Idioms A to Z 002: Idioms with verbs 2

In this episode, Jack discusses five common English idioms and describes their meanings.

https://atozenglishpodcast.com/idioms-2/

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Intro/Outro Music by Eaters: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eaters/the-astronomers-office/agents-in-coffee-shops/

Listen to the episode and write the definitions of the idioms.

Sit tight:

Pitch in:

Go cold turkey:

Face the music:

Ring a bell:

Discussion Questions:

How do you feel when someone tells you to sit tight?

Have you ever worked on a group project and one person did not pitch in?

Have you ever gone cold turkey on something: cigarettes, alcohol, sugar, etc.?

What did you go cold turkey on? How did you feel?

Have you ever had to face the music for something you did wrong?

Idioms A to Z 2: Idioms with verbs 2

 

Full Transcript: https://atozenglishpodcast.com/idioms-2/

Jack: Hey everybody! Welcome to the A to Z English Podcast. We have another special episode for you today. We are going to look at another five idioms and I will explain the meanings of the idioms and I’ll even use some examples in sentences so let's go ahead and get started. Uh the very first one that we have is sit tight and what does that mean the expression or the idiom sit tight sit tight. Everybody knows sit me and sit like sit down um and you know what the adjective tight is right. Um if a shirt is too tight it's too small right but what does that mean together sit tight sit tight well we use this expression when we want somebody to wait and we want them to wait patiently. Don't be over excited. Just relax sit down and relax or you can just say just sit tight just wait sit tight um. For example if there are a line of people waiting for help okay and so uh somebody needs help you have the person helping those people they have to help the first person first and the second person and then the third person but if somebody in the back of the line like number five in the line uh tries to you know I need help right now please help me right now uh. Sorry sir uh please sit tight. I have to help these four people first and then I will help you so you're asking that person to please relax please wait patiently or just say to them sit tight. I will help you as soon as possible sit tight just wait patiently so there you go that's our first idiom is to sit tight and I would say this is a pretty common expression and it's not necessarily rude. Um it's not exactly polite either but it's something that you can definitely say to somebody when they're not being patient and they're not waiting patiently you just say excuse me please just sit tight and I will I will be with you as soon as I can okay so sit tight. Um number two our second idiom is pitch in so to pitch in what does that mean to pitch in pitch in. Pitch in um pitch in is just another expression or another way to say help you know um if you are it's kind of like not just helping someone but helping a group okay so let's imagine that you have a group project at school and you have to divide the workload into let's say you have five people in the group so every person should do about 20% of the work right and another way we could say that is everybody should pitch in by if you say pitch in means they should help they should do their share of the work and sometimes we use this expression. If everybody would pitch in we can finish this job very quickly so let's say you have some kind of like cleaning the house if one person cleans the whole house it takes a long time but if the whole family pitches in, if everybody pitches in then you can clean the house much more quickly and it's much easier much faster better for everybody right so if the children pitch in they clean the room the husband pitches in. He vacuums the floor and the wife pitches in and she washes the dishes and if everybody pitches in if everybody helps then the job can get done a lot faster and so we use pitch in as an expression that means to help or assist. Usually the group okay to pitch in um so there you go that's our second idiom for today. We're going to move on to idiom number three and idiom number three is to go cold turkey. Now none of these idioms that we're talking about today are related okay. They don't really, these are all just random uh idioms okay and so I’m not trying to connect them to each other um but these are this one's a a strange one okay to go cold turkey, go cold turkey and I will put these uh idioms in the show notes or in the descriptions in the description of the podcast so that you can actually read the idioms as well. What does it mean to go cold turkey to go cold turkey means to quit something usually a bad habit immediately so for example if you know someone who smokes cigarettes and they can't stop smoking because they are addicted. They are addicted to cigarettes. They are addicted to nicotine, the drug in a cigarette, um if somebody says I am going to quit cold turkey or I am going to go cold turkey that means they are going to stop immediately right now. They're not going to slowly stop okay, slowly stopping would be today. I will smoke five cigarettes next week. I will smoke four and the next time I’ll smoke three and slowly tapered off. No cold turkey means I’m done right now forever. I quit cold turkey. It could be cigarettes. It could be alcohol. It could be illegal drugs. I mean it could be sugar um it could be you know anything negative you know and then a negative a bad habit um in you and they say I’m going to quit. I’m going to go cold turkey means I’m not slowly stopping. I’m stopping right now immediately so that's what it means to go cold turkey okay cold turkey um again a pretty common expression in English we use this when people quit something right you know immediately. Um number four, number four the idiom is face the music. Face the music so to face the music. What does that mean to face the music? Well I’ll let you think about it for example. Some face we know face the noun face is you know your face, your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your face right but face is also a verb and it is a verb that can mean to confront something right to look something or to um to not run away from something okay so if you're scared if there's something kind of scary or something if you face it, you don't run away. You just look right at it. You face it okay and that's a verb to face something. To face the music means you did something wrong. Now you have to face the punishment and so in English we have an idiom that says you have to face the music you have to. You have to admit I did something wrong. I made a mistake. I need to receive punishment for my mistake. I’m not going to run away from it. I’m going to face the music even if the consequence or the punishment is really bad. We still say or some people who have integrity will face the music they say yes I did it. I did the bad thing and whatever happens, I deserve it and that is facing the music okay, not running away but facing the music and um you know we use this expression when you know criminals people who are you know steal things or whatever and they get caught and they have to go to see a judge or whatever we say. Well that person has to face the music, you have to face the judge, face the punishment, again sometimes people do it because they want to you know face the music because they have integrity sometimes people get caught and they have no choice okay, like a criminal, somebody who steals something and the police catch that person and then now that person must face the music. They don't have a choice, so sometimes we face the music by choice, sometimes we have no choice and we have to face the music but either way we can use this idiom and it has that meaning and my last idiom um the last idiom on my list is ring a bell and everybody knows what a bell is right? Ringing a bell, ding dong ding dong, ring a bell but this when we're using it as an idiom, it has a different meaning, okay? It's not, we're not literally ringing a bell but if I say if I’m uh trying to think of something but I cannot remember or somebody says something and it reminds me of something I can say ah that rings a bell that rings a bell that that that helped me remember something. So to ring a bell or sometimes we use it in the negative and somebody says you know. For example my friend says do you remember, uh the do you remember last year when you spilled coffee on your shirt and I don't remember that um, it doesn't ring a bell, it doesn't ring a bell. I don't remember, I that I have no memory of that okay and then maybe my friend says you know no it was the you were wearing a green shirt. I remember it was a green shirt, ah the green shirt, yes, that rings a bell so now when I think of the green shirt that I spilled coffee on last year that rings a bell that helps me remember that situation that that happened a year ago, five years ago, or 10 years ago so to ring a bell just means something that causes you to remember some kind of memory from the past okay and then if we use it in the negative doesn't ring a bell, it means that even though the person is trying to help you remember, you can't remember that memory. You don't have that memory so you, it doesn't ring a bell and so there you go. Those are five new idioms and we're going to continue to make these idiom videos each week and I will continue to put the idiom in the show descriptions you can listen to my definitions and then you can write your own definition of the idioms and you can share them in our Whatsapp group. If you look in the show notes, you will find a link to our Whatsapp group. We have many active members in the Whatsapp group and if you want to become a participant in that and join in that Whatsapp group you can talk to several native speakers who are teachers in Shaw English, the A to Z English Podcast and we are active in that Whatsapp group so you can feel free to interact with us talk with us and uh we can discuss these five idioms that I shared with you today so with that uh we will I’ll say goodbye and I will see you for the next episode of idiom, A to Z Idioms. Thanks everybody. Bye bye!

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