Business English - Churn Rate

In business English there are many phrases that you simple just don't find in normal everyday English.
In this lesson I would like to explain the phrase, churn rate.

As more an more people work in the service sector, the higher the chance that they will come across the phrase, churn rate.

This phrase is used to describe situations related to customers and employees.

When we use churn rate in connection to customers, we are describing the percentage of contracted customers who leave a company over a given period of time.

For example: "I work in the call centre of a mobile phone company and the churn rate of our customers is really big"

In this example the speaker is telling us that the mobile phone company they work for has a large percentage of customers leaving the company at the end of their contract.

When we use churn rate in connection to employees, then we are describing the high turnover rate of employees in a company.

For example: "When I worked in the fast food restaurant, there was a high rate of employee churn"

In this example the speaker is describing their time working in a fast food restaurant, and how they noticed that most employees did not stay long in the job.

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English Lesson - Bailout or Bail Out

In this mini English lesson I want to look at the phrase bailout, which when used as a noun is one word and when used as an intransitive verb is two words.

Bailout - noun

and

Bail Out - intransitive verb

If you have been following the business news in English over the last few months you will have heard the phrase bailout used as a noun.

Bailout - used as a noun

For example:

" The bank happily took the bailout given to them by the government, but they still are paying themselves big bonuses."

In business English we use the phrase bailout to describe the act of giving money to a bank or company who is danger of financial failure.

When we spit bail out into two different words we are using it as an intransitive verb.

Bail Out - when used as an intransitive verb, has three distinct:

1) To describe the act of parachuting from an aircraft

"I bailed out of the plane with my parachute at 20,000 feet and it took me 4 minutes to land"

2) To describe the act of leaving a harmful or difficult situation

"We bailed out of the bar when the two men started fighting"

In American English when we use bail out to describe the act of leaving a harmful or difficult situation bail out can be shortened to balled.

"I bailed on maths class because I didn't have me homework done."

And 3) to describe the act of removing water from a boat

"It was a nice day so we rented a row boat to go out on the lake, unfortunately the boat was leaking and we had to use our shoes to bail out the water"

So there you have it Bailout or Bail Out, now you know!

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Slang of the week – Sloth Cloth

A sloth cloth is a slang word used to an old tee-shirt worn while hanging around your home.
It is also a tongue twister! Try saying repeatedly and fast.

“I knocked on my friends door and when he answered it I was shocked to see him wearing a food stained sloth cloth”

Be careful when studding English slang, using slang incorrectly can cause a lot of problems, always check slang with your native speaking professional English teacher at www.SmartLanguageSolutions.com