To make a horlicks.

The health care company GalxoSmithKiine, make a malt milk drink called Horlicks, which is marketed in the UK, New Zealand, Hong Kong, India, Pakistan and Jamaica.

Traditionally in the UK Horlicks is taken at night just before going to sleep, in the same way as British people take coco or hot chocolate.

However in the English language Horlicks can also be used to describe a minor disaster or shambles, it is normally combined with the verb "To Make"

For example, "Oh my, did you see the football game last night, our team made a horlicks of the defence!"

In this example the speaker is suggesting that the team the speaker supports had a disastrous game, especially in defence.

Using horlicks in this manner is not considered offensive, and was in fact used in 2003 by the UK's then Foreign Minister, Jack Straw, to describe the way a document for public release had been badly prepared.

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If you pay peanuts.

In this blog I would like to explain the phrase

"If you pay peanuts you get monkeys."

The phrase is attributed to the Anglo French businessman James Goldsmith, and it is used to describe the quality of service offered by people in business.

It is a negative phrase and is used to describe the situation where the speaker feels that if an employer pays low wages then the staff working for them will be bad.

For example:

Speaker A: "Every time I call that company I can't get the service I want"

Speaker B: "Well if you pay peanuts you get monkeys"

In this example the first speaker is describing a situation where they feel that the service they are getting from the company is very bad, the second speakers is expressing their feeling that because the company pays their staff so little money, this is the reason for the bad service.

The phrase can also used to describe the situation where a person who pays too little for a service should not expect the quality of the service
to be any good.

For Example:

Speaker A: "Juan is trying to learn English online and pays only $1 for an hour's one to one lesson, but I have to say his English is getting worse"

Speaker B: ""Well maybe someone should teach Juan the expression, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys"


In this example the first speaker is saying that they are shocked at how bad Juan's English is.

The second speaker, suggests that because Juan pays so little money for his lessons, his teacher is not a professional.

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To call time

The other day I was teaching a class and while reading an article we came across the following phrase:

"To call time"

It was a phrase that no student had hear of before, so I felt it would be a good idea to explain it to you here in this blog.

The phrase "to call time" has its history in English and Irish bars/pub.
By law English and Irish bars/pubs must close by a certain time in the evening. When the closing time comes the bar person must shout "TIME" so that everyone in the bar knows it is time to close the bar.
The act of shouting "TIME" to tell everyone that it is now time to close the bar is know as, "to call time".

However the phrase, to call time, is now used in English to describe the moment when someone decides that something has come to an end.

For example:

"John Smith, the footballer, has called time on his career"

This means that John Smith has decided to finish playing football.

Or

"Ladies and gentlemen, I must call time on this meeting"

This means that the speaker, perhaps the chairman of the meeting, has decided that it is time to finish the meeting.

To call time = to end or to finish.

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Packed in like Sardines

The other night I was teaching a client in Moscow and he asked me to explain the phrase, "packed in like sardines" which he had heard was a good way to describe rush hour on the Moscow Metro, however he was a little unsure if it was an offensive phrase or not.

The phrase is not offensive and in fact comes from the business of food processing.
Sardines, as you know are a type of fish, and we normally buy our sardines in small tins. When we open a tin of sardines, its normal that there are a lot fish in the tin and there no free space.

Therefore the phrase packed in like sardines is used to describe a situation where people are in an area or space with little room to move.

So it is not offensive and in fact a very good way to describe the Moscow Metro during rush hour.

"Every morning I take the Metro to work, it is always full and there is no room to move because everyone is packed in like sardines."

Packed in Like sardines = No space to move

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Using Will to express a future decision

In this mini English blog, I want to discuss one of the uses of Will to express the future.

As we previously discussed in other blogs there are a number of different ways of expressing the future.

Using Will is one ways to express the future and Will has a number of different uses, however in this blog I want to focus only on Will as used to express decisions.

When we are speaking about an action in the future, and we make decision about this future action while we are speaking we must use will.

For example:

"I don't know if I should go to the cinema or not...hhmm...OK I will go with you."

In this sentence the speaker is unsure about a future trip to the cinema, however while they are speaking they make up their mind to go to the cinema, so they must use Will to express this decision, because will is used to express a decision made at the moment of speaking.

Will is used to express a decision made at the moment of speaking.

There you have it another use of will for expressing the future!

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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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Using Will to express the future

When talking about the future we can use the verbs will, going to and the present continuous used with a future time point.

In this mini English lesson from www.SmartLanguageSolutions.com I am going to talk about using will to express the future.

Will has three different and distinct future uses in English, however in this mini lesson I will focus only one of the three uses.

In English Will is used to express promises and offers.

To use will as a promise:
"If you let watch TV now, I promise I will do the washing up tomorrow."

To use will as an offer:
"Oh sit down I will do the washing up for you."

As mentioned will has two other uses in English and you will find those uses explained in other blogs from www.SmartLanguageSolutions.com

Of course learning English is a two way interactive process, and the best place to learn online with live interactive English teachers is at www.SmartLanguageSolutions.com