Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Roger Bassick and.
Speaker 2: I'm Gillian Woodward. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting.
Speaker 2: It is easier for people to understand no matter where
Speaker 2: in the world they live.
Speaker 1: We will begin this program by hearing from one of
Speaker 1: our writers.
Speaker 3: When I was younger, my mother told me that I
Speaker 3: liked plants more than I liked most people. She was
Speaker 3: partially right. I loved my friends, but I also loved
Speaker 3: spending time at the park, watching bugs and flowers. I
Speaker 3: used to sit in a tree for hours reading. Being
Speaker 3: around these things put me at peace.
Speaker 2: Not everyone likes being around plants as much as our
Speaker 2: writer friend does, but plants have been important to people
Speaker 2: throughout history. Some of the oldest writing in the world
Speaker 2: is about plants. A poem from the Chinese Tang dynasty
Speaker 2: uses grass and trees to describe how lonely a wife
Speaker 2: feels while her husband is away at a war. In Yan,
Speaker 2: the grass is blue as the bluest silk thread in Chin.
Speaker 2: The branches of the mulberry tree are low and green.
Speaker 2: Does a husband think of returning home the moment his
Speaker 2: wife is heartbroken? The beauty of plants has been a
Speaker 2: constant subject of poetry for generations.
Speaker 1: It is no wonder, then, that people talk about plants often.
Speaker 1: This is true in every language, including English, but you
Speaker 1: may have noticed that many of these sayings make no sense.
Speaker 1: A Native English speaker may talk talk about hitting plants
Speaker 1: with no other plants in the conversation, or he may
Speaker 1: call someone a flower when she is clearly not a plant.
Speaker 2: Native English speakers often use idioms in their speech. Idioms
Speaker 2: are words and sayings for which the meaning is not
Speaker 2: clear from the individual words. These are simply expressions that
Speaker 2: Native speakers say that makes sense to other Native speakers,
Speaker 2: but these expressions are difficult for non native speakers to understand.
Speaker 1: In this week's Spotlight Advanced, we're exploring six common plant idioms.
Speaker 1: Most are not about plants at all, but using these
Speaker 1: phrases will help you learn new words and sound like
Speaker 1: a Native speaker.
Speaker 2: Our first plant idiom is the saying that someone is
Speaker 2: pushing up daisies. It means that someone has died. A
Speaker 2: mother might warn her son, if you keep driving that fast,
Speaker 2: you will be pushing up daisies sooner than you wish,
Speaker 2: meaning that speeding might cause her son's death. In a
Speaker 2: traffic accident.
Speaker 1: People often use this expression in a light or humorous way.
Speaker 1: A daisy is a flower with white petals and a
Speaker 1: yellow center. These flowers grow in fields in places with
Speaker 1: bright sunlight. Symbolically, daisies represent innocence and purity. This idiom
Speaker 1: came into common use during World War One in Europe.
Speaker 1: Perhaps saying pushing up daisies offered a less grim way
Speaker 1: for soldiers to speak of their comrades who had died
Speaker 1: in battle. So pushing up daisies means saying that someone
Speaker 1: is dead. But this idiom is best used in informal conversations,
Speaker 1: not informal situations.
Speaker 2: Our second idiom is said differently depending on where you live.
Speaker 2: In the US, a person might say that someone cannot
Speaker 2: see the forest for the trees. In the UK, people
Speaker 2: would say that a person cannot see the wood for
Speaker 2: the trees. Each expression has the same meaning, but the
Speaker 2: word for a group of trees differs.
Speaker 1: This idiom means that a person is so concerned with
Speaker 1: small details that the person cannot see the more important,
Speaker 1: bigger picture or purpose of something.
Speaker 2: Imagine that a woman is working on part of a project.
Speaker 2: She is very good at refining her work but she
Speaker 2: does not exactly understand what the purpose of the project is.
Speaker 2: She provides a good result, but her work does not
Speaker 2: improve the project as a whole. Someone might comment that
Speaker 2: she could not see the forest for the trees.
Speaker 1: Looking at only the colorful circles of paintbrushstrokes might distract
Speaker 1: the viewer from seeing the people on the lawn. In
Speaker 1: George Surat's painting A Sunday Afternoon on the island of
Speaker 1: La Grange Jette, the viewer might miss seeing the forest
Speaker 1: the big picture for the trees the tiny dots.
Speaker 2: Have you ever grown flowers? Then the next saying to
Speaker 2: nip something in the bud may be familiar to you.
Speaker 2: A bud is the start of a plant's flower. Nipping
Speaker 2: is a way of saying to cut. Nipping a bud
Speaker 2: means cutting a beginning of a flower. This stops the
Speaker 2: flower from grow.
Speaker 1: But when people nip something in the bud, they are
Speaker 1: not usually talking about a plant. They mean that they
Speaker 1: want to stop something. At an early point.
Speaker 2: Maybe a man notices his son has started smoking. The
Speaker 2: father knows this is dangerous. He takes away his son's
Speaker 2: cigarettes and explains the health issues to his boy. He
Speaker 2: would be nipping his son's drug use in the bud.
Speaker 1: Our fourth plant idiom is to beat around the bush.
Speaker 1: Do not worry. This idiom is not as violent as
Speaker 1: it seems. When someone beats around the bush, she avoids
Speaker 1: talking directly about a subject. Often someone may beat around
Speaker 1: the bush about a subject because it is difficult or
Speaker 1: painful to speak about a subject. Someone might tell this
Speaker 1: person to stop beating around the bush and tell me
Speaker 1: what you mean.
Speaker 2: For example, a husband who resigned from his job on
Speaker 2: Friday may avoid speaking about this to his wife. He
Speaker 2: tells his wife that he does not need to go
Speaker 2: to work on the coming Monday. But Tuesday morning, when
Speaker 2: he does not go to work, she may say, why
Speaker 2: did you beat around the bush the whole weekend and
Speaker 2: not tell me that you had resigned. Avoiding a difficult
Speaker 2: truth is one of the reasons to beat around the bush.
Speaker 1: Beating around the bush has interesting origins. English hunters used
Speaker 1: servants to hit the branches of large plants or bushes
Speaker 1: to force birds or animals to come out so the
Speaker 1: hunters could catch these creatures. People beat around the bush
Speaker 1: so the indirect action might bring about the direct result.
Speaker 1: The meaning of the saying shifted over time as people
Speaker 1: forgot about this custom from hunting. Today, it shows the
Speaker 1: value that English speakers have for talking directly about a subject,
Speaker 1: even a difficult subject.
Speaker 2: Our fifth English idiom is to hear it through the grapevine.
Speaker 2: This saying may seem funny at first. You cannot hear
Speaker 2: anything through a grape plant, but the expression means to
Speaker 2: hear through rumors or from another person. Imagine a woman
Speaker 2: hears from her friend that her boyfriend is seeing another woman.
Speaker 2: She will clearly be angry, but since she heard it
Speaker 2: through the grapevine, she cannot be sure it is true.
Speaker 1: The saying also has little to do with plants. In
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine, a new telegraph line ran from Placerville, California,
Speaker 1: to Virginia City, Nevada. Operators use trees and fences to
Speaker 1: keep the wires above ground. These telegraph wires looked like grapevines.
Speaker 1: Getting a message on this new telegraph was called getting
Speaker 1: the message through the grapevine. Soon after this, during the
Speaker 1: American Civil War, hearing something through the grapevine described the
Speaker 1: informal communication or rumors about the war. This information spread
Speaker 1: from one person to another person to another person, rather
Speaker 1: than hearing an official announcement.
Speaker 2: Our sixth plant idiom is a thorn in one side.
Speaker 2: A thorn is a small sharp part of some plants.
Speaker 2: Touching a plant with thorns is difficult and painful, but
Speaker 2: not deadly. When something is a thorn in some way
Speaker 2: on side, it is a small sharp pain that is
Speaker 2: difficult to get rid of.
Speaker 1: You will often hear this expression. In films. An evil
Speaker 1: villain may call the hero a thorn in his side
Speaker 1: whenever the hero stops the villain's plans. The villain is
Speaker 1: insulting the hero, calling him a small pain, but the
Speaker 1: villain means the hero is a problem. You have been
Speaker 1: a thorn in my side for too long.
Speaker 2: Many other plant idioms exist in the English language. These
Speaker 2: are some of our favorites. Using them might not help
Speaker 2: you talk about plants themselves, but these expressions will help
Speaker 2: you sound more like a native speaker. Practice them as
Speaker 2: much as you can, and use them with your friends.
Speaker 1: What interesting plant idioms do you have in your language?
Speaker 1: Which plants are commonly used in these expressions? You can
Speaker 1: leave a comment on our website at www dot spotlight
Speaker 1: English dot com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook,
Speaker 1: TikTok and x. You can also get our programs delivered
Speaker 1: directly to your Android or Apple device through our free
Speaker 1: official Spotlight English app.
Speaker 2: The writer and producer was Dan Christman. The voices you
Speaker 2: heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom.
Speaker 2: All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight.
Speaker 2: This program is called English Idioms Plants.
Speaker 1: We hope you can join us again for the next
Speaker 1: Spotlight Advanced program. Goodbye,