O que significa "an old chestnut"?

Can you remember any idea, joke or subject that's been repeated so many times it is no longer interesting? In Brazil, we have several of them. For example, there's a joke that's told every time someone puts pave, a very famous dessert, on the table. If you're brazilian, you know what I'm talking about. Our grandparents tend to say things so many times we start to wonder if they're really true. For example, I wonder if there might be some truth in the old chestnut that having ice cream while having a sore throat makes it worse.

If that's true or not, only science can tell me. But what really matters to us now is the expression in bold text I just used: old chestnut. Literally, a chestnut is what you see on the picture above. Figuratively speaking, an old chestnut is everything that's been repeated so many times it stops being interesting. For my entire life, I've been told having ice cream while sick makes the situation even worse. That myth became so boring and repetitive I started to question it. It turns that old chestnut is nothing but a myth since eating ice cream can even help soothe a sore throat. That's it for today guys. Take care!

put/throw someone off the scent: o que isso significa?

If you're like me, investigation movies are on the top list of your favorite kinds. So we know that in movies like that we have one or more victims of a crime, and then we have several suspects. As the movie progresses towards a climax, we see that many of the suspects we thought were innocent were actually only throwing us off the scent by giving false evidences. But wait, what does that mean?

When you put or throw someone off the scent, you give them false or confusing information to try to stop them from discovering something. So it's cliche that in investigation movies, the real murderer is the one that we least suspected. It's just part of the experience of watching a movie like that. Talk to you next time!

Como dizer "nas escondidas" "nas caladas" em Inglês?

Em Português, nós temos um jeito bem coloquial de dizer que alguem está fazendo algo de forma secreta. Por exemplo, para dizer que alguém está tendo um caso fora do casamento, alguns podem dizer que ele o faz nas caladas da noite, ou nas escondidas. Em Inglês nós também temos algumas expressões parecidas. Imagina que você desconfia que um funcionário duma loja está roubando dinheiro nas escondidas da noite e comenta sobre isso com alguém. Em Inglês, isso ficaria: I think he's stealing little bits of money on the sly.

On the sly é uma expressão que pode substituir o advérbio "secretly" quando você quer dar um ar mais idiomático ou informal a sua sentença. Sly nada mais é que o adjetivo que se refere a alguém astuto, espartalhão, sabido. Se você se configura em alguma dessas classificações, you're a very sly person.

God/Heaven help somebody: o que isso significa?

Whether you're religious or not, you've certainly said the expression of today many times in your life. The expression is: God/Heaven help somebody. Let's understand how and when it is used.

Imagine you have a little brother who's always getting into trouble. This time, you catch him dropping your mother's very expensive vase; a vase that's been passed down through three generations and therefore has a great emotional value in your family. So you tell him: God/Heaven help you when mom finds out about that. You're dead!

You use that expression when you're worried about someone in a very unpleasant situation like the one your little brother is in. As a second example, just imagine how awful it is to be a homeless person. God help anyone who's in a situation like that. See? It's like you're showing empathy for someone living in a very dangerous situation. You don't have to be a religious person to talk like that. That's it for today guys. Take care!

to play the devil's advocate: o que isso significa?

I know many of us foreign language students dream of one day visiting or even living in a country that speaks the target language. Let's suppose one day, some of your classmates from your English school start planning on backpacking through Europe without any backup plan or even that much of money. You're excited to visit Europe and get the chance to put your English into practice, but you put forward objections to that idea so they'll think about it more carefully. So you say: I don't mean to ruin our plans or anything, but let me play the devil's advocate. I think there's a lot at stake here and we should think about it very carefully before making any decision.

When you play the devil's advocate, you say arguments against ideas or plans so people will discuss them more carefully. It's like you're being against them, but what you're really trying to do is to make sure there will be no flaws in a given plan. After all, if you discuss things that may go wrong before they happen, you make chances of things going wrong very low. So tell me about your own stories. Are you someone very rational that's always playing devil's advocate or you let things happen without thinking too much about them? Leave your answers in the comment section. Take care!

a stone's throw away: o que isso significa?

The expression we're going over today is one of my favorite and I'm sure you'll have many opportunities to use it in your day-to-day dialogues. Let's take myself as an example to approach the expression. I used to live in the countryside of my state in a city called São Miguel dos Campos, 50 minutes away from Maceió by car, the city I currently live in. I searched and found out that the distance between both cities is 68 kg, a distance that we could somehow call relatively short. So much so, my mom still works there 3 times a week.

But what really matters in all that big talk is that there's an expression we can use to talk about short distances like the one my mom travels on her way to work: "a stone's throw away". So if people ask me how far my previous city is from the Maceió, I can say it is just a stone's throw away. That means it is close, relatively close. You can use that expression referring to any kind of short distances, from a trip by car or a few steps away. For example, you're leaving a restaurant when you see a very good friend of yours just across the street, a stone's throw away. It doesn't take you more than a few steps to meet him and give him a hug. If you take the literal meaning of that expression, we can think of the distance a stone can reach when someone throws it. As strong as that person can be, the stone won't go too far. That's it for today guys. Take care!

to make common cause: o que isso significa?

Something new happened this year in Brazil. Thousands of people went out on the streets to protest over rise in transportation fares. Until recently, we thought that as citizens we would never really have the guts to make common cause against the government and spark such huge and at times violent protests around most parts of Brazil. But we did. We engaged in many protests and fought our battle in all corners of the country. But what about you? Did you make common cause with your friends or people from your community and took part in that historical moment?

I don't know if you've noticed it, but up to this point, I've said the expression of the day twice: to make common cause. When you make common cause with someone or many people, you work together to achieve something. It happens all the time and in many different situations. When people make common cause, they're usually very unhappy about something or someone and want to change them. In the case of Brazil, there's a lot of reasons for people to be angry at how things are going in this country. The rise in transportation fares was maybe the last straw or the starting point for that rebellion. Above all, that was a good way to show the world and especially ourselves that we people have the power to demand our rights.

Now tell me about you. Have you ever made common cause with your classmates against something wrong in your school? Or maybe in your own house, neighborhood? Tell us your stories in the comment section!

greener pastures: o que isso significa?

I've been told many times that working as a translator around the place I live in is very difficult. If I want to get any progress in that field, they say I should seek greener pastures in a different state or even abroad because of the scarcity of opportunities here. But wait, did you see what I just said? Greener pastures. What does that mean?

If you seek greener pastures or look for greener pastures, it means the place you're in right now is not providing you with enough opportunities for your progress. That's why you need to look for greener pastures. It's like you've been stuck in the same place and time and now you need to move to a different place in search of better opportunities. If you play close attention to the expression itself, we see that having green pastures is always associated with wealthy, health, success and a good situation in general. People usually say they need to seek greener pastures when they're not happy with their current job. In that case, greener pastures could be a job that gives power or money, peace of mind, flexibility, etc.

ele me chamou atenção/me deu um toque: como dizer isso em Inglês?

I see I'm not alone when I say my favorite american sitcom to learn English is Friends. I've seen many people on Youtube talking about their experiences on English learning through the sitcom Friends. I'm saying this because I'm getting to a point where I'm starting to feel kind of guilty for bringing the great majority of my examples and expressions from situations that happened in some episode of Friends. But without further ado, here's what was happening when our today's expression came up:

Chandler enters the room looking very excited about something. When his friends asks him what he's been up to, he mentions this woman he's been talking to through the internet. He says he understands he can be sometimes a little bit defensive and quipy, but she was the first one among the people he knows that had the courage to call him on it and say and he should cut it out and get real. But wait, do you know what to call someone on something means?

When you call someone on something, you're calling their attention to something bad about them that they might ignore or choose to avoid. In the case of Chandler, as he said himself, he's always been someone very defensive and needed someone to tell him in a very straightforward way that he should change that. He was happy the his "virtual girlfriend" called him on that. Suppose you're someone very shy around girls and one day a close friend of yours calls you on it and says you should stop that, try to be cool and understand girls are not that scary. Your friend called you on your shyness, he called you on the fact you're just too shy and may be over thinking the way you behave around girls. He wants you to change for your own good. That's it for today guys. Take care!

O que significa "make the rounds"?

I was watching an interview the other day on Ellen DeGeneres show and I heard a very interesting expression: to make the rounds. Do you have an idea of what that means? Here's a little bit of insight on the interview when that expression came up: The president Obama had just been elected and a journalist from a magazine thought it would be appropriate to publish an article kind of calling him gay for simply supporting gay causes. The interviewee was asked what she thought about that, and she said it was pretty much junior high [meaning to be childish], and that rumors like take making the rounds in the United States are just embarrassing.

When rumors make the round in some place, it means they're being passed from person to person. That's what was happening with the president when the interview was held. Many public people have to go through that kind of situation. Some random journalist thinks it's okay to spread rumors about someone in the media and everybody assumes it's true without questioning their sources.

The same expression has a different meaning. For example, suppose you go to Europe and you make a point to visit as many museums as possible. When you come back to Brazil, everybody asks what places you've been to and you say you made the rounds of all the museums through the countries you visited. In that context, when you make the rounds in some place, it means you go from place to place. Pay attention to the prepositions in that expressions. You make the rounds OF a specific place IN a general place. For example, you make the rounds OF all the departments IN the company. Pretty easy huh? That's all for today. Talk to you next time!

Mind your P's and Q's: o que isso significa?

Suppose you're going to attend a job interview in a few days and now you're feeling very anxious and insecure about it. You've been unemployed for a while now and you really need that job, you can't mess up that opportunity this time. So you turn to a friend of yours for good advice on how to cause a good impression, answer the questions correctly and avoid making a fool of yourself. Among the many things she tells you, one of them calls your attention. She says: When you're being interviewed, try to mind your P's and Q's. Do you know what that means? Read on!

When you mind your p's and q's, you behave properly, you make an effort to be polite and display good manners. There are certain theories on how that expression emerged, but the one that sounded more convincing to me comes from the advice that children are told while acquiring literacy. They're encouraged to mind the letters p and q for better reading skills. Speaking of children, it's very usual to see parents telling them to mind their p's and q's before leaving home. For example, you're taking your children to visit one of your friends but before you step outside you make them promise they'll mind their p's and q's. That means you want them to behave well and not embarrass you in front of others. That's it for today guys. Take care!

O que significa "the proof of the pudding is in the eating"?

In Brazil, we're at election time. We can already hear cars passing by with their powerful sound equipment advertising many kinds of candidates. During these times, candidates take their chance to bring attention to many kinds of problem in society and suggest a solution. That brings about a lot of hope to some people, but if you're like me, you may think many of them are just a bunch of liars that try to fool the population into voting for them so when they're finally elected they don't meet their promises.

Suppose you're discussing politics with one of your friends and he's trying to make you believe so-and-so candidate is the best option for this election. Since you're always skeptical when it comes to politics you don't give it too much credit although that candidate's proposal looks promising. So you say: He seems a decent candidate and his proposal looks fine, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. What does that mean?

When you say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, you mean that you can only judge something by its results, it means that you cannot judge the value of something until you have tried it. So in other words, what you said to your friend about that candidate was that you'll only be able to confirm that candidate's honesty when he's elected and doing the things he promised before. Just take the literal meaning of the expression. Just like you can only judge the taste of some food by eating it, you can only be sure a candidate's good after elections, when he's already working. That's it for today guys. Take care!