Weekly English Words with Alisha - Overused Business Idioms

Welcome back to Weekly Words. I'm Alisha, and today we're going to talk about overused

business idioms, also known as buzz words.

Alright, first is “thinking outside the box.” This is a phrase that means just “thinking

differently” or, you know, outside the norm, the regular thinking, which

would be inside the box, and then choosing to think about something in a different way

might be considered “outside the box.” So it's usually a compliment like,

“Great job thinking outside the box, Stevens!”

The next word is “the bottom line.” “The bottom line” just refers to kind of the,

um, the end-all of a situation like, ah, in a sentence, “The bottom line is we have

to make more sales next month,” meaning this is the one thing that we really need

to... focus on.

The next word for is “hit the ground running.” It just means to “start well.” Um, if

you think about a runner, of course a runner, as soon as maybe they touch

the ground in a race, they are running, and it’s sort of the same thing here, except

in a business sense, so as soon as a project starts, they're going, they’re, you know

pushing forward on the project. You might say, “Next week we're gonna start the new

project, let's hit the ground running,” meaning, “to get a good start.”

Next word is “giving 110 percent.” It just means, um, “giving your all” or “making

your best effort to do something.” So of course 100 percent is the maximum in a given

situation, but “giving 110 percent” means that your boss presumably wants you to give

more than your best. So it just means “work really

hard,” as in, um, “Hey, we have that meeting coming up next month. Let's give 110 percent

to make sure all the materials are finished by then.”

“It is what it is.” “It is what it is” is just a phrase that often wraps up a conversation.

Sometimes it can be a negative situation, like you hear, “Oh,

sales are down this month. Well, it is what it is,” meaning, “there's nothing we can

do,” or, “that's just the situation right now.” It’s just, ah, just a filler phrase,

really. My stomach’s making noise. Onward.

End! That is the end. It says “end” here. Yay! I hope you learned something today, and

I will see you again next time. Thank you for watching. Bye!