10 common English Idioms & Expressions from Education

Hi.

Welcome to engVid.

I'm Adam.

In today's lesson I want to teach you eight idioms that come from education.

Actually, I have 10 of them, a couple of them are just expressions, though, so I can add

them to the other ones.

Eight idioms.

All of these come from education, but now we use them to talk about other things that

might not be related to education at all.

Okay?

So, as you know, idioms are groups of words, they're expressions whose individual words,

when they're put together might not mean the exact same thing as the words themselves.

They can have completely unrelated meanings, and we're going to see some examples of these.

So we're going...

We have a lot of ground to cover, so we're going to go slowly but surely through it all.

So, what does it mean "to cover a lot of ground" or "have a lot of ground to cover"?

It means to have a lot of material or a lot of information to get through, and understand,

and make sure everybody gets.

Right?

When we cover a lot of ground, technically it comes from the ground, and you cover ground

means you move, you travel.

But we use "ground" as information, and "cover" means go over.

So: "cover a lot of ground", get through a lot of information.

Also, we "can't teach an old dog new tricks".

So what does it mean, you can't teach an old dogs a new trick?

So imagine your grandfather, okay?

You are moving to another country because you're studying English, you want to immigrate

to another country.

You get to that country and you want to continue speaking with your grandfather in your home country.

So you're trying to teach him Skype or you're trying to teach him, like, a mobile app, messenger, whatever.

But your grandfather is trying, trying, trying, he just doesn't get it.

And then finally he says: "You know what?

I don't care.

We'll call each other on the telephone once in a while."

So finally you give up, you say: "You know what?

You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

We'll just call on the phone."

It means as people get older, it's very difficult to change their habits.

Okay?

We're not calling old people old dogs, it's just an expression, but basically old people

don't change habits very easily.

You can't teach them, so that's where the education comes in.

Now, something or someone is "old school" or he or she belongs to an "old school of

thought" or to a particular school of thought.

So, if somebody is old school, he or she likes something that is a little bit old-fashioned,

likes to do something a little bit old-fashioned, something that's probably outdated, not modern.

Okay?

Now, it doesn't have to be about a person.

It could be a thing.

So, for example, if you...

For example, if you go to Cuba...

Okay.

Cuba has a lot of old cars from the 1950s. Okay?

Like Chevys, and Fords, and whatnot.

We can say: "Oh, wow, that's a really old-school car."

It has the old engines, nothing computerized.

It's all carburetor and all kinds of pipes all over the place.

It's very old school.

It's very cool, but it's not modern. Okay?

So it's something that's old school.

When we talk about a school of thought, it means it's a particular way of viewing something

or thinking about something.

We especially use it to talk about, like, philosophy.

Okay?

But even in science there are certain scientists who basically subscribe to this particular

school of thought.

So, we use the word "subscribe", means they believe in doing it this way.

Other scientists subscribe to this school of thought.

So, the...

There was a scientist who said: "This is the way we should do it."

There was another scientist who said: "This is the way we should do it."

All the people who follow this way created a school or a viewpoint, they created their

own viewpoint.

So different schools of thought.

So, if we're talking about how to discipline children, okay?

Some people like to sit their children down and talk, talk, talk for hours to try to teach

them something. Other...

In other cultures they just slap them on the bum, the kid understands, never does it again.

The slapping thing is a little bit old school, we don't really do that anymore, but it comes

from an old school of thought where punishment creates discipline.

That's...

I'm not getting involved in the actual question, that's up to you.

I'm just telling you the expressions.

"Learn the ropes".

Okay?

So, if somebody needs to learn the ropes, they need to learn how to do something.

So when you join a company for the first time, at the beginning you don't know where the

copy machine is, you don't know where the fax machine is, you don't know how to do things

around the office, so at the beginning you have to learn the ropes, learn how everything

works, and then you become adjusted.

I think it actually comes from sailing, I'm not sure.

All kinds of different ropes you need to learn how to use them to sail your boat, but basically

it means adjust to a new situation, get to know it, move on.

Now, if you're going to "teach someone a lesson", it means you're going to punish them.

Okay?

"I'm going to teach you a lesson you won't forget."

Right?

So somebody did something bad to me, and I want to get revenge, I want to teach them

a lesson.

I want to punish them so they understand that what they did to me was bad and I'm going

to do something worse for them.

Now, the other side: "to learn a lesson".

Of course, you go to school, your teacher teaches you and you learn the lessons, but

when we say: "Oh yeah, I really learned a lesson from that experience", it means you

went through a bad experience, usually, and you learned from it so you will not repeat

it again.

So it's not necessarily punishment, but it was a bad experience that you will avoid.

To teach someone, somebody did something bad to you and you will get revenge, you will

punish them for it.

"To school someone", now, realistically you can interpret this as to teach someone something.

Right?

To school someone in etiquette, means to teach them etiquette or to teach them behaviour, etc.

These days it's used as a slang term, it means to embarrass somebody.

So if I'm playing basketball with a friend of mine and, you know, I'm trying to do all

these things and then suddenly he just steals the ball and he goes and does a 360 slam dunk,

he schooled me.

He showed me how real basketball players play and I am nothing.

So he embarrassed me, he schooled me in basketball or any situation.

Okay?

"'A' for effort", good job, nice try, but sorry, you're not hired.

You failed.

You didn't do the work properly.

So if somebody says: "You get an 'A' for effort", it means: "I really appreciate that you tried

so hard, but it's not very good.

You didn't really succeed. Sorry. Bye." Right?

"A" for effort, "B" or "C" or "D" or "F" for actual accomplishment.

Now, "to make the grade".

If somebody makes the grade, it means they reached a certain quality or a certain level.

Right?

So, if you think about the army and you...

I'm sure all of you have seen enough Hollywood movies that you know what Navy Seals are.

So, Navy Seals are, like, Special Forces, they're very tough, very strong, very hardworking soldiers.

Not everybody can be a Navy Seal.

Many soldiers try, but only a few make the grade.

They reach that level of ability that they can join the Navy Seals.

Right?

So, "make the grade" also comes from school.

To get into university, you need a 3.4 GPA, for example.

If you don't make that grade, 3.4, you don't get into university.

But now we use this expression for all kinds of things about reaching a certain minimal

level quality, ability, etc.

So, if you have any questions about these, please go to www.engvid.com and ask me in

the forum there.

There's also a quiz you can take to practice your understanding of these idioms.

Like my video and subscribe to my channel.

And come back soon, I'll give you some more good tips for English. See you then.