exactly

and that's a good point this literally you could be talking about if there's a court case and the jury is deliberating so they have left they're trying to decide the judgment you say they're out they're out of the room they're still deciding so jury's still out means they haven't brought their decision yet but we use this idiomatically in english to say about any decision. If the decision hasn't been made yet, jury is still out. Right. Aubrey, have you been called for jury duty lately? Not lately. I have gotten the notice in the mail a couple of times, but then when I call the night before, I've always been dismissed. Nice. What about you? Oh,

I just had it recently in September. I had to go in. So my number was in the category to go in, but it was a Monday or it was a Wednesday, I think. And there weren't a lot of cases and the case that we were going to get called into just settled. So I got to go home. Yeah. But it was interesting. I had never made it to that stage. And what they do is they put you in a room and they show, they tell you about the judicial system and how important your role is there. And you kind of get into it. You're like, oh yeah, this is

really important. You're doing your civic duty. My brother-in was on a high profile case. He was having to go in every day for months. For months? I never found out which case it even was. I don't think he ever shared. But yeah, imagine just like missing work for months. It's kind of

cool, but it's also kind of terrifying just to kind of have to leave your entire life behind. Wow. Interesting. I wonder what the case was. Because maybe he can't tell, right? I may wonder if he wasn't able to say,

or if I'm trying to remember now, maybe I just never asked. Maybe if I asked him now, he would tell me. I'm going to have to ask. Yeah.

I'm curious. Did you see the movie Jury Duty? Yes. Love that movie.