Weekly English Words with Alisha - Sports Metaphors in Business

Wooh! Welcome back to Weekly Words, everybody. My name is Alisha, and this week we're going

to talk about sports metaphors in business. This is gonna get real dude-like, real fast.

First phrase, rather, is “jump the gun.” “Jump the gun” means you do something

too quickly or you don't think enough about something before you do it. In a business

setting, maybe a subordinate makes a decision before the bosses had a chance to decide on

something. You might say, “Stevens, you jumped the gun again. We can't forgive you

for this one. You're fired!”

Okay, the next one is “drop the ball.” “Drop the ball” means you don't do something

that you're supposed to do. Somebody was supposed to do something, and they didn't do it. They

“dropped the ball.” Like in basketball, right? If you have a ball, you’re supposed

to pass the ball to a teammate. If you drop the ball, you let everybody down. “My co-worker

really dropped the ball when he forgot to send that email. We were all

disappointed.” Stevens, uh, okay.

Next, “slam dunk.” A “slam dunk” is something that you are sure is going to happen.

Maybe you have a good relationship with a client, for example. You can say, “Yeah,

the deal next week, it will be a slam dunk.” You know that something good is going to happen.

Next, “covering all bases.” This phrase means that you plan for as many things as

you possibly can. You have some kind of plan in mind for any number of things that could

go wrong or any number of things that could happen. Uhm in a sentence, umm… A boss might

say to their subordinate, “So what's your plan for the event next week? Make sure you

have all bases covered. I don't want anything to go wrong.”

“Next is “playing hardball.” “Playing hardball” is used when you're really, really

aggressively competing with somebody. So in a sentence, uh, maybe after a business meeting,

you might say, “Oh, wow, our competitors were really playing hardball in there. It

was really tough.”

Okay, end! That's the end. Those are all some sports metaphors that get used in business

settings, so give them a try in your next business meeting, but be careful to use the

correct one. Thanks for joining us for Weekly Words this week. I will see you again next

time for more fun information. Bye!