10 English Idioms from Technology

Hi. Welcome to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam.

In today's video we're going to look at idioms, but idioms from the world of technology, so

very specific idioms.

I'm going to give you ten of them.

I got five here and we'll have five more coming in a moment.

Now, before I begin, what is an idiom?

An idiom is an expression or a collection of words that the words themselves don't necessarily

mean what the expression combined means. Right?

So you have the words and you know all the words, but when they're put together in this

expression the meaning could be completely different.

So all of these come from technology because they started about an actual technological

tool, or piece of equipment, or innovation and we took this expression and we applied

it to other things.

So we're going to start with: "grease the wheels".

Now, if you think about machines, they have these kinds of wheels, they're called gears

or sometimes they're called cogs, the cogs...

A cog in the machine.

And a machine might have many of these wheels, and the wheels sort of work together.

Now, the machines are most...

Sorry, the wheels are mostly made from metal.

And if you know from experience probably, if metal touches metal too much it heats up.

Now, if it gets too hot then the two wheels will seize on top of each other.

They will seize, it means they will catch each other and stop working.

So, to prevent that seizure we put grease on the wheels.

Grease is like a thick oil. Right?

You put it all around, you make everything sort of lubricated...

Okay?

Oops.

Lubricate means you make it so it doesn't heat up and doesn't create friction.

Lots of new words for you, here.

Friction is that heat that comes from the touching each other too much.

So grease the wheels so they don't touch, but how do we use this idiom in everyday life?

Well, if you think about bureaucracy, like government, you need to get a permit to change

something in your building, for example.

Now, in some countries to get this permit will take you months.

You have to go to this office and sign the paperwork, take this paperwork to that office,

get it stamped, take it to that office, back and forth - you can be spending months and

doing lots of work just to get a simple permit.

So, what you might do, you'll go to your politician friend and, you know, ask him to, if he can

grease the wheels a little bit, make the process easier.

You'll give him a little bit of cash, he'll give you all the stamps you need, you'll get

your permit in a week, you build your building, everybody's happy.

"Grease the wheels".

So most commonly it's used to basically mean like a bribe, but it doesn't have to be a

bribe.

It could just ask somebody to make things a little bit easier, make a process a little

bit smoother.

Okay?

"Bells and whistles", ding, ding, ding.

[Whistles] Right?

So bells and whistles.

If you're talking about bells and whistles on something, you're talking about all the

features, especially you're talking about the cool, the good features.

Right?

So if you buy a car, you go to the dealership and you say to the guy: "I want this car with

all the bells and whistles", it means I want every feature that's available; I want the

stereo, I want the air conditioning, I want the automatic, I want the GPS, the mirror,

the rear-view camera.

I want everything that is available put into this car.

I want all the bells and whistles.

Okay?

So basically all of the good stuff.

If you go to an appliance store, you want the machine that has the most bells and whistles,

the most cool features that you can put on it.

Again, this is from old time, industrial machines worked on steam, so the steam created the

whistle and then the bells for when a protest was done, etc.

"Hit the panic button", so in a factory that has a lot of machinery, if somebody gets caught

in the machine, like let's say your shirt gets caught in the belt and you start getting

dragged, all over the factory there's a button that you can press it and all the machines stop.

That's called the panic button.

Okay?

So, when there's a dangerous situation or emergency, you just hit the panic button,

everything shuts down, you go save your friend from the machine.

We use this in everyday conversation.

Basically we say: "Don't hit the panic button just yet", maybe, or: "He hit the panic button."

It basically means to panic, to be really nervous, really scared, really worried about

something.

So if somebody says: "Don't hit the panic button just yet", it means don't lose control.

Relax, think about things carefully, make sure that you...

Everything that can be done is done before we have to think about the thing failing.

Right?

So, if you're planning a project and let's say you're...

You need that permit like we spoke about before, and the government, the government office

says: "No, you can't have this permit."

Your investors are: -"Oh my god.

What are we going to do?

We spent so much money."

-"Well, don't hit the panic button just yet.

I know a politician.

I can grease the wheels a little bit.

It'll be okay", and then everything works together like that.

"To make something tick" or "someone tick".

Usually we use it with a person, you want to know: "Hmm.

That guy's...

That guy's interesting, I wonder what makes him tick."

Basically what makes him be the way he is.

Like tick, like tick, tick, tick, tick, if you think about machines; that's how machines

work, they tick.

So basically what makes him work the way he does, what makes him be the way he is.

You want to know what drives the person.

So for everybody it's different.

Okay?

Some people, they just want to be the best that they can be.

Some people, they have kids, they want their kids to have all the best things in life,

so that's what makes them tick, that's what drives them to work hard every day, make lots

of money so they can support their kids.

Some people it's just ideology, some people it's religion, some people it's love, some

people it's hate - all these different things that make people tick.

Okay?

"To pull the plug", now, technically there are two meanings to this; one is not so pleasant

and the other one is just kind of neutral.

If you have a family member who is very sick or who had an accident, or whatever, and he

or she is in the hospital and they...

This person is being kept alive by a machine.

For example, their lungs don't work, so there's a machine that basically gives them air and

takes out their carbon dioxide, etc.

Without this machine this person would die.

So you can pull...

The family might decide to pull the plug, it means disconnect the machine and let the

person die naturally.

Okay?

But in an everyday situation, to pull the plug basically means to cancel.

Okay?

So, the...

I...

There's a project going on next door and they're building a building, and they're too loud,

so I call the police and tell them: "Listen, these people are disturbing me.

Can you come over here and do something?"

The police come, they realize these people do not have a permit to build, so they pull

the plug on the project; they cancel it.

Or investors, they find out, they come...

They want to invest in your company and then they find out that you're not really as good

as you pretend you are, that your numbers are all lies, that your research is all bogus,

etc., so they pull the plug on the investment; they back out, they cancel the investment.

Okay?

So all of this from technology.

Let's look at a few more.

Okay, so now I have five more idioms to talk about.

I start with to "blow a fuse".

Now, a fuse is like a little piece of...

It looks like glass, it's sometimes plastic.

It's a little electronic connector that you have in your circuit box.

So you have like a little circuit box, and they can be round ones, they can be little,

long ones, usually like metal at the end, metal at the end.

This one has metal in the middle.

It connects your electricity.

So, sometimes all your power goes out in your house, or your apartment, or whatever and

you don't understand why.

So you go, you open a circuit box and you see that the fuse is blown, it means it's

old, the connector broke.

So you just take it out, put a new fuse and everything works again.

Now, when we talk about people, if somebody blows a fuse that means...

This means that he or she lost his temper, to lose one's temper, if you can see that.

I'll just put it here.

To lose one's temper is to get super-angry super-fast with no sense of control.

Right?

So some people, like, you just say one wrong word and they blow up, like, they don't...

They have no control and they get so angry, and you're not really sure what happened.

The guy just blew his fuse.

I don't know what happened.

He blew his fuse.

It was very sudden, very angry, out of control.

Okay?

"To reinvent the wheel".

So sometimes people say: "Oh, you know what?

This car could be much better.

I'm going to design a brand new car."

And you try and you try, and you try to make it better and then somebody says to him: "Well,

why are you trying to reinvent the wheel?

Just improve this one.

Don't create something brand new."

So to reinvent the wheel is to try to do something new that's already being done.

But usually it also means to be overcomplicated.

So if you say to somebody: "Look, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel.

We're just trying to make it better, something better."

So basically be more simple, don't overcomplicate it.

We're not creating something brand new.

We're just taking something that already exists, and just making it a little bit better.

So don't try to reinvent the wheel.

Okay?

Don't try to be too complicated about something.

Okay.

If you "run out of steam", so in the old days a lot of machinery was run by steam.

Steam is when you take water and you heat it, and it becomes gas, and that gas used

to turn turbines and then the turbines worked the machine.

So if you run out of steam, if there's no more steam then the machine, the turbines

stop, the machine stops moving.

So we talk about a person or a group, etc. or a movement, anything, if it runs out of

steam basically it loses its energy, it loses its passion, it loses its drive, and it slowly

stops until it completely dies out and nobody does it anymore.

So if you have a political movement...

Okay?

So everybody's angry at the new president, for example, and there's marches, and there's

protests, and there's people writing articles, and there's people on TV screaming and shouting,

but over time this anger just runs out of the steam, or the movement, or the protest

just run out of steam, and fewer people show up to the marches, and fewer people are writing

on their social networks and fewer people are screaming and shouting until eventually

nobody cares and the president does whatever he wants to do.

Okay?

Because the movement ran out of steam.

Now, if you know how to "push somebody's buttons", so button, button, button, and then you make

the machines work.

Right?

If you know how to push a person's button, you know how to make this person angry, you

know how to make this person frustrated.

So usually if you think about it, especially family members, if you think about like mothers

and daughters, mothers and daughters from my experience know exactly which buttons to

push to get which reactions, and they always push each other's buttons and they make each

other crazy.

So, but that's the nature of family, too, right?

And "to be on the same wavelength", so if two people are on the same...

This is the wavelength, right?

And then you have two different wavelengths.

If you and I are on the same wavelength then we're thinking the same.

We basically have the same ideas, we have the same goals we want to reach.

In a meeting there's a whole bunch of people and I say: "You know, I think we should do

A." And the other person says: "Yeah, I agree."

So she and I are on the same wavelength.

We're thinking the same way, we see the same end result, and we see the same process to

get there.

So we're going to work together because we're thinking alike, we're on the same wavelength.

Okay?

So there you go, 10 idioms from technology.

These are actually used in everyday conversations, they're...

Some of them can be used in writing.

For example: "blow a fuse", don't put that in your IELTS or TOEFL essay, it's a little

bit too casual.

But "to be on the same wavelength", you can use it; "reinvent the wheel", you can use it, etc.

Make sure you know which are formal, which are casual, etc.

If you have any questions about this or about any of these idioms, people go to www.engvid.com

and join the forum.

You can ask your questions there.

There's also a quiz you can take to test your knowledge of these idioms.

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and I'll see you again soon with some new videos. Bye-bye.